Friday Finals

On my last post, I talked about how we can't find the wine that we like anymore. The second bump (that worked in our favor) is that I've been dragging my feet with invitations. They were mostly done on Monday, and I didn't have time to get them in the mail on Tuesday. Well, Tuesday night, we heard on local news that the price of stamps is going up. Not a big deal since we are using forever stamps for the outer envelope but we are using postcard RSVPs. So last night, Tom and I unsealed all the invitations, ripping a few envelopes, and added penny stamps to all the RSVPs, and re-sealed them. I am not a fan of having an Aloha shirt stamp and a Tiffany lamp stamp, but what can you do. I still haven't made a decision about cake.
Hopefully my next wedding related stuff will go better - make-up trial and dress fitting. 

So Friday finals,
Invitations are done, going to mail them this afternoon.
Scale back Alabama has started, lose 10 pounds in 10 weeks, here we go.
I made my one crockpot meal a week (this is a new resolution, make a crockpot meal a week) - I made lentils, with a twist on the Mauritian recipe. While it turned out okay after 6 hours on high, I think next time I will use the pressure cooker which only takes 20-30 mins.
My other resolution is a take on the movie Julie and Julia, one of my favorite movies of all times. For Christmas, I received the Essential Pepin cookbook from Tom's parents. If you are not familiar, here is his wiki page. I first encountered him on re-runs of Julia and Jacques Cooking at home on the Create channel and was immediately a fan. Okay, so on to the resolution. It is to try a new recipe from the book every week.
Oh and work-related final, one of my projects had very promising results that got my boss really excited. This also means that February is about to get really busy. 

Have a great weekend!

Sometimes things happen

We had a somewhat busy weekend.
Most of our invitations are done, I need to double check postage, seal the envelopes, and affix return labels. And wait on a few addresses.
On Saturday, I was very proud (although today I suffer) that I was able to finish the Vulcan trail in 30 minutes, that's about 20 minutes shorter than usual. I ran for about 5 minutes total - if you know me, you know that I do not run. So this was big.
In the afternoon, we went to World Market to pick up our wines for the reception. And just like that, they were out of the bottles that we wanted. So it's back to the drawing board or the drinking glass to finding something else that we like.
We also had a cake tasting, although I did most of the eating. It was a celebration from the trail? We have to discuss and decide about which baker we will go with.

Also we had snow, about 2 inches that closed UAB for Thursday afternoon. I think it's almost all gone by now. The plants look miserable but are surprisingly still holding on for dear life.

 

Finally Friday...

...and finally legally changing my name.
Social security, check
Driver's license, check
UAB, check: I am now listed as Dr. Larson.
I will still publish under my maiden name (nom de plume or alias) because it's easier to find me that way, unless you can't spell it, which most people can't. 

Work in progress on credit cards, bank account, utilities etc...

Wordless Wednesday - a year in wreaths

Tasty Tuesday

Vanilla cupcake with Malibu frosting for our graduate student's birthday

Cheese fondue with wine and champagne for a romantic New Year's eve

Beer and Angry Orchard Cider on Saturday night, love the glasses not the final score

Tom made a very tasty steak on Saturday with asparagus and mashed potatoes

Followed by pork on Sunday (with squash and roasted potatoes)

  And Sitar (groupon) on Monday night

December recap

So the latest reason for not blogging - I think my camera's transfer cable is in Wisconsin and my camera takes a card that my laptop cannot use. Today, my new card reader came in from Amazon for under $6. So now, here's our vacation recap:

Christmas at home in Birmingham

Christmas at home in La Crosse

Family time at Tequila's

Snow and Tom shoveling snow 

Hanging out with and meeting Tom's friends

We got back to Birmingham late on Friday night and on Saturday morning, we rushed to Atlanta to the beautiful wedding of Emily and Jamal - we actually missed the ceremony because we were trapped in traffic for 1.5 hours after a horrific crash on I-20. The reception was amazing, great food, great people, great decor, great everything!

 

On Sunday, we rushed back to Birmingham for Victor's and Melissa's wedding. Victor from Paraguay plays soccer with Tom. We used to be neighbors and they had spent the terrible Alabama tornado day on our balcony.

We got to see Scottish Chris who came in from Philly for the wedding. And yes, he was wearing his family kilt. We also spent time with Roy and his lovely wife. The reception was at Cantina and Tom was having a lot of fun with bubbles.

 

It's been a long time

We had such a fun 2012. I got a fantastic job, we got married, I saw my parents and my sister, we saw Tom's parents four times, we went to Alaska and I was able to visit my three cities (two new states). I'm excited for 2013, with our two wedding receptions and seeing family and friends.

I assume that it's time to talk about resolutions and without surprises, they are similar to the past two years.

1. Financial stability.
Subpart 1. Big items - we have two huge ticket items this year, our wedding receptions in the US and then in Mauritius.
Subpart 2: we will be on the job market soon with Tom's anticipated graduation date fast approaching. We need to have a good cushion in case one or both of us end up jobless. If we both have jobs, we need to start considering a house.
2. Be healthy.
I wasn't pleased when I put on 10 pounds in the past year. My colleagues and I are participating in the Scale Back Alabama challenge, which consists of losing 10 pounds in 10 weeks. We start on January 23. I also started to walk to work, which surprisingly takes me less time than when I drive and Kelly and I had so far one Sunday walk on the Vulcan Trail (2.5 miles).
3. Travel
Still three new places preferably in three new states.
4. Finally get the master bedroom organized and decorated
Our master bedroom has retained the charm of being Tom's bedroom (come on, we don't really need to have a bike in the bedroom especially when it has a flat tire and has been in the same spot for a couple of years).

 Last year wasn't very successful so hopefully this year will be better :)

Oh January!

Happy New Year!

For January, I'm
Excited: about the Packers in the playoffs
Worried: about how much work needs to get done in not a lot of time
Watching: football, can't wait for the return of my favorite shows
Reading: nothing in particular, although I have yet to finish Siddhartha and start Life of Pi
Listening to: NPR
Creating:  wedding crafts, organization stuff, and curtains
Cooking: craving chicken noodle soup but hopefully we'll have a kitchen full of healthy items this month
Loving: hot tea
Thinking: about how blessed we were and more adventures coming this year
Looking forward to: returning to my regular routine

My proud moment

This Christmas season has been fun so far. I'm really excited to be with the in-laws to continue a wonderful celebration. I'm looking forward to resting, eating, maybe exercising, and some good conversations.  And hopefully get my inspiration back.
Last night I made an eggplant dish - Tom said "I don't usually like eggplant dishes, but this is the best one that I've ever eaten". So I think it was a winner. And it was mostly made from scratch without a recipe. So proud.

My other proud moment happened this morning. In the whirlwind of things to do, I had a dentist appointment (which went great, no cavities). But since this was a new place, I planned to arrive early. The glove box of my car had been giving me a lot of trouble and so with a good 10 minutes to spare, I took a look at it and figured out what the problem was and fixed it. Turns out, two screws were loose. I'm glad that I had my utility tool in my DIY car emergency kit. Now I don't have to slam it shut and play with the latch to get it to close. Yes, it might not be that big of a deal to most, but I was so proud of myself.

Recap

With the 30 days of thankful and a period of not being inspired, I feel like I'm really behind on things happening for the last 6 weeks. *Warning*: This post is picture heavy and long.

Celebration: 
There was Divali, the festival of light. I got to wear semi Indian clothing, we had candles and mini lights on in the house, and dinner was at Sitar (we had a groupon). Tom discovered a new lamb dish that he loves.

There was my birthday. I was very pleasantly surprised by gifts from my parents and Tom's parents. Tom outdid himself this year and planned one gift every day for the week of my birthday. This was also the first year that we didn't have a birthday party. My new lab took me out to lunch and had a cake for me. I used Destin as a birthday treat. Destin album at
 https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10101775488803235.3120076.23413201&type=1&l=56cef2de84

Thanksgiving came and went. I didn't realize that this was potentially the last Thanksgiving of our group, and the end of our tradition (the students are graduating and probably moving away).

Wedding: 

We booked our caterer and are doing cake tasting.
I brought invitation makings to Destin and have been working away on these babies. Here's to hoping that they will be done by late December/early January.
I discovered the joys of registering for our celebration. Who knew that registry incentives actually worked? We got a new super awesome knife, a bamboo drawer organizer, and two out-of-this-world good ramekins (see in the kitchen below) - all for just registering for a few items.
 

I've tried out two dress alteration places; now if I could just make up my mind. 
We had decided that we wanted Corelle dishes for our everyday eating set and had registered for them on Amazon.  While in Destin, we saw a pattern of Corelle that we really liked but it was being discontinued and we couldn't add it to Amazon. We came back and continued to think about it and decided that it would be the gift from Grandma Mae, since she had sent us a check for our May wedding. This past weekend, I went to the outlet mall with Kelly and picked up two sets - that's 8 place settings.
I made the executive decision to buy most of our table linens, since they were cheaper than renting. Yes, it will be hassle after the wedding but I have a plan.


In the kitchen:
I tried two Pinterest recipes, one was a pecan pie bar - I need to re-work the shortbread crust, but otherwise it was a hit at our lab potluck. I also made these white russian cupcakes last night for my co-worker's (Chantelle) birthday. I hadn't made cupcakes from scratch in a while, and these turned out to be amazing. I am also getting a lot of use from the Pyrex gift set that I received at Christmas from Tom's grandparents.

Tom grilled at the beginning of November. I am trying to move away from boxed mac and cheese, but those are so quick and easy. He also made grilled pineapple that I had marinated in coconut rum and honey.

Onto the registry ramekins. These came with Emeril's recipe card for individual sized, baked mac and cheese. This was Tom's effort and it was very yummy. We love these ramekins, and wished we could purchase more. 

Personal:
The green card application got approved. I am now a resident of the US. I still need to officially change my name on all of my US paperwork (driver's license, bank accounts, credit cards), but felt that doing this close to the holidays might not be a good idea.
We had to go to Atlanta for the green card interview. While there, we stopped by Trader Joe's and stocked up on wine and beer. We are gradually doing a tasting. We also stopped by Ikea and got a few things for the house. 

I had one of my worst migraines in a very long time - I am glad to have a primary care physician, who called me in a prescription and here's to hoping that I won't have another one of those episodes in a long time.

I'm getting more girly time, which is really nice. I got to see Susie Beth and her new born (and her whole family too). Within the week of her visit, I also got to catch up with Grace and Laura. I got to hangout with Kelly and Stacy going to dinner and then the Aveda open house.We also had a pre-Thanksgiving craft night.

We tried a few new places, including sweet tea (a country food cafeteria), World of Beers (a new bar with mostly beer and some wine), and Upside Down Plaza (a popular, dark, dingy, with a musty smell bar that I've seen once and don't need to see again).

I am continuing the traditional once a month lab meeting with my old lab. Basically, we just meet for beer and catch up. We do talk about science and projects. Dr. P keeps the pressure on me, always asking about my progress. I'm working on my second review paper, which needs to be submitted at the end of April - yikes! Here's to hoping that I can finish it in the next few weeks. 

I think that should be it for now. I am really looking forward to Christmas. Tree's up, shopping's done, cards almost completely done, now to wine, comfort, and family time. 

Happy Holidays!