The Good and The Bad

My untapped talent... pancake art:
What is it?

And the bad... I finally broke my favorite mug at work.
Any suggestions on if this can be fixed and how to do it?

Good Things

No posts in February... such a shame. I have been observing good things and thought I'd share some of them.
1) A grown woman in a strawberry hat. Yes, with seeds and all observed this morning as I walked across campus.
2) A lovely spa day at Buttermilk Falls Inn. Thanks for spending a relaxing day with me, Beth. It was great to catch up!
3) A newly painted dining room. Good bye mint green, hello bark brown. It looked a bit like mint chocolate chip in process. And thank you for low/no VOC paints for allowing us to do this in the dead of winter!
4) Longer days! Yipee! Although Brrrr to today.
5) Good Mexican food... hard to find east of the Mississippi River.

Weekend Update

Two posts in one month! Last weekend was great. D and I were out on Saturday at a local field with our:
It was a lovely day with lots of sun!

We made salmon burgers... sorry no pictures of this, they weren't necessarily pretty, but they sure were delicious. The recipe is a compilation from several locations:
2 (6ish oz) cans salmon (no bones or skin) - TJoes is a great source for this...
2 eggs
1/4 cup chopped tarragon (fresh)
1 T dijon mustard (ours was specialty with a bit of maple syrup in it, you could add that separately)
1 zested lemon + the juice of the lemon
1 finely chopped shallot
1/2 cup panko bread crumbs
Mix this all together, form 4 or so large patties, and cook over med-high heat for about 4 min per side or until browned. You can finish these in the oven if you want, but we ate them off the stove. We used buns, tomatoes and lots of mustard. We ate these with roasted potatoes, carrots and brussel sprouts.

We also worked on some wedding details. Our photographer has been amazing and we've got some great photos of us in the snow. Speaking of the snow, it is getting very old - of course the above wouldn't have been possible without all the snow. But we have no where to put it. I need to shovel down some of my piles this week before more arrives. It gets very hard to lift a shovel above about chest high. Some of the banks are over my head! D was on the roof of his house today with his dad trying to get some of the snow clear so the roof doesn't settle any more and so there aren't leaks come the spring or warmer weather.

This weekend has been great, too. A good workout on Friday night, pesto pizza when I arrived at D's fairly late (after talking to a friend on the drive... Ole), karate with D's daughter, a relaxing afternoon, good dinner, a Trader Joes adventure with D's daughter, fun with snow (some experiments complete with lab notebook notes... what temperature is snow, what temperature after 10 seconds in the microwave, etc). And a fair amount of sleep to try to stay well while D is fighting a cold.

The week between was good as well. I have been able to get a good bit of writing done lately. Need to continue to work over the next few weeks to get several grants done. And the good news is that my graduate student's paper is just about ready for submission. Plus, I have a new grad student and an undergrad will work with us this summer, too. Things are going well, just need to keep the momentum going.

Happy New Year!

Okay, okay, I know this blog has been suffering. Last semester was very busy, but I survived and have been trying to get caught up. Last weekend, D and I had a granola adventure. I've been meaning to try a recipe from John for some time. Finally...
We added dried cherries and toasted almonds plus sunflower seeds (the later a recommendation from John). It is delicious.

I have also been messing with ways to prepare oatmeal. There is a place nearby that serves the most amazing oatmeal in the mornings - or I supposed you could get it for lunch if you wanted. It's just a little salty and a little sweet and seemingly a little underdone. I couldn't get it right. It tend to buy the old fashioned oatmeal - or irish style. So the secret is to use 1/2 cup of oatmeal to a 1/2 cup of water and milk (about 1/4 cup of each). Add a pinch of salt and then cook for 2 minutes in the microwave. Add cinnamon, nutmeg and a little maple syrup. Top with fruit if you have it. We made a surprise fruit salad on Friday night for after dinner and had the rest the next morning on oatmeal. Two apples, one banana, two clementines, one mango, blueberries (thawed frozen). Delicious.

Here's to a healthy new year!

Why?

Is it so hard to grow parsley and cilantro? I have beautiful basil, rosemary, oregano (though a little worse for the wear) and mint. But my parsley looks sad. Am I doing something wrong? Suggestions??

Good Things

Over the summer, I was lucky enough to finish two books. These are books I read for the pleasure of reading. I wish I had more time to read. This does in no way make a dent in my pile, but it was enjoyable. D is reading the first one I finished and I think he will read the second because he read something else by that author. So, here they are for your reading pleasure.
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, by Amiee Bender
(I read this book because of a review on npr)
Not the best reviews on Amazon, but the story seemed very original and had some nice twists. I read a book by Amiee Bender a while ago that I also liked.
That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo
There was a lot of academic humor in this one. It was fun to read.

I also have a movie recommendation. It's a little off beat - not your typical chick flick (not that I only see chick flicks because I do love a good action movie!)
(500) days of Summer
An out of order (sort of) love story with some strange twists.

eeeekkkk!

oh my! I complained a few weeks ago to the higher powers that I thought there had been a mouse in my desk drawers at work. I keep food and tea in one drawer, so all of that has gone into plastic containers. But he was also interested in a drawer that is filled with papers and office supplies. I followed up once and thought that would be enough. Today, a little brown mouse had the nerve to pop his head out from behind a bookcase. Not once, but twice. I don't know what makes you move your feet off the floor when there is a rodent around. But there was some standing on desks. Good times...

Reminded of...

time spent in two other locals. I was reminded of white bikes and a Thursday night bike ride (bonus points to you if you know what either of these refers to). It also reminded me of formations in college. I traveled today to bbq at a friend's house. Lovely location. Good food. Good friends. And a mini adventure that involved riding an old bike about 20 minutes (up a big hill on the way there) to see some really fast things. Otherwise it's been flat out work for many weeks. Thus the lack of blog posts. Fortunately, this lack does not correlate with the lack of anything being written. Now, back to work.

Bounty!

Summer is my favorite time of year for eating! I love the fresh berries (blueberries and blackberries for lunch this week, yum!). Tomatoes, peaches, corn, fresh herbs, what could be better? When I was down in Delaware a few weeks ago, I got to share some bounty with my dear friend. We invented our dinner that evening. After having happy hour complete with delicious cheese and crackers Yea for mango and ginger stilton! (This cheese has been know to bring to people with completely different tastes in cheese to agreement!) We wanted something a little less grand than the original plan. So, we made an amazing salad.
What a lovely place setting, too. The salad you see consists of:
kernels from two ears of corn
1 chopped organic tomato
1 chopped peach
a small bunch of chopped basil
(I'd recommend adding rosemary or mint, but I was too lazy to continue chopping)
lemon juice
olive oil
pan cooked scallops in lemon and lime juice (I don't think they were added yet when the photo was taken.)
and a touch of salt and pepper all served on a bed of greens
I wouldn't have guessed the corn didn't need to be cooked, but since it was such fresh bounty, it was fine.
Delicious!

Lavender

It's been a rough few weeks. In short, I haven't been home for a single weekend in July and there was a good bit of work for each trip. And sometimes I didn't do my research and we ended up driving around the Adirondacks until 1:15 am and not getting back to the inn until 2:30 am. I can't remember the last time I was up that late. Did you know it's really hard to get across Lake Champlain in the middle of the night? This has made me somewhat unsettled. I have a weekend day at home tomorrow and I'm going to savor it... how, you ask, well, I'll go to Pilates and then the Farmers Market. A few other errands and just some time at home.

The other problem is related to work. A number of things have conspired against me this summer and I haven't come even close to meeting my goals. I had to pick up and move my lab, office, teaching lab and various other things I'm supposed to oversee. And all of this into space that wasn't really ready for us and is compressed (meaning less space). Then, I've had a visiting student in my group this summer who has not turned out as expected.

But with all of this, there have been some good highlights.
1)
These arrived at my office on Wednesday! Lovely! And they smell divine! Thanks D!
2) We had an incredible dinner out last Saturday. I got all dressed up - something I haven't done in a while. Have you ever seen me wear makeup? And the bonus was we could walk to the restaurant. We shared a bottle of Lange Pino Gris. And enjoyed a cheese plate to start. The chevre was drizzled with lavender honey. Amazing. I have to try this at home. Funny thing is that I just bought some organic dried lavender on a trip to Delaware/Pennsylvania to visit a college friend a few weekends ago. Now I really have to try it. And D's main dish was lavender encrusted tuna. Amazing.
3) I have new music. The New Pornographers are incredible. Thanks to another friend from college for the recommendation.
4) I'm moving up in the world and I have 2 followers. Sorry to disappoint you all with my lack of posts recently.

Short AT Hike

Okay, okay, I have not been blogging much. Life has been busy. D and I went to a wedding celebration last weekend. It was a ton of fun. Great to see friends I haven't seen in a while and some three legged racing funniness. In conjunction with this trip , we got the chance to hike a short bit of the AT. (Note: I have always thought it would be fun to hike the AT, especially after reading A Walk In the Woods, but really, I won't ever do it.) Here are a few photos of our adventure. Part of the fun is that we got to see a really cool waterfall...
What do you see in the stream?
I think he thought we couldn't see him. His camouflage is pretty good, huh?

Good Things

I have several posts in the works (or at least the ideas are in my head). But I wanted to post some of my recent photos of good things going on around here...

at the beach (look at the blue sky!)

early tomato blossoms

Mr. Plant blooms (maybe it's Mrs. Plant?)
This is one of Grum's plants and it's the first time it's bloomed for me. It's a begonia of some sort. It loves the light from the window, all of the leaves face that way and see how close the blooms are to the window. The wax plant also did amazingly well this year as I had over 10 pods of blooms this year!

a lovely bouquet (what do you this of this rustic herb bouquet?)

Music

Because I haven't posted in awhile and because I was just enjoying some music while eating dinner, I thought I'd share some of my musical opinions. I worked with a postdoc who liked crazy music. We used to listed to some loud music in the lab by artists like Propellerheads (which I love because they did the theme song to one of the James Bond movies and I like James Bond movies) and The Prodigy and Blur. Some of it is from Britain because that's where he's from and others were just things he heard in clubs. I typically prefer folk music. I am currently loving Justin Roth who I found out about through a friend who teaches guitar. My two favorites are She Dances and Fatima's Waltz (I believe after The Alchemist). You can find him here or on iTunes. He does some awesome guitar work.

Hiking Fun

I traveled at the end of last week. Where was I? On Saturday, March 20th, I hiked this mountain with my sister and D. The weather was lovely - sunny and warm but not too hot. I enjoyed getting some vitamin D as I'm sure I'm lacking it from the long dark winter. It was a somewhat of a strenuous hike with some scrambling sections, but the views were awesome and well worth it.

I also enjoyed some awesome eating. Cafe Forte on Saturday night and the Good Egg on Sunday morning. Both are highly recommended if you happen to be in this desert location.

Beautiful bathroom

I have been busy recently. I was especially productive about a few tasks I have been avoiding or haven't had time to complete around the house. I finally cleaned the floors in my house. I really love having clean floors and they look beautiful. I also got around to hemming and putting up these curtains in my bathroom. I moved the mini-blinds that were there to the kitchen to replace one of two blinds that had broken. The set of blinds from the kitchen that were still okay, I moved to the dining room. Everything looks great and new. Spring cleaning is fun. I also took a photo of a flower I have in my bathroom. It reminds me of a pillow my friend made. (See point 4 in the link for photos of the pillow.)
I have several big tasks to complete at work this week, but I ended up coming home early today to check on my basement. There has been a lot of rain in New England and so I don't think there are any dry basements in this region. Luckily mine isn't that bad and I don't store anything down there. Plus, the rest of the week is supposed to be glorious. I can't wait. Hope it's sunny where you are.

Reading

I've recently finished two great books. They receive my highest recommendation. The first is a pretty standard novel, that I found out was also read by a fellow blogger, FSP (female science professor). The books is A Gate at the Stairs. It's set in a college town but the story largely revolves around a student who becomes a nanny for a couple adopting a child. It was quite good and did really pull me in. I think the ending could have been done better, but it was okay.

The other book is A Homemade Life. My friend, Jill, gave me this book for Christmas after she mentioned it during a phone conversation and I thought it sounded wonderful. This is not your typical novel. Molly Wizenberg writes a blog that is in someways the basis for the book. The blog links her life to recipes. The book does the same. I have now made two of the recipes from the book. The ginger lemon scones are awesome. D and I ate some this morning from a batch I made more than a week ago. And I also made a dish that involved poaching salmon in apple cider. It was also delicious, though I wasn't quite patient enough to wait for the sauce to reduce as it should have.

Something new

Last weekend, I went on a New England adventure. D had planned the trip and we stayed in an adorable inn. The inn had amazing breakfasts, despite some mixed reviews online. We both had omelets the first morning (mine had a bunch of veggies in it and D had assorted veggies, spinach and mushrooms if I remember correctly, along with cheddar cheese). The second morning I had delicious whole grain pancakes with blueberries and D had a breakfast burrito. There was also a fun buffet with good pastries and fruit... yes, we ate a lot, but it's a good thing since the skiing was exhausting. The town where the inn is located is home to one of the infamous Winter Olympians (can you guess who?) so there was much signage cheering him on. We hit one local store and when we were paying, some of the staff was checking the scores for women's skiing. We didn't partake in the downhill events, but rather spent the better part of two days cross country skiing. Those of you who know me, might know that I learned to down hill ski in high school but haven't done much of it since. (I did go with friends once in 2007. And had fun, but it's just not my favorite sport.) I had never cross country skied. I had a bad NordicTrack experience in the distant past. Those things are only for super coordinated people. This adventure went well. It took a bit for me to get the hang of it and I think that was at least partly influenced by the bad conditions the first day. Things improved on the second. We woke up to light and lovely snow. And we also overhead some folks talking about different trails than what we had originally tried. So, even though I had trouble with the down hills (too narrow, sometimes too many uncovered rocks and branches, possibly somewhat unkept equipment), it was a lot of fun overall. I was very sore on Sunday night. But have recovered nicely. And I am also now back to my gym routine and Pilates - it was a rough month including being sick and having some weird rib injuries (did you know you can basically pop a rib out of place... yes, it's as painful as it sounds.) . Things are looking up. But I'm still very busy at work.

Don't you wish...

you were taking my friend's science course. He has crafted an entire exam based on the Olympics! I was proud to help him craft a question for a concept that he wasn't quite sure how to test. How fun. Watched the opening ceremony with friends on Friday. Had to leave before it was over, too tired. So I missed the snafu with the lighting of the flame. Have watched the updates but not time to see much else.

Recent Thought

Women are high school teachers. Men are college professors. Discuss.

Unique Pizza

You all know that I'm a pretty unique person. I invented this pizza after my friend Beth told me about her butternut squash pizza and after I started making a casserole with these ingredients. My pizza is topped with caramelized onions, butternut squash (slightly precooked in the microwave), blue cheese and candied walnuts on top of Trader Joe's herbed pizza dough! Delicious!

(I store this Trader Joe's product in my freezer and thaw it a day or so before I use it.)