a list

1.  Long time no type.  Buried in schoolwork and life.  Not necessarily in that order.  Attempting to force myself to come up for air.

2.  Chemistry is hard.  Like, fail-out-of-class hard.  (Not me, but you know what I mean.)  I knew there was a good reason to fear it back at Penn State!  Anyway, I’m doing alright, but a recent bombed quiz has shown me I need to devote more time to Chem and less to Anatomy.

3.  In all my busy-ness today, I decided I needed to make bread.  That’s so like me.  Why?  I had to “revive” my starter that’s in the fridge.  And have I forgotten about the GAJILLION things of bread we brought home from our Thanksgiving trip?  (No fewer than 1.5 loaves of rye bread, 10 bagels, 8 onion rolls, plus crackers.)  Our house is carb central!

4.  My Thanksgiving pumpkin pie was the ugliest thing ever (thanks to my impatience with store-bought crust), but tasted great.  Get the recipe here.

5.  Speaking of recipes–I just managed another blog post for the co-op.  It’s about cranberries and I included the cranberry brisket Andrew loves so much.  Read it here.

6.  I am now “officially” a New Yorker; I took care of getting a new license and registering the car.  License should be here in about a week!  It’s kind of exciting, in a really anti-climactic sort of way.  I think if we’d moved into a house we were excited about, everything would feel different.  Instead, everything still feels very temporary.  But, nonetheless, it’s still neat to see the Pilot with its new yellow and blue license plate.

7.  We named our plants.  Well, I named our plants.  Andrew just went along with it good-naturedly.  My dear friend, Emily, inspired me.  She has such beautiful, healthy, vibrant house plants.  I am so jealous.  She and I recently traded some plant clippings and she mentioned one of them was named ‘Stella.’  Now, I’ve heard of people naming their plants before, but I just never have.  I mean, mine don’t normally last that long…it was never a good idea to get attached.  However, I do have one that has lasted FOUR years now!  Andrew and I were in disbelief when we realized it.  So, on the way home from our Thanksgiving holiday, I used my phone to look up names and their meanings (again, such a ‘me’ thing to do–we’re talking the significance of the names of HOUSE PLANTS) and we decided to call the big, four-year-old one “Gerard” which means ‘hardy.’  (We’ve been calling it ‘hardy’ since I hadn’t killed it yet, so we figured why not?).  I have one other plant, an orchid Andrew bravely got me for Valentine’s Day this year.  (I don’t know what he was thinking.)  Anyway, it did alright for awhile, then the blooms fell off, then I panicked until I found out that was normal, and just when it was growing another stem and bloom, one of the movers bumped into it on our table and broke it off!  I was heartbroken.  I looked up ‘long-suffering’ and ended up with “Patience.”  She’s been through a lot, that one, and just the other day I noticed a tiny bud getting ready to sprout from the moss–hurray!  And now, I have Emily’s purple one to re-pot, who I have been calling “Stella 2.”  Between the animals and now anthropomorphic plants, we have one full house!

8. I’m supposed to be working on psychology homework.  Must hurry!

9.  Hadrian has been down for the count all day today–GLORIOUS!  I’ve been so productive.  (In case you’re wondering, any time he returns from ‘puppy camp’ he sleeps 24/7 for about two days.  Totally normal.)

10.  We have 7 pints of ice cream in our freezer, plus the remnants of two Jeni’s that Emily and Dan brought us, plus a tiny bit of homemade Jeni’s vanilla.  SEVEN unopened Graeter’s and Jeni’s pints.  That’s like $45 in ice cream (hey, don’t judge my expensive taste in ice cream!).  My brilliant plan: tiny scoops, both to make it last and keep it off my hips.  I’ll let you know how it goes, but I’m not terribly optimistic…

all i can muster up is a list

Yet again, I saw 4 a.m. on the clock…  Thankfully, Andrew was a GEM and took him out, but after an hour of Hadrian’s pacing and whining, I gave up and got up.  I may be a morning person, but this is pushing it.  I can survive on 6-7 hours no problem, but if 4 or 5 is the new normal, SOMETHING has got to give.  Hadrian will be at “puppy camp” this weekend while we’re away, which normally tires him right out.  So, if he isn’t back to a more normal schedule next week, I really do not know what we’re going to do.

1.  We got our first “snow” last night.  More of a slush, really, but there is residual snow still on the ground this morning.  All I could think about on my drive home from psych was hot chocolate.  Then, hours later when Andrew and I settled down to watch a Dexter, all I wanted was ice cream.  Go figure.  Oh wait, all I EVER want is ice cream.

2.  We’re going out of town this weekend.  Awhile back (probably two months ago, now), Andrew and I were losing it in the hotel and incredibly stressed about house-hunting and everything else, so we thought we needed a ‘getaway.’  Well, here we are, weeks later, in the rental house and slightly less stressed, getting away.  I planned it as a surprise for Andrew and didn’t tell him until last night.  We’re staying in Canandaigua, which is the closest Finger Lake to us, at a B&B and have no plans other than a wine pairing class Sunday at the New York Wine and Culinary Center.

3.  I got stumped ONE problem away from finishing the next chapter of Chemistry homework last night.  I even got down to ONE attempt left (you get a whopping FIVE tries, with the amount of credit you receive going down each time) before I quit while I was still (a little) ahead.  It wasn’t even ‘real’ math; just the atomic bonding relationship between two atoms.  (Gee, doesn’t it sound simple when I put it that way?)  Anyway, I had an epiphany this morning as I was lying in bed, (fantasizing about Hadrian going to live on someone else’s farm and running around until he’s too tired to wake up at 4 a.m.) and wouldn’t you know, it was the right answer!  Seriously, all of a sudden it hit me.  At least I can cross that item off the ‘to-do’ list.

4.  I got another article published in the East Aurora Advertiser this week!  I wrote about a new ‘cupcakery’ in town called Swirls and I got HALF the front page and THREE color photos!  Read about it here.  I love writing for the Advertiser; I can embrace my ‘voice’ instead of having to omit it as I would in more typical news writing.

5. This is turning into a long list.  (That’s what happens when a verbal processor has no one to talk to in the morning.)

6.  I can’t believe it’s almost 7 a.m.

7.  Happy Veteran’s Day!  Thank a veteran today…  I feel so weird being labeled a ‘veteran.’  I feel like I didn’t do anything.  But, someone once told me it isn’t about what I did or didn’t do, or how much time I was in the military; it is the fact that I was willing to do it.  Which, when you think about it, is no small thing.  Here in our country, serving is voluntary, and in this day and age, it means being willing to lay down your life.  Well, it’s always meant that, but things changed a lot between the time I got my ROTC scholarship and when I took the oath.  I’m thankful I never had to deploy, although a small part of me wishes I had.

8.  I got the highest grade in the class on my psych mid-term (essentially a 100%), have a six-100%-test streak going in Anatomy lecture and am consistently getting high-90’s (if not 99’s) on everything else.  Where were these study habits the first time around?

9.  Now I’m getting tired…

10.  I have a big week coming up next week:  two tests Monday (after our weekend away, fantastic), a Chemistry quiz (my most-hated assignment ever), Wednesday night Bible study, an article to write AND Emily and Dan are coming!  So excited for their visit, but it means we have got to get motivated to finish unpacking, at least the guest room.  Not to mention Andrew’s birthday… Must get on that right away!

 

 

 

 

in case you were wondering, i’m still alive…

…but just barely!

It’s been a BUSY couple of days, and I still don’t really feel like I have my head above water yet.  Here’s the run-down (but no pics of the house yet, sorry):

1.  Move-in day went well; I insisted we do an inventory while they unloaded the truck and I’m glad we did.  We definitely got all our stuff and it was all in really good shape; I was SHOCKED.

2.  I have schoolwork coming out my ears; I took a test Thursday night and Friday afternoon, both of which went well and I believe I did quite well.  That chemistry quiz I was dreading Saturday morning?  Definitely got a 76%…boo!  But, the guy who sits behind me got a 64%, which made me feel (a bit) better.  At least the lowest two quiz grades get dropped…

3. Today is my “day off,” except that it’s almost 4 p.m. and I haven’t done any schoolwork yet.  How does this happen?

4.  I ran outside for the first time today at our new place.  I didn’t map a route beforehand, so I just kinda ran all over.  I hate doing that.  I like having a plan (ain’t that the truth?!).

5.  I also cooked for the first time since arriving at our new place: fried rice, made with brown rice!  Andrew came home with lunch and I made it to pair with our leftover Chinese.

6.  All this eating out (hello, the ENTIRE time since we arrived in NY back in June) has NOT been good for me.  I’ve (sadly) gained a few pounds back in the recent month or so–thankfully nothing too major–but I need to get back on the bandwagon, and STAT!

7.  Hadrian slept on his bed in the living room last night for the first time ever.  (He normally sleeps on his bed in our room.) Weird…

8.  The cats are settling in alright…  I’m really trying to crack-down on Hadrian’s barking/trying to play with them, and they don’t seem too shaken up.  The biggest challenge is how to feed them without Hadrian getting at the food.  So far I’m experimenting with feeding them twice a day (like you would a dog), and doing it when I leave in the morning (Hadrian is in his crate) or locking them in the bathroom in the afternoons or something.  They were pretty hungry by this afternoon…

9.  I ran errands in East Aurora today, so I asked a friend for coffee who I hadn’t seen in awhile.  We went to Taste, and I could not resist this:  black forest cake and a cherry italian soda.  Hence the weight re-gain…

10.  I’m hoping to get back into a more regular “routine” soon–both for blogging and working out and doing schoolwork.  And eating better.  My sweet tooth is out of control!  The house is somewhat “unpacked,” so once we get things a bit more organized, I’ll get some photos up and hopefully will be back on here more regularly.

Have a great day!