week in review.

i'm exhausted lately.
so much has been going on since the trip to new york.
suffice to say, i haven't had time to upload my photos or update the blog.
bad amy.

i thought i would do a fill in post for now, and hopefully by the end of the week i will upload my photos from the trip and write all about it.
briefly, the trip was part amazing and part ridiculous.
i got super sick while we were there. :[
seriously. i don't understand why i always have to get sick during my vacations!? i made a pity phone call to my dad while i was sick in nyc and asked him why? why? why? he responded, "maybe eventually you will have caught everything there is to catch, and you won't get sick anymore."
yeah. i wish.
i still don't feel conpletely back to normal. i've been falling asleep around 9pm lately. if you know me, you may know that my normal bedtime is about 2 or 3am. so falling asleep so early is definitely strange. but the plus side is that i've been waking up on my own around 9 each morning. without my alarm. this is completely crazy to me. i've never really woken up naturally that early without the assistance of my alarm clock and my phone alarm. yep. i tend to be a two alarm girl. ha.

tuesday was the first day of school.
it was a long day. matt, who is supposed to teach the morning section of molecular bio missed the orientation, so i had to help him with his section and then do my section later in the afternoon. i was on campus from about 8am to 7pm because i had microbiology lecture in between the two molecular sessions, so i didn't have time for a break.

teaching is going well so far. i know a good amount of my students from when i taught the freshmen biochem class. the first year i taught that course corresponds to this class of students, so it's interesting to see who is sticking it out in biochem and who bit the dust. ha. the freshmen class always starts with about 100 students and the graduating classes are usually about 30 or so.

microbiology is the course that i'm taking in order to complete a few pre-requisites for pharmacy school. i don't like the way the professor lectures. i'm going to have to figure out an alternative way of taking notes in her class, and i anticipate relying on the book to learn most of the material. luckily, it's not very difficult. i do like the lab portion of the class. it's easy but still interesting. oh and it's in the same room as the molecular lab, so i spend a lot of time in there.

what else...
yesterday was my last day of work at the scrapbook store. i'm so excited about that. it's been time to move on from that job for a while now. i guess i'm a little sad that i won't see some of the customers really anymore, but other than that i'm happy to be done working there. it's going to be nice to start scrapbooking for fun again. it hasn't felt fun for a while.

after spending the whole weekend at work, i'm super excited to head to vegas this coming weekend. it's going to be nice to see everyone there and do a little shopping.

i feel like there should be more to update about, but it's hitting the 9pm mark, and i feel like it's time to crawl into bed.
this is ridiculous!
i'll be back soon with some photos from new york. :]

long day.

after three hours of sleep last night, i headed off to orientation for teaching the molecular bio lab.
in a word it was boring.
i'm not kidding when i say i could have led a better orientation session myself.
ah well. you gotta do what you gotta do right?
i was armed with coffee and a bagel, so it wasn't too bad.

after getting some food with deepa and maria in the student union, i went and visited my old lab for a bit. :]
lots of news to catch up on with everyone there. i miss chatting daily with all of them. they were seriously like a second family.

i was actually feeling very sick at this point. i think it was a mixture of not enough sleep and nerves about the trip. i wanted to go home so badly to settle in for a nap, but i had to meet dr. howard to go over all the lab stuff. after our meeting, we had to take an oath and have it signed off by a notary public. this thing is out of control and totally hilarious. we were in the CABNR office and a few professors were in there chatting. they hadn't seen the oath yet [apparently it's a new requirement] so they read it, and we were laughing so hard. it was just too much to actually be taken seriously. [here's a sample: i will support, protect and defend the state against all enemies, whether domestic or foreign...]

once i made it back home, i was exhausted but needed to do one more load of laundry. yay for not waiting until tonight! i did one load last night and one load today. :] hopefully that will provide me with enough layering options for the severe winter storm that i am flying into tomorrow. seriously? the storm couldn't wait a week? or have come last week? ack! ah well. we will just bundle up and make the best of it. :]

tonight, i purchased some yarn so that i can make a scarf during the flight. i also have a few reading options and james has some movies on his computer. i think we should be good to go. now if i can just stop feeling sick, that would be fantastic.

i guess better go pack now. it's getting late, and i really want to get some sleep tonight. i'll try to check in during the trip, but i'm not bringing my computer, so we'll see.
also. i'll be sending alyssa all my best vibes tomorrow for a smooth delivery of baby lucy!

project:

i might attempt to take photographs in nyc to make one of these.
i'm in love with the idea, and i have plenty of room on my bedroom walls for something like that.
plus, it would just be cool to make it from photos of new york. :]

it will come back to you.

yesterday i was filling up my car at the gas station, and this guy approached asking me for money to help him get his family back on the road home to california. he closed his little speech with "if you are able to help at all, i'm sure it will come back to you one day."
he totally got me with that line.
james teased me when i got back in the car, basically saying i got suckered. and i was like yeah... i sure did, but it was the whole "it will come back to you" thing... i couldn't say no after that.
if the homeless people start putting that on their signs, i'll be in serious trouble. ha.

anyway. now for the more exciting part. i was filling my car so we could go to ikea. woot!
i got eighteen of the key ingredient for mission organization: black drona bins for my expedit shelves.
i also found some potentially cute curtains and picked up a few more mini jars. james got a coffee table for his room. the one he has currently has seen better days. he was also scoping out the couch options, but we didn't find anything fabulous with an equally fabulous price tag.

on the way back, we stopped at arden to go to urban outfitters. i haven't been there in ages. once the galleria opened, we stopped going all the way in to arden on the good old school shopping trips. james and i didn't have any shopping luck there, but we grabbed some food at this little japanese place that was so so so good. :]

all in all it was a fun quick trip.
i forgot my camera, otherwise i might have something to make this post a little more exciting. soon enough i should have some fun photos to share though. :] i'm getting so excited for our trip! i have no idea what clothes i want to bring, so i might attempt to start my laundry a little earlier than usual to ensure i have plenty of options. i might need to find a new pair of shoes before we leave. something that will allow my feet to withstand lots of walking. otherwise, i'm going to resist shopping for new clothes before the trip so that i still have some funds to shop while i am there. hopefully i can stay away from j. crew. i hear they have some fabulous new arrivals. ut oh.

i stopped by the crop at my work last night, and jeanne offered to let me borrow a knitting pattern. i'm excited at the idea of working on something during the flight. knitting during my flight to denver was a good way to pass time. plus i'm eager to try something more difficult than a scarf and see how my skills hold up. :]

ok. i'm off to work on mission organization a bit more. i am making progress, but i'm trying to work in small doses so that i don't get overwhelmed and give up. i'm hoping the slow and steady strategy pays off here.

i'll leave you with a song. james and i picked up the new kanye album for the drive home. we both fell in love with this song. i asked him if he thought the chorus part was true for me. i believe the answer was a definitive yes. ha. it's been in my head all day. such a fun song.

this is so not ideal.

deepa and i saw bride wars tonight. it was the perfect girls' night movie. :]
we loved it, and it's on my list of movies to purchase.

it spurred a long talk about marriage all the way back to my house.
she seems to think i'll get engaged a lot sooner than i think i will.
but. i'm pretty sure i'm right. ha.
25 is no longer a need to be married by this age/scary age.
it's more like 30 now. ha.

anyway. the title of this post is a line from the movie, and i've put it into my memory bank as something to pull out when things aren't going so well. i think it might help calm me down.

in other news...

i cooked my third meal of the week last night. it was a repeat of grilled cheese. but i cooked it at home, so it counts even if it was a repeat meal. i'm still sick, and not showing signs of improvement yet, so i'm just happy to have met my goal. i did make tomato soup for j, so it was slightly different. ok. not really. maybe when i'm not sick i'll be able to add a little variety. but it's hard to come up with a meal plan when you have no appetite.

i'm also pretty much over of most of my music. i've been playing my ipod in my studio while i try to clean, and there's not a whole lot on there that i want to listen to. tonight, i realized that the problem is that i haven't purchased any music in a while. i used to buy cds on a weekly basis. now it's more like one a month, if that. so i think i might treat myself to a couple new albums before we go to nyc. i'll need something good for the long plane rides... an ipod full of music that no longer fits my tastes won't do.

ok. i'm off to clean. i might even take a wild stab at making something. it's been a while, so we'll see.
happy weekend! :]

food update.

i've been keeping up with my cooking goals. :]

friday night was pasta. i tried to embellish the sauce because james likes it better with a whole bunch of veggies vs. my plain old meat sauce. i wasn't a fan of my creation, but after adding some hot sauce [yuck!] james said he liked it. my parents said they liked it as well, but maybe they were just being nice. ha. i think what pushed it into the "not so good" category for me was the green peppers. next time, i'm going to skip them. i forgot to add the goat cheese [andrew added it to his sauce during our pasta night, and it was so yummy], so i'll do pasta again soon to use that.

saturday night was chicken and potatoes. i tried the potatoes a different way, and i loved them. instead of boiling them before baking, i just sliced them sort of thin and then piled on thyme, tarragon, parsley, and freshly grated parmesan cheese. i baked them at 350 for about 40 minutes. basically, turned on the oven to the default temp and cooked them until they were done and the cheese looked nice and crisp. they were my favorite potato creation so far. i didn't like the chicken. james said it was fine, but it tasted funny to me. better luck next time. :]

i totally realize that neither of these meals were revolutionary. they are basically the two things i cook when i actually cook. but. i wanted to keep it simple and basic to ensure that i actually followed through.
plus, this got me excited to pick some recipes to try in the future. i set a goal to cook three meals cooked at home this week, and so far i've cooked two. :]

james and i have been feeling under the weather, so on monday i decided to drag myself out of the house to get the ingredients for pw's chicken and rice soup. it is seriously the best soup. james and i absolutely loved it. i have to say, it felt good to finally cook something that he totally loved. and he didn't add hot sauce! ha. while we were eating it, he said "this is a hearty soup!" i also have to give him some credit. he was a huge help with the chicken. i'm still conquering a little meat aversion. i just have a thing about raw meat and icky parts of meat. i managed to wash the raw chicken and get it in the pot, but he took care of cutting it off the bone and slicing it up and getting rid of any icky parts. we ate it with some sourdough toast, which was fun to dip into the soup. it was the perfect meal for a sick day [although i think it would be perfect on any cold day.] and totally worth all the work. i'll definitely be making it again. i did make one alteration to her recipe. instead of pimentos, i added carrots. and next time, i will probably add a little more water. we didn't end up with a ton of broth, and i like a good amount of broth. james stayed home from work on tuesday because he was getting more sick, and we had soup and toast again for lunch. then i had it for a late snack that night. he took some to work today for lunch, and i ate it for lunch. there's still some left! and i'm not sick of it at all... it's really that good.

on tuesday night, i made grilled cheese for dinner. i was going to do grilled cheese and tomato soup [another good sick food, right?], but my dad took james and his brother to eat at the buffet. boys. seriously. they will never pass up on eating buffet. i'm not a big fan of tomato soup, so since i was alone for dinner i skipped that part and just made a yummy grilled cheese on sourdough and had some celery sticks [leftover from soup preparation] with peanut butter. yum.

now i just need to cook tomorrow or friday and i will have met my goal again. :] i'm really starting to love cooking. it's about time, right?

in other news, i've also been slowing but surely cleaning my studio. i'm making an effort to at least do a little something in there each day. and i managed to get all my scrappy stuff that had spread to the couch in the family room cleaned up. so the couch is nice and clear, which has a lot of people happy around here. :]

and as far as the sickness, i'm not sure i'm getting better. it started with a cough and the ear thing. then i started noticing this popping sound in my chest. the first couple times it happened, i was doing something like jumping over the dog gate, and i thought it was just my necklace bouncing up and then hitting my chest. it's the same noise! then i realized i wasn't wearing a necklace. and tonight i'm getting a pain in there... but maybe it's just in my head? maybe i've been watching too much house on tv. ha. so we'll see. if it doesn't get better, i might have to venture out to the doctor.

and with that, i think i'm off to browse for recipes. if you have any favorites or favorite places to find recipes, let me know. :]

keeping things simple.

the other day, i looked back at the goals i set for 2008. ugh. i didn't really do so well. so instead of setting long-term, year-long goals, i'm going to set a few short-term goals for now:

1. clean + organize my studio. i've joined the group at studio calico with this idea in mind. i'm hoping that being part of a group will help keep me focused and motivated to keep working. once i have a clean space, i think i will feel so much more inspired to actually create, which has been a struggle for so long now. it's something that i really miss. i think that cleaning + organizing my stuff is essential to gaining back my creativity.

2. cook at home. last night i picked up the supplies to cook two meals. so. i'm aiming to cook one tonight and the other on saturday. i would love to eventually get to the point where i can plan a whole week of meals at a time, but that's not even close to a realistic goal for me at this point. so i'm starting out small, and hopefully it will be more successful this way.

3. exercise. i'm going to rely on james to keep me on track with this one. :] aside from going to the gym with him, i want to start taking helix on more walks.

4. make a plan. you know. for my life. :]

it's cold and windy and rainy here today. i think i might get bundled up and venture out to a few stores with my parents this aftern1oon. and i have to say, the cold weather is putting me in the mood to cook. woot! :]

happy new year!

i went to see slumdog millionaire with some friends on the 30th. [great movie, by the way.] after the movie, we were talking over coffee and started discussing how crazy "2009" sounds. i decided that it was mostly because in my mind, i always had 2008 in my mind as the year i would graduate from college... so it was always expected and comfortable sounding as a number. but 2009 just seemed and still seems so far away and distant. almost a scary number.

james and i rang in the new year at home. i thought maybe it would be fun to cook dinner, but just as we were leaving for the store when james got home from work, my dad called to invite us to dinner. during dinner, we watched the ball drop live in new york, and that was about all the celebrating that we did. :]and yes. i decided to be festive and wear the ridiculous hat during dinner. ha.

speaking of new york, we booked flights to nyc when we got home from dinner. i'm so excited to visit the city again. :] i told james that the only real touristy thing that i want to do during our trip is visit magnolia bakery. ha. we are also planning to explore central park, visit the met, and perhaps take in a broadway show. oh and of course eat as much good food as possible. my goal is to be very flexible with plans and expectations though. i just want to have fun exploring a new city.

we also booked flights on tuesday to go to vegas for super bowl weekend. we enjoyed it so much last year that we couldn't pass up going again this year. plus, i like the fact that it falls right around my birthday, so i get to celebrate with a little vegas shopping. my sister and jamie are going to be there as well. it will be so nice to have the whole family together again.

i really enjoyed the remainder of my visit to colorado. the time always seems to go too fast. the three christmas celebrations were all fun and unique.
my mom's three brothers and all but two of my cousins made it to my mom's parents' house for ham christmas dinner and a little present opening session on christmas eve. although i had seen everyone at thanksgiving, i felt like i got to catch up with my cousin carrie a little bit more this trip. that was nice.
on christmas day, my sister had dinner at her house. both sets of grandparents came as well as my parents and jamie's parents. she cooked brisket, which is one of my favorite meals. we also had one of my favorite super yummy fruit salads. :] that night, i went to see four christmases with katie and jamie and then spent the night at their house. i totally enjoyed the movie, but i have to say... movie theater popcorn is not really up to par in colorado. ha.
the day after christmas really felt like christmas day. we had a large gathering of fourteen people for christmas breakfast at my dad's parents' house. my grandma cooked a fabulous breakfast. then we all opened presents and talked for a while until it was time for our turkey christmas feast. i loved that we had a different main course for each of the christmas celebrations. :] that evening, i went to see yes man with katie and jamie. i really liked this movie too. i skipped the popcorn this time. ha.

the rest of the trip was just relaxing. because i seem to be mentioning food quite a bit, i will add that we had fabulous chinese food on saturday night. :] i did a little shopping at martin + osa. i passed up on a really cute black dress, which i sort of wish i had gone ahead and purchased. ha. ah well. i also finished my scarf! i had my grandma help me with binding off the final row. she laughed at how tight [and therefore difficult] my stitches were, but still made it look so easy. i can totally tell which stitches she did and which ones i did. ha.

as for my grandpa, he had good days and bad days. he was always in good spirits though, which makes me really happy. i'm so proud of him for being so brave and fighting so hard.

here are a couple photos from the trip...
the crazy rental car:
grandma griffith's tree:
a view during the flight home:
unfortunately, i don't have a whole lot of photos with people in them. ack. i think my frustration with uploading photos is adding a little bit of hesitation to take as many photos. i need to figure out a solution and start taking more photos.

i'm definitely looking forward to the next trip to colorado. maybe i'll convince james to come with me one of these days. :]

i hope you all had a safe and enjoyable celebration of the new year. :]