The Plan Keeps Coming Up Again

I have a plan.

For the entire month of November I am going on a diet, which I have made up myself.  Because I don’t care to follow diets made up by random people I don’t know.  This one’s for me.

I tried it out for a week last month, and it was kinda hard, even for a week.  But I’m going to stick to it.  So far (all three days) it’s been going all right.

Here’s what I came up with.

Meal 1: Cereal

Meal 2: Yogurt

Meal 3: Soup, Sandwich or Salad

Meal 4: Fruit

Meal 5: Whatever (within reason)

Rules: 1) Meals can be in any order  2) I reserve the right to substitute lunch with leftovers so I don’t waste food (because food wasting is bad!)  3) It is required to drink at least 5 glasses of water per day 4) Diet soda and ice tea are allowed

That’s all I can come up with right now.  I’ll let you know how it goes at the end of the month.

I’d also like to start some sort of exercise routine but it’s hard trying to decide what will fit into my schedule in the long run.  The only exercise I really enjoy enough to stick with is yoga.  Right now, I could start going back to my gym for yoga class, but the time is so inconvenient.  The gym is on my way home from work which would be great if the class didn’t start at 7:30 pm.  I’m not staying at work that late.  That’s just craziness.  4 pm and I’m outta there.  And when I get home… it’s just so hard  SO HARD to go out again.  And then there’s Matt.  Now that I’m home during the week, I get to spend more time with him.  I don’t want to waste that time by driving half an hour just to go to yoga class and back.

I know, I know.  Excuses excuses.  I have a couple other options.  A new yoga class just started up at my apartment complex.  I could try that for now, at least until next semester at school starts and my schedule changes again.  There’s also $5 yoga at a studio right down the street from my office.  The time’s a bit inconvenient for that too, but I might try to work something out.

In other news, I’m participating in the month long writingfest otherwise known as NaNoWriMo.  And I haven’t written one speck of a novel yet.  Ok, that’s a lie.  I wrote a little bit last month because I was inspired for some reason.  But it seems that inspiration went out the window with the end of October, or the end of the field season in which I spent many hours on the road dreaming up what I’d write in aforementioned novel.  Thoughts, however, are no good unless I write them down.  I really need to kick it up a notch.

Not tonight, though.  Tonight I have to eat dinner and watch Dancing With the Stars with one very good-lookin guy.

A Day off and the Domestic Diva

You know what I love?  Random government holidays.  Like Columbus Day.  Which was Monday.  And I had the day off.  It was fantastical.  I woke up in the morning to the sun shining, birds singing, golden harps playing, hot shirtless men doing all my chores…

Ok, so those last things didn’t actually happen.  But I did have the day off and it was grand.  I pretty much sat around and did nothing all day besides watch a bunch of mindless television, like the Tyra Banks show, which was about prostitutes and men having a “cheating gene” (which I don’t buy at all, btw).

Somewhere in between episodes of Friends and That 70s show, I managed to bake a cake.  Just for you!  Ok, not really for you.  For me.  And Matt (who shamelessly insisted suggested that I bake a cake for my week out of the field).  But I will give you the recipe.  And pictures.  Will that make up for it?  I think so.

Oh and the best part about this cake is it is healthy!  (supposedly)  I got it out of my cookbook, called Lighter, Quicker, Better.

Here’s all the ingredients you will need

3/4 cup all-purpose flower, spooned lightly into measuring cup

1/4 cup cornstarch

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup Dutch-process unsweetened cocoa powder (as you can see, I used Hershey’s, works for me!)

1/3 cup lukewarm water

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/2 cup firmly packed light or dark brown sugar

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg, at room temperature (if very cold, briefly run the egg, in the shell, under hot water)

1/2 cup lowfat or nonfat yogurt

1.  Heat the oven to 350 degrees F, with a rack slightly lower than center level.  Spray an 8-inch square or round baking pan with nonstick cooking spray.  Lightly dust the pan with flour, tapping out excess.  Set the pan aside.

You'd think I'd be good at this after watching my mom doing it like a zillion times... oh well

2.  Sift the flour, cornstarch, baking soda and salt onto a sheet of wax paper; set aside.

I do not understand this sifting business. I just sort of mixed everything together and dumped it on there.

3.  Add the cocoa to the lukewarm water in a measuring cup; stir with a fork or whisk until a smooth paste forms; set aside.

Warning: Does not taste as good as it smells

4.  Place the oil and vanilla in an electric mixer.  Begin to mix at medium speed, gradually adding the brown and granulated suars, and scraping the sides of the bowl once or twice.  Add the egg and beat for about one minute, or until the mixture is smooth.

This is a lot easier to do if you don't let your brown sugar dry out and become a solid sugary brick. The egg helped, though.

Lower the mixer speed slightly.  Add the flour mixture alternately with the yogurt, beginning and ending with the flour, and mixing only until the ingredients are partially blended.  Turn off the machine and finish mixing with a large rubber spatula just until there are no more visible traces of flour ( I forgot about this part, it seemed to work out ok anyway).  Scrape the batter into the prepared pan.

The book screws up at this point and totally forgets to mention adding the chocolate. I added it because a chocolate cake without chocolate is just very very sad.

5.  Bake the cake for about 25 minutes, or until the top springs back when pressed gently with a fingertip, and a toothpick inserted in the center emerges clean.  Cool the cake, in the pan, on a wire rack (or a stove?).  Serve cut in pieces, directly from the pan.

yummers!

The End.

Weekending in ABQ

Remember how I said October is an awesome month to be in Albuquerque?  Well, here’s a couple more reasons why…

This past Friday Matt and I took a road trip to a neighboring town, Moriarty, to go to the haunted barn and corn maze at McCall’s Pumpkin Patch.

This is not just any haunted house.  It is not like the other ones in town that are supposedly “the scariest haunted houses in the nation.”  Yeah, right.  They’re nothing compared to this.  This place is HANDS DOWN, the absolute coolest haunted house EVER.  There are flashing lights and spinning rooms and scary clowns and polka-dots and chickens and things that spray at you and dead body bags and formaldehyde and chainsaws.  And there is a CORN MAZE.  And it is HAUNTED.  What more could you possibly want?

It was a really great night.  The worst part was that we had to hurry a little bit through it because Matt had to get to work.  Another bad part was that I drove, which meant I was criticized the entire way there.  I wasn’t going fast enough.  I was going too fast.  I have no hand-eye coordination.  Etc. Etc.  This is why I don’t like driving with other people in the car.  Passenger seat drivers.  They make me tons more nervous than I would be if I were by myself.  Matt said that I could get a job at the haunted house as the haunted taxi driver.  People would be afraid, wondering if they would ever make it out alive.  Ha ha ha.

But anyway, other than that it was good.  A little more expensive than the other lame-o haunted houses in town, but totally worth it.

On Saturday, my class was canceled!  Yay!  Unfortunately, I had to drive all the way over there to find this out.  Boo!

I was supposed to go over to Matt’s house after class so I decided to let him sleep for a while and went over there when my class would normally be over.  He was a pain to wake up, as usual, but eventually he did.  We went in the backyard and played with the dogs for a while and then went out to eat at an Italian restaurant called Scarpas because he had a coupon for a free dessert with the purchase of two entrees.  The pizzas we had were delicious, but then, for dessert, the waiter brought this out…

Torta di Mele: caramelized apples and cinnamon ice cream topped with mocha-flavored shavings and whipped cream inside a fresh baked pastry covered in the most delicious caramel.  Yum!

After eating that, I was content for the rest of the night.

**Note: any time I put in pictures that are not taken by me, I link them to the website where they came from.  If you want to learn more, click on the pictures.  Ok, thanks.

Crafty McCrafterson

This is a painting my sister made for her art class.

And these are some recent drawings I made for my physical geography class.

cold and warm fronts

hydrologic cycle

As you can see, it’s not too hard to tell which one is the more artistic member of the family.  In fact, my own mother once laughed, yes LAUGHED, at one of my drawings and told me not to quit my day job. Thanks, Mom.

But my lack of artistic ability is not going to stop me from being crafty.  I may not be able to draw or make a decent looking bowl on the pottery wheel, but I am pretty darn awesome at layouts.  I credit this to my years of experience with latenight newspaper layouts during college.  And in grad school, I could make a poster or powerpoint presentation like nobody’s business.

About a year or so ago, I took up scrapbooking.  And I love it!  In the beginning, I was afraid that I’d make one page and get tired of it, but I really wanted to stick with it, so I have.  It’s a lot of fun creating something and seeing it all come together in the end.  Plus I can watch tv while I’m working on it.  (A lot of times I don’t, though.  I’m just too excited about the scrapbooking!)

The most fun thing about it though is creating a memory of fun or interesting times I’ve had.  I can look at my scrapbook pages and reminisce about the “good old days” while admiring my artwork.  It’s really rewarding to remember what I’ve been through to get where I am today.

This is one of the earlier pages I made showing Vegas life, where I lived and worked and some fun things I did.  I also put in my Michigan hate note that I got on my car at school one day.  At first I was kind of mad about it, but now when I look at it, I just think it’s funny.  I mean, seriously, who writes that?  (Just to warn you, there is some swearing in it)

I’ve also been documenting some of my more recent work adventures, like my trips to Arizona… (also here and here)

… and Nebraska

Most recently, though, I have been working on a new scrapbooking project.  Last Thursday, October 1, was Matt’s and my one year anniversary of our first date.  So I decided to start a book for just the two of us.  The funny thing is, Matt really loves that I love scrapbooking.  I think he likes that I have something that I really enjoy doing, like he has his airplanes.  So of course he was really happy with his little anniversary “present.”

Oh yeah, Tooty & Cakes are our nicknames for each other.  We’re dorks

For this scrapbook project, I decided to try something new.  Looking around the internets for scrapbooking ideas, I tend to see a lot of layouts with just one central picture surrounded by decorations.  That’s what I attempted to do here.  I think it worked out all right but it still seems a little too minimalist for me, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but in the future I think I’d like to work on finding a better balance between too little and too much on a page.

But for now, I’m happy with what I’ve done and can’t wait to get started on my next project, whatever it may be.

**This post was written in conjunction with the Spin Cycle, brough to you by Sprite’s Keeper.  Click here to find some more crafty posts!

Extreme Makeover: My Apartment Edition 2

So it’s been a while.  Life has been ridiculously busy lately, what with plant association training and just regular field season going on.  These past couple weeks it’s sort of felt like I’ve barely had time to breathe between packing and unpacking on the weekend.  But I’m spending next week here in Albuquerque, which will be nice because I’ll get to spend some quality time with Matt.  Although I’m a little mad at him right now, because we were supposed to go to Santa Fe today, but he fell asleep instead.  Boo.  It really sucks having opposite schedules.

Now I’m at home, and trying to clean up a little, since I have a bit more time to get my act together this week, and I thought I’d show you the progress I’ve made since last time.

This week we will be entering no man’s land… the BATHROOM.  dun dun DUN!  Hold onto your butts.

I will start off by telling you that I absolutely LOVE having lots of counter space in the bathroom.  In fact, the main thing that turned me off from one of the apartments I looked at was its tiny tiny counter.  Nevermind the fact that it was also a handicap accessible apartment and looked kind of strange, but when I saw that counter, I was just like, no way.

Anyway, so the moral of the story is I like counter space.  And here, I’ve got some.  And I use it.  Boy, do I use it.

Here’s what it looked like before…

Lucky for you, you cannot see the scummies stuck to the counter.  Ewwy.

And here’s what it looks like now.

Much better!  When I was finishing my thesis, my mom told me I needed to get my ducks in a row and she gave me those little rubber ducks as an Easter gift that year.  I keep them in there now to remind myself that getting  (and keeping) my ducks in a row is no easy task, and a continuous process that I must constantly pay attention too.  As of now, my ducks are getting a little rowdy.  But I’m working on it!

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, those things in the glass bowl behind the ducks are rocks.

Next I tackled the floor and the bathtub.  The bathtub is one of my least favorite things to clean, because it’s big, and a weird shape for cleaning, and it has shower doors, which get in the way and are annoying.  But I did it.  Yay!

Here’s what they looked like before.

Gross.

Between packing and unpacking and cleaning the bathroom, I also managed to do four loads of laundry.  I cleaned my bathroom rugs and towels, and now they are clean and fluffy.  Sadly you cannot see the towels, but trust me, they are clean.  I love clean towels.  They are one of my favorite things in life.

I also cleaned the toilet but am somewhat disappointed with the results.  I think I need those toilet bowl cleaner tabs.  I used them in Vegas and they worked great.

But for now, I’m happy it’s clean.

The ducks are happy too.

Spin Cycle: A Revelation

Ok, so the other day (Monday) I was getting ready to go down to the Gila, loading up the Suburban and whatnot.  It was then that I realized I had neglected to bring my iPod, meaning four hours of driving and listening to nothing but static.  Poor me!  Not to be dismayed, I began searching my car for a chance CD, hoping to find something buried among the seat cushions.  And I found this.

An audiobook!  Why did I not think of that before?  I could have spent the whole summer listening to books on CD.  This particular book got me all the way from Ann Arbor to Albuquerque.  It’s an interesting book about a Mexican girl who transfers her emotions into the food she’s cooking so that everyone who eats it will feel that emotion as well.  I tried to listen to it but for some reason the stupid Suburban did not like it, so I couldn’t.  Luckily, tucked inside this case was a Moby CD so I listened to that a couple times and it was ok.

But I decided I was not going to give up on my CD book idea that easily.  Next week, I’m driving up to Taos and Cimarron for a plant association class (should be interesting), and I’ll need something to listen to.  So this afternoon I walked my lazy butt over to the library in search of a good looking audiobook.  In the end, I came out with this.

I chose this book because it looked scandalous and I could use a good scandal right about now.  I think I like DH Lawrence but I can’t remember.  English Lit class seems so long and far away.

But anyway, I’m going to listen to this book on my trip to Taos and then after that I’ll get more books to listen to when I go back to the Gila in a week, and it will be fabulous.

I think this may be the best idea I’ve had all summer.

*this post is a contribution to the spin cycle, a weekly rant on all things blog-worthy.  check it out to see some more great spins.

Extreme Makeover: My Apartment Edition

One of the hardest things about spending a good part of 6 months out of the year away from home is that things start to get a little messy.  Okay, a lot messy.  It’s just that in the process of going out and camping (in between doing hard physical labor, mind you) for most of the week, coming home and dumping stuff wherever it falls before proceeding to pass out for a large portion of the weekend seems like a really good option at the time.  Well, it is, until you realize a mound of crap ranging from clothes to camping gear to dirty dishes is piled up in your home with no visible way of escaping.  This can be very overwhelming.  Add in a critical boyfriend (I’m not criticizing you, I’m just giving advice, he says) and you come to the realization that something must be done.

So I’m doing something about it.  In small doses.  And to motivate myself I’m taking before and after pictures to remind me of how things used to look and that I never want them to look that way again.  This week, I tackled the kitchen, and I think it turned out pretty well.  Here’s a look at how things went.

I have this little window-type thing in between my kitchen and living room.  The first time I saw this setup in a friend’s house, I decided I must have one, and was totally stoked when my apartment of choice came with it.  It’s super chic, and I love it.  Problem is, it doesn’t look so cool when you pile a bunch of random stuff on it.

Take, for example, Exhibit A:

But with a little time and effort, it can look fabulous once more.

Next I went to work on the counters.  This picture is not really all that bad but what you don’t see is all the sticky scum actually stuck on to the counter.  It was pretty darn gross.

I cleaned that up, as well as the sink.  With bleach.  (Die little bacteria, die!)

But the two things that Matt complains the most about are the floor and the stove.  Here’s why.

But he’s happy now because they currently look like this.

And there ya have it.  A nice, clean kitchen.  The only thing I didn’t take on was the refrigerator, but Matt helped me out with that a couple weeks ago, so it shouldn’t be too bad.

I still have to prepare some food for camp this week.  It will be a good experiment to see if I can keep things clean even when I’m using the kitchen to make food.

Until next time, have a happy week!

Life in the Fast Lane

Actually, now that I’ve been driving back and forth to Nowhereville, New Mexico (not an actual city) all summer I’ve been spending a lot more time in the fast lane than I’ve ever imagined possible for myself.  (These people in their sedan on their family vacation are going waaay too slow!  I’ll just pass them!  Never really thought I’d do that.)

Anyway, two weeks ago was my last week at the hotel in Reserve, and now we are camping.  I thought it would be hard to go without a shower all week but honestly by the time I got back from work I didn’t really care.  All I wanted to do was drink a beer, eat, sit by the fire for a little while, and go to bed.  So that is what I did.  The weather was really good.  I don’t remember it ever being that warm while I was camping before, even in Nevada and California.  It only rained a little bit.  Once for about ten minutes while we were working, and then the afternoon we were packing up to leave.  Not exactly the most fun time, taking down a tent in the rain, but I guess it can’t be all perfect.

The other thing that wasn’t so perfect was getting stuck behind a locked gate right when we were trying to go back to camp for the evening on Wednesday.  We had to drive allll the way back the other way to get out.  It took about an hour and a half.  Stupid private property.

But other than that it was pretty good.  I got everything done that I wanted to this week.  And also, it was the last week for the student employees (HALLELUJAH!   …I mean, umm, that’s so sad…)  Ok, I’m happy.  They were really starting to get on my last nerve, and I think it will be a lot better now with just the three of us left.

And now, I will leave you with this picture of what I like to do in the field when I run out of stuff to work on.

That was taken last week.  This week, while I was digging, I made up a song for him.

Dirty the soil man

is a very messy soul

with two gravel eyes and a gravel nose

he was dug up from a hole!

Yes, I’m a dork.  Later.

Tools, Tunes and Total Awesomeness

Last Wednesday Matt and I went to see a Tool Concert at the Santa Ana Star Casino in Bernalillo, NM.  It was really cool.  And many shenanigans occurred along the way.

I got off work early and we decided to take a short nap before heading to the concert, which was about half an hour drive away.  I’m a pretty light sleeper so I got up when the alarm went off and started getting ready but Matt is a pain in the butt to wake up (case in point: me spending Easter Sunday with his family while he slept in the other room).  Finally, when I was finished getting ready, I tried again.  This time, all I needed to do was tell him it was 7 pm and he was up in about 2 seconds.  Should have thought of that sooner.  Doors opened at 7:30 and we hadn’t eaten anything yet so we decided to grab something on the way.  The only 2 places on the way were Burger King and McDonald’s.  Since I have sworn off Burger King for life, we took the lesser of the two evils and went to McDonald’s.  They forgot to give me my fries (but still charged me for them) and gave us only one packet of barbecue sauce between the two of us.  Oh, and no napkins either.  I am never going back to that McDonald’s again.

We made it to the concert just in time and the line to get in was really short.  It would have taken me a lot shorter to get through the girl security line but some dumbass could not for the life of him figure out where the line to buy tickets was and he decided to ask the security lady, who had to show him about 3 times because he didn’t get it.  Finally he just gave up and left.  Thank goodness.  I was up next, so I walked up to the lady (who decided it was necessary to brush her hand across my, uh…cooter)  and then two guys started fighting so she stopped right in the middle of what she was doing and called security on her radio.  All because of some stupid boys fighting in the damn parking lot.  Man, boys are dumb.

I got in and the place was PACKED.  I could barely walk anywhere there were so many people, wandering around, buying $7 Bud Light (how silly).  We made a beeline for the stadium and found our seats, which were great.  (This is good because when we were buying our tickets the computer kept giving us crappy seats and we had to try for better ones a whole bunch of times.  Matt was getting really cranky)

The concert was really great.  They played a great mix of songs ranging from old to newer stuff.  In the past, people have said that Tool concerts are really boring because the band just stands there playing their instruments.  This is true.  They do just stand there and play their instruments, but that’s what they’re all about.  They don’t like to be showy and bounce around the stage like idiots.  They want their audience to experience their music, not them.  Plus there’s so much else going on that it doesn’t really matter what’s happening on stage.  They put up a display of video and artwork from their albums and music videos on huge monitor screens, and there was also a laser light show to go along with the pulse of the music and beat of the drum.  It was truly an audio-visual experience.

The one thing I thought was really cool was Maynard (lead singer and musical genius extraordinaire) took back stage to his guitar and bass player and stood in the back with the drummer.  He did do some funny little dances while he was back there but not too much.  Oh and at one point he left the stage and came back stripped down to his skivvies.  Definitely a little weird, but oh well, his music’s good.

Another thing that’s fun about concerts is people watching.  Since we were up in the bowl of the stadium, we could see what was going on down on the floor.  The mosh pit was hilarious.  It was just a circle of people randomly running around and skipping through it.  And someone else threw a whole bunch of sheets of paper into the air like confetti.

I wish I had pictures of all of this.  I didn’t bring my camera because I didn’t think it would be allowed in, but I saw a girl in front of me taking pictures and I was bummed.

But then I thought of the person standing next to me, smiling, having a good time, and so excited to be there with me.  And I thought, this person, holding my hand and giving me kisses, he really cares about me a lot.  And that made me happier than any concert ever could.

Getting Back to Basics

This week, I drew pictures at work.

Ok, I drew map lines on aerial photos.  It was actually a really good thing to do, though.  Sure I got frustrated and annoyed, and yeah, maybe I got distracted and stared out the window for a while, but it allowed me to take a step back, look at the bigger picture.

I spent some time doing the same with respect to my relationship this week as well.  Last week at this time, I was really really mad at Matt.  He was being a jerk, I was being a pissed off jerk, and when he left for work that evening we were still angry with each other.  After he left, I went to walk it off, and the peace and quiet did manage to calm me down a little bit.  When I got back I had 3 text messages on my phone, abounding with apologies and promises to do better.  Later he told me that he was worried when I didn’t respond right away, but he felt better when I explained that I was on a walk and didn’t take my phone with me.  Now, a week later, I’m not even sure I remember exactly what I was mad at him for in the first place.

It was really great to be able to spend more time with him this week, something I don’t normally get to do during field season.  But this week was special.  I made reservations to go to dinner on Tuesday at a nice Italian restaurant that I had bought some half price gift certificates for a while back (this was before Matt bought the ones to the French restaurant; Also, I was going to bring my camera but he wouldn’t let me).  That evening the monsoons kicked into high gear and it poured and poured.  Albuquerque has a fairly decent drainage system but the way the roads are set up is not very conducive to massive downpours, so it took Matt an hour just to get to my house.  When he got there, he was all wet, but I was happy because he was dressed nicely in a dark blue polo shirt and khaki pants.  I gave him a hug and his shirt was soft.  Wet, but soft.  I liked it.

He came in all excited because water was rushing down the arroyos (ABQ’s drainage system, as mentioned above) and he wanted to show me.  So we went outside (it had mostly stopped raining by this point; our monsoons are intense but short) and looked down at the water in the arroyos.  It was pretty full of sediment, and reminded me of the chocolate river in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  We stood there and watched the water moving for a while.  The air smelled fresh and clean.

We went to dinner after that and it was a-maz-ing.  We both got the ribeye steak, thinking it would be just a little amount.  No.  It was a huge piece of meat, cooked perfectly, and oh so delicious.  It came with risotto and some of the yummiest asparagus I’ve ever had.  After dinner, we stood outside in the cool rain (it started again) and listened to the jazz band playing in the bar.  It was a really great night.

We got to spend Wednesday together too, to go to the Tool concert, which was also loads of fun, but I’ll save that part for later.