Ohh, you guys, I absolutely loooove Cracker Barrel.  I love the food.  I love the cute little store.  I love that no matter where you are they always look exactly the same.  My family and I used to go there all the time when they drove me back and forth from college for holidays and summers.  So imagine my happiness when I discovered that there was a Cracker Barrel right here in Albuquerque!  Sadly, Matt did not feel the same way.  He looked at the website and decided that the pictures did not look very good so he didn’t want to go there.  I guess the portions looked small to him or something (his reasoning: why pay $8 for one plate of food when you can go to a buffet and pay the same amount for as much as you want).  Whatever.  So we never went there.  Until tonight.

Today was Matt’s younger sister’s 22nd birthday, and, since she’s in town for Thanksgiving, she decided she wanted to go to Cracker Barrel for her birthday dinner with her family.   Around 5 pm, Matt called me and said “We’re going to your favorite place for Sharon’s birthday dinner if you want to come.”

“What’s my favorite place?” I say.   The answer: Cracker Barrel.  YAY!

After Matt got out of class, he came over and picked me up and we headed over to the restaurant to meet up with the rest of his family.  It took everyone a really long time to figure out what we wanted so the waiter had to come back like 3 times.  And when he finally took our order, he seemed to get totally overwhelmed with all the stuff we were asking for.  Hey, it’s not our fault your dinners come with 3 sides each plus biscuits/cornbread (which is totally awesome, by the way).  And there were only 5 of us so I don’t see how it could be that hard.  But oh well.

I ordered raspberry iced tea and Matt kept drinking it so when the waiter came to see if we needed refills, I ordered him one of his own.  He ended up really enjoying the food so perhaps his opinion of The Cracker Barrel has changed.  I didn’t get to talk to him much afterward, though, because he had to go to work straight from there.  Sad

But before he left, I was able to teach him the Cracker Barrel game.  My parents actually own one of these games and I think my brother has it figured out.  Unfortunately, Matt and I do not.  I think we were able to get down to three pegs on our last try.

darn you, cracker barrel game!

(Image from here.  Where a computer program used to solve the game is dicussed. Yeah, a computer program.)

Sharon also opened her presents during dinner.  She got a TomTom, which she was very excited about, a few things from her German host family, and a German textbook.  She really likes Germany and all things German and has been over there a bunch of times.

Since Matt had to go to work, I got a ride home with his family.  Sharon programmed the TomTom in German and it told us where to go, although I had no idea what it said.  If it was in Spanish, or maybe even French, I might have understood it better.  My own personal TomTom is British.  His name is Timothy and he tells me to take the motorway.  This always amuses me.  He is fabulous.  Especially since I am terribly terribly directionally challenged.

So I had a good night.  And now just two more days of work and then THANKSGIVING!

During the past couple weeks, I’ve gotten some pretty neat stuff.

Well, I like it, anyway.

If we are safe for a year at work, we get a “safety award,” and apparently we were safe this year so I got this.

It’s a safety tool (fitting, since it’s a safety award).  It has pliers, and a nail file, and a bottle opener, and a knife, and a thing with a sander on it, and a screwdriver and some other weirdo looking stuff that I’m not sure what it’s for.  But I am sure that it will all be very important in my everyday work.  Especially the bottle opener.  It’s spiffy.

On the same day, another employee stopped by and handed out little travel kits, with pens and a stapler and hole punch, and little clippy things, and staples and a staple remover, and scissors.  I’m not really sure why we got it, but it amuses me.

I just thought I’d inform you of some of what your tax dollars are paying for these days, in case you were wondering.   But I’m not one to complain about free stuff, so, oh well.

The best thing I got though was from Matt.

Since he works and I go to school on weekends we try to come up with a schedule beforehand of when we’re going to see each other.  Sometimes I go over to his house after school and sometimes he comes over to my place a little later so that he can get a little more sleep and I can get some stuff done at home.  We usually figure out what we’re going to do after he gets out of work on Saturday morning.  This past Saturday, he sent me a text message saying he’d come over and that he had a surprise for me.

That evening, he arrived with these.

I love them!  They are beautiful and very fall-ish.  He even helped me cut off the ends and arrange them in my vase, causing him to miss buying two model airplanes that he wanted on ebay.  And although I could tell he was disappointed, he didn’t get all upset about it.  I gave him a hug and told him I was sorry he missed out on the auctions, and then we went out to dinner.  I remember a little over a year ago I was wishing for a boy to give me flowers.  Now that I have one, I couldn’t be happier.

Winter has arrived in New Mexico and it is cold and sad outside.  This most likely means another outdoor adventure will not be happening anytime soon.  Boo.

However!  Before Albuquerque went to total yucksville, I was able to take one last nice-day walk during my lunchtime at work.  I love my walks.  They make me feel like I am still part of the real world and not living in a closed box of oppression (aka my cubicle).

My absolute favorite place to go for lunch during the work week is a little coffee shop on Central (That’s Route 66 to you non-Albuquerqueans) called The Daily Grind.  Their lunch menu is somewhat limited, basically just sandwiches, soup and salad, but they change up their soup and sandwich specials every day so there’s always the opportunity to get something new.  The food is reasonably priced and the portions are large enough to eat half and save the rest for the next day (bonus!) This past week I got their sandwich special, which was chicken salad.  It also came with a side salad and fresh fruit.

Another nice thing about The Daily Grind is when the weather is nice I can sit outside and read The Alibi (which is available there, and other places, for free) while I’m waiting for my food.  Sadly, I don’t get to read much because the service is really quick (but that’s ok!)  Plus, their back patio is really pretty.

Really, the only thing I don’t like about them is that they don’t accept credit cards, so if I forget to go to the ATM, I’m stuck going to The Grove (overcrowded, overpriced, stale old fruit) or The Standard Diner (overpriced, slow as heck service).

After lunch I like to go out the back way and take a walk through the neighborhood.

It’s a really nice neighborhood.  A little older and not quite as New Mexico/Southwestern-ish as the rest of Albuquerque.  There are lots of deciduous trees, which remind me of Michigan.

I absolutely adore this house.  It’s painted my two favorite colors and I just think it’s so cute!

And though I’ll miss it now that it’s cold out, a nice walk around town on a pretty day full of fall leaves was just what I needed before winter.

For the past 6 months, I was here.

Now, I’m here.

Just a little bit different.

My office is next to a train station.  Sometimes I feel like hopping the two barbed wire fences separating me and the train (which someone actually did once) and riding off into the distance.

I’m ready for my next adventure.

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.

Halloween?

This week in the Gila, it snowed.  Yes, snowed.  Not a lot.  Only about 2 inches at the most.  But still.  It’s only October, people!  It doesn’t even snow this early in Michigan, usually.  And I still had field work to do!  Snow is not exactly conducive to identifying forbs (aka flowering plants) and determining canopy cover percent.  Digging the hole wasn’t too bad, once we got down to the soil part.  But the main problem?  It was coooold.  Very very cold.  Not just in the morning, either, but all day long.  A couple times the sun would make an appearance for about 2 seconds, and just when we were starting to get excited, it went away again.  Boo sun!  And it was very windy also.

This morning we had to clip a site.  Clipping a site basically means going out to where you dug your hole and throwing a metal hoop around.  All the plants that fall within the hoop are cut with garden clippers and put in a carrying container (in our case a Wal-Mart plastic shopping bag).  The cut up plants are later weighed to calculate biomass content, or some such thing (I’m not really sure how this is done or what it involves, since I have never been a part of this process).  In order to get an accurate(?) assessment we have to do this ten times.  It is oodles of fun.  It’s even more fun when there’s snow on the ground.  Don’t believe me?  You should try it sometime.

While we were clipping, Nori said, “What a ridiculous way to end the field season.”

And with that, I am done with field work.

Don't be sad, Gila. I'll be back next year.

This past week at work was our annual field review.  Last year I went but I didn’t have to present anything for it so I spent the whole time wandering around being not much use to anyone.  But this year I presented my first site for review.  What happens is our main boss comes out and looks at the sites we have chosen to see if we did a good job or not.  This can be stressful!  I didn’t have to show anything until the last day so I was somewhat prepared for what to do by my boss and Nori, who went first.  They both did a really good job and I got some experience looking around at and describing sites I had never been to before.  And I saw some pretty neat stuff.

Plains of St Augustine

BEAUTIFUL eluviated horizons

At that point it hadn’t really sunk in yet that I would be the one doing the presenting very soon. By Thursday morning, I was shaking in my boots in anticipation for the events that were to come later that day, when I would be the one in the spotlight.

We started off the morning at Quemado Lake, where we met some people who usually work in an office all day.  It was the week of their leadership team meeting and they decided to go camping in the cold weather. (Believe it or not,  New Mexico does get cold this time of year)  Silly people.  Even we stayed at a hotel.  Anyway, we went up there because our bosses had to give a presentation telling them about what we do all day, because they have no idea.  Honestly, I have no idea what they do all day either, but oh well.

Then it was time to show my site.  I was nervous but I managed to explain things and answer questions with confidence (or at least what I thought was confidence).  On the site itself I had described some things that were not quite right but I just tried to explain my reasoning the best I could and admit when I knew I had done something wrong and correct my documentation where appropriate.

We were able to have some fun times as well.  It was a really great group of people, including all the usual suspects (the field soil scientists), the forest soil scientist and hydrologist (who are both awesome), the contract botanist from Arizona, and a couple student employees who came and went as time allowed.  I sat on the porch of the hotel drinking tequila and beer with my bosses and heard stories about serial killers, and pigs feet, and run-ins with the law, plus much more.  It’s great to hear from these people who have been in the business for so long because they have so much knowledge and experiences to share.

When we arrived back at the office on Friday afternoon and were taking out luggage to load back into our own vehicles, my boss told me I did a good job.  He said,  “I’ve seen some improvement, just keep trying to get better.”  I told him I was really trying and he said “I can tell.”  It was something I really needed to hear.

We also did some trundling.  This is amusing.  You should try it if you ever find yourself on a steep slope with many large boulders.  Exciting times in the woods of New Mexico.

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.

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.

]]> http://maureenlynn.wordpress.com/2009/10/12/weekending-in-abq/feed/ 3 maureenlynn mccalls Scarpas05 http://maureenlynn.wordpress.com/2009/10/09/crafty-mccrafterson/ http://maureenlynn.wordpress.com/2009/10/09/crafty-mccrafterson/#comments Fri, 09 Oct 2009 13:04:46 +0000 maureenlynn http://maureenlynn.wordpress.com/?p=556 ]]>

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!