Day of Fun

DS is leaving me in the morning for California.  He has a week long conference, and I wasn't able to tag along this time.  Which is really too bad, because it would have been lovely to spend a week with my SB folks.

We decided to make the most of our Saturday together.  For us, this meant we spent the day doing the following:

• Playing video games (Skyrim for me, Dark Souls and Soul Caliber V for DS)
• Rock climbing
• Playing Dominion, of which I lost, both times (freaking SEA HAG!  ugh!)
• Catching up on House
• Eating yummy homemade foods (pizza for me, wings for DS)

Tomato, green olive, and turkey sausage pizza.  Also, Dominion.

Now that DS is sleeping, I'm watching Star Trek and working on a cross stitch project.  I just saw the episode Space Seed, which originally aired Feb 16, 1967.  Apparently in the Star Trek universe, I lived through the last world war for our planet, also known as the Eugenics Wars of the 1990's.  It seems we were creating super humans, and this is where Khan was created.  He led a group of the super humans that, I'm guessing, stole a star ship.  But star flight before 2018 was so slow that everyone on board had to be put to sleep until they arrived at their destination.  And so, due to problems of some kind, the Enterprise came upon this ship 200 years later (so no later than 2200, since the ship left in the 1990's), revived the crew, and met Khan.  I thought he looked familiar, and found out it was for good reason.  He also plays Khan in the second Star Trek movie from 1982, The Wrath of Khan.  Since I recognize this dude, I suspect this was one that got played around my house at some point as a child.

So there you go.  I'm sure that was exciting for you.  A history lesson!

To-Do Lists

I've been keeping a to-do list on the marker board on my fridge.  It's mostly just a list of things I need to do around the house that I don't want to forget about, and the fridge is something I see many times a day.  Right now it says the following:

• Litterboxes
• Vacuum
• Scarf
• Thanksgiving Banner
• Iron
• Dulcimer Should Strap
• Test Clear Plastic Ornament Idea
• Blog
• Upload Photos
• Make Christmas gift list
• Clean Kitchen
• Totemsoul Updates

I'd cross off blog right now, but I actually put that on there to remind me to chronicle our going ons of the past couple weeks, and that's still not done...  As you can see, it's just a bunch of chores and craft things.  That last one is a website I've been working on for some friends lately.

Generally, I'm the only one that uses the marker board.  Sometimes I leave notes for DS on there so he'll see them before work.  However, today when I woke up, I found DS had made himself his own little to-do list:

R:

• Put away clothes
• Work out
• Wish list
• Drink 17 beers

I cracked up.  I doubt he'll make it to 17, especially since we don't even have that many in the house.  But I can tell you he deserves as many as he wants, because he's had a crazy month.  Lots of deadlines and classes and travel and conferences with talks.  Here's to the end of October!

A Conversation with DS

me: what's with all these cops out tonight?

  ds: not sure.. maybe it's a response to all these flash mobs that have been roaming the streets?

  me: what?!? we had flash mobs and i missed it???

  ds: yeah, it's kind of nuts

  me: man, that's awesome. i'd love to see that!  why would the cops care about that? were they disrupting traffic or something?

 ds: what? no man, it's scary. they're like twenty 16 year old running around and knifing people

  me: oh. yeah, i don't think you know what a flash mob is

  me: a flash mob is where people show up like it's random and then do a dance routine

 ds: oh.  what kind of mob is this?

  me: that'd just be a regular mob.

I'm not posting this to make fun of DS, though I did laugh a lot at the time.  Mostly, I think it really illustrates how different our brains are.  And it's funny.

Craft Room Makeover

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

Photos of my newly arranged craft room. I took the month of January off from crafting, as I was a bit burned out after the mad dash to Christmas. I just put the finishing touches on the room yesterday, just in time to resume crafting for February. I have a couple of projects for specific people that I need to get done, and then the shop should start seeing new items for sale.

Side note: DS has a fourth interview at U Penn!

Au Revoir

This morning I took my husband to the airport. He's on his way to France. Again. For free.

Jerk.

This time it's only a week though, so I'll have him back again next Friday night. Also, this trip makes me hopeful for his career. Strangely enough, his advisor back in Madison invited him to go, all expenses paid. Meaning he chose DS over other, current, students. Exciting for what that means about his talent, but kind of sad for the options for the current round of people.

At any rate, this is both good and bad for me personally. The good news is that with me being so swamped at work (how long has it been since I made a blog post??), severely behind on deadlined crafting projects, and heavily addicted to the game Dragon Age: Origins, some time alone will probably be helpful in getting back on track. The bad news is that without DS, my sleep schedule always becomes highly erratic, and having him to talk to has been keeping me sane. I mean really, if you're just going to be a complete ass on the phone, you should probably do your shopping on the website instead. I'm just saying.

I'm finding it hard to believe that it's mid December. Even with the tree up, lights outside, Christmas cookies in the house, all of that and it feels like any other time of the year. Is it because I'm not going home for Christmas (AGAIN?)? That it's officially "cold" here at 50 degrees and a little rain? That there are like 30 new blooming plants outside?

Whatever it is, I find myself paying more attention to the Facebook statuses of my Wisconsin friends (thank you Facebook friend lists, for being amazing development), scouring them for snow related information. Also, I find myself getting excited about my trip to Kentucky planned for January.

Now, if you'll excuse me, me and the cats need to snuggle this morning. They need reassurance that just because their daddy is gone, doesn't mean they're abandoned.

==================================

Back-posting may follow to fill that... very long gap of silence. Because occasionally I did some stuff these past 2 months that I might want to remember later.

Fall and Food

If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you've probably heard me complaining about the warm weather we're having in Santa Barbara. Not that it's been unbearably hot. But there is something distinctly wrong with picking pumpkins in shorts. This is not an activity you're supposed to do in 86 degree weather. We did, however, and we still managed to enjoy ourselves.

We went to Lane Farms, which is in town and about 3 or 4 blocks from our apartment. They had a nicely sized corn maze which was actually well designed. At least, DS and I were lost in it for quite a while. We never did find the exit, but finally managed to find the entrance again. This is partly to be blamed on us assuming the exit should be on the opposite edge, and partly on DS deciding he was too hungry to enjoy further attempts.

There were no tractor rides out to the pumpkin patch; in fact, there wasn't anywhere to go. It's a small place. The pumpkins were all nice looking though, and arranged in rows around actual pumpkin plants that were still growing. The best part? They had pumpkin butter and apple butter for sale! We love that stuff SO MUCH.

Last night DS experimented with a marinade for chicken that involved olive oil and orange juice and zest. It was so juicy and delicious! I was in charge of the salad. We've discovered that we really like spinach, and it's relatively cheap here, so all salad are spinach based at our place. Most of my salads consist of spinach, pine nuts, and then whatever fruit we have lying around. Last night this was dried cranberries, the left over orange slices not used for the chicken, and I added some tomato slices to mine. The tomato was from my downstairs neighbors' backyard, and had been on the window sill for a while. It was time to eat it. I wasn't sure how it would go with the cranberries and oranges, but I was happy to discover that oranges and tomatoes actually taste good together! The whole thing was topped with raspberry vinaigrette. And also there was Sam Adams Oktoberfest beer, in my new "Paper Bag Parade" pint glasses.

Today for lunch, we had cored apple slices, banana slices and almonds with peanut butter, apple butter and pumpkin butter as dipping options. Who knew that bananas and pumpkin butter go great together? Also, so do almonds and apple butter!

All in all, things here are good. I finally got my first paycheck, so we were able to stock the fridge again with things that are actually yummy, instead of a bunch of cheap stuff that would keep our bodies working. We're still working to make ends meet, but at least we can do so on bellies full of scrumptious food! Also, I'm enjoying discovering random foods that go well together. Food is becoming a sort of art form for me. Like an experiment in taste. As long as I don't have to use the stove...

*YAWN*

Holy moly I'm tired. I had to get up early, with an alarm clock, like a normal person today. And also last Friday. You see, I have a job again. Nothing much mind you, easy stuff that pays what feels like minimum wage for Santa Barbara. But minimum wage is at least a paycheck, which is much better than the nothing I've been getting. The first two weeks is just training, so only 4 hours a day. This is both good and bad; good because it lets me transition back into a working person again (outside the home at least), and bad because we could really use a full-time paycheck. I think in this case the good outweighs the bad though, so I'm cool with it.

You may be aware that today is DS's birthday, and that he is officially 30. Last week was also my friend Sam's birthday. To celebrate, we're having a joint party here at our apartment tomorrow. Thus, I spent the weekend cleaning (with DS's help), seriously cleaning the craft room/office (SERIOUSLY; as in filed 6 months worth of floating papers and found all the carpet and desk space!), and then doing other things. For example, I made a super sweet birthday banner out of felt and fabric (photos and a tutorial to follow when I'm not exhausted), and because I love him, a LOT of peanut butter balls for DS. Also lots of earrings for Sam for her birthday (with major design help from Juliana!). Those last three things didn't get finished over the weekend though, so I finished them tonight. Oh crap, scratch that. I have more PB balls to dip in chocolate. *sigh* Hey, I get off at 12:30 tomorrow!

Well, as long as I get to sleep soon (it's 10:09 right now), I should be well rested for the festivities tomorrow. In the mean time, here are some photos I've been meaning to share for a long time.

Felix and Winston, crow hunting. Not that they'd know what to do with one. I'm positive Winston would run away in terror if one actually came to the window instead of taunting him from the power lines.

A rare moment of shared love. They did this a lot as kittens, but not so much anymore.

Also, it's pretty rare that I can get decent photos of Felix. She's not very photogenic.

I love how he has his leg sprawled over her. He takes up so much space!

Look at them holding hands!

She really is a pretty cat. I'm happy to finally have some pictures to show that.

Did I ever show you these? They're my Settlers of Catan cookies, made the first night that the group of six of us that regularly play games together got to play this particular game. We had needed the 6 player expansion, and the game stores were sold out for a long time.

This is homemade royal icing, dyed with food coloring, and piped with different tips onto that break and bake sugar cookie dough (I could only make so much from scratch in one night).

Here they are laid out like the game board. Blue is the ocean (ports), yellow is wheat, black is ore, green is forest, white is wool, and red is brick. That one lonely cookie with only yellow sprinkles is the desert.

The cookies were a lot of fun to make, though my icing designs got sloppier as they went, because I ended up being late. Not really a quick project. But tasty!

19 Days 'til Christmas

Dude.  I am a horrible wife....  Somehow I forgot to announce that DS gave his defense on Monday, and is now officially Dr. DS!!  (Maybe not so horrible, I did go watch it, and carry all that food he bought and no one ate up 3 flights of stairs.)

Sometime ago, maybe this summer, I bought him a shirt from Dinosaur Comics.  My only caveat was that he had to wear it under his suit during his defense.  He did :)

I present to you:

Professor Science!!

This image and Dinosaur Comics are copyright Ryan North.  

Go read it, it's totally awesome.

This is an old picture, but you get the idea.