I have a lot of pictures that I never posted. Here they are in particular order (yes, because I'm lazy).



I painted a portrait for the big empty space on the kitchen wall. I pumped up the contrast on this picture, then used a projector to draw the outlines. A week of painting later, and she's done!




Bread pudding made from chocolate sourdough.




She really puts up with a lot :-)



Julia and I hosted a cookie decorating party. I forgot to take pictures of the cookies, but here's the braciole I cooked.




The fantastic No-knead bread recipe from NY Times.







My favorite holiday cookie - Big Soft Ginger Cookies




Lots of Scrabble. I had a 4 game streak of wins! This game was my favorite played, my winning word was koala.




Finally! We got rid of that extra washer in our basement. Hurrah!!!




Delicious Ham sandwiches leftover from Thanksgiving (I haven't posted photos in a while!)




Checkerboard cookies.




Yea for waterproof mascara when you're chopping onions!




An earlier snow storm, I layered up two pairs of socks, legwarmers, long johns, and waterproof pants to visit the library on foot.




I wish our neighborhood had better sidewalks.

(a little late :-)

The presents keep coming for me this year! My parents thoughtfully let us decide what we wanted for Christmas, and just gave us the money to make it happen. Based on how frequent I take and post pictures, and the fact that my Fujifilm finepix camera was 2 megapixels, 4 years old, and slow functioning, a new digital camera seemed like the perfect thing to spoil myself. After much research and store searching, say hello to my new Canon Powershot SD600.

All were taken without a flash. Check out that dim restaurant! It was darker than it appears, I wouldn't have even tried to take a picture with my old camera. Thanks Mom and Dad!

I realize now that these images are taking way too long to upload. I'll fiddle with blogger settings to get them into more manageable sizes for posting.

My other present from my folks that I bought myself is . . . .
a little fishy! Mom got me this sweet wall aquarium at mod livin'.
She has no idea :-)

Hello! I'm not dead, I swear. Just very busy and ill.

After an awesome trip to Disney World I got a head cold that took me out for several days. I should be back soon with more pictures and notes from our journey (and Christmas) (boy, I'm far behind).

according to this article. As a budding expert on depression, I recommend a hearty dose of cat videos (at least that's how I spent my lunch hour). May I suggest:

Soothing cat


Do I laugh or cry cat


Unusual cat


Biscuit making cat


Circus cat


Clever cat


Acrobatic cat


Kind cat


Deliver cat

Feel better now?

View them here.

My thoughts:

Abigail Breslin is up for best supporting actor?? She's 7! And she didn't do anything remarkable in the film but act like a 7 year old!

The art direction category is really interesting. Diverse films.

I hope An Inconvenient Truth wins best documentary just so Gore can run his campaigns with the tag "Academy Award winner Al Gore . . ."

How did Volver get skipped for best foreign? I thought it was sure to be a standoff between it and Pan's Labyrinth?

If Dreamgirls doesn't win best song it will be truly sad (only because they hold 3 out of the 5 nominee spots).

Click? Click is up for Best Make-up???!!!! Give me a break!

A lot of variety overall, good. It's boring when the same 5-7 films fill every category. I'm pleasantly surprised The Prestige is up for a few things. Even Borat squeezes in. I'm sad to see Marie Antionette only up for Costumes.

My friends in Brooklyn have made a splash on Myspace with a music video:

We have no idea how this happened, but the "Earth Versus the World" music video has reached the top of the MySpace.com video section today, reaching almost 8000 hits as of this writing. Here's a link to the MySpace page just so you can see it in all it's glory.

Congratulations!

Sigh. My life is so suburban I could puke.

How did there ever become a show that has fart jokes for Ben and musical references for me? I'm not sure, but I'm so glad Family Guy is still on the air! Last night in the Road to Rupert episode, they gave 2 1/2 minutes (10% of the show really!) to a musical gag. They took the footage from Anchors Aweigh and put Stewie in for Jerry the mouse. Stewie and Gene Kelly dancing together! I almost fainted :-) Here's the clip in case you missed it:

And finally pictures to show you what a great holiday break it was!
** means be sure to click on the pictures for glorious enlarged details.

On the second day of the big blizzard we said "to heck with this!, " chained up the car, drugged up the cat, and skirted off to Grand Junction to jumpstart vacation.

**the small red sign say "No Parking, snow storage area, you will be towed or buried"

Dad and Amanda made two kinds of nut brittle


Mom and I painted the study


Andy did his mac thing


This brittle was devine


Christmas eve carols


and cat picture outtakes! I love that only me and Amanda are looking in the same direction out of all six of us.


We kids got dad a rc airplane. After a couple days the snow melted enough to give it a whirl


And dad loved Andy's wii almost as much as Andy. He got his own recently - and so did we! I mean wii!

Dad whaled Andy on both tennis and boxing





Addison is getting cuter everyday! Read about Kristin's family on her site.

All three Waterhouse kids teethed on this Sesame Street finger puppet.

There was a bonfire party at the Graves house. Ben was in heaven with their dogs


Later in the trip we were able to give the plane a proper run. I think it took two trips to the hobby shop to replace parts, but we had a great time flying.





**Love mom's face in this shot




**zoom in to see Dad watch his plane take a nose dive! This was a hilarious lucky shot.


Mom and dad have a fantastic aquarium in their office. These shrimp are fun to watch


At the end we had a beautiful drive back over the mountains.

We left later than planned because of more snow on the front range. I was spoiled with presents, got to see a lot of friends and family, and came back thoroughly relaxed. Merry Christmas.

I've let my blogging duties slide, and now I pay the consequences: you sneak in with pictures from a Merchant Ivory film production in China. Well I ain't got no China. But I have lots of pictures and crafts and stuff going on that's been piling up. Now that I've got a fire under me, expect a few more posts this weekend.

The pictures really say it all, so there won't be too much commentary. More pictures from family members posted here.


We stayed in the Animal Kingdom Lodge.


It had Japanese TV with Sumo every night. This is a puppet show of a blood vessel (we think).


These animals are right outside our room balcony.


The following safari pics are from the Animal Kingdom park.





Onto Epcot!










And the Magic Kingdom!


I maxed out the score on Buzz Lightyear. Andy and Ben were uber jealous, then accused me of cheating.



Who's that guy in the skirt? Oh right, my uncle :-)


Hey look! A line!


Jungle Cruise



And now MGM Studios.



I love this one of me and Ben.


And this one is to be sure you all check out my sweet sweet fanny pack




Dinner in the Sci-Fi cafe, where you eat in cars and watch a reel of old movie promos and ads. Very fun!




Honey I shrunk the kids playground set


Back to Magic Kingdom on the last night.



And Downtown to kill time before our flight.




It was a Fantastic vacation. Thanks Mom and Dad!

Here's my first quilt ever.


I did a fairly terrible job. I measured the squares by eyeballing only and I ripped the fabric into pieces instead of cutting. The lady at the craft store was very disapproving when I told her I wasn't going to use a frame to tie it. She gave me an earful of advice I decided to ignore. See, I have no patience for quilting, all the painstaking measuring and ironing, moving at a snail's pace. I like to create shortcuts wherever possible. With help from mom on the telephone, this came together rather quickly.

And I don't care if it's perfectly smooth and aligned. It's warm and it's Star Wars!

(We had to leave church early because Ben felt a migraine coming. He's napping upstairs now while I post these pictures and enjoy a snack of crackers and goat cheese with mineral water and craisins. For some reason I find that funny.)

Friday I finally painted our bedroom! I haven't hung much art yet, but here's a look at it so far:



We also replaced the ugly faucets with something more appropriate for a pedestal sink.

I love being a homeowner.

I took these photos while hiking on Apex trail a few weeks ago. The snow was still very deep (the last week has been sunny in Denver, melting about half of our winter accumulation)




By the way, my fishy died a while ago. It was really cold, he lost most of his color. I switched him to this jug and rigged a heating system. For the night he warmed up and got his color back.

But the next day I left him by the window and I think he overheated from the sun and glass. I got home from work and he was floating. Bummer dude. I guess I can't be trusted to keep fish in winter, it's too cold! I'll try again when this spring, maybe with a goldfish! For now my uber cool pod is acting as a flower vase.

Not as exciting, but still very pretty.

Ben and I have a plan to eat healthy and lose weight this year. We're trying to limit our meat consumption (Word of Wisdom), only diet soda, and when we eat out (hopefully less often) we'll eat less of the portions and order lower calorie foods. Ben is also committed to cooking one meal a week so he's less dependent on me for dinners.

Here are some of the things I made in my kitchen so far this year.

BBQ boneless chicken with corn muffin and roasted brussel sprouts (my favorite new way of cooking them).


Roasted carrots and parsnips, lemony lima beans with parmesan, and buttered noodles.


Blueberry lemon muffins.


Broccoli soup. The creaminess comes from using oats - there's no cream, cheese, or milk!


Chinese chicken soup (chicken, peppers, carrots, and garlic)


Turkey meatloaf, braised butternut squash and sage, wild rice.


Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and candied ginger.


Tofu udon soup with spinach, shitake, and scallions. I HATED this. Ben liked it well enough.

Tofu tacos. I hate tofu, but this was an acceptable way of eating it. Black beans would have been better though.

My version of massaman curry with sweet potatoes in place of regular, scallions instead of onions, and lowfat coconut milk.

Ben also made some pasta and bean soups that didn't get photographed. I made old vegetarian favorites that I didn't record as well. Overall I'd say we're doing pretty well this year.

Chicken with shallots, sundried tomatoes, garlic, and spinach pasta
Chips with garbanzo bean, pepper, and corn dip and guacamole (and favorite salsa!)


Chicken, broccoflower, and shallot stirfry on white rice

Gingerbread cookies with cream cheese frosting


Tomato soup with Blarney Castle cheese sandwiches

Kale soup with chickpeas, carrots, and celery


Lentil soup with carrots, onion, and garlic with biryani spices

Homemade bread and butter pickles from Ben's boss (killer stuff!)


Spinach enchiladas (with cottage cheese, cheddar, olives, anaheim peppers, and Hatch sauce)

Hello! I'm 25 now! I had an excellent birthday, even though my family got snowed out of visiting.

That weekend we went bowling at Lucky Strike, had dinner with friends, and played with my new present:

Thank you to everyone who pitched in for my super cool gorgeous flat screen HDTV! Our games look fantastic, I don't have to squint from the back couch, and we get most network HD stations with out antenna (no cable for us!). Also, I discovered this rad channel call the tube that
plays music videos ALL the time. It's a dream come true (sniff!). On my actual birthday we played games with friends and had pizza and ice cream cake. I won boggle and scrabble :-)

In other news, I went to a new craft store with a new friend. Fancy Tiger has great fabrics, yarns (including crewel!), and vintage goodies for making hip crafts. I got some great fabrics for my wall projects and a tiny crewel kit.

I saw The Queen this weekend and loved it. One of the best made movies in a long while, definitely recommend it. Should have won Best Picture (my Oscar party was fun, by the way. Shawn won the pool).

My HOA is hilarious sometimes. They do an awesome job keeping the grounds clean, especially with the constant snowfall. One day we came home to this on our door:

Overkill?

I love the new Endless.com, run by Amazon. Great organization and search terms, great prices, great layout (no flash!) and free overnight shipping. Right now they're giving you $5 off to use overnight shipping. I got two beautiful pairs of Kenneth Coles for super cheap. They have 1 year return policy and they pay for return shipping. Who could ask for anything more?

What is Caturday?? A celebration of the hilarity of cats, sometimes with funny captions. But first, let's meet a new cat

Brian's face shows what "smitten" looks like. I went with Brian to help Cate and Trevor find a cat. Although Brian swore he was just researching, he ended up bringing home a gray tabby kitten who he named Zoe. She's pretty fantastic. She perches on shoulders, plays a lot, let's you hold her on her back, and does lots of Celine Dion paw stretches when you scratch her.

Cate picked out a cuddly long gray-haired cat who was just itching for love. They named her Mona, and she's working extra hard to earn Trevor's cold heart.


But BACK TO CATURDAY, which is really about online pictures. Do a search or go to this website to brighten up your dreary days. Here are some of my favorites.

I did a little fiddling with the template and layout. Sorry for pictures that don't load and unfinished edges. I'll try to work on it a little more.

Baked eggplant parmesan (with sauce from scratch) and steamed asparagus. Spring is just around the corner!


Beef stew with potatoes, carrots, onion, and mushrooms.

For certain reasons, work has been very light lately. In fact, I was told not to bother coming in one day last week. What do you do with a surprise (paid!) holiday?

1) Sleep in (just a little!)
2) Bake and play all the live long day
3) Document it for devoted blog readers

So here's your chance to see what I do in my time off and how all my lovely creations get made.

How to make Brownies

Start with a good recipe, such as the one in How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman. Melt your chocolate and butter together while you gather the rest of the ingrediants.


Add sugar, egg, vanilla, and salt, beating after each addition. Stir in flour until just barely combined.


Give the cat some canned food as a treat to get her out from under your feet. Add butterscotch chips and spread in a greased pan.


While the brownies bake, plant some herbs.

How to Bake Bread

Get a good recipe (again from Bittman). Combine flour, yeast, and salt in a food processor. Whir away while you add warm water.


Look in dismay at the lever you mangled by putting the toaster oven in in front of it. Sigh and remind yourself that it's still functional so there's no reason to replace it. it's just ugly and sad. Then set your dough in a warm place to rise.

Save the Goran mines of Death Mountain.

Put the buns in the oven and rock Guitar Hero.

Serve with creamy parsnip soup. Admire the gorgeous flowers your husband brought. Think about how lucky you are.

Oh my. How did it come to this? We have a dog. A puppy, actually.

Meet Jem.

Jem is a 3 month old beagle we got this morning from a breeder in Littleton. She's very sweet, quiet, and playful. And truly truly outrageous.

A quick update on life since we got a dog. The cough Jem had is just kennel cough, akin to our flu. The vet recommended not only a cough supressant and an antibiotic, but a nebulizer to give her a second medication that will penetrate the lungs. So Ben gets to treat her with our rented nebulizer every morning and night. Additionally, she had roundworm and giardia, which we're treating with a powdered medication in her food. Ay yi yi. Nothing to worry about, and it wasn't as expensive as I thought it would be. Nonetheless, it's a lot of fuss for a little puppy.

Everyone wants to know what Molly thinks of the dog. Once Molly became accustomed to the new smell in the house, we brought Jem into the basement while Molly was sitting on top of a chair. The dog sniffed out the room while Molly watched with a bemused expression. She seemed tense and her ears were pulled back, but she made no motion to run away. Even when Jem came up to the chair to sniff her, Molly just stared. A couple times since then Jem has gotten too close and Molly hissed and scratched. The dumb dog goes in for more each time, so we have to separate them at that point. But overall, it's encouraging that Molly is tolerating so much, and still acts like she owns the house.

Ben is exhausted from getting up so early and waking to Jem's whining all night. He didn't realize having a puppy is almost like having an infant! But we had a pretty solid sleep last night with Jem in the crate by our bed. And she's still oodles of fun to take on walks.

I got an oven thermometer to test my suspicion. Bingo! My oven was 90 degrees cooler than it claimed when I tried to cook biscuits last night. No wonder my baking is taking so long and cooks unevenly. Guess I get to spend my Friday morning on the phone with customer service. I hope the oven is still under warrenty.

*Update: I feel obligated to point out that this is not my cat. Sadly Molly is only this hilarious for glimpses, which I could never catch on film. This is from the fount of cat humor: icanhascheezburger.com.

New England boiled dinner

Kung Pao Chicken

Vegetable soup with buttermilk biscuits

Italian style beef rouladin asparagus and carrots

Lemon butter cookies

Like I said before, Molly and Jem have gradually gotten closer in proximity.

In the above shot, Jem could smell her, but couldn't figure out where the cat was. Molly's shiny yellow eye kept sharp vigilance.


Again, Jem is on her scent, with Molly's shiny eye on the lookout.


A brief encounter! Three times Jem got slightly closer in the meeting, and three times Molly hissed and scratched. Jem has not be deterred.


Late at night when both were sleepy, Ben brought them together to see what would happen. Not much of a surprise - Jem's squirming and Molly's recoiling from a scratch in this photo.

Jem is a total wimp about rain and snow. She shivers and digs in her heels when we try to walk her. This has been difficult, because lately the spring weather has turned to this:




So I thought I'd whip up a little doggie jacket. I did a quick and dirty job, and it didn't really work.



Then at Target they had some dog jackets on clearance. $3!! I gotta try it at least.


Glamour and Glitter, Fashion and FAME! Je-em is truly outrag- er. that's enough.
But seriously, I love her Joan Rivers impression on the left. And she's transfixed by her beauty in the photo on the right.


With Jem getting all the attention lately, I picked up a little gift for Molly.

It was an immediate hit. She's so easy to please. Catnip, cardboard, what else do you need?

Here are three things I worry about, even though they haven't caused a problem yet:

For the past two years - Yellowstone Super Volcano

For the past year - Bedbugs

For the past 6 months - Honeybee Supply

By request!








Lazy dogs :-)

This is how you put a grumpy wife in a smiley mood.
I love you, Ben.

Some days I feel like this. Today is one of them.


http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-1645625408953222118&hl=en

Ben took Jem for two hikes on Saturday. Previously one hike pooped out the puppy. Ben declared that Jem must have leveled up. Great.
This is what 2 out of 3 floors' worth of vacuuming looks like when you have two pets. Yikes.

We took Jem to the Lakeside dog park Sunday morning. The lake was shimmering blue, begging us to teach her how to swim.

She refused a second go at it.
LoveSac battle!!! Whose scent can linger longest?

I'm going to have to call Molly the winner for her unworldly laser eyes. They put Jem's to little green twinkle to shame.

Yea! More friends have started blogs! Please check out Miranda's website. She recently wrote up an excellent description of Casa Bonita, where we took her and Nate last weekend. Hopefully for the last time. I say that everytime. People! Stop moving to Denver and telling Ben you want to visit this cultural landmark! Seriously, you don't!

http://nateandmiranda.blogspot.com/

The Arvada center is doing their spring student recital this week. The tech rehearsal is tonight, dress is tomorrow, then the show Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Last year I helped choreograph and rehearse the senior student dancers. Christina kept saying she wanted to get me on stage, and this year she will. I'm playing the Paris Opera Ballet Mistress, who comes to the orphanage to audition the children for my ballet company. I'm in the first and last scenes of the ballet, and I have a duet with another older dancer who plays the nun running the orphanage. I haven't been on stage in 8 years. I hope everything goes smoothly. I have a fantastic costume loaned from the Arvada Theater company's collection, all made from vintage patterns with ruffles and bustles. I've been trying to create an equally elegent and poofy hairstyle.

Additionally, I sewed 7 costumes for the little ones. They were double lined bodices with a two layer gathered skirt and lace accents. It's been a headache getting these done, mostly because the pieces were cut in assembly line fashion by other volunteers, and almost every piece had to be recut by me to fit the pattern. Some just didn't fit together, and some were cut from entirely the wrong pattern piece.


But I just have two more ribbons waistbands to finish, then check for stray threads and I'm done! I'll post pictures after the show.

In two weeks I'm going back to school. I decided I'm going to apply for nursing schools in the fall, so I have summer and fall semester to complete prerequisites at the community college. I'm super excited to be back in class and be challenged. My job has gotten pretty easy and light over the past year, and I'm in dire need of a big change. (you know, besides the whole buying a first home and getting a dog ;-)

Speaking of the first home, we're having new windows installed next week. Geez, they're expensive. There goes our 5 year anniversary vacation money. But our windows are such trash it's really a necessity: no screens, no locks, no heat/cooling effect, ugly, and difficult to open or close. We made it through the winter but there's no way we can last the summer without better windows.

And speaking of the dog, she's growing up so fast! I'm still having a hard time realizing she's going to be around for a long time, that she's part of the family. She still feels like a novelty to me. I enjoy that having a dog gives me and Ben more reasons to be outside, walking and talking, being social at parks and hiking, etc. But if it was just my choice, we would only have a cat. Although Jem is maturing and calming down, she's SO much maintenance. I hate the messes on the floor and the toys and socks she chews and leaves all over the house, the nasty smell of dog food, the expensive vet visits, the need to put trash cans on top of counters, the howling when we leave her, and on and on. More than anything, it reminds me that I'm not ready to give up my independence and start a family. I mean, I'm sure when you're holding your own infant, those selfish feelings go away and you're willing to change your life for this person, but for now, I like my freedom and clean home and not having to keep constant vigilance for a little creature (when Ben is home to watch Jem, at least). It reinforces my decision to go back to school and I'm happy for that.

Front and back view of the finished costumes. Phew! Just in time.



Molly's way into heated cement. She meows to go out almost every day now. I bought some fresh catnip but the neighbor cats sneaked in and stripped the stalks before Molly had a chance. I'll have to regulate it's availability.


This is the aptly named Green Mountain trail, one of our favorite places to take Jem hiking. It's only about 10 minutes from our house. The picture I posted a while ago with Ben in the red shirt and Denver behind them is on the same mountain before the grass grew in. All the rain this year has made Colorado especially beautiful.


Random comment - my favorite snack these days: crisp apple slices, peanut butter, and cinnamon sugar.

Here's a message from my friends in New York. Please donate if you can help!

The Break Free Project is a musical tour hitting the road in a vehicle
fueled by waste vegetable oil on July 1st 2007.

We will bring:

• musical performances
• community service projects
• a documentary film

to each of our nine tour stops around the United States!

We want to rediscover American innovation and diversity in small towns
across the country. Our documentary film will capture us exploring
America, person by person, landscape by landscape, and idea by idea.

Your contribution will help us purchase a used diesel vehicle, so if you'd like to join the movement to popularize alternative fuels, please donate today!

For more information, please visit us at our website and look for the word Donate, enter the amount you want and thank you very much from Mavi, Kate, Julia and Jeff at the Break-Free Project!

www.thebreakfreeproject.org

Or if you're old school, make your checks out to The Break Free Project and send them to:
The Break Free Project c/o Mavi Graves
33 Bushwick Ave. #1
Brooklyn, NY 11211

The recital is over, yea! This studio has a great staff, volunteer group, and really cute, fun dancers. I often feel like an oddball there, but even so it's fun to be a part of a group. As promised, here's a tutu-full of pictures.

First, my costumes. The Mary Poppins-style dress is for the rehearsal scene, so I'm dressed athletically, for an 1880s working girl. The ruffled shirt is from the dance department closet. I sewed the black gored skirt without a pattern, with extra sections in the back to give me more leg extension space. The shoes are teacher's dancing slippers, in black instead of the typical pink, and without the usual elastic over the arch.

The formal dress is for the audition scene. As I'm sure I mentioned before, the Arvada Center theater department let me use this costume, all sewn from original patterns. The full get-up entails: tights, dress slip, corset, brassiere, bustle, underskirt, overskirt, jacket, and gloves. There are 7 support straps around my waist when all is done.

There isn't a good picture of my hair or make-up, hopefully in the video I'll post later you can see what I did with it. (these photos were taken after a run through, so I'm a bit sloppy)

Some performance shots: fairy elves, orphans, and sheep (the cutest)

Jonathan's a huge flirt, but I appreciated the fanning he gave me between my last scene and bows. That outfit is HOT!
Some of my favorite orphans I "audition." Claire on the left is hilarious, she almost cracked me up during the first night with her ad-libbing. Also, they're wearing the costumes I sewed. On the right are the butterflies, waiting for their turn.

More of Jonathan (he's omnipresent, and when I tried to take a casual photo, he made me wait until he tied his tie and put on the vest so he could pose). On the right are me and Jen, another older student, who played the nun running the orphanage. We're in the "big girl" dressing room.

Lining up for bows. I'm just showing off the cute costumes our company creates. Christina's anti-catalog costume because they're so cheaply made. The handmade costumes for their shows are all so personalized and detailed, I love them! Some of the high school girls I take class with are in the back of the 2nd and 3rd picture.

And that's it! Ben and his parents came to the Sunday matinee. They seemed to enjoy it, and I was happy to have someone in the audience. They gave me lovely flowers after the show (in addition to the two dozen roses Ben got me earlier, "just because") and then took us to dinner. It was a smooth performance run, and surprisingly I had less jitters than I used to.

I got a new fish! He's a pretty sapphire color. He seems comfortable in the warmer weather. I hope he lasts until October.

Jem noticed him right away. Look how grown up our little puppy has become!

We made major upgrades to the house this week by installing new windows! I love them so so much. The house definitely feels cooler, and the air is fresher.

Lovely! We got a great deal with PW Exteriors, about $600 less than other places were quoting me. I'm very pleased with how they turned out.

I'm not sure if I mentioned yet that we formed a movie club. Once a month we gather friends and watch a movie and eat snacks. We rotate turns picking movies, and encourage each other to pick films that most of the group hasn't seen and come from a variety of genres. So far we have watched
Sleuth (Brian)
xXx (Ben)
Igby Goes Down (Trevor)

It's my turn next month and I already have my pick. This week we also had a field trip, so to speak. The Esquire was showing The Creature from the Black Lagoon in 3-D at midnight Friday.

Blue and red 3D movies never work that great for me, but it was fun anyway. I haven't seen an old fashioned monster movie with Brian in a long time. Everyone but too-drunk Neil enjoyed it.

A few weeks ago we had a game day. Literally, a whole day. We met at noon and didn't stop until 10 pm. My friends and I have an extraordinary capacity to play games. It helped that we had barbecue too. The Walkers let us have the affair at their house, with the nice big back yard. Attending were Nate, Miranda, Brian, Trevor, Neil, April, Reed, Ben, and Me. And Jem and Izzy. We played Carcasson, Puerto Rico, Reel Clues, Killer Bunnies, Rummikub, Cribbage, Keythedral, Gheos (sort of), Thryme, and on a little field trip tennis and bocce.

This was the first week of classes. Thus, we are now 1/8 done with the semester, being only 8 weeks long. This is going to be an intense two months. My days go like this:

8-12:30 work
1-5:30 Micobiology
5:30-9:00 Anatomy and Physiology
9:30-11:00 study

That's for M/W. Thursday is the same except for no labs, so I have a break between 3:30 and 5:30, and I'm done a little after 7. Good studying time. Tuesdays and Fridays I don't have class. I work a full day Tuesday, and I'm using Fridays to study and clean my house.

Community College is very different than CU. the whole campus is about as big as the Geology building at CU. The classes are much smaller, one has 12 students and the other has 23. Teachers don't have office hours because they are just generally available. There's no tense competition at the beginning of the semester to login at the precise moment to get into a popular course. Everything is very relaxed.

Both of my professors talked extensively on the first day about how hard their class should be, and strongly warned us that we really should only be taking their course this semester. Well, too bad. This is the way it's gotta be for me to apply this fall. I'm pretty sure I can handle both classes. As long as I stay on top of my studies, I'll be fine. At CU, I tended to do well in summer because the learning was more concentrated. Topics flowed together and made more sense that way, instead of spread out over a long period of time. And so far my two courses are flowing together nicely. Yesterday we reviewed o chem basics in both: basic molecular reactions, the ssaccharides and nucleic acid structures, etc. Of course they will depart topics, but for now it's been a good way to ease into learning by repeating lectures.

Also this week we had Lainey from Australia staying with us. She's a student from Campus Crusade for Christ, which Ben's aunt works for in Australia. She's spending a few days with us before heading up to CSU for a conference so she can explore the city and get used to the altitude. She's been very independent and has a rented car, but we had a good time last night going to dinner and watching SYTYCD at Miranda's house.

Jem got spayed 10 days ago. We're supposed to keep her from jumping, running, or playing and it's been nearly IMPOSSIBLE. The morning after surgery she was perfectly normal. Since we couldn't exercise her as much, she's been an explosive ball of energy. So annoying. I can't wait for the vet to ok her for rigorous play.

Despite these complications, it's been a very good week of school. It feels really good to be learning again. I forgot how much I enjoyed classes. I was so excited to see my first paramecium in the microscope on Wednesday. Those little buggers can move! Unfortunately, all this class and study time has limited me to one dance class a week. My muscles are so stiff and sore! Not only am I missing a dance session, but Ben and I used to take long walks or hikes and play tennis on the other days. Now I sit for 12 hours a day. Oh well, it's only 2 months.

I better get off the computer and shower so I can do 3 postlabs, 3 prelabs, learn all the regions of the body, ready 2 chapters or micro, 2 chapters or anatomy, and study for quizzes in both on Monday. Then I get to do ballet at 5:30. Yea!!

It took me a while, but I finally put together highlights of my part in the recital. I added basic plot headers, so you have some idea of what's going on. Lizette is the main character, an orphan. I play the ballet mistress.

This was our dress rehearsal, so there were some minor changes and fewer mistakes in the actual performance. For example, in my duet we realized you can't see my hands because the black gloves are invisible against the black curtain, so I didn't wear them for the shows.

Ben was sweet to come and film the show. My tripod doesn't have a good swivel head, so you'll have to forgive the shaky camera work.

You may have noticed that I updated the link bar on the right side of this page. Rainy Morning II is still defunct, but the others have been updated to reflect new friends and new blogs.

I've been going nonstop since school started. Taking these two intense science classes together and doing them in a summer session is sort of kicking my butt. I'm maintaining good grades so far, but I'm worried I'll burnout. For example, in a single lecture this week we covered all of glycolysis, the krebs cycle, and the electron transport chain. So I'm taking some time this morning to catch up on the other bits of my life, like weeding the garden, laundry, and blogging.

But I'm not going all out. Here's what is basically a picture dump with short notes.

Jem has adopted that goofy dog tongue look. Here she even left it out after she closed her mouth.

Study break for banana cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.

Can anyone tell me what this weed is called?

Wow, this was a long time ago. Lemon cheesecake squares and berries with vanilla sugar, while playing Settlers of Catan

Lainey came from Australia and spent the first few days staying with us. She brought vegemite and prepared a proper breakfast for me: toast with butter and vegemite. It wasn't . . . too bad. Very very salty. Tastes like scunge that you should be washing off rather than eating. But kind of good in a ramen noodles kind of way.

Grilled balasmic chicken. Wow, also a long time ago.

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And this one is really good.

This morning Molly was BEGGING to be let outside. She sniffed and rolled around while I ate breakfast and packed my lunchbox. I went upstairs to put on my shoes, and when I came down Molly was gone. Huh, did she go back in the house, I wondered, since I left the door open. But then I spotted a cat three doors down, on the fence. I called and, sure enough, she turned and gave a sheepish meow. (my neighbor has two tiger tabbies, I've often mistaken them for Molly). I ran along the fence and tried to coax her back to our yard. She jumped too soon, right into the neighbor's yard. I tried calling to get her to hop the fence, but she was simultaneously panicked and intrigued by the neighbor cat smells and new plants - she paid me no attention.

I tried to open the neighbor's gate, but it was latched from the inside. Our kind neighbor Don saw my hand over his fence and came to let me in, not noticing Molly yet, who had darted into his house when he opened the door. I told him my cat was in his yard and now his house! By then Molly had run into the patio again and climbed straight up the fence! I finally grabbed her, tight, apologized profusely, and tossed her in the house.

No more unsupervised patio time! I had no idea she could just scale the fence like that. This was too much drama for my morning. I wonder what Don would have done if I hadn't found her and he suddenly had three tabbies?

I'm getting burned out as the weeks fly by. 13 days to go and I'll be finished with microbiology and anatomy. It's really too bad that I had to take these as summer sessions. Between the compact lectures, long days with two labs, and trying to go to work, I'm not absorbing as much information as I'd like. Sure, my grades are fine. Great grades, in fact. But I'm afraid I won't retain as much. Anatomy 2 in the fall should be easier to dive into.

So it's been go go go until late night every night lately. And apparently I'm writing palindromically. Like the inverted repeats on DNA and RNA that signals repressor protein binders, posttranslational enzyme regulation, and recombination DNA sites. Gah, I really should be studying for tomorrow's exam but my brain is checked out for the night. It would probably be better to study in the morning or leave work early. I think I'll upload some photos to my computer before I go to sleep though. Laters.

How did people procrastinate before the internet? Seriously, WHAT did they do? And I think the way I use the term procrastination has shrunk. It used to mean putting off a term paper for days or weeks until the deadline. Now it means minutes or hours.

Ok, lecture ended at 3, I have roughly 1 - 1 1/2 hours before I meet Ben for dinner, then go to my 5:30 lecture. That's plenty of time to work on my Mumps virus term paper.

Plan = check emails, start typing report.
hmmm ...
now plan = check emails, chat with Ben, start typing report
hmmm ...
now plan = check emails, chat with Ben, click links on emails, start typing report
hmmm ...
now plan = check emails, chat with Ben, click links on emails, check favorite rss feeds, start typing report
hmmm ...
now plan = check emails, chat with Ben, click links on emails, check favorite rss feeds, check all feeds, start typing report
hmmm ...
now plan = check emails, chat with Ben, click links on emails, check favorite rss feeds, check all feeds, find cool flash game, read snarky posts, ogle textiles, post on blog

And suddenly 30 minutes are gone.

I'm only 4 years old! Test yourself here.

Last night was the last final for my summer session, which gives me three weeks of so called summer vacation. Hardly seems fair to call it that, since I didn't have schoolwork during the other seasons :-) But at the end of August I'll return to Red Rocks for the second part of Anatomy and Physiology, Nutrition, and some dumb liberal arts courses that Regis requires. Now, I love me some liberal arts, but you have to understand how many I've already taken through CU. I'm gonna try to get Regis to wave some of their requirements based on my previous work, but it's likely I'll have to take two religion classes (of all things!).

But before all that, Ben and I are leaving Thursday to celebrate our FIVE year anniversary!!! We're going to spend three glorious days in Niagara Falls, Canada. I'm very excited for this vacation/second honeymoon. It will be a much needed break. No studying, no work, no puppies tearing up shoe insoles, no kitties meowing for breakfast at 6 am, just peace and relaxation. And swimming.

Left: I forgot to take a picture before digging into this chicken salad with zucchini, red peppers, and feta.
Right: Leftovers from the salad along with Olathe corn, garlic, parsley, feta, and parmesan made a tasty pasta. Greg's bountiful artichokes have a been a regular on our table this summer.



Left: Mixed berry cobbler with ice cream.
Right: With leftover cobbler filling I made a pound cake


AWESOMELY tasty and easy chocolate pudding cake. The recipe is here. It's a very unusual recipe, but it really works!

This week we took care of Izzy while the Walkers were out of town.


Jem and Izzy got to play EVERY day. They were totally psyched. And totally dirty. So Jem has had frequent baths lately.





After her bath she becomes super hyper. She runs up and down the basement stairs, stopping to flail on couches, carpet, and bean bags.




Afterwards the humans ate some strawberry muffins. (School's done and my oven is working overtime!)

This is just a quick note to say that Ben and I had a great vacation, and are now home safe. Niagara was really fun. Some parts were a little disappointing (The American side is a complete ghost town!) but we were in such good spirits that we still enjoyed it. Our hotel was wonderful (thank you mom and dad!) and the Canada side was great. The falls were majestic.

Unfortunately the ending was marred by traveling woes. We got to the airport smoothly, easily checked in, waited for an hour, and boarded the plane 20 minutes early. The pilot announced that there was a maintenance problem being checked, and he'll get back to us when he knows more. At 11:00 am, scheduled take-off time, he announces that the wing has been dented, they don't know how or when, and they're measuring it to see if its flyable. 15 minutes later he says it's definitely not flyable and we should all deplane and wait at the gate. So we do. Here is where we start to realize that Delta's customer service is completely inept. They continue to tell us to wait at the gate every so often, lasting 40 minutes. At that time they announced that the plane is unflyable (which we already knew) and that we all need to go back through security to the ticketing counter to rebook a different flight. They didn't have any other planes so they just cancelled the flight. This is 1.5 hours after the original announcement. The whole crowd runs out of the terminal to the ticketing booth. The "customer service/ticket reps" wave us away and point to the 4 phones that say "Reservations." They refuse to help us personally. After 5 or 10 minutes we realize those phones are just connecting people to the general 1-800 number, so we all call on our cells. We're told the only option for getting to Denver is flying standby. Ben and I refused, especially since this is a small airport anyway, thoroughly booked, and now all our fellow passengers are probably also going to fly standby. Luckily they agreed to refund the whole ticket price. After pushing through the crowds to the customer service desk we learn our luggage has been dumped at the claim center. There was no general announcement about it.

After getting our luggage we go to Jet Blue, hoping to get to Denver via another airline. They can do it for almost $500. I want to look at other airlines, but Ben insisted that Jet Blue was the cheapest and that our best option is to DRIVE TO DENVER. At this point I'm very upset and starting to feel hopeless. So Ben pushes me to the car rental desks and we find that there is indeed a Budget car we can take to Denver for $97. I told Ben that I wanted to check for other flights, and again he says this is the best choice and goes ahead and makes the contract to drive to Denver. I only didn't protest because at this point I was so beat, and the sticker price seemed so much cheaper. Ben said we could get home in 19 hours and that it would be FUN. I did not agree, but went along anyway. It was miserable. 10 miles away I knew he had made a big mistake. My parents reported that google maps says it is a 25 hour drive. we had 24 hours to get the car back to the DIA, or we'd be charged another day. At least we really got 26 hours because of the time zone change. So now we were driving on unknown roads, fast, all night, with a time limit. I was stressed to the bone. Oh, and the car smelled like cigarettes.

I could go on and on about the wretched last 24 hours. It was horrible. I never want to drive cross country again, and I let Ben know several times how mad I am that he pushed me into this. The only reason I sort of agreed was I figured it would be cheaper. But with all the gas and snacks needed to fuel the drive, and the lost wages for missing work today, and the danger of driving at night through fog and heavy rain, it was totally not worth it. If he had just stopped to think through his decision instead of grabbing the first solution that pops in his head and then romanticize it and bully me into agreeing, we would have taken a later, leisurely flight and gotten home last night.

That's all I'm going to say about it. I wish our great trip hadn't ended on such a foul note, but I can't change things now. We're home in one piece, the animals are all fine, and with no work at least he could drive me to and from the mechanic to get badly needed new tires on my car. So now that I've shared, we'll pretend it didn't happen. Later when I'm more rested I'll upload some photos from the good part of our trip. Going to sleep now.

Get ready for a lot of pictures!


First things first, we had to get Buffalo wings in Buffalo. They were pretty good, but this menu (on left) clued to the fact that this region is not known for its culinary crafts. In addition to hot wings and being the birthplace of Cool Whip, local foods include Beef on Weck, Fried Bologna sandwich and Loganberry juice (tastes like really really sweet cranberry juice).



The next morning we hopped in our rented PT cruiser (like that, Amanda?) and drove the 30 minutes to Niagara Falls, NY.



The American side is pretty much a ghost town. Had we known this, we would have headed into Canada sooner. But we had a fun time doing the American park tours anyway. If you go, don't bother walking through town like we did. There's literally nothing there but empty malls, overpriced bad Indian buffets, and a Denny's.

But the Falls are amazing.


The observation tower behind Ben, and the American and Bridal Veil Falls.


The Maid of the Mist tour was really fun. I wished I had gotten a picture of the dock assistant, but it was too wet. Once we set off on the river he sat in a glass room (in green on the top deck) and did word search puzzles with headphones on, while we tourists ooo-ed and gawked at the majesty. I imagine it got boring after his first day working there. It was hilarious watching the falls dump buckets on deck, soaking the tourists who screamed and squealed, while he calmly did his puzzles :-)

I took the above shot from the Skylon so you can see how wet we get, without even getting that close to the mist in Horseshoe Falls. It was amazing!


Since we were already a little wet, we hiked up Crow's Nest to get up close and personal with the fall. Then we were REALLY wet.

Waiting for the educational and corny IMAX movie Niagara: Miracles, Myths, and Magic, we tried to keep our legs warm by rolling up the wet pants. How corny? Annie, the first to go over the falls, took a kitten with her. In the movie it's a black kitten going in, and a scared white kitten coming out. Lots of footage of dummies and barrels going over the falls. I'd like to know how many takes they had to do because the objects weren't visible enough.

The Cave if the Winds is a bit misleading, as there is no cave. It collapsed some years ago. You go down an elevator, through a hall with (lots of condensation on the ceiling) and then walk along wooden platforms (rebuilt every year after the ice melts) and get really close to Bridal Veil.

You can see people on the platforms in the pictures I took from the Maid of the Mist boat above.
Nearby is a monument to Nikola Tesla. Ben got an urgent call from his work he had to take. Luckily he got it fixed via phone.

Onto Canada!

Does anyone know what this animal is? Besides this rodent and a few squirrels, there were surprisingly few wild animals. I figured there'd at least be raccoons eating trash, but none to be seen.


There were fireworks Friday night.

Saturday morning we had a buffet on top of the Skylon. Spectacular views.


On the observation deck. It took a lot of willpower to pass by these red stairs leading to a "Danger" marked door. They made it so tempting!



Our hotel is the shorter building across the street from the casino, with red/pink glass on the upper floors.


Guess which plate belonged to me and Ben.


Jay Cochrane about to do his walk. Me enjoying the gardens.


I love that this sign felt it needed to include (Tourist Area), just so people aren't confused.

After getting Slush Puppies we went back to the hotel for our car. To get away from the tourists and rest our legs we drove into town to see the Simpsons movie. Meh. But it was nice to see some real local stuff. I love the name of the coffee shop in the theater.

We drove further into Canada to St. Catherine's. Malls in Canada look the same as the US.


We tried poutine at the food court. Truly gross.

The grocery store had a few different things, but mostly it's the same conglomerate brands like Kraft and Pillsbury, selling similar products under different names than in the US.

Still, they had four kinds of eggplant! And their milk comes in bags!

Back to the falls for food and some final wandering.

I LOVED this picture in our hotel bathroom, but never found it, or any other historical reprints for sale.

The one really great meal I had is above. A delicious burger with bourbon carmelized onions, bacon, and sweet potato fries. The falls at night were crazy crowded.

And that's pretty much it! Again, thank you to my parents for helping us stay here, and thanks to Brian for looking up things online as needed, and even though we had a tough time getting home, it was a great way to celebrate our 5 years together.

Before the trip I did some cooking.

Homemade tortillas! So easy a good, I'm making them again tonight. I plugged in my crepe griddle on the porch to keep the kitchen cool. I got the tortilla recipe out of the big yellow Bittman book.

I'll be honest, this picture is just to make Amanda drool:

Turkey and gouda sandwich with steamed green and wax beans from Greg's garden. I still have more beans, and Ben brought home a giant zucchini today. It's tough keeping up!

Ben took Jem to Iowa for a friend's wedding reception (yes, the drove). So Molly and I have two days with the house all to ourselves!! I'm going to vacuum up a storm and wash every sock Jem has tussled around the house. The other day I counted NINE socks in the basement. Oy.

Things are crazy for me now. School starts in about a week. I'm taking Anatomy and Physiology II, Nutrition, and then a whole bunch of classes I don't want. Because Regis is a Jesuit school their undergrad program has philosophy and religious studies requirements. Although CU covered religion and philosophical thought in all of my liberal arts classes (which were many), none of them will transfer to Regis. Thus I have to take NINE additional courses this semester, just in case I get into Regis (which is my top choice, so I guess it's worth it) (9 is the number of the day, eh?). So I'm adding Comparative Religions, Logic, and Old Testament to my schedule.

Meanwhile, work is changing too. The company I've been with since I graduated college is closing. They've failed to get any new contracts during the last year, so I can't count on regular hours, benefits, or anything. Basically I'll be coming in a couple hours each week to check phones, faxes, and emails to keep our single study running until it's scheduled end in March. Good thing Ben has found such a great job that he loves to keep us going. I'm picking up some hours doing data entry for his boss, but it's not much.

Also this week I volunteered to help the local cat shelter, Angels with Paws. I've spent 6 hours there so far, feeding, cleaning, and giving TLC. It's a no-kill shelter, which I'm not sure I agree with. So many cats just won't be adopted, because they're too old, too mean, or too sick. It's sad but true. I guess there is a barn in the mountains they can take cats who they deem to be lost causes. But I wonder if that's really any better than putting them down. Anyway, I'm enjoying helping out. They're short staffed and are over capacity for cats and kittens. More than help, they need people to take the cats home! If you are at all interested in a pet please come take one. I met at least three on my first day I would love to take home, if I didn't already have Jem and Molly. My rule is we have to have more humans than animals in the house (fish don't count).

Needless to say, my weekly schedule is fairly erratic these days. I really hope when school starts I can find a rhythm.

Delicious grilled burgers with roasted Anaheims, sweet onions, and green beans.


Strawberries filled with cream cheese frosting!


Baked sandwich loaf with pork loin, onion, and cheddar, with carrots and yellow squash.

What a haul!!!

Brian made the chicken cordon bleu and oven fries. I made the garlicky yellow squash with basil and glazed carrots with thyme.

I came home Monday to this:
Ben left a pillow in her crate. When I took her out she was wobbly and bloated, but very happy. What a nut. Ever since they she has been really sneezy. It seemed worse this morning, and yesterday she was kind of lethargic. Overall she's seems like her happy normal self with a good appetite. From what I gleaned on the internet, the most likely causes are:
1) foreign object in nose
2) a cold
3) allergies
Number one would be most likely, since she's been rubbing her nose and the fluff incident is when the sneezing started. But teh internets said any nose running would be only on one side, where the object is, and would have blood in it. She has just a small, clear, bilateral runny nose. Thus #2 or 3 matches. Especially since she was tired all day yesterday. But what can I do about it? Pretty much ride it out. I read that an untreated dog cold will run its course in about two weeks, and treated with the vet's meds it will be gone in about 14 days ;-) I think we'll wait to see if she gets worse being seeking help.

What fun! For the last summer holiday the whole family went to California to visit more family.

Amanda brought weird foods and souvenirs back from Russia.

Grandpa showed his new plane to me and Ben. Ben got to go for a ride!







They had cats that did tricks!!! CATS!!



Ben drove the rented Lincoln Town Car.


Buffet dinner! I realize these pictures are not that great, but I was too busy eating to bother moving around for better composition.


Then we went to the beach at Torrey Pines. I haven't been in the ocean in a long time. We saw a pod of wild dolphins!

And then back home :-) in time for school on Tuesday. We had kept Jem at the kennel recommended by our friends, Beds n' Biscuits. They were sooooo much better than the last place we took her. Instead of keeping her locked up all day they have indoor and outdoor play yards where she can run around with dogs all day - her favorite past time. They're very polite and accommodating and they do cute things that are totally cheesy, but I love anyway. Like sending her home with homemade biscuits and a report card.
It says "We enjoyed getting to know Jem! She did great in the play yard and met lots of new beagle pals! She will want lots of rest and treats when she first gets home (she told us to make sure to mention the treats) :-) We look forward to her next visit."

I totally love that. We already have a reservation for Thanksgiving. Indeed, she was very tired and slept for most of the next two days. Like they say, a tired puppy is a happy puppy.

Now I know the secret to making a perfect steak:

I also made pizza with dough from scratch! and marinara from scratch! and basil I grew! and pepperoni I cured! Ok, that last one is a lie.

Then a corn chowder using lots of veggies, potatoes from Idaho (Thanks Miranda!) and topped with leftover steak. Oh, and homemade cheddar-parmesan biscuits.


Here are some honey mustard chicken wings with avocado, corn, blue cheese salad. On the right are some delicious toffee bars.

Behold! I make salsa now! I loves it so. Julia suggested a salsa making party. It was fun and tasty.








And we discovered a new use for Jem. She's a thorough paper shredder.

What fun we had! The mantra was food food food. Pretty much the whole weekend we were either eating out or cooking or shopping for food. These photos were all taken by my father.

First, the folks saw Brian's new place. Dad was quite taken with Brian's toy collection (this picture shows maybe half or less)

Gold's Grocery had aisles of Scandinavian food! My larder is fully stocked.

Then to Whole Foods at Belmar, but we were surprised by an Italian Festival. Sorpresa!


I got a stalk of brussel sprouts at a gorgeous farmer's stand.



After seeing the hilarious King of Kong, we had dinner at Little India's.

Finally, a morning at the dog park with many new beagle pals.


Thanks for coming! We had a great time and my freezer is full for winter ;-)

Today marks the anniversary of buying our first house. Yea! We still love it! Oh no, there's so many things that I meant to repair that I haven't done yet! The Shame!

I finally used these two blank canvases I brought when we first moved into the new house. I saw this geisha picture on The IT Crowd and loved it! I made a few changes, changing hot pink to purple and redoing her flower, then I created a samurai to go with her.

What a strange weekend! Thursday some friends came from NY to visit. I picked them up at the airport late at night and they stayed over. Friday I drove them up to Boulder and we walked all over town visiting old haunts, weeping nostalgia. That evening Ben and Nate came up to meet me and we played pinball and arcade games in Lyons.






Saturday was another busy busy day. We saw a matinee performance of Le Corsaire with Miranda and Nate. I'm not very familiar with this ballet, except for the famous pas de deux. I thought it was a fun show, if a bit too traditional. My favorite part were the three Odalisques, who each had a bright petit allegro. Gil Boggs is the new director of the Colorado Ballet and he is definitely putting more money in their sets and costumes than ever before. It was gorgeous!

We had dinner after the show at Sam's No. 3 downtown. Then we went home to Lakewood to change clothes and feed the pets. Later that evening with Brian in tow we went the Asylum haunted house. Miranda and I screamed a LOT, and I don't even think we saw much of it because we had our eyes covered and head dug into our husbands' coats. Brian was giddy the whole time, practically skipping at parts. They had some really good effects, like a guy in an electrocution chair, severed heads hanging from the ceiling that you have to duck under, and a hall of hanging body bags, one of which had a moving person inside. At one point we heard a chain saw and Ben took off right, smack into a wall behind a curtain. He kept going and we lost part of our group. We were all screaming for each other and Brian got escorted into a separate room where we saw him behind a window frantically bumping around in some strange laboratory. In the end a clown told us to enter a hallway which you had to squish through. It was weird, like the whole was filled with two giant balloons and you had to squeeze them. You had to make a space with your hands to part the balloons as you walked and they sucked close before and behind you. You can't see a thing. Very weird. Very scary.

Today I am blissfully doing some laundry, baking, and sewing. Later tonight some friends are coming over to make cheddar biscuits, drink cider, and play games. Happy October!

I saw two brilliant movies this week.

The Call of Cthulhu is a move based on the HP Lovecraft science fiction story by the same name. Cthulhu is big with nerds. But, like Hitchhiker's Guide, it's something I have never cared to read or get excited about. What intrigued me about this movie is that it was made in 2005, but as a silent film, since that's what movies were like when the story was written, in the 1920s.

The movie was made by members of the HP Lovecraft fan society, so I gather that it was exceedingly faithful to the original story. The silent movie style works SO well. I got really wrapped up in the story. They did a great job recreating the look and feel of those old movies.

There was a behind the scenes movie that you should watch as well. It's very funny and incredible to see how they pulled off a lot of the effects. At the same time, I get the feeling that these are guys just like me and my friends, except with better resources and experience (and they live near Hollywood). It's one of those movies that makes you wish you were a part of the making.

If you're interested in watching, you can rent it from Netflix.

We also saw The Darjeeling Limited, the latest and perhaps greatest Wes Anderson movie. Seriously, I loved this movie immensely. It had all the elements of his past films, but I felt it was in a more cohesive, polished package.

There were many regular cast members, as well as the lovely Adrien Brody. I loved the opening when they left Bill Murray behind and passed the torch to Brody. Very nice. No Mark Mothersbaugh music, but good old Kinks. Unlike the Life Aquatic, I felt like the music settled nicely behind the scenes. It wasn't such a noticeable accent, and I liked that. There were all the standard Anderson moves, like slow motion, panning between dialogue, directly overhead shots of objects, but they were gorgeously colored of India. I loved that much of the characters' histories were left unexplained. Kind of unsual, since he usually paints such vivid character stories. The men in Darjeeling were just as quirky and intriguing as ever, but the details were left up to our own imaginations.

There's a short film that acts as a prologue called Hotel Chevalier. Darjeeling stands alone, you don't miss out on anything by missing the short. However I think if you're going to watch it at all, watch it before seeing Darjeeling Limited. It's available online for free.

If you enjoy Anderson's other movies (Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tennenbaums, and The Life Aquatic) in the slightest, you should really see this one.

My mornings, only mildly diluted since getting a dog.

My girl friends and I sometimes meet for lunch on Fridays. Here's what we made last week:

Pear, pecan, and parmesan salad with chicken and (homemade) pasta

A few months ago I suggested to Ben that we start a new tradition of making waffles on the day of the first snow. He's been begging for snow for some time now and he finally got his wish this morning!

Jem actually really enjoyed frolicking in the snow. She was just annoyed in this picture for being away from the waffles. I made a yeast dough and used the Belgian pearl sugars. Soooo good.

With all the exciting beagles pictures you may forget that I have a cute kitty. It's true! Here she is!

It's like she's magnetically drawn to sunny carpet. As soon as I take Jem over to play with Izzy, Molly's planted herself downstairs.

It finally came, yea! yea! Ben and I were commissioned to put on a Halloween Party for the ward on Saturday. We had a moderate turn out (I think the World Series might have deterred a few guests) but everyone seemed to have a great time. Ben and I went as Nick and Nora Charles. Nate turns into a fantastic Napoleon Dynamite.

I toasted some savory and sweet pumpkin seeds after carving pumpkins with friends last weekend. Here's the thing though, all the tasty toppings I could coat them with doesn't cover of the pumpkin seeds don't taste that good. But it's a fun project anyway :-)


Halloween Day was spent doing crafts with Brian. We turned an old treasure box of mine into a tricky candy box. I made scary silhouettes to light up our front window.




The sock puppet monster box was a great success, entertaining the older kids and slightly scaring the younger ones as they reached into the chest for their candy. On the right are our friends' kids Parker and Carter with April's amazing handmade costumes. Carter wanted to be a dog and they modeled his costume on Jem! His collar even has her name (it's a good thing he's too young to care that Jem is a girl dog). We wanted to dress Jem up like Carter with a kid's hoodie and some blond hair, but we thought of it too late to execute. I doubt it would has lasted more than a couple minutes anyway.

Here I am over halfway through my last semester of prerequisites. The classes have been going exactly as I expected.

Logic - incredibly boring subject, terrible teacher, but easy to pass
Nutrition - not learning a darned thing because food and exercise are already a hobby for me, and my sciences courses cover everything else this class teaches, only in more detail
Eastern World Religions - babbling professor who wants most of all for us to understand how reductionist western cultures are, and how we can't ever really know these religions. Most actual information (not politically correct jibber jabber) is a repeat of what I learned in my electives at CU. Same with the jibber jabber. So again, not learning much.
Old Testament - A once a week grueling class of looking at the Hebrew Bible from a literary and historical perspective. It's far to easy to wow the teacher with my "critical thinking."
Anatomy and Physiology 2 - the only class I enjoy, nay, love. I wish this was stretched out so we could go into the biochemistry in more detail. My new professor (different from part 1 I took over the summer) is fantastic. What I find one of her best qualities is that she knows how to work the classroom computers and projectors. In fact she uses a tablet PC to add notes to her lectures as we go. Why can't all teachers take a course on how to use their equipment? It drives me crazy when they claim ignorance and blame the machines for malfunctions.

In short, I'm almost through and I'm very happy about that. I've applied to three nursing programs, in preferred order: Regis University, CU Denver, and Metro State College. Regis sends out their decisions first, on Dec. 3rd. I can't wait to find out if I'm in. It's clearly the best school/program with a great reputation around the state, and a great location for commuting. It's also the most competitive for admittance. I'm worried about not getting in for a couple reasons. One, letting my ego take such a blow. See, I've been meeting a lot of other prospective nursing students. They're not the brightest bulbs in the pack. I think if most of my competition is like the students I meet then I'm pretty set. Second, if I don't get into Regis then this mind numbing semester of blahbbity blah courses will be for naught. Don't try and say "Oh Rachel, it's always good to take critical thinking courses and learn about other cultures." No. I did that. Like, 50 hours of that at CU four years ago. I'm done with that. So I really hope Regis makes this time worthwhile.

Besides school I'm holding down some part time work at my office and doing the old transcription for the Retina Center. Who knew I'd have the same job I started my junior year of high school? :-) It's nice to have a reliable fallback.

I still go to ballet once a week. I haven't had time for the cat shelter but I plan to go more when this semester is over. With the cold weather I've resumed knitting. Molly apparently loves chicken nuggets, Jem has learned to roll over, and the beta fish is still alive. I finally set up my surround sound properly this last weekend. Hey, I haven't fully tested it yet. That's a good excuse to end this post. Off I go to watch the opening sequence of LOTR.

Oh, I wish my nutrition class was like this.

I've been working on my menu and shopping list for Thanksgiving in Maine. Here's the list of ingredients and kitchen tools needed beyond basic knives, spoons, and cutting boards, in case you want to cook along


> Herb roasted turkey with gravy
* Turkey
* rosemary, sage, thyme
* onion, carrot, celery
* de beurre, de beurre, encore de beurre
* roasting pan with rack, pastry brush

> Garlic Mashed Potatoes
* russet potatoes
* garlic cloves
* milk and butter
* potato masher

> Wild rice and mushroom dressing
* 2 tablespoons butter
* 1 onion
* 2 celery stalks
* 1 or 2 boxes of wild-rice blend
* 2 or 3 cups of mushrooms (button type, portabellos, dried shitaakes, etc)
* Sauce pan

> Cranberry sauce with dried cherries
* 12 ounce package of fresh or frozen cranberries
* 1 cup dried cherries
* 1 cup sugar
* Small sauce pan

> Brussel sprouts with hazelnuts
* 1 pound fresh brussel sprouts
* salt and pepper
* 1 tablespoon butter
* 2 tablespoons blanched hazelnuts (
* Large skillet

> Green bean casserole
* I'm not making this one, Betty is.
* casserole dish

> Pumpkin pie
* 3/4 cup sugar
* salt
* spices: cinnamon, ginger, cloves
* 2 eggs
* 1 15 oz can of pumpkin
* 1 12 oz can of evaporated milk
* 1 9 inch graham cracker pie shell (to make our own we can do a basic pie crust
with flour, sugar, water, and butter)
* mixing bowls
* Pie plate

> Appetizers
* Pepperidge farm cheddar cheeseballs are a favorite, served with wheat thin
crackers.
* Cornichons are little garlicky pickles. Of course, giant tart dills are Ben's
favorite (blech).

We had dinner at Jack in the Box tonight. That's right, in Colorado. Apparently Ben, Brian, and Nate weren't the only ones excited to eat there. It took 2 hours to get our food. Apparently it was worth it to them. I kind of feel like I have a wad of greasy socks in my stomach.

We spent the holiday in Augusta, Maine visiting Ben's folks. I got to cook most of the Thanksgiving dinner. I was nervous about it, but everything turned out really good. The weather was misty cold the first day, but sunny the next couple days. Even so, I packed way too light; I was freezing for most of the trip! Traveling was surprisingly smooth, if long (12 hours to get there, 14 hours to get home). DIA had parking, ticketing, and security well organized and even had an old-timey band playing near the security lines.

I just saw Enchanted and it was fantastic. Very funny, we were laughing out loud. I loved all the references to old movies, and apparently I missed a lot (check the link for a wikipedia list of tons of references). I thought they recycled a lot of animation during the first section. If anyone else sees it, let me know if you agree that they reused Prince's Philip's fat dad adjusting his belly (redone as Nathanial), Alice falling down the hole (when Giselle falls to NY), and sleeping beauty petting the animals (by Giselle in the very beginning). There's probably some others, let me know if you catch them.

We took Izzy back from the kennel with Jem last week and had her at home for an afternoon. She and Jem are very different.

20

We're driving to Grand Junction tomorrow, cat, dog, and all. This may be the first year I haven't begged Ben to take extra time off work so we can leave before the weekend. Probably because I have so much to do still. I'm back doing the transcription for my parents. It's funny to be doing the same job you had in high school :-)

I've given in to my domestic goddess urges and made peanut butter fudge and peppermint marshmallows. They will be perfect in mugs of hot chocolate with my family. Today Jem is in daycare so I can get some laundry, vacuuming, and cleaning done. Also tomorrow she turns 1 year old, so I figured we can call her playdate a birthday present.

Tonight I have plans to see Sweeney Todd with Ben and Brian. Frankly I'm a little nervous about it.
1) The singing probably won't be that great
2) It might be too gory for me and
3) I haven't actually seen the whole musical (on video) because I get bored and turn it off halfway. I hope the movie keeps the pace better. But how often do Ben and Brian encourage me to see a musical? How can I not go?

I'm so ready for Christmas! For family and food and presents and pets and all the fun that comes with my favorite holiday!

I'm writing to you from my shiny new macbook! So far I'm ok with this mac thing. No major annoyances and lots of little wonderful things that are different from windows. Like programs that start immediately! Being able to put it asleep and awake instantly! Lots of prettiness! My old laptop was pretty pathetic. It was from 2001, was missing the L key, the CD drive fell out occasionally, and the USB ports stopped working halfway through fall semester. I don't think I'll go all crazy about Apple, but so far I'm very pleased with this wonderful present.

Other favorite presents are a pressure cooker (I can cook lentils in 20 minutes!), a Marimekko shower curtain, an original painting from my brother, jewelry from Russia, a new bag, and a little pair of hot Anne Klein heels from Ben.

Ben was also totally spoiled. Among his gifts was a beautiful SLR digital camera. Here are some of the gorgeous pictures he took today:

It took 7 hours to get from GJ to Denver, instead of the typical 4 hours. I hear that the pass and tunnel were closed by the time we got home, and they're still closed today! Boy am I glad we left in the morning.

This morning my car wouldn't start. Just before calling a towing service Ben got some advice from his dad. He said to use something called "heat," an alcohol that breaks up crystals in your fuel. After waiting a while the car started! I'm so happy to fix it ourselves and not deal with a mechanic! With the car working we tried to walk around Crown Hill. Blowing snow and frigid wind chill forced us back after a quarter of the walk. Jem was prancing around happily like she didn't even notice the wind that was freezing our teeth.

Today I'm transferring all my photos and music to this new computer, doing laundry, dishes, and putting away presents. Ben wants a New England style beef stew dinner for his birthday tomorrow. I'm going to cook it in my new pressure cooker! Usually I would add potatoes and cabbage midway through the cooking time but with a pressure cooker I can't remove the lid. So does that mean I need to cook them in a separate pot? Or let them get overstewed in the same pot as the meat? Does anyone know?