ATK Adventures

My husband loves to cook. I think this love was kindled anew when we acquired our America's Test Kitchen Cookbook (remember that?). I keep meaning to take pictures of all the recipes he makes out of ATK...but I usually forget. Doh!

Happily, I did remember to photograph one of his most recent forays into culinary genius. Behold, the bittersweet dark chocolate roulade, brought to you by Nathan and ATK:

{The roulade before cutting into it}

{The Master Chef cutting into his creation}

{roulade, cut with a garnish}

{These weren't all for us :), some of Nathan's family was in town}

Different kind of baby...

I live in a ward with a lot of babies. I mean that quite literally, as in there are many infants in my ward, not that the people I attend church with act like infants. Consequently, I also go to church with a lot of pregnant women, making me (childless+in school) a minority. I was talking one day with one of the women I visit teach (who was pregnant) about my visiting teaching companion (who was also pregnant). We were sort of joking about all the pregnant women at church and all the babies. I think she was teasing me about joining the pregnant club (as in I should join) and I responded with "Oh I'm working on birthing my own baby. It's called a THESIS!" We had a good laugh about it, but I like the metaphor. This thesis "baby" has been gestating for months (too many months!). Sometimes I feel like I'll never finish or that I won't be able to make it to my "due date," and there are most certainly days where I am tired of being "pregnant." My growing "baby" has even kept me up at night at times (gotta love data management!).

{This picture holds absolutely no relevance to this post. I just like it}

{Taken July 2009 in Rhode Island}

Well I would just like to announce that I have an appointment to "induce" labor in this thesis birthing process. In other words, I have scheduled a thesis proposal meeting for the afternoon of May 4th. This meeting sort of marks the beginning of "labor" and once the meeting is over I should have the go ahead to begin analyzing my data and writing up all my results which should last 2+ months. Maybe...hopefully, less than that. {haha! who am I kidding this is probably similar to wishing your baby would come just a little early because you are so sick of being pregnant}. My thesis birthing process will be finished off by one last big push--my thesis defense--which will be the last hurdle in earning my master's degree (probably in July sometime).

Here's to finally birthing this "baby" thesis of mine! I know I'm looking forward to the end result.

{Prayers are welcomed and appreciated.}

Spring break make-over

Over the past few months I've come up with a few DIY (do-it-yourself) projects that I want to try. I decided to tackle a couple of them using some of the "extra" time I had over spring break ("extra" is all relative as a grad student with looming deadlines). Well our spring break ended 3 weeks ago and I (with Nathan's help!) finally put the finishing touches on these two projects and managed to snap a few pictures. {Remember what I said about "extra time" being all relative!} Regardless, I thoroughly enjoyed these two DIY projects. Best of all, they were easy, peasy, lemon squeezy.

Project #1: Turn an old natty looking picture frame into something new and useful.

{The old crappy looking picture frame in all its glory! (Goodwill, $1)}

{Check out the fraying rope accent, niiiiice! Yeah I definitely ripped that out}

I had the grand idea of taking pictures all through the process. Unfortunately, I forgot all about my great idea until the project was done. Oops!

Finished Project #1: hanging pot rack

{Our pots and pans are certainly nothing special to look at, but it is a great space saver for small kitchens! (hanging chains $6, Menards; ceiling hooks $1.50, WalMart)}

{pot rack from a different angle (hooks for pots $4, WalMart; L brackets to reinforce frame $1.50, Menards)}

Total project cost: $14+ tax

I just used paint I had on hand to spruce up the frame. Then I reinforced the joints of the frame with L brackets (I had to flatten them a bit because the joints of my frame weren't 90 degrees). Finally, I just screwed in a bunch of eye-hooks (for hanging the pots and to hang the chain). Nathan installed the ceiling hooks and wallah! DIY pot rack.

Notes for next time:

- Use a darker color for the frame (just a personal preference)

- Use four ceiling hooks instead of two (increases stability)

- Consider adding some kind of latticing/plexiglass to the inside of the frame (where the glass would go) to create a shelf for lids or non-hangable pots)

Project #2: inexpensive wall art for large blank wall

I didn't take any before/after photos of this project, but the goal was to create a large piece of wall art for our dining area. I got the general idea from a random website about reusing old picture frames and used our new dishes for a little color/pattern inspiration

{new dishes}

I bought 9-5x7 picture frames from the dollar store, removed the glass and then painted them to sort of coordinate with our dishes (+a coat of clear glossy spray paint).

Finished Project #2: Funky and flexible wall art

{Note: you hang the frames without the glass or back so the wall shows through.}

The best part (in my humble opinion) is you can rearrange them (i.e. vertical stripes of blue, green and brown etc). So this wall art is very versatile and has a lot of possibilities. I love that!

Final spring break dining room mini-makeover:

{Forgive the dark photo and the messy dining area}

Let's go fly a kite

It has been very blustery here in Indiana so we busted out our kite. We were gifted a kite "recently" {READ: ~12months ago} and we finally had the space {field behind our apartments} and the conditions {wind, Wind, WIND} to use it! The one drawback was the kite string. It was on the short side, so our Buzz Light Year kite at times mimicked his cartoon counterpart: falling with style instead of flying. It was still all kinds of fun to fly a kite again!

One of our neighbors noticed us out in the field behind our apartment and decided to come join us. She'd never flown a kite before, but with a little training from Nathan she was soon a pro.

(Thanks to Nicki for gifting us the kite. We loved it!)

Of Easter

Happy Easter everyone! This is a mostly picture post:

{My husband is talented at making pancakes of all shapes and sizes. I have a feeling our kids are going to really appreciate his skills someday. I know I do!}

Our Adventures in Dying Easter Eggs

{using silk ties}

You can find a tutorial for these eggs here. We like how they turned out, but are planing on trying out some different methods next year to see what works best.

Happy Easter!

Numbers

Every year around the anniversary of my diabetes diagnosis I like to do a little calculation of the number of shots I've given myself. I recently just passed the 5 year mark and figure that I've given myself at the very minimum...

7,300

shots in the past 5 years. Awesome.

The core of us

For Christmas my sister gifted each of us a CD with pictures from our childhood. You see, most of our childhood photos were printed as slides. So with the exception of the occasional family slide show they mostly go unseen. So my sister got some of these slides scanned and put on a CD as Christmas presents. I love it! It has been really fun to look through these pictures and sort of reconnect with my childhood self. This series of pictures, in particular, cracks me up.

Notice the expression on my face:

pure delight!

Then notice the expression on my baby brother's face.

He's screaming his head off and I look entirely unphased (though not unempathetic {see picture 3}).

I remember being so excited that my mom was going to have a baby. I hoped and hoped it would be a girl, but I quickly adjusted to the fact that it was a boy that joined our family. And as evidenced by these pictures I was very excited to have a baby in the house.

Well, it's nice to see that somethings don't change as we get older (in a good way). I still love kids and look forward to having my own someday. However, I do I think I've lost my ability to grin ear to ear whilst holding a screaming child. Too bad, that might have come in handy.

{Note: this post is not an announcement, I'm not pregnant. Just reflecting on the continuity of personality traits across the life course (how's that for some grad school nerd talk?!)}

Goodreads indeed!

So I you might notice a little something new on my sidebar. I was recently (I'm behind the times I know!) introduced to the website goodreads.com...

Hallelujah!

I've been brainstorming and debating the most efficient way to keep track of all the children's books I read as a volunteer reader. I've seriously read many, many, MANY children's books over the past few months, but have struggled to even keep a running list of the books I use each week. Duhdahdahduh, enter goodreads.com (and there was much rejoicing!). It is perfect for what I need. I can keep a running list of all the books I read, rate them, review them, share them and save a running list for my own future use. Plus, the website also suggests books based on the ones I've rated/reviewed/read and I am ALWAYS looking for new book suggestions. love Love LOVE this! So in case anyone is interested in the sharing part, checkout the link on my sidebar.

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I should add a smidge of an update on the whole reading experience in general. The three year olds have gotten a little crazy (though I think the class is struggling behaviorally in general) when I come in. Any ideas on how to captivate that crowd? (Really, it is just a couple of kids who have a hard time not disrupting everyone else.) I tell you what there is nothing cuter than a bunch of three year olds chirping "Read another one!" {melt my ever lovin' heart!}. I really enjoy going in and reading, plus having the opportunity to delve into children's literature a little bit more. It has really been a great experience and I'll miss it when we move.