Happy Holidays!

Some jerk cleaned out my checking account with a shopping spree in Southern California! I didn't even lose my debit card... they just somehow used the number, 500 miles away.

Tis the season for identity theft, fa la la la la.....

Post-Finals status update

Just finished my last final. ::Huge sigh of relief::
My last one was Ancient Mediterranean Art, the class that has been challenging me the most... yet I've been getting the best grade in. I guess my old excuses for getting bad grades in middle school are starting to have merit... "But daaaaad, I am not being challenged enough, that is why I have a C average...."

I'm sitting outside the Memorial union eating a snickerdoodle, a chocolate chip shortbread oatmeal concoction (that leads me to believe that it's healthy), and I'm drinking a pomegranate strawberry odwalla... which I chose because it advertises "Only 50 Calories!"

Yeah, my brain isn't working yet.

Tonight we've got Mark's company Christmas party, so I'll be trying to find something both warm and nice to wear, something I don't really think that I own. We'll see.

It's 60 degrees. I need to go home.

H = ?

Funny moment of the day:

I'm taking my friend Weijing to the airport tonight to fly home to Mexico City for the holidays.

She needs to take a shower first, so I hand her a towel and she goes in the bathroom.
The water goes on, the water goes off, then on again...

She comes out in a towel and says,

"Um, is there hot water?"
"Of course there is..."
"Well I turned on the C knob, for Caliente, and it was cold, then the other one was cold too."
::pause::
"Honey, C is for Cold.... "

"aaaaaaaah!"

Gotta love her.

Tea Pee

Got the papers done on time. Next up: Finals. My first final is tomorrow evening, then one each day for the rest of the week. I'm not too stressed out... I have enough time. Quite honestly, compared to paper writing, testing seems like a vacation. I wish that I could just test my way through college. I understand that it would be a horrible system, much like the standardized crap that k-12 students are shuffled through, but it would work for me. :P Anyway, once finals are over, I'll be on break until January 5th. I'll be utilizing that free time to work on the "office" we are going to have in the 2nd bedroom. As of right now, that room mostly functions as the habitat for our pet random-stuff eating monster. Everyday, we put important and uncategorized things in there, to be consumed by said monster and to never be seen again. He apparently covets the giant boxes of stuff we have put in there, as they have accumulated to Mt. Everest sized proportions.

And, just in time for late night studying, I have become obsessed with tea. My favorite blend right now is this deliciously fragrant mix of jasmine green tea and a tropical rooibos tea. I can't stop brewing and drinking this stuff, which means I sleep no more than 2 hours before waking up and having to pee furiously.
...but at least I wake up first, right?

So, for any of you that have been completely stressed out about what to get me, your beloved one and only Michelle, for Christmas...relief is here! Tea. Loose leaf, delicious tea. The more exotic, the better. I bought this latest mix from a lovely store in Sacramento called Teavana, however I think it's way overpriced. I mean, hello... it's tea. People of all incomes and walks of life drink tea, so when the cost of a few ounces of tea is equivalent to the monthly salary poverty line in Indonesia, something is terribly wrong.... and so very American. (BTW, the poverty line in Indonesia is $20/month.)


On a lighter note, I just barely saw this video today, although it has already made the rounds online... so if you haven't seen it, enjoy! Or not, depending on your political/moral/whatever stance on Prop 8.



I'll be back here after finals!

Christmas Lights!

We just put these up....


yay!

Sia

I just illegally downloaded mysteriously acquired this album, and I love it.

Sia
Some People Have Real Problems (2008)

About halfway through, I realized that Sia sang for Zero 7, another fave of mine. Whoops.
So here's my thorough, knowledgeable review:

I like it. You might too.

:)

Okay back to writing my paper(s).

New Furniture and Weather Patterns

Time is really flying by. Somehow, this week is my last week of instruction. Whaaaaat? I just got here!

We did some shopping this weekend in hopes of catching post-thanksgiving deals. The main event was our visit to IKEA. Oh man, that place is amazing. I had never been there before and I walked around touching everything and dreaming of the possibilities... And we bought a new bed! We have a glorious mattress already, but it was just laying smack on the floor. We were going for that minimalist look...
Anyway we bought the frame and the matching nightstands, hauled it out to the car, and THEN thought about how we were going to get it home in Mark's car. 30 ft of twine later, we got it all in and headed home.
The rest of the day was spent assembling the damn thing. Tedious, frustrating, but so worth it. I think this is the first time I've ever had a real bed frame. I love it. And just in case you are in the market for one, I can attest that it doesn't squeak.
So the bedroom is almost complete. We'd like to add some desk lamps on each side, or maybe wall mounted reading lamps above the bed... who knows. Good lord, I love IKEA.

From this:

To this!

I've already suffered blunt force trauma to my shin from this thing, proving that I cannot try to navigate in the dark anymore.

Desert Rat observations of the week: Fog is crazy. I like it a lot, actually. Probably because I don't have to drive in it... just my lovely bike commute to campus. So this is what my normal route looks like:

Add some fog...

I try to focus on the beauty of my surroundings rather than my aching legs and shortness of breath as I bike to school. But in all seriousness, it's so damn nice. I still think the desert is beautiful, but this sort of weather and environment is so new to me. I mean... seasons! Before, it was just hot and not hot. Here in Davis, the trees change colors and there are actual seasons. Shades of red that I have never seen before...

I just love it, I love this town and I love this weather. We'll see how I feel about it when it starts pouring.

aaaaaand... the Christmas tree is up! But not decorated yet. We also bought lights for the house, but I haven't been able to get Mark to put them up yet. I'm excited to have a comfy-cozy-holiday-decorated house. eeeeeeeeeee!!

I still need to write 2 papers this week. Then there's finals next week... so it should be a busy week.

Now... onto my delicious bed.

Thanksgiving Dinner

Dinner was at 4pm. We were home by 6:30 -- we got back into our lounging attire, Mark played his guitar for a bit, and I've just been online browsing around for Black Friday deals.
Then the tryptophan hits him..."I'm just going to lay down for a sec...." and a few seconds later, he was out cold.

Diego and Mark, doing what they do best: Snoring!

Michelle: ::nudge:: "Honey, it's only 8pm, when do you want me to wake you up?"
Mark: ::grunts:: Never! ::goes back to sleep::

SO MUCH FOR PUTTING UP THE TREE!

Ready, set... Eat!

Do any of you watch Stylista? It's a reality show that I watched once and keep seeing the commercials for... basically a bunch of trendy kids fighting to the death for a position at Elle magazine. There's one girl on there that has been driving me crazy -- she looks so familiar! Where have I seen her before? Was she on some other show? Ugggh! A google search later, I realized that her name is Kate Gallagher, and I went to middle school with her. No wonder! As a matter of fact, I remember being impressed with her eyeshadow in 7th grade...

Mark and I have decided to go to a Thanksgiving buffet over at the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Sacramento. I've managed to completely ruin the prospect of eating turkey by reading about how smart these birds are and how horrible their lives are when raised for food. I recommend educating yourself about it AFTER Thanksgiving. Turkeys get a bad rap, man. I am going to have a pet turkey one day.

With the holidays comes weight gain... so I've been cooking healthier meals for both of us in hopes that we can maybe shed a few pounds rather than gain more. Mark will eat anything as long as it tastes good, so making him eat healthy food has been surprisingly easy. I'm trying to establish good habits for both of us so that when New Year's and it's optimistic resolutions come around, we'll have a fighting chance.

Here are this week's hits:
Spinach Souffle Stuffed Chicken: This is way easy and you can make your own variations; I didn't have the stouffers souffle on hand, so I just made my own souffle and sauteed the chicken breasts instead.

Pistachio Encrusted Chicken Salad with Avocado Dressing: A little more labor intensive, but super duper good. Probably my favorite! Make the people you feed clean up all the dishes afterward and it becomes less of a pain in the ass to make.

Kidney Bean Salad with Mediterranean Dressing: This was a big surprise... Mark loved it and I just tolerated it. It's pretty good, but it screams healthy... I may have to just develop a taste for it. I added Dijon Mustard to the leftover dressing and topped a chicken breast with it to make this a complete dinner.

In other news, we are trying to configure our Christmas plans. So far it looks like we'll be driving to So Cal, with the dogs, to see Mark's family. Then I'll pick up my sister, bring her back with me to Davis, then fly Danielle up to visit for a few days, since she'll be here from Brazil. Mark's staying down south for few days to hang out with friends, then driving up here with them. Hopefully the timing will work out so that we don't have 147 people here at once. This just means that I need to have the place unpacked and looking like a normal house by then. We're probably putting up the tree after dinner tomorrow... so I'd love to finally get pictures of this place up. 3 months to get settled... not too bad, right???

Now... time to find some stretchy pants to accommodate the delicious thanksgiving fare (sans turkey!) that I am going to consume tomorrow.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving, folks.

Green Beans and Good Times

There's something terribly intimidating about writing the first blog post -- it's as if it will set the tone forever and ever. Of course this isn't the case; I'm pretty sure it's just procrastination masquerading around as intimidation. So I'll just write about what is near and dear to my heart: Food.
Last night we went to our neighbor's house for an early thanksgiving. They're doing the traditional thing with family next week, but they got a free turkey from the supermarket a few days ago and decided to have a pre-game Thanksgiving warm-up. Mark and I made a green bean casserole that was TO DIE FOR! This is going to be my go-to recipe from now on, until eternity: World's Best Green Bean Casserole.
So even though Mark and I aren't really sure about what we're going to do for the actual holiday, I would be just as happy not do anything at all. Last night was so great that it is as if we celebrated on the right day. ...and that's the point, right? But then again, any excuse to get a second serving of stuffing and gravy and cranberries and.... yeah, we'd better plan on doing something.
My neighbors are Laurel, a grad student, and Sarah and Blake, a Phd student and her boyfriend. I don't see much of Laurel, but Sarah and Blake are awesome. Blake plays guitar, so he and Mark automatically have something to talk about all the time. Thanksgiving dinner consisted of 10 other students from Sarah's Phd program. The conversation was interesting, and they were all so very nice. And appreciative of a good meal. Even when politics came up at the table (prop 8, anyone?) it was calm, intelligent discussion. And of course, I had a few aahhhhhh I'm in Daaaavis!!! moments throughout the night. We drank way too much wine, had great laughs, and staggered home.
And speaking of wine... the Winemaking class that I'm taking this quarter is making me obnoxious. I'm a nightmare to go wine shopping with; I read every label, recite the history and the characteristics of the region and the grapes, etc etc. It's all very interesting, yes, but I'm becoming a wine snob. For example, at dinner last night, Blake opened up a bottle of wine that was homemade by a family friend. Everyone drank it... but I couldn't get past the smell of it. It was as if it was bottled next to a dairy farm. And then it tasted like a sweaty horse smells. I immediately knew that Brettanomyces yeast had formed during the fermentation. Thank you, winemaking class.

But... if you want to check out a yummy wine, I suggest Yellowtail's Shiraz-Cabernet blend. It's delish. And I won't even make you listen to the history of it.

disclaimer: I'm a bit odd when it comes to wine flavors; I'm into fruitier, lighter wines. Girlie wines. So if you're into strong bodied, old school flavor, this might not be right for you.