I am watching Sweet Home Alabama, and it reminded me that I saw it in Austin with a guy I was friends with who obviously wanted more from me. LOL Pretty sure he paid for the movie ticket too! haha

Sometimes it's like Austin never happened. I have some really good memories from living there, but I wish I could go do it now that I'm older. I mean, how much fun can Austin be at 18? I think I maxed out on 18-year-old fun that year and ended up with a bunch of hooey. What a crazy time. If I had to sum up my Austin experience, I guess I'd say it was one of the first times I was at the bottom of the barrel. In NROTC, I was one of the worst in the bunch. I hated the physical part of it, I didn't want to do the rest of it, and the combination of sucking at ROTC, struggling with my first year of college, and working to pay all my bills was too much. So my overall memory of Austin is negative, but there were a ton of good things that happened there. I dunno, I guess it's just funny how it's almost like that whole 9 months never happened except when it comes up through a random memory, like watching this movie. Surely my time there had some kind of impact on my life, but I'm not sure what!

Soooo, tomorrow I'm gonna work in my garden and do some homework. Then we're meeting my old boss and her hubbie for dinner. I'm looking forward to seeing them, but we are going to try not to drink too much. That hubbie is an enabler. He will order another round when you've just taken the first drink of the last round. He KILLS me. The worst "mornings after" of my life were largely his fault. I miss my old boss and I'm looking forward to spending some time with her. She's me in 20 years. Meaning she's badass and amazing. LOL

Anyway, have a great weekend folks!

We had our TexasKayakFisherman.com DFW chapter get-together on Lake Grapevine yesterday. It went really well! I got a little too much sun, but the red is already gone today. Tom caught a catfish, and the guys who fried the fish did an amazing job. It was delicious! As I mentioned Friday, I made two kinds of coleslaw, a traditional coleslaw and a "Texas slaw". The traditional slaw was very good. I'll make this one often but use Splenda instead of sugar. The Texas slaw was different. I love cilantro and lime, but maybe not in my coleslaw. The cheese didn't really add anything to it, I'm not sure why it was there. :-S

The pictures from the get-together are here:
http://s188.photobucket.com/albums/z257/amcenturff/TKF%20GTG%209-20-08/
What you're seeing if you look is a bunch of people in kayaks, people doing a Barbie pole casting competition, and a backward paddle regatta. It was fun.

Canning was the first order of the day. Here is the recipe I used for our 5 lbs of jalepenos.
http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/001475pickled_jalapenos_escabeche.php

It is really tasty! It took FOUR hours start to finish to get 15 jars of peppers.


But the "pop" makes it worth it. And this time I had 14 pops. 14 pops for 15 jars. That's right, I have one straggler. If it doesn't pop before we go to bed, I'll just throw it in the fridge and we'll eat them first. What a pain it is to can, but it is so fun and worth it!

And I did get some school work done today. I made flashcards for my developmental psych exam, which is 9/30. But he's got us all scared by saying that his tests are very difficult, so I started early. So far school is still going OK but I keep waiting for it to sneak up on me because it seems deceptively easy.

And with that, I'm signing off.

This crazy moment deserves its own blog aside from the weekend update I'll no doubt post tomorrow.

Tom and I were loading up coleslaw for the potluck fish fry at Grapevine today, and I knocked a plastic cup with coke off the counter and onto my foot. This PLASTIC CUP cut the cuticle on my big toe and left a bruise around the bottom of my toenail. CRAP, it hurt(s). I've been milking it all day. LOL I can't believe a plastic cup did this to me.

Well, we pulled up almost everything from our summer garden. We left two jalepeno and two okra plants, because I'm sure they will keep putting out. This evening I planted about 7 each of cabbage, brussel sprouts, and broccoli, along with one cucumber plant and some cilantro and basil. BASIL! It smells amazing. I can't wait to have fresh basil at my beckon call. Hopefully our first fall garden will be successful.

Tomorrow is the TKF DFW chapter fish fry. I made up two huge batches of different coleslaws. They are both good. Will post recipes later. Afterward we are going to buy some potting soil and stuff for my next canning adventure, which will be either Saturday or early Sunday.

http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/001475pickled_jalapenos_escabeche.php
This is the recipe I'm going to try for the FIVE pounds of jalapenos I picked off my plants today. Doesn't it look yummy?

I bought tickets for me, my mom, and my sister for Kenny G with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra today. It's the first week of October. :-) I am pretty pumped about it!

Anyway........have a great weekend, folks! Will update after my next canning adventure.

EDIT: Crap, I forgot the important reason why I posted this! We tried the peppers from my original canning attempt in July. They were HOT! We shared a glass of milk after having 2 slices each. LOL Anyway, I have spicy food lovers that I'll give them too, I'm just glad they didn't have weird mold or something growing on them. The seal was great, it was pretty difficult to get the lid off, so it was a success!

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/081508dnmetdisdgrades.48e6cc22.html

For those of you with limited TV/news viewing, have you heard about the new grading policies in Dallas ISD? Teachers must accept late work, flunked tests can be retaken, and homework grades that would lower a student's average will be THROWN OUT. Isn't that precious??

I call the weekend a success. Everyone arrived at about 7pm and we made it to Grapefest at 8pm after a harrowing drive with my sister. :-O The line to get in was pretty long, and Grapefest was SO crowded. I guess everyone had the same idea we did - go Friday since Saturday was going to be all Ike-ish. I ran into some of my favorite winos from my old job. We walked around a bit, found a place to buy wine, and God bless Toni (or is it Tony?) for waiting in line for us both times. We ate, rode some midway rides, and generally acted a-fool.

Us on the chopper - Toni, me, Danyelle, and Jannelle


Us in Devine Wines


The cool glasses we bought





The moment of glory. Toni mounting the buck then us running off as the cop came over.


I should acknowledge Tammy's moment of glory too, mounting whatever the heck this animal is.


We capped off the evening with IHOP and headed home for a little hurricane news and winding down. A couple pots of coffee and my blueberry zucchini muffins were a nice way to wake up this morning. The muffins turned out really well! I might try to go 100% splenda next time...

It feels so much like a Sunday, so I don't know what I'm going to do with myself tomorrow! Buy groceries, yes, but dang, the house is clean, so I guess I'll just do homework. Lucky me!

Girls' night is BACK on. We are just going to Grapefest tonight instead of tomorrow, but everyone is still coming. In fact, since Tammy was supposed to go out of town this weekend to GALVESTON, she is now available to come too. I hope Grapefest is fun.

I am making blueberry zucchini muffins for tomorrow's breakfast. This is one of my favorite batters. The first time I made it, I went by the recipe and made mini loaves. Now, I take the tips in the comments and use 1/2 whole wheat and 1/2 regular flour, 1/2 oil and 1/2 applesauce, and today I tried half Splenda and half sugar. We'll see how that goes. The batter looked and tasted delicious. And today I'm making muffins out of this. Per one of the tips, I tripled the baking powder. Anyway, here is the link:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Blueberry-Zucchini-Bread/Detail.aspx

I have my Zune playing on random and have been lightly cleaning all day. Nothing crazy because I cleaned a lot last weekend for Fight Night. BTW, someone please play "The Prayer" at my funeral with Charlotte Church and Josh Groban (not Celine Dion and Andrea Bocelli, because Celine is too much of a diva for my funeral...this is about ME). This has to be the most beautiful song. And if someone doesn't have a tear in their eye at the end of the song, because it's beautiful and not because I'm dead, kick em out. I only want people at my funeral who think this song is tear-worthy.

So I'm pretty good to go on the cleaning bit. I am gonna touch up the couch although I don't know why I even bother trying to keep cat hair off it. I'm just jamming, blogging, and baking on a Friday afternoon.

I don't think so, but man I am sleepy today. I guess it's the rain. I am skipping my night class tonight. I went to work today, walked to the union to get a salad, and sat down to eat it in my office. It was layered with chicken on top, tomatoes and cheese next, then the salad mix. I ate all the chicken first, then picked up a tomato to eat, and all the lettuce under the mater was bright yellow. Obviously I lost my appetite. :-( This, a day after I nearly had to go running out of class to the bathroom after eating chili at school. What the heck??? There aren't a lot of South Beach friendly options on campus, and I'm 0 for 2.

So I was feeling terrible all afternoon after eating lunch, and I took a peek at the syllabus for my research methods class to see, hypothetically speaking of course, what I would miss if I went home after work. "Ethics in Research". Bingo! I'm home. I would've had to sit through yet another lecture about, "OK, what does IRB stand for?" and "Why don't we inject people with syphillis without their knowledge anymore?" I don't know everything, but dagnabbit, I know IRB and research ethics.

I'm gonna be in bed by 8pm tonight. Mmmmmm!

Sharkathon is officially postponed til October, and girls' weekend postponed along with it, as Ike is supposed to keep us pretty wet all weekend. So now, I'm kinda unprepared for Tom's birthday (which is tomorrow) because he was supposed to leave at 4am Thursday morning. Whoops! I have a lot of ideas what to get him - he wanted a shop vac and he still might get one, but I'd rather get him something more interesting. We're going bowling/laser tagging.

Sooooo, nothing really exciting to share, but that's my week so far!

I am having a great week. I really like being in the upper-level psych classes because it gets to where you know the people in the classes, plus it seems like they take school more seriously. And they're so nice. Maybe it's a psych major thing. I don't know, I'm generalizing based on like, 6 people. LOL

Tomorrow is the McNair mentor recognition luncheon and poster presentation. I have a tiny speaking part in the luncheon and I'm a little nervous because I don't want to butcher any names or sound too "rote". Oh well, I'm just gonna go with it.

I'm watching Mr. Holland's Opus on WeTV right now. This is one of my favorite movies. Any band nerd would appreciate it. Tom is at Reade's doing the Fantasy Football draft. That's right, MY husband playing fantasy football. Ha! I love it. I actually like football so I won't mind if we watch more games this year. Still it's funny, if you know Tom.

School is OK but I think it's about to hit me hard. I went to my lab for Experimental Methods today and it's going to be a lot of work. I'm not sure about the instructor yet, it's his first time to teach the class, he's a second year grad student, and he's not very clear about assignments. He had typos in his syllabus and when someone would ask, he'd say, "OK, of course there are typos, you can figure out what I meant" like we're all a bunch of mind-readers. He didn't like having the typos pointed out! Who would, right? But still, give a clear answer!

My psych of marital adjustment instructor reads the slides to us. I HATE that. 3 hours of slide reading on a Tuesday night. :-S My developmental psych class I'm still on the fence about. The material is pretty dry so far. Eh.

Next weekend is Sharkathon. I invited my sister to come for the weekend (since Reade is going to Sharkathon too) and said she should invite Tammy, her best friend and really, she's my friend too, I love Tammy. It just feels weird to say she's MY friend instead of she's my SISTER's friend. Anyway, Tammy's going out of town, so Danyelle invited two people I don't know. Haha! They're welcome for sure, I'm really looking forward to a girls' weekend, but man, I have some cleaning to do. :-p We're having dinner Friday night and going to Grapefest on Saturday. I'm looking forward to spending some time with my sister.

But this weekend is Fight Night. Chuck Liddell is fighting, which should be fun! It will be the usual crowd, John, Kimberlee, and Greg. It'll be a good night of fights. :-)

So I really rambled today, but have a great week folks!

Is there anything worse than too much foreplay?? This Spain trip is the BIGGEST tease. I am freaking out. Every time I think about Spain, it literally takes my breath away (the only thing other than maybe live music, like the symphony or a choir that has ever taken my breath away), followed by a few seconds of nausea. I'm soooo close, and I know I'm on "the list", and I know my boss wouldn't be teasing me with this trip just to be mean. But I also know that if something comes up, I'm at the bottom of the barrel (that can't be spelled right...) and I'd be the first to be axed. As I would totally expect, I mean, it's me (the lowly undergrad), 2 grad students, and 3 profs. The idea that I'd even be considered is a total FLUKE. So until I have a non-refundable plane ticket in my name, my excitement proceeds with caution.

But it's still THERE. You know what the worst is? My boss asked me to research the trip and put together an estimated budget. She says, "See what it would cost for a 2 day side trip to Barcelona" and "See if we can catch the running of the bulls before we go to the conference." (pause for loss of breath and nausea) Holy COW. I can't ignore the trip. The other thing is, I have to send my passport off for a free name change (which you can do for up to a year after your passport was issued). That's the first thing I started looking at where I had to start thinking seriously about me going. Then the planning and budgeting bit. Yesterday I bought memory cards for my camera on Woot and thought, "I'll probably want that for the trip." I think about my hair and whether I want it short or long next summer in the heat. I think about how I can pack for 9 days with the new baggage restrictions (not to mention the fact that I won't have Tom to carry half of my crap...LOL).

And just so I can thoroughly jinx myself, check out some pictures of Alicante, Barcelona, and Pamplona.

Alicante:

Note castle on top of gorgeous mountain. If you've known me at all, you know that thrills the crap out of me. I'm wanting the drop the f-bomb and I haven't had any wine. It's an f'in CASTLE!


Tall building is the conference hotel.


CASTLE


Barcelona




Pamplona. This picture is the closest I'm getting to any bulls.


BTW, I am morally opposed to the running of the bulls. I don't know what that says about me that I still want to go! I think they will probably end up nixing Pamplona anyway, but I would never say no to getting to go to something like that. Still, they are so mean to those bulls. They taunt them, they're terrified (the bulls, not the morons that run), and then they kill them in the bull fights. Did you KNOW that?! I learned it in Spanish last year. A lot of the bull fights are just for show now. Actually, I'm not sure if they still kill the Pamplona bulls...I'd think so, since it seems like such a traditional and barbaric event. I don't know. Anyway, poor bulls!

Update: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/07/running_with_the_bulls_in_pamp.html
They do kill the bulls. Holy crap. Don't click that picture that says "this picture is objectionable". That's nausea for a completely different reason than excitement. Ugh!!! I can't stand the thought of those bulls being teased and tormented, and then KILLED.