Office time!!

We scored (again) on craigslist! We haven't set up our offices really yet, because we have almost no shelving to put everything on (apparently we have a lot of books and things that need to be shelved). There was an add on craigslist yesterday though - someone selling a slew of (8 in total) Ikea shelving units! We bought 6 of them - two super tall bookshelves, two medium height ones, and two deeper shorter ones. So we now have enough places to put our office stuff. When we'll actually get to putting it all together I don't know.

I also caved, and after much debate, and weeks of investigation, bought a new lap top. I had planned on getting one when we got back, due to the horrendous slowness and incapability of my current one (it is about 5-6 years old, and we have to re-install windows about every 6 months to keep it running at all - I'm talking 2-4 minutes to open a word or adobe document!), and the amount of things I need it for now (school online, work on the comp, presentations). After the move though, I wanted to try to wait because of course, the second move stretched us financially. (Most of you who know me well know my laptop woes and will be shouting "hooray for the new laptop" and envisioning me chucking the old one out a 5th story window). Anyways -I have a presentation next week at which I need to show video etc, and my laptop just can't do it, so I didn't have much choice...

So, I have shelving, and a laptop. Now to get the paper and the presentation done this weekend and keep myself from wanting to spend the whole weekend re-organizing office and computer files. Oi! I think I can do it though, since the paper and presentation are both at the crucial "there's no more time procrastinate, you can do nothing else but eat sleep and breathe this project until it's done" stage. I picked the wrong topic for the paper, couldn't find the articles I needed, and now can think of 5 other things I'd be more interested in, and have better articles for...but alas, the due date for our topic was in February, so there's no time to change it now!!!

Drowning in the soup...

No no, not to worry, I was not, as some have suspected eaten by the soup :-). I've just been totally consumed with work and school and preparing presentations and mannuals and all sorts of things. Trying as well, in the midst of it all to get the apartment sorted out.

I made big progress on Friday last week. It was supposed to be my work at home, get caught up day. I went to the computer, looked out into the livingroom, at the unassembled futon, the boxes, the piles of flat pack Ikea goods. I knew right then that I would be getting no work of any kind done. So, I spent the entire day unpacking and setting up Ikea furniture, unpacking boxes etc. By the end of the day we had a living room. A sparse one, and there were now more boxes in my office, but we had a living room. A couch, a coffee table, lamp, some candles, a TV, bookshelf, side tables, and comfy throw blankets. That is enough for me for now.

The unpacking of our offices has stalled somewhat. Daryl's because we've realized we didn't buy him any shelving at all, and he can't really upack boxes until he has it. Mine, because his computer is in my room while we're sharing it, and while we're getting things organized, and because the excess boxes are in my office right now.

So, we're plugging along. I am thankful to have a cozy place and to have some semblance of an apartment set up now. I think it just feels like we arrived running behind and can't quite catch up!! Daryl is working lots, and I'm super busy between work and school, and all the other work/school related side things I have going, so it's just a bit challenging catching up with everything!

Anyhoo :-) I think I might make more soup tonight, from a great book my mom bought for me called The Mediterranean Diet. It's a chick pea soup (maybe I have a thing with Chick peas?), but this time with fennel and orange peel and tomatoe etc. It sounds really interesting. So I"ll see :-) I"ll post if it's good.

Comfort food

I just made this (measurements are estimates because I made it up as I went and didn't measure):

Curried Sweet Potato Chick Pea Soup

Saute:

• 1 Onion, chopped
• 1 stalk celery, chopped
• 2 Carrots, Chopped
• 3 Medium Sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped
• 3-4 cloves of garlic, crushed or minced

in about 2 Tbsp Olive oil, until onions are just starting to turn clear about 5-10 minutes.

Add:

• ½ Jar Rogan Josh Curry sauce (or other tomato based curry cooking sauce).
• 1 can tomato paste
• about ½ - 1 cup more tomato based sauce or soup (I used left-overs)
• 4 Cups vegetable broth
• about 2 tsp Garam masala
• about 2 tsp salt
• more water if needed

Bring to a boil and simmer till vegetables are soft.

Blend half to 2/3 of soup in food processor and return it to the pot.

Add:

• about 1-2 tablespoons Tahini
• about 1-2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 can chick peas

Simmer another few minutes, or longer if desired.

It's really really good -possibly the best soup I've ever made. LOVE it. Adding Tahini to vegetarian/vegan soups is a trick a friend taught me a long time ago -makes the soups wonderfully nutty and creamy, even with just a little bit.

Also just made Mexican rice krispy squares - like the regular ones, but with vanilla, cocoa, and cinnamon added to the marshmallows and margarine before you add the rice krispies.

Mmmm....

Here I Sit.

Thinking obsessively about office and living room furniture. Longingly about my trip to Ikea next weekend. As D. mentioned in his recent post, he and I don't do well with unsettled-ness, so we are eager to get things settled. I think I can live without having all our stuff back (numerous boxes are still in the post), I just need to be able to set up an office (as does he), get organized and have shelves to unpack things on and a couch to sit on. Then I'll be okay. I think.

There are SO many things to be doing, and I have about 2.5 hours till I have to do my out of the house work for the day. But I'm in my pajamas, blogging, at 9:17 am.

I went for a walk to explore the area around our place yesterday, and it's a great area! There's a trail running around a lake/river/bog area, with tons of wildlife, and beautiful scenery. It's a perfect trail for running. But now my running shoes are full of mud, because it just rained a torrential downpour a couple of days ago, and the trail was flooded in places. I'm glad there is a nice walking/running place close by though - especially one that is close to residential areas the whole way so it's a safe place to run by myself. Look at all this talk about running - I'm taking bets on how long it will be till I actually go running on the trail!!! Oi!

Well....off I go. I think I need to post an online graph of % of to-do list completed daily to motivate myself to get things done. Yes, I know. Nerd.

Long time coming...

Well, I've now been home a full week, and finally am blogging. It's been a bit overwhelming, and a bit crazy, and a lot of wonderful coming home.

Our little apartment is working out really well for us (or will be, once it has furniture in it lol!), we have a vehicle (thanks to some very generous friends), and both have jobs. My work stuff is still getting rolling, is all disorganized and hasn't settled in yet -which of course is making me batty, but it will all settle in in a month or so.

The homecoming was good, but hectic. I ended up having to make an impromptu trip to the interior to pick up a bunch of our stuff from my parents (my wonderful father in law came with me...ok really I went with him, since he drove and I slept), visited my nephew who is adorable and so old now, and had a stellar evening with Magnificent M. It was a fabulous night out, then came home to Victoria the next day. There wasn't time for anything else!

I just registered for the ABA (Association for Behavior Analysis) conference, which is in San Diego in May. I'm really excited about that - not sure how I'll pay for the flight yet, but then, maybe we'll just get a van and write "ABA OR BUST!!!" on the side and drive down in that...lol.

It is beautiful and sunny in Vic today, so I think I may go explore my new neighborhood after I get some studying in. There are lots of walking trails and parks around here. The rec center is close by as well. I'm excited to be back in the land of rec centers. There were NO rec centers in MA!?! You know here, every city has a few places with a pool, weight room, cardio room, sometimes ice rink, and offers all kinds of fitness and swim classes. You can drop in for somewhere between 2 and 5 dollars. There was NOTHING like that in MA! It was a full gym membership, or a 14.00 drop in fee at the YMCA. So, i'm happy to be able to return to the gym and rec center classes. One step at a time though!