How do Behavior Analysts Dance?

Well,I'm back safe and sound from the conference! We had an excellent time. So many highlights, but they will come later. For now I'll leave you with this:



This was at the wild and crazy "ABA Social." We couldn't resist taping this crazy dancing blue-shirt man. My hero. If only I could dance with such abandon. LOL!

So soon!

I leave for the ABA conference in San Diego TOMORROW! I'm not at all ready to go, and I'm working most of the day today.

Yesterday afternoon/evening I spent snuggled with D. on the couch absorbed in the Friends' marathon that was on (so Bad!) I did get up long enough to go for a run, and to go buy small conditioner and other such small travel items (I love the little travel item isle). Looked at the beautiful shoes at Winners again, and again decided they were not functional (3 inch heals an I was looking for flats!), despite how cute and beautiful they were.

Unfortunately, I did have pizza from Ali Baba (best pizza ever) last night - thin crust, but I ate too much! The salt content will NOT help my "fit into my clothes from last year" crusade. Sigh.

So, today, I need to fit in around work:
1) Choose wardrobe, pack it.
2) Last ditch attempt at finding cheap-o flats at Payless
3) Re-paint toe nails.
4) Get new dayplanner (why I have to do this before I go I don't know - but my dayplanner ends a week into August, and I just realized this, and it's causing my significant anxiety).
5) Phone tomorrow morning to book my testing times for my summer classes. The first of which technically starts today, and the syllabus was JUST emailed out yesterday. I emailed asking for it about mmmm....a week and a half ago. No response. So now, I find out that while at ABA, I have to ready 4 chapters of the text and three articles, and write the test on these right after I get back!! Would have been nice to have this info - oh - a WEEK and a HALF ago! Lame.
6) Review my work checklist and make sure there is nothing that needs immediate attention before I go.
7) Figure out what ferry I'm taking and more importantly how I'm getting to it....D. is working during the day and I need to head out mid-day, so I need to either take the bus or find someone to drive me.
8) Get out some US money, and locate my passport.

I'm having a serious quandry over whether I should bring my laptop or not. I don't NEED it, since I'm not doing a presentation requiring it...but I'm very anxious about not having it. It would be NICE to have it to keep up with work and school while gone...but whether I should travel with it if I don't need to (and risk it's injury ;-) is the question. We'll see.

M- we'll be about to cross th boarder, and I'll yell "Turn around I need the laptop." Then you'll say "OK OK ! Good! I need the silver ballet flats!!"

lol then we'll roll into Seattle at 2am, be too giddy to sleep and arrive in SD zonked. Good times.

Can I keep it up?

I'm back at the running, mostly because a) I need some outlet, b) My spring/summer work clothes from last year don't fit, and I have a conference in 4 days, and no money to purchase new clothes.

At the start of my run today I was thinking about blogging a question about how it could be possible that the running was twice as hard on the forth consecutive day as on the first! When I hit the 25-30 minute mark though I realized I was in a "zone" though, and thought "I think I want to keep running" and decided to run the other way on the trail. I did another 20 minutes and it felt really good!! I'm sure I'll feel it tomorrow, but it was excellent. I'll see if I can keep up the extended duration.

Manic Monday

Really, not at all a manic Monday. I stayed at home, wrote programs, and had my only out-of -the-house-work for the day cancelled. No complaints. A manic weekend more like it!

Friday:
1) Plan to take bus to ferries to avoid parking cost
2) Drag suitcase and giant ikea bag full of wedding gifts and mothers day gifts to bus stop
3) Do NOT bring the red nail polish to touch up my toes. Do NOT bring my laptop. Lack of laptop causes extreme anxiety.
4) Stand at bus stop, and contemplate knocking on near by door and asking strangers to watch my stuff while I make mad sprint back to house to get red nail polish and laptop.
5) Realize I was supposed to drop prosphora with someone to bring to Church....and I can't leave till I do.
6) Run home, msn Daryl at work, call everyone from Church to find someone to drop prosphora with. No one answers, Daryl says bring prosphora and meet him downtown.
7) Forget nail polish and laptop, even though no longer taking bus.
8) get D., drop prosphora, drive to ferries and park car.
9) Contemplate risking missing ferry to go back to get laptop
10) get to mainland and collapse :-)

Saturday
1) Coffee and window shopping at Starbucks with Frewings
2) Mad dash to buy all the goods for mother's day BBQ on Sunday.
3) back to D's parents, change for wedding (nail polish has chipped, still no red touch up nail polish!)
4) Unbelievably intense but wonderful wedding. My uncle died about 2 months ago. My cousin (his daughter) got married this weekend. It was the first time I've seen my cousins and aunt since my uncle died, since I was in MA at that time. It was extremely hard...it was in a way like a funeral to me as well, since I wasn't there for his funeral. This was the first time his death really became real for me. I left a couple times and my wonderful brother followed, and hugged me and comforted me. He had already gone through this.
5) But then - wonderfully therapeutic, rejuvinating, and joyful wedding. My cousin was beautiful. I danced with husband, danced with my dad, and danced with my brother. Mom showed off her sweet dance moves (she's where J. and I get ours), and J. (bro) danced for about 4 hours straight (me in heals!). We had SO much fun. There was some sweet MJ dancing and I missed Magnificent M so much!!!
6) Overall, there were all the things that make family family - hugging, crying, mourning, wine, dancing, joy, celebration. All in one evening. Wonderful and exhausting. But I think good for all of us.

Sunday:
1) Prepare food for BBQ (grilled veggie salad!!)
2) Shower and dress
3) ALL the family- D.'s and mine arrived.
4) Wonderful time with both families.
5) Realize how blessed we are to have two wonderful families, parents that love us and are healthy, and that actually get along and really enjoy their time together!
6) Fall asleep on couch while socializing (oops!)
7) Ferry home, carrying clothes, good coffee, wine, and wonderful dark chocolate. All of which (except for the clothes) we'd accumulated while on the mainland.
8) Thank God for our car, and the fact that we didn't have to bus home, and drive home.
9) Also thank God for a wonderful bed.
10) Both the bed and the car are only ours due to the generosity of others....think about what wonderful people we know, and how we wouldn't be where we are without them.

In general be thankful.

But be sad we missed Mira and Matthew's wedding, and reconnecting with friends who were here this weekend for that wedding.

Exhausting and wonderful. So many things that are good, and beautiful and right are also so hard and exhausting. God is amazing.

Pictures of this weekend here and here

Hiking!

We went for a hike today!! It's a bit of a belated new years resolution....so really just a resolution. We want to try to get out and enjoy the beautiful outdoors life available in BC, and try to go hiking or camping every weekend or two. This was a nice short, but VERY steep hike. The veiws were beautiful!!

As we reached the first summit, signs saying "Stay on trail, fragile environment" were posted, and all the trail areas were roped off. So, we go stand on the highest point and look around and see something, just down the way. It looked like a person, under a blanket. Wait, a male torso, unclothed, under a blanket. And...oh...moving...and...oh..there was another person too. Ehhemmm "Hey, let's go back a bit further down to sit and have some water" "ya, ya, let's go."

It was hilarious!! On the top of the misty mountin!! Anyhoo, here's a link to more pics if you're interested.

Eureka!!

We FINALLY got a new vaccum! It was relatively cheap, but it is I think the best one we've had yet!! A generous relative lent us their old-school Kirby when we moved in here, but it just doesn't deal with cat hair and the nitty gritty vacuming jobs. After almost two months we finally got a new one - it's is so great. I am in vaccum heaven. Can't stop vaccuming. Seriously. D. was looking at me like I was a little crazed. I think I might be. I'm stoked though :-) . There's evidence of my over-excitement right there- I said "stoked."

To the dentist..or spa?

I (ME) had a filling (well, a reconstruction of a filling) done with NO novacaine. NONE. I am petrified of the dentist. Here's how it went:

I went for a consultation with Dr. Deanna Geddo. I walked into her office, which smelled of aromatherapy. There was classical music playing. I sat in the cushy chair in the "waiting room" and had my jacket taken by the receptionist, and was poured a cup of cranberry tea.

When I went into the dental room, she greeted me at the door, with a big smile, taking both my hands in hers and saying "Hello sweetie." (In a motherly way, not a creepy way). She had me tell her about my previous dental experiences that had made me petrified of the dentist, told me that no, I would not need oral surgery to correct my bite (as 2 other dentists had told me), and expressed great concern over the amount of mercury in my mouth. She ASKED if she could look in my mouth. ASKED. She looked at my teeth with only a mirror - NO pointy things :-).

Before I left, we did (don't laugh) mouth yoga and relaxation for about 20 minutes. It was this whole thing!! Crazy!

So, the other day I went back to have a full exam, and to have the filling filled. Again, music, tea, aromatherapy. When I got into the dental chair this time, prior to doing the filling she said "I don't think this tooth will require anesthetic." I almost got up and left RIGHT there. No drugs?? I'm OUT of here!! I restrained myself though. She put on the music, sprayed lavendar aromatherapy, and pulled out the materials. She had me a)Hold a mirror to watch, b)Hold bells so that I could shake it if anything hurt at all and c) Control the suctiony thing when I wanted it.

She would not drill unless I was exhaling and loudly saying "Haaaaaahhhh." And she would only touch my teeth one second at a time. This is the first time in my life that a drill has touched my teeth and not hurt every second it was there. Crazy. She counted out loud for when she would touch with the drill. When I experienced pain with the drill at one point (rang my bells!), she immediately stopped and changed drills. They have other drills that don't hurt as much!! I didn't know this! It was a slower, larger drill that was less likely to cause sensitivity because it was so slow.

So, in total, I used the bells 3 times. She drilled and filled the broken filling, and filed down the tooth above it (with a drill).

THEN when we were done, she left the room and came back with a steaming, lavendar-scented towel and told me to take off my glassses. She wrapped my face in the towel, turned up the music and told me to stay as long as I liked, then left the room.

Was I at a spa or the dentist?? And I have to say, it was really nice to leave the dentist with a fully functional mouth that wasn't frozen and groggy. Not that i'm loving the idea of no novocaine, but...Apparently if you are really pannicy and high-anxiety, novocaine won't "take" because the nerves are contracted and won't let it in. This explains why I still had pain after three needles of freezing the last time I was at the dentist (and petrified).

Just had to share my spa/dental experience.

The music to play in my kitchen while I feed people yummy food and we drink wine

I'm getting a bit addicted to You tube! A friend introduced me to La Rue Ketanou yesterday. Here they are.

A Neglected favorite

I haven't listened to BNL in so long...I did some late-night YouTube surfing though and discovered two things: 1) They have released at least 2 albums since the most recent one I have! and 2) They've put out a series of recordings done in Ed's bathroom - called "The Bathroom Sessions." Here's one of them.They really do rock the party ;-).

What to do when your All Bran bar crumbles.

Sprinkle it over yogurt. It's kind of like cookies and cream.

I often take an all bran bar or two in my bag when working etc., for a snack. I frequently forget them there till they are all broken and crumbled in the package (and thus difficult to eat on the go).

So today I dumped one out onto fat free no sugar added strawberry yogurt, and it was SO good!!

Okay, I'm weird. I know.

The Best Burgers in the world.

Now - I eat red meat on only VERY rare occasions. I very very rarely cook it. I saw this recipe on City Line over a year ago, and thought it was something worth remembering, partly because I knew D. would LOVE it. Sounded amazingly good to me as well.

Well. I made it. It is unlike any burger I've ever tasted. So stinking good, and I didn't even use the sirloin steak I was supposed to (just extra lean ground beef- I couldn't find the sirloin).

Here's the recipe:


Gourmet Sirloin Steak Burger with Brie
by Rose Reisman

You'll want to haul out the barbeque for these gourmet burgers.

3 cups sliced sweet onions1 tsp vegetable oil
1 tbsp brown sugar, packed
1 lb ground sirloin steak
3 tbsp minced green onions, whole onion
¼ cup seasoned bread crumbs
3 tbsp barbecue sauce1
½ tsp crushed garlic
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 large egg
1 tsp dried basil
1 ½ oz brie, diced

In a large nonstick skillet sprayed with vegetable spray, heat the oil then add the onions. Sauté for five minutes just until soft. Reduce the heat to low, add the brown sugar and continue cooking for 10 minutes until browned and caramelized. Set aside.

To make the Burgers: combine the steak, green onion, bread crumbs, barbecue sauce, garlic, salt, pepper, egg and basil, then shape into five burgers.

Form a pocket in each burger and stuff evenly with diced brie. Make sure that the beef encloses the cheese completely.

Grill or sauté the burgers for about four minutes per side, until cooked. Serve with onions scattered overtop.

Serves five.

Here's the link to the online recipe so you can see the picture ;-) They are good on buns as well.

A good day

Today was a good day.

We slept in (for us) till about 9am, and lounged in PJ's till about 12:00 noon. This day was great for a few reasons:

1) I bought new pajamas yesterday. New pajamas are definately up there on my list of things that make me happy. I LOVE a sleep in morning, when I have new comfy pajamas to wear to bed.

2) We had oatmeal raisin cookies from Thrifty's for breakfast. These are the absolute best cookies ever (in my opinion). They are wonderful, chewy, vanillay cookies. You can end up with crunchy ones though, so "testing" is necessary. I treat them like you might a mango or an avacado. I go from cookie package to cookie package lightly sqeezing the cookies to see if they "give" the way a good chewy cookie should, till I find the perfect ones. These ones were perfect. Yes. I had 4 oatmeal raisin cookies for breakfast. But you faithful blog readers will remember my multiple apple pie for breakfast posts, and will not be surprised by my excessive cookie consumption.

3) We had san pelegrino sparkling orange juice. I always wake up dehydrated, and rarely have juice, though it is what I crave madly, becuase of the high calorie content, and cost. But we had just bought some san pelegrio on sale. It is like heaven to me first thing in the morning!

3) We had good coffee -Kicking horse coffee. The "Kick ass" variety. No, I'm not using profanity, that's what it's actually called- check the link! Very good coffee :-)

4) After eventually showering, we went for a long walk on the trails around here which was very refreshing, and it felt so good to get some exercise, and to get outside.

5) When we got home, we had turkey bacon and eggs and whole wheat pancakes for a late lunch. Very yummy :-). More kicking horse coffee here as well.

6) We then took an AFTERNOON NAP. We rarely do this anymore, but oh is it wonderful!! I love the afternoon nap. It's wonderful. Did I mention it's wonderful.

7) Then we had an excellent evening with Daryl's aunt.

We DID do some constructive things in between all this!! This wasn't the WHOLE day. But, it was a more luxuriously relaxing day than we've had in a long time, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Glory to God!

Mmmmm

At the "do" they threw for me in MA before I left, a friend made this super yummy cheese dish. All it was (so she told me) was 2 packages of cream cheese, and one jar of a specific hot pepper jelly. Mix them in a food processor, and put the mixture into a cassorole or other baking dish, and bake in the oven at 350/400 degrees F. for 20 minutes. It was SO yummy!

So, before I left MA, I picked up this hot pepper jelly at the "Cape cod craft shop." So I thought I would take her at her word, and try making it based on what she had told me. I made it tonight, and it was SO easy, and SO good. It is just as I described above - mix 2 packages of cream cheese and 1 jar of hot pepper jelly ( I think that jalapeno jelly or what not would do) in a food processor, bake for 20 minutes, and serve with crackers. It was very yummy - hot and a bit sweet from the jelly, but the cheese offset the spice. Very yummy.

We had a wonderful visit with Daryl's aunt, who I've blogged about before. I love her so much - we always have such a wonderful time visiting with her. I missed her so much when we were in MA! It was impromptu (we called at 8pm and said "want to come over for a glass of wine etc..?" and she came), and so great.

More comfort food.

My grandparents lived on the island, in Victoria when I was growing up. When my family would come to visit, we'd usually take an evening ferry, and get in between 7 and 9. When we arrived at my grandparents, my grandmother would always have what we referred to as "Hamburger soup" cooking on the stove. I think we looked forward to it almost as much as the ferry ride and visit with grandma and grandpa! I got the recipe from my mom over a year ago, and hadn't gotten around to making it until now. I finally made "Hamburger soup" yesterday and it is still as yummy and comforting as it always was. And, relatively healthy if you use extra lean ground beef, and very very inexpensive to make. I think the origional recipe is from a company's coming book. Here it is:

Hamburger Soup

Ingredients:

• 6 cups cold water
• 6 beef cubes
• 1 large tin (28 oz) tomatoes
• 1 tin condensed tomato soup
• 2 cups grated carrots
• 2 cups grated potatoes
• 1 1/2 cups onion, chopped
• 1 cup celery, chopped
• 1 T parsley flakes
• salt (scant)
• Pepper
• 1/4 tsp thyme
• 1 1/2 pounds extra lean ground beef
• 6 cups water

Directions:

Heat first amount of water and cubes. Stir until dissolved. Add remaining ingredients except beef. Bring to a boil. Cover an dsimmer slowly about 1 1/2 hours. Add remaining water to soup about halfway through cooking. Scramble fry ground beef, add to soup, and simmer for 1/2 hour more. (One of my grandma's recipes had sugar, one didn't - I didn't use it this time).

To do

Well, work is a bit scarce for me this week, which is good and bad. There are transitions happening all over the place, and my regular schedule just hasn't settled in yet. This is concerning financially, but is good I think in that I kind of needed the catch up time. But, it is easy, when feeling overwhelmed to do nothing constructive with almost a full day off. So here's my attempt at actually getting something done and not just flipping between HGTV and TLC all day ;-).

To do:

- Study.
- unpack all boxes left, and decide where it's all going to go
- put up pictures
- call about insurance claims on stuff that broke in the mail.
- Figure out who to call about the funny error message I keep getting when I turn on my computer.
- Go for a walk/jog

Later in the day I'll be doing some work out of the house.

I'll let you know what I get accomplished.

Christ is Risen!!

It was a wonderful Pascha!!























I do have a funny annecdote though. I put on a white skirt to wear to the Paschal service, and thought "hmm this is a bit loose" but continued on, as I was in a rush. When I got to Church I realized it was REALLY loose, and that what had happened was that half of the elastic in the waist had lost it's elastic, or broken or something. So, I found a safety pin and tightened it up and safety-pinned it.

I went out of the sanctuary part way through the service, and when I came back in, and was almost at the front of the Church (with NUMEROUS people behind me), D.'s sister (who was at Pascha with us, along with her husband) grabbed me by the arm and whispered "Pull up your skirt!!!" Yes, mhmm, so I reached behind me to pull it up, thinking "ok ok!! geeze, it's just a little baggy" only to realize that I could feel NO skirt on my bottom, just my slip. So I reached further down, and yes, my skirt was thankfully still there, it had just slid down almost completely off my bottom. Needless to say I hitched up the skirt, ran downstairs, and found some more safety pins to remedy the situation. Thank goodness for my SIL!!

That aside, it was a beautiful, wonderful Paschal service, despite a little rain for the procession.

Catch Up

Today was a catch up day. After being sick and out of commission for a few days, I had lots to catch up on. I'm feeling much better today - still sick, but just feeling SO much better than the last few days.

I ended up cancelling the presentation I was supposed to do on Tuesday, and did get the paper mailed off on the Wednesday (definately not my best work, but it's done), and attempted writing the test I had rescheduled for Wenesday at 3:30 PM. See, the tests I write are available for 3 days only, and on the third day the testing period ends at 5pm. Wednesday was the third day for this course. What I had forgotten is that it ends at 5pm Minnesota time, which is 3pm my time. So, I couldn't write the test. That was unfortunate.

I spent the first 3/4's of the day baking prosphora. I made a total of 10 loaves, 6 of which turned out well. Two had bubbles right under the seal, and on two of them the seal stretched out too much. It was a good long day of prosphora baking though.

I also cleaned the house, did a bit more unpacking, did laundry, caught up on some work that had been stacking up, had a phone meeting with my supervisor, and attacked my email inbox.

I was exhausted by the end of the day though, and my body was reminding me I'm still sick!! But it does feel really good to be a bit caught up.

My father in law came into town tonight and we picked him up, and tomorrow we're doing another whirlwind mainland trip. My nephew's birthday is tomorrow, and it's his first birthday, so we're going over just for that, going to good Friday service on the mainland, then wisking back here Saturday morning with my mother in law to get ready for Pascha.

Boring post, I know..nothing interesting to post about today though, just day-to-dayness.

I love licorice tea

A warm, sweet, comforting wonderfully yummy tea it is. It's my sick tea of choice today.

My favorite licorice tea is Stash licorice. Though to be honest I haven't tried many others.

Warning - Whining ahead!

1. Guest lecture to do tomorrow at UVIC that I haven't prepared for? _ CHECK
2. 20 Page paper due Wednesday, that I haven't barely started? _ CHECK
3. Nasty cold that everyone else has had finally gets me? _CHECK
4. Slice open my thumb with a bread knife? _CHECK (actually it's almost healed now, but adding it in added to the drama of this post ;-).

I had a test today, but rescheduled for tomorrow after my presentation because I just can't leave the house today (really, you don't want me to, I'm exhuding germs). That leaves me pretty much with today to write my entire paper. And prepare the presentation. Except that I'm litterally holding a tissue to my nose 99% of the time. arg. oi. I think (i know) that my normal grade range is going to be destroyed this semester. I actually sat and calculated my marks to see what I needed to do to squeek by and get the marks I need to be allowed to continue taking courses. I've never in my life done that. I would just like this semester to end, and the next one to start, so I can have a clean slate. Ch-choo bad grades.

WAIT - can I complain some more? No just kidding...What a whiner I am. I am such a complete BABY when I'm sick though. I am capable of nothing but whining and complaining and demanding things (like orange juice and tea) from those around me when I'm sick. Poor poor D.

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!!!