Popsicles and roadkill

It's finally fall in Texas! Or, at least, there's a cold snap. All my windows are open (I have more than two now!) and I feel great. The nice weather and Bon Appetit magazine inspired Garrett and I to make our own popsicles. They are made with raspberries, yogurt, sugar water and honey. They turned out delicious, but a bit rich.

I also saw two dead cats on the side of the road today. Incentive to check all my window screens so my stupid cats don't get out and kill themselves. This one was particularly cool-looking:

Washington DC

I have been so bad about updating this blog. I apologize.

To make up for it, here are a bunch of pictures of my recent trip to Washington, DC. I had a meeting with all the researchers for my program, but I brought Garrett and stayed a few extra days for fun. It was the perfect weather for sightseeing, fancy dates and general merriment.

The meeting went well, and afterwards Garrett and I went on a fancy date (different from a regular date or a "slummin' it" date at McDonalds, in a fancy date one must dress up, go to at least one formal establishment like a fancy restaurant or a play and spend a minimum of $100).

After our fancy date at the Palm, we walked around the Mall and saw the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument. It was the best date ever! So romantic.

The day after, we walked all around sightseeing and going to museums. We walked at least 6 miles, it was exhausting!

This tiger at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum reminded me of Hatshepsut.

We ended our sightseeing day with a free concert on the Capitol lawn by the National Symphony Orchestra. They played the Indian Jones theme! So cool. Really good trip.

Update:

Those were not mouse droppings. All of the mouse traps we put out have now been replaced with roach motels and borax tablets. Ick. If the roach droppings are big enough to be confused for mouse droppings, that's a scary-big roach. Ah, Texas.

House!

Garrett and I are renting this cute old house in Hyde Park. We just moved in last weekend and have been crazy busy trying to set it up. I will post more pictures when we have all the furniture.

Good things:

• Hardwood floors
• Built-in bookshelves in the living room
• Great colors on the walls
• Nice sized yard
• Old and charming
• Plenty of room
• A laundry room for our newly purchased, spaceship looking washer and dryer
• SO many windows
• No bugs... yet, I mean, this is Texas
• Counter space and a double sink in the kitchen
• Gas stove

Bad things:

• LOTS of mouse droppings (but no signs of live mice...)
• Loud, sloping floors
• Irregular water pressure
• No sleep from freaked out kitties
• We don't have enough furniture
• Pink tub and sink, ugh
• TINY bathroom

I'm sure I'm missing things from both lists. Overall it's quite wonderful and we are enjoying setting it up and having lots of room. And we have DOORS now! And recycling! I'm just not looking forward to cleaning our old apartments. It's hard to move while working full time.

Drawing

This is a drawing of Garrett on the phone.

I apologize for cross-postings. Those of you I am friends with on Facebook will just have to see it twice! Obviously I am quite proud of it. It looks EXACTLY like him in an almost comic-book kind of way.

Best cake ever

This is my greatest cake achievement ever, hence all the pictures. Two layers of chocolate cake made from scratch (with buttermilk, which smells and tastes way more gross than you would think) with a layer of frosting and raspberry jam in between and fresh raspberries with powdered sugar on top. Perfection!

The birthday season kicked off with Garrett's 30th. Kind of a big deal, but he was OK with it. We did all the things that he wanted to do;

• Went to Home Depot to get his birthday present - a super-sweet gas grill
• Went to a car part store to get some light plug thing for his Jeep
• Ate lunch at Mi Madres (of course)
• Went to the hardware store
• Watched a movie in the middle of the afternoon
• Took a nap (one of my favorite things!)
• Then steak and potatoes for dinner followed by the best cake ever

Overall a great birthday! I think he agrees.

Trash to treasure

G and I found this iHome in (or rather on top of) the dumpster by his apartment building. It seemed like the only thing wrong was a jammed in button and some homeless-man dirty finger smears, so we brought it home. After testing, we took it apart and fixed it using an ingenious button-prop-up involving super glue and a paperclip. It is now a fully functioning, almost new, super sweet iHome for less than $5. The dumpster diving addiction has been fed a little bit more. My mother would be so proud.