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.

At least another year

Yes, I will be staying in Austin for at least another year. Good 'ol Texas. My boyfriend and I are both gainfully employed and have decided to rent a cute little house together. He has a contract position at AT&T for one year, and possibly more. I just got a job at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at UT as an administrative associate. It's all coming together! Really I'm just relieved to be finished with my masters degree. Last night was the first moment I've spent without having some kind of homework assignment hanging over my head, ruining all my fun. Ahhh... it's nice.

I really miss Iowa and the Midwest, and hopefully will end up back there eventually - but I may not. It's really up to the fates. I can see myself being happy living in all sorts of places. I will always come back to visit my dear Iowa, don't worry.

Look how profesh!

This is me at my Capstone Poster Session. This past Friday I and 40 of my peers made posters of the projects we have been working on all semester in order to graduate. We then stood next to them in our "business attire" as faculty, fellow students and other people I don't know walked around and looked at them, asking questions and making comments. After two hours of this, we all (students and faculty alike) went to the bar next door for a much needed beer.

Almost done with school! Two more assignments and one meeting. Then I will celebrate.

Oh, Austin

I think the pictures are enough here. This is Austin.

Flea scare

I thought I saw a flea on Ragnar the other day, so I panicked and bought some flea shampoo. After a thorough and surprisingly quiet and tranquil bath, no fleas were discovered. Calm was restored. I felt kind of bad that he had to have a bath for nothing, but he ended up so soft! He's a very good boy.

I'm glad I didn't have to bathe the other one. She would have taken an arm - or at least a finger.

Recent occurences

Garrett ate his first artichoke and, despite the look on his face, really liked it. I think it was more the ketchup/mayo/vinegar sauce than the actual vegetable, but who's keeping score?

Also, I cut my finger really bad. Those two things did not happen on the same night, but were pretty close. It has healed since then. Why do I feel the need to document these things?

I should take more pictures, but it's a miracle I got these on here. I graduate in a few weeks and will be really busy until then. But, I will give you dear readers some news; I am staying in Austin for another year. This blog will live on! More on that later...

It's been so long!

Sorry I haven't posted anything in forever. I have been sucked into homework and people visiting and general business as this is my last semester of grad school. I will try to incrementally catch up with all the events, starting with my boyfriend's sister's visit:

Lisa came to visit mere days after his parents this January so we were already exhausted. Good thing she is really cool, fun and laid back. Highlights of the visit; cookie delivery from Tiff's Treats (magic!), getting lost for two hours trying to find Hamilton Pool and then finally getting there to discover it was closed, Ken's doughnuts (the only way we made it through the two hours), buying a fancy dress, Lisa's AMAZING garlic bread that Garrett and I cannot duplicate for the life of us, being introduced to Lady Gaga, and lots of wine and good conversation.

(Picture courtesy of Lisa's iPhone from this photo app with different filters. We called it the "hipstamatic" and it took the most flattering photos!)

Christmas and New Years

I had Christmas here in Austin this time with just the cats and Garrett. It was nice and quiet. I saw It's a Wonderful Life for the first time. I'm not sure how I made it 24 Christmas's without seeing that classic. We made some good food, including two new recipes. One failed; pear puff-pastry with carmel, and one succeeded; corn bread stuffing with fennel. It was an extremely slothful four day weekend, as all good Christmas's should be.

New Years, on the other hand, was not relaxing at all! I went to my friend Emily's party and had a great time. There was meat-wrapped meat, a dance party, a fire pit and lots of friends. Garrett and I made Admiral Russell's Christmas Punch and it was a big hit. It involves lemons, sugar, sherry and a full bottle of cognac. Needless to say, the rest of the weekend was spent recovering. It was worth it, totally worth it.

It actually gets cold here!

Proof that it does indeed get cold in Texas:

The first picture is the hot tub at my boyfriends place. Not too hot, is it? The second is from condensation dripping from the outside of my window. It got pretty cold this past weekend. It's just like a distant memory now, just a bad dream. It's back up in the 60's. Gotta love Texas in the winter.

Meeting the parents

This winter break brought a new level to my relationship with my boyfriend: we met each-others parents. I brought him to Iowa for a few days. We ate a lot of food, froze our Texas butts off and had a really good time. My parents are very low-key and it was a stress-free visit. I think they liked him.

His parents came to Austin for a weekend visit. It was really concentrated and kind of exhausting because we wanted to fit a lot of stuff into the two days they were here. As you can see from the pictures, we took them to the capital, which neither Garrett or I had been to. We also ate a lot (including the Salt Lick - I still think about those pork ribs, mmmm!) and walked around campus.

I really like them! They're tiny and cute and very nice. They like me too, but how could they not?

So, successful parent meetings overall. I'm glad that's taken care of.