Life of a Single Married Lady

My officemates have helped me realize that I'm not regressing to bachelorette life--I'm actually aging!  I've gotten more creative and adventurous with my cooking (read: I'm actually cooking things that aren't ground meat), and I cross-stitch when I need a break.  My birth certificate may say 23 years old, but my habits say otherwise! Anyway, I thought I'd do a food post today concerning the soup I made last week.  It's beef barley soup, and the recipe came from  SkinnyTaste.com , a website full of delicious, healthy recipes.  Hooray!  I'll outline them for you here. This is the picture from skinnytaste.com...my pictures were much less impressive. Ingredients 1 tsp oil 1.5 lbs lean beef round stew meat (I made tiny meatballs out of ground 92% beef) 1 c chopped carrots 1 c chopped onions 1/2 c chopped celery 2 cloves garlic, chopped (I used minced) 6 c water (may substitute beef broth for any or all of the water) 1-2 tsp koshe...

Good morning! I thought I'd give you all a Thanksgiving summary and a few stories about the U-M bus drivers today.  Things are pretty normal here, just missing the hubbie and doing lots of work.  This week is interesting because everything , and I mean everything, is due this week, including (but not limited to) creating a poster for AGU, writing a letter of recommendation for a friend, two stats homeworks, a term project, and an article review.  Thankfully it's progressing better than I anticipated! So! Thanksgiving.  It was a blast! Johnny and Keri both came home from school, and our relatives in Minnesota flew in for the holiday as well.  I think one of the most exciting things to happen was the Family Mustache Extravaganza.  John Jr. and John IV both grew spectacular mustaches, and proceeded to wax and curl the ends to look like old-timey gentlemen (or train robbers).  Then our friend Katie wore a delightfully soft sweater she got from Scotland (...

I would like to begin with an apology; it has been eons (approximately) since I last wrote a blog post. I am entirely to blame, although I like to think being ridiculously busy for a time contributed to my silence. Since I last wrote, I have hiked on a glacier, mourned for a beautiful life lost, welcomed a new life into our church through Baptism, cross-stitched, and cooked like a real grown-up. As always, the images below may be magnified if you click on them.   A glacier, on which we hiked There were a ton of bald eagles hanging around in Alaska, it was amazing!  More bald eagles, and meatballs that I made from scratch. Cross-stitch I've been working on...nearly done! However, as always I constantly miss my husband: his presence, his cuddliness, his stray socks, his remarkable T. Rex impression... In the midst of all the lonely feelings, I have to celebrate the small victories every day. In that respect, today was momentous indeed! Do you see...

Last Saturday, the world lost a truly good, loving, spunky, creative, kind woman.  Doris Duckworth, you will be dearly missed and none of our lives will be the same without you. Preston and Doris at our wedding

I have traveled many miles and many hours and many PB&J sandwiches, but I am finally here in Alaska with my hubby!  HOORAY!  It started with three flights.  I got up at 4:00am Eastern time and arrived in Alaska at 4:30pm Alaska (?) time.  The really long flight was the 6-hour Chicago to Anchorage leg.  Thankfully, when I realized I had gone through my reading materials for the entire trip halfway through the flight, I started to see GLACIERS.  I have never really understood glaciers...I get the math and physics behind them, but they're kind of hard to just think about.  From the plane, though, I could almost see  them flowing.  Glaciers and mountains (and naps) kept me entertained for the rest of my flight.  Near the end, I actually saw a glory associated with our plane shadow!  Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures that accurately depicted the glory, so I've included a picture from the omniscient Wikipedia. (Remember to clic...

I AM IN THE AIRPORT IN ORDER TO VISIT WIL! And he is so lucky I am willing to wake up at 4 in the morning to fly 13 hours to Alaska. Hopefully I'll be able to post some pictures in the next few days!

Do you know what today is?  Today is the day my beloved sister enters her third decade of life!  So please join me in wishing the lovely Keri Elizabeth a happy 20th birthday :) HAP P Y BIRTHDAY KERI!