Life of a Single Married Lady

After two months of Ann Arbor living, I'm finally seeing my husband again up in Alaska!  Hooray! Here's a map of our travels--click on it to make it bigger.  Point A is where my plane landed: Anchorage, AK.  Wil and I hit up Costco while we were there to stock up on less expensive food. We then drove to Seward (Point B in the southwest corner of the map) for the National Ocean Science Bowl.  NOSB was amazing--it's ocean-science-themed quiz bowl for high-schoolers.  The Alaska competition actually includes a large research paper and oral presentation, which isn't required in any other NOSB state competitions.  Cordova High School give a very professional report on bilge dumping!   This is the view from Seward High School. After NOSB we drove to Point C: Whittier, AK.  The entire town lives in one high-rise apartment building, and the vast majority of the town comprises a half-mile strip of shops and shipping facilities along the water...

It's February 15th, but I'd like to wish you all a fantastic and happy Valentine's Day!  Since I believe Valentine's Day is about celebrating one's loved ones, here's for all of you: I am so, so fortunate to have all of you in my life.  Thank you, friends and family, for being wonderful and supportive.  I know that I'm not perfect, and yet you all continue to put up with me.  I am so blessed. For Valentine's Day, Wil made me something amazing!! I got him something nice too but seriously, honey, I don't know if I'll ever be able to equal you present-wise. Wil and I called each other up on Google Hangout and watched 10 Things I Hate About You together.  It was nice :) So that's about it.  Thanks again for putting up with me for all these years, and Happy Valentine's Day to all of you!

So the great Arthur Fiester has informed me that the ninja paparazzi, whom I have not noticed due to the fact that they're ninjas, are demanding another blog post!  So here you go, ninjas. I hope you're happy! My latest, greatest news is that I went to a conference in Atlanta!  It was pretty exciting.  I presented a poster on my research (which you can see here , if you're interested), which actually garnered a lot of attention and questions!  I'm not great with presentations, but I think it went really well.  Also, since I'm graduating in August I've started looking for jobs with the help of my wonderful adviser.  A few of his contacts at Wisconsin-Madison have some job openings, and they seemed pretty interested in me! We'll see how things pan out...Wil and I are excited for this next step in our lives :) When I got home from Atlanta I checked in on a kitty--here's a picture of the fierce feline. I posted this on FB too, but I got new ...

Apparently I've had 80 pageviews over the past few days! I'm not sure where all those pageviews are coming from, but thanks for reading :) Yesterday I actually experimented with food for the first time.  I usually experiment by trying new recipes, but this time I switched it up a bit.  Therefore I present to you... FRUIT PANCAKES! Now, you might be thinking to yourself, "Why is Sam so excited about fruit pancakes? Everyone puts fruit in their pancakes, you just fold in some berries and it's go time!"  However, I've always found it weird to bite into a pancake, expecting soft fluffy deliciousness, and instead encounter a berry that bursts and squirts juice all over my clothes.  (Yes, that happens.  Probably just to me, but whatever.)  For a while I've been toying with the idea of replacing liquid in pancake recipes with pureed berries, and yesterday I gave it a try! They. Were. Delicious. I have a Bisquick mix that I got for Christmas (Fu...

I knew it's January 25, but I have all these pictures on my camera so here's my Christmas post! Wil had some flight issues and ended up surprising me in Detroit on Christmas Eve!  Then, on the way home, similar flight issues occurred and he got to stay with me in Ann Arbor for a week.  It was pretty much the best possible outcome this Christmas--someone upstairs was watching out for us :) Wil and I spent most of the Christmas season with his parents in Missouri.  Wil collected wrappings to become Ram-bow, and I got some pretty awesome house shoes from Lynn.  We even caught a cat in the cat-trap!  Wil's family goes all out with Christmas sugar cookies--I was amazed at the variety of cookie cutter shapes available and the creativity involved in creating frosting colors!  Wil and Theo created some very interesting cookies, but I haven't included those pictures here...     ...

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 (...