Wordless WIAW

{Apology in advance some of the crappy cell phone photos.}

Off to bed post a long night of studying with Mary.  G’night all!

Questions: What do you put on your taco salads?
Do you eat the crusts of your pizza?

If I Disappear, This Is Why

I apologize crew.  School has taken over my life.  Between this week and next week I have three presentations and two quite hefty midterms.  I’m also on consult form 8a-5p tomorrow and then I’m feeding families at the local Ronal McDonald house from 5p-8p with my church women.  I’ll try and blog when I can in the next 10ish days.  Wish me luck!

On a brief, happier, less-stressful note:

So, I may be a dork, but I got a huge smile out of something I found on my Blogger stats page today:

Five ones in a row.  Don’t ask me why I got such a kick out of it, I don’t really know for sure.  Maybe it’s the symmetry of it all or maybe I was just born silly.

Also, can’t forget Tune Tuesday!  Have a listen to this lovely song that I may or may not have danced around the living room to when I was on a mini-break…

Questions: What little quirk do you have that makes you smile?
Why do dishes insist on piling up and not doing themselves?

Mess Up Mentality

I always find it interesting to see how restaurants deal with unhappy customers.  I think it really shows the kind of establishment they are.  To that end, Jack and I found out how BRU deals with hiccups during service yesterday night.  We headed out to dinner just before seven and were seated within a few minutes.  We checked out the menu and ordered an appetizer and drinks to start off.  We order the tomato and goat cheese strudel and when it came, Jack and I tasted something we didn’t expect.

Olives!  Neither of us are olive fans at all and not only are they not even mentioned on the menu, but they are a predominant flavor.  Even so much that I couldn’t taste the goat cheese.  In the midst of everything, our drinks had been delivered to the table.  A pear cosmo for me and a Guinness for him.

Once we tasted the olive fiasco I flagged our waiter and gestured (apparently nonspecifically) to the things on our table and asked “it” was supposed to taste like olives.  The server got a really puzzled look on his face and said no and that he would go and check.  Not a minute later the bartender showed up and poured me another pear cosmo.  I was really surprised and as it turned out the waiter thought I was referring to the drink when I was talking about olives.  Obviously the bartender left the drink and got our waiter to come back so in the end I was double fisting drinks…haha…on total accident.  It was fine with me because I really loved the flavors!

When we finally settled the whole miscommunication about what actually tasted like olives, the manager came over and said they have had problems with that particular appetizer lately and were actually getting ready to reprint the menus and olives would now be featured as an ingredient so that everyone knew before ordering the strudel what to expect.  To replace our first round appetizer, we ended up getting the mac and cheese appetizer instead and because it came after our burgers arrived, we ended up getting it for free!  It wasn’t half bad but it wasn’t my favorite appetizer at BRU.

For our burger choices, I picked the house made veggie burger and, on Mary’s high recommendation, I added wonderful buttery Taleggio cheese.  Onion rings on the side.

Jack picked the ahi tuna burger with a generous side of fries.  He ordered it medium-rare.

Both of these babies were absolutely delicious.  I loved the veggie burger because the mushrooms gave it such a meaty flavor and texture and it was large and in charge.  I think there could have been some more cheese on top but you know, that might just be me.  The onion rings were delightful as always.  The tuna burger was soft, supple, and flavorful.  The fries, as always, were super crispy and perfectly yummy.

For dessert we ordered, again following Mary’s tastebuds’ recommendation, the peach cobbler white chocolate bread pudding.  Oh man, let me just tell you all, this thing was incredible.  I wanted the whole thing to myself, the whole thing.  I really liked it.

The perfect end to a perfect meal, no matter how messed up it started out.  I was really impressed with the way the staff handled all the miscommunications and such.  I’m pretty sure BRU has two customers for life.  We are seriously enjoying working our way through the menu between this time and the last two.  Nomnom!

Today’s eats were also delicious but in a more old school way.  Jack and I met up with our friend David for lunch at a Jewish deli in town.  This was a new place for us so it was cool to add another restaurant to our Taste of the Big City list.  The deli serves things in a cafeteria style line and the whole place is one big open room, so much so it reminded us of eating lunch at school in the gymnasium.  We took forever to figure out what we wanted to eat but I finally ordered a half smoked turkey on rye with spicy mustard and I grabbed a cup of Matzo ball soup and a small bowl of broccoli salad.

Jack got a half peppered beef sandwich, a cup of garden vegetable soup and some German potato salad.

All the stuff we had was really good and certainly generous in portion size.  The three of us ended up talking a whole bunch and about an hour and a half after we had finished lunch I was craving some dessert and believe me, this deli was well stocked.

Jack and I settled on Devil’s Food Cheesecake Cake and geeze was it delish!  The frosting was perfect, the cheesecake creamy, and the cake moist and chocolaty.  I was in heaven.  My sugar high fueled our subsequent errands to Walmart and Trader Joe’s and when we got back home we set about making a half-batch of cold sesame noodles so they would have time to marinate before dinner.

The rest of the afternoon was sadly full of homework.  I spent the whole time doing presentation work for my Cancer Genetics class and around 7p I was starting to get hungry.  [Yes, lunch kept me delightfully full for 6.5 hours!]  Jack had made us salads and we dished up some noodles for a great dinner.

Post dinner plans comprised of gaming together on the couch.  We hooked up our Wii this weekend and while we were out today, we bought a new game –> Zelda: Skyward Sword.  We’re dorks so we actually played it in French for a while to work on our French in an interactive way.  Let’s just say we needed a lot of Google Translate help, me more so than Jack because his vocabulary is way bigger than mine, and eventually it became a bit too much work to translate everything.  I started getting annoyed that I didn’t know what was going on or what I was supposed to be doing so we switched the English and I learned how to fight.  I think I enjoy playing attack games on the Wii better than the Xbox because in order to slice someone with my sword I just have to swing the controller around instead of press the right combination of buttons.  So much more practical, let’s be honest.  When I called it a night from playing I was a bit hungry so I snacked on some berries while we watched an episode of Stargate SG-1.

Now we’re finishing up the second episode and we’ll head to bed because we have parish breakfast to work and church mass to attend tomorrow.  Catechumens are being recognized tomorrow in the Rite of Enrollment so it should be a nice service.  See you then!

Questions: What’s your favorite deli sandwich?
What is your best/worst restaurant mess up experience?

Double Dose

Ahhh, I almost missed the end of the day!  I need to hit you all with some Friday French don’t I?  And I need to make up for missing it last week.  So here it is, a double dose of language before bed.

Friday French –>

NEW ONES
Phrase: Je suis une étudiante du conseil génétique.
Translation: I am a genetic counseling student.
Story: I figured I should know how to say what I do on a daily basis.  Plus, if I ever counseled in French (haha, right…) this would be part of my opening statement.

Phrase: Tu me manques.
Translation: I miss you.
Story: I say this to quite a few people in my life every week.  I’m here and my parents are back in my hometown, Jack is at his own school, all of my undergraduate friends are various places (most still back at my undergraduate institution), and my extended family is scattered all over the country.  So, basically, this is a much needed phrase in my life.

Question: Who do you miss in your life?

Three Things Thursday

1. I may have a peppermint problem.

Haha.  I get these at my chiropractor’s office and they are the perfect combination or hard peppermint candy and butter mints.  Seriously delicious.  Now, trust me, I didn’t eat all of these today but I’m fairly sure I have at least one per visit like today when I had an adjustment and a massage.  It was blissful…and then I had a peppermint and it was sweet too.

2. Pesto on pasta is scrumptious.

Catechumenate dinner was spaghetti with a choice of sauce: meat ragu or pesto.  I choose the pesto, obviuosly, and it was really good.  I also had half, or more, a plate of salad which was also nice.  The garlic bread almost stole the show though but that pesto really stuck with me.  I dipped my bread in it for the WIN.  Yum!

3. People matter and when you have good ones around you, everything is better.

I say this for two reasons today.  First, at Catechumenate tonight we shared our stories about encountering God and such.  It was a powerful sharing experience and it was made all the more perfectly intimate by the sharing, caring, and calming presence of the others there.  The women at my table all are so respectful and encouraging.  They are curious and open.  It was a nice time.  Then, I came home and had my second people experience of the night.  Mary and I devoured this s’more bar (with a side of ice cream)…

…and had a delightful time talking about our weeks with each other.  It was nice to take some time out of my night to spend with her.  We actually ended up spending almost two hours!  The truth is friendships take fostering and added sugar never, ever hurts.  =D

It’s a pure coincidence that all three of those points began with P: peppermints, pesto, and people.  Honestly, completely unplanned.  Haha, and as I continue to chuckle to myself, I should tell you had I have pancakes for breakfast.  They had bloobs, strawbs, and a honey drizzle on top.  Oh, wow, what a day!

Questions: What are your three points for the day?
What do you have planned for the weekend?

You Are Dust…

…and to dust you shall return.

Happy Ash Wednesday everyone and welcome to the season of Lent.  To get the most obvious question out of the way, I am giving up swearing for these next weeks.  I know it’s not chocolate, dessert, French fries, or meat (oh wait, I kind of already did that…) but it is something that I noticed I do a lot sometimes so I figured focusing on it and using each time I am about to swear as an opportunity to say hello to God would do me well.

Along with being the first day of Lent, it is also a Wednesday and you know what that means!!

Let’s do this.  Breakfast was eaten in the shuttle on the way to campus, hence the poorly lit picture.  I made a chocolate banana bread protein cake and topped it with peanut butter, chia, and maple.  I totally meant to put honey on it but I was almost late and in the midst of haste I totally forgot.  Oh well, it was delicious.

Once at school I did some preclinic prep work before some of the ladies and I headed off to Psychosocial class.  We talked about decision making and go to talk to a woman who was tested presymptomatically for Huntington’s disease.  It was very neat to speak with her and I cannot imagine having to make that same choice.  To deliberately find out whether or not I am going to get a mentally and physically debilitating disease by age 35… That’s rough.

Lunch was eaten very shortly after our return to the student room.  I was so hungry.  I chowed down on whole wheat spaghetti, roasted vegetables, and chickpeas all tossed in thai sunbutter sauce.

It hit the spot and kept me full all afternoon while I called out patient results, cleaned up files, and did a bunch of presentation work.  It took all afternoon but I made some serious progress.  I was pleased.  I snacked on a Jonagold apple while I worked.

Shortly after I threw away my apple core, I headed to catch the 4:30p shuttle home.  Traffic was a bit burdensome but we got back to the apartment complex in one piece, thankfully.  Once I was in my living room, I realized I had to turn right back around to go to church for the Imposition of Ashes service.  I was hungry again however so I toasted up a piece of bread and smeared it with ricotta cheese and homemade apple butter.

This was just right and kept my tummy happy through the whole church service.  I always forget how eerie this particular service is because it’s very quiet.  There aren’t a lot of songs.  There isn’t a lot of organ work.  It’s silent a lot of the time to encourage reflection and self-examination.  I don’t have a problem with it but I typically forget, yes every single year, so it always catches me off guard.  I will say that it’s a beautifully haunting version of eerie, not a creepy version so that’s good.

I walked back home from church after mass was over and immediately got myself in workout mode.  I was going to go to the fitness center for cardio but the wind was blowing so awfully that I literally almost blew away on my way home so I was not walking back out in it.  Instead I tried out the World’s Fastest Workout I saw on Pinterest.

As you can see, it’s supposed to burn as many calories as a 40-60 minute run and boost your metabolism for 12-36 hours afterwards.  After completing it, thanks to following the video below, I’m not sure about those claims but it got my heart rate up for sure.  Not a half bad thing to do when I don’t feel like going out of the apartment for cardio.

I followed that 4-minute workout with 35 minutes of Jillian Michaels 6-week 6-pack.  It has been about 6 weeks I think since I started so I’ll be doing a review of the workout and a pictorial time lapse of my results.  Check back in for that sometime soon!

After my workout I ate a late dinner (it was already 8pm at night!) of a baked sweet potato topped with homemade refried beans, Mexican seasoned tempeh, and rather sad-looking but rather delicious-tasting guacamole.  On the side I had carrots, celery, and tomatoes with ranch dip (fat free ranch mixed with Chobani fat free yogurt).

I nibbled on this while I watched Glee from yesterday along with a few other shows from my DVR.  When I finished up I set out to polish off my CPM/Chimera presentation, which I did (yay!), and I did a few things on my Cancer Genetics class case presentation.  All in all I was nicely productive so I’m heading to bed now I think.  Who’s getting 8 hours?  That would be this girl, right here.  Sleep well friends!

Questions: Did you celebrate Ash Wednesday today?
What are you giving up for Lent?

[Fire]Truck Tuesday

Today was a fairly nuts day.  There was a legit fire in the basement of our lab building so we were evacuated for a bit.  My appetite was all over the place and I ended up eating some random stuff.  My work ethic was anything but spot on.  So yea, nuts.

Breakfast consisted of a vanilla protein banana breakfast cake topped drenched in Nutella, chia, and maple syrup.  I ate it on the bus to class.

Just before the fire incident I noshed on cereal (wheat puffs, corn chex, and cocoa puffs…all packed in an old gelato container), carrots/celery/tomatoes with hummus, and fresh fruit in the form of strawbs and bloobs.

I snacked on a Mojo bar while I prepped patients after work but before heading home on the 4:30p shuttle.

When I got home and finished up my workout (elliptical and a quick circuit of bicep curl/Olympic press, pushup rows, upright butterflies, dead lifts, and lat pulls) I made a dinner of buffalo mac and cheese that combined the last of the buffalo chicken dip from the Super Bowl party Jack and I went to and whole wheat rotini.  I also had a side of celery/carrots and hummus & salsa dip.

So with that all said, I should be working on my presentations but I’m not, obviously.  Like I said, zero work ethic and zero progress.  I think I’m going to head to bed, wake up early enough to get to the student room before class and do work.  Now though, for Tune Tuesday, I want to introduce you to Green River Ordinance. This song, Dancing Shoes, is a great, mellow, blues-y song.  Take a listen –>

Questions: What did you eat today?
What’s your current favorite tuneage?