MAJOR Game of Catch-up

I have been up to so many things, but haven't had any time to blog about them. The short version - school was tough, but the semester is over and I've already started a new semester; I love my roomies and we have totally been having so much fun together; and I finally knocked Savannah and Charleston off my list of places to visit. Also, I have gotten into e-audio books that I can download for free from my local library and I am now finally able to "read" all the books I have been wanting to but haven't had time for since school started. Books I recently read and recommend: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (thanks for the recommendation, Raquel!), and Three Cups of Tea.

I think the best way to update you all on what I've been up to is pictures. Get ready... this is gonna be a long one.

First: Easter Dinner - my roomies and I had a bunch of friends over and we had a great time. Krista and Krishna brought confetti eggs, so even though we are all grown up, we still got to hunt for Easter eggs... with a twist. I was really proud of the centerpiece I made for the table.

Next, Jessica and Amanda joined me for a little jaunt over to Annapolis, which is one of my favorite cities - quaint old buildings and men in uniform, what's not to love? We happened to be there on the same day as the two universities have their annual croquet match - this has been going on for like 50 years and the players all wear the old-timey letterman sweaters and the crowd wears summer dresses and light colored suits and has picnics. It was really fun to watch and we plan to go back next year all dressed up.

 

Crystal and I took advantage of our brief lull in school work to take a trip nearly two years in the making - Assateague Island. It is this beautiful barrier island off the Maryland/Virgina peninsula where formerly domesticated but now wild herds of horses roam. The mosquitoes weren't too bad, but I wouldn't recommend visiting later than early May. It was so nice to relax and spend time together and listen to the waves... and fly my treasured "Camp Rock" kite. We stumbled upon an awesome restaurant on the eastern shore called Serendipity - very lavish to say the least.

 

  

Then it was off to the south with my friend Amanda. Amanda has recently moved to the area and she is basically amazing! It sometimes blows my mind how much we have in common. She is in my ward and is also getting her master's degree from the same school/program as me. She loves Germany and speaks German, but also speaks Dutch and focuses her studies on the Netherlands. Both of us in particular focus on immigration and integration issues and together we are going to save the world... or at least Europe.

I had one free week between semesters and we both have been wanting to head to the south, so we packed up the car and took and awesome road trip to Savannah, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina. It was AWESOME! We went to eat at Paula Deen's "Lady and Sons" restaurant in Savannah and it was so good - we had fried green tomatoes and chicken pot pie - yum! Most of our trip was just walking around, visiting beautiful old houses, checking out parks, visiting the beach, and eating great food. I was pretty much in love with every house I saw in Charleston and took pictures of them all. I'll just give you my favorites.

SAVANNAH

 CHARLESTON

Once I was back in DC, I got back to the grind with school, but have still managed to have some fun. First of all, they finally built a Cafe Rio out here and even though it is a 45 minute drive from my house, I've been three times this month (for better or for worse).

My roommate Jessica and I had some $6 groupons for Madame Tussaud's wax museum that were about to expire, so we, along with our other roomie Kimberly and my friend Steve, went to check it out. It was a lot of fun to pose with the figures, but I wouldn't ever pay $20 to go there.

President Jenny in the Oval Office

Finally, my roommate Crystal organized an amazing murder mystery party which we hosted at our house and there was a great turn out. I was Miss Polly Darton, famous country western singer and, as it turns out, I was engaged to a murderer!! Let's just say I called that one off quickly! It was fun to get to wear copious amounts of makeup, tease my hair up as high as I could, and speak with a southern accent... it was almost like being back in Texas!

Whew! That seriously all took place within the space of a month!!

Settling in to 2011

The new year sort of started out as a blur... as soon as I got back to DC from my trip home, I had to jump right in to work, school, and snow (not as much as last year though, thank heavens!). I can't say that January was anything out of the ordinary, but February has been a lot more eventful. I got a membership to Gold's Gym this month, which I have been enjoying. I am not much of a gym person, in that it makes me feel like a hamster. I'd much rather be outside doing something, but when it is cold or dark, it is nice to have a place to go. This gym has a cinema room, which I really like - I start watching the movie and don't think about what I am doing and I often find that I work out a lot longer when I am not constantly looking at the time.

The weather has been really nice this month and I am getting so excited for spring! I have been wanting a bike for a really long time and decided that this was the year to do it (thank you, tax return!). So I got on amazon and did some searching and found a really good deal on a Cadillac bike. I didn't know Cadillac even made bikes, but apparently it is a subsidiary of Schwinn and the bike is really nice. I put it together myself! I can't wait for it to get warm enough to take it out! Three of my roommates also have bikes, so I expect we are going to have lots of fun adventures this year.



Also exciting: for Christmas, our building management had a raffle for several prizes and no one claimed the iPod Touch 4G that they were giving away, so they decided to do another raffle on Valentine’s Day. Several people in the office were really excited about it and had a good feeling they were going to win... but the actual winner was ME! I was so excited, I can't say I've ever won a raffle. I have really been enjoying it and all the fun things it can do. Though with the bike and the iPod and all the accessories that go with both, I have actually felt a little burnt out... too much getting for me! But now that I have them, I am all set for a very exciting year!

And what is a brand new year without a little traveling? This weekend I took a road trip to visit my favorite Shirleys! It was so fun to see how big the kids are getting and to just forget about my homework and focus on being with people I love. My favorite moment: during bedtime prayers Bradley asked Heavenly Father that “Aunt Jenny can stay with us forever and be Aunt Jenny Shirley.” I guess my honorary status as a member of the family is not enough and we need to start a formal adoption process…

Sorry...

Sorry I haven't been blogging lately. Here is a visual excuse:



The sad part is that most of my readings are in the form of PDF files on my computer!! These are just the books I have to read.

Seriously though, I am loving grad school. Working full time and going to school at night keeps me pretty darn busy, but I haven't felt too overwhelmed yet. I love learning and having classmates that I can talk to about the things I am interested in. I don't so much love homework, but who really does?

Move Over, Cake Boss!!

Now that I have started my masters program, I have to accept the fact that I am going to have to cut some things out of my life. I just don’t know what to cut… Still, I want to enjoy myself a little, teensy-tiny bit, so I lavished my time last weekend and teamed up with my friend Emily to make a cake for our friend Melissa’s birthday. Emily is AMAZING! She has a love for learning new things and acquiring new skills, which makes her my hero. She recently taught herself how to make gourmet cakes and I really wanted to learn too (and to spend time with her), so I asked if she would make a cake for Melissa’s birthday with me and she agreed!

Melissa LOVES argyle. She and I went to the outlet mall last year on Black Friday at like midnight and the very first store we hit was Tommy Hilfiger (and let me tell you, we hit it HARD). So, we decided that Melissa needed an argyle cake and Emily just whipped up a design out of thin air!! Thursday we mixed and baked the cakes and then Friday we cut, frosted, and decorated it. It took about 6 hours each night. I didn’t realize that cakes were such an investment, but I also learned that time=love and we LOVE Melissa, so it was no big deal. It was nice to chat and catch up on each others lives. Also, Emily introduced me to www.peopleofwalmart.com, which may be the best thing that has happened to me since the cheezburger network. We were laughing so hard I was almost crying.

Friday, while we were decorating the cakes, Emily’s roomies were having a screen-on-the-green in their back yard and it was so funny how people just gravitated over to watch us while we cut and frosted the cakes, dyed the fondant, and decorated the cake. No wonder those cake shows do so well, people just can’t help but be fascinated. I also think it is funny how, since people watch those cake shows, they think they know what they’re talking about and like to stand around and tell you what to do.

If I’m being honest, it was mostly Emily who is responsible for how great the cake turned out. She had to not only make and decorate the cake, but do so while fixing all of my mistakes. Move over, Cake Boss - Emily is the cake MASTER!!

Saturday we had to transport the cake over to the restaurant, which turned out to be quite the task! The cake was pretty heavy and the design was really delicate, so we were being as careful as we could. Unfortunately, the roads is DC are HORRENDOUS and as we bounced along, little pieces of fondant would just pop off. I would try to avoid one pothole, just to hit another.The damage was fortunately minimal, and the cake still had a good side for photographs, so we were happy. We also found parking right in front of the restaurant, which is nigh on impossible in Adams Morgan, so that was pretty fortuitous as well.

Melissa’s birthday was a blast! We had a nice little brunch at Napoleon Bistro and Melissa actually wore an argyle sweater without even knowing what kind of cake we had made!!

Really, the candles won't blow out? Mwahahahaha!!

August Garden Update

So I have good news and bad news. Let's start with the bad news: vegetable borers (nasty worms and bugs) got to my squash, cucumber, and zucchini in containers. I couldn't see them from the outside, but all of a sudden the plants started to yellow and wither. Upon closer inspection I could see that the bugs had bored into the stems and eaten them up until they were hollow. Also they crazy hot weather was too much for our green beans and they withered too. I was sad, but for me this is just a hobby. It made me realize that there are people out there whose livelihoods and families' lives depend on their crops and something like a little bug can be absolutely devastating and leave them with nothing. We are very blessed in this country.

Before

After

On the bright side, I am very glad that I decided to plant my extra seedlings in the planter by our door rather than throw them away. They are thriving and taking over all of the bushes that management has planted. The zucchini is taking over half of the walkway. I hope my neighbors don't hate me!





My upside-down tomato plants are doing really well too, but the tomatoes seem to be staying green and growing very slowly... I'll have too google and see if that is normal.



My basil is seriously thriving! I cleaned all the leaves off of them to make homemade pesto and they were full and bushy again within a week!

I have really enjoyed having a garden and LOVE getting to harvest and eat the veggies I grow! :) It is a lot of work, but I like having something to care for and work on and look forward to!