Loooong day

I stayed at my parents last night. It was nice to hang out with them, but the bed I sleep on there is hard as a ROCK. I seriously felt like I had slept on the floor all night when I woke up. Well sort of woke up, I had one of those nights where you feel like you never really slept. The other bed is more comfortable, but it's under their room and I can hear my dad snoring all night. Next time: different bed, loud fan, my own pillows, and I should be set.

I got up bright and early to drive to Clark College in Vancouver. I am glad that I shaved about an hour off my drive in the morning by staying in Salem. The campus is really nice, the program seemed nice too. It was a long day of mingling, listening, test taking, interviewing, and touring. I will find out in late April if I have been accepted there or not. I have a lot of decisions to make in the next few months.

Then I met up with Rich for dinner at a Moroccan restaurant in NW Portland. It was so much fun and super good too.




The interior, it was quite dark in there, which set a nice mood. Good for making out in the corner. Bad for viewing Disneyland pictures.


I didn't get a picture of the first course, lentil soup. I didn't think I liked lentil soup. I liked theirs, very much. I'm not sure what this was, cucumber dipping wonderfulness with fennel seed bread.


This was quite possibly one of the top five things I've ever put in my mouth. Where to start...light flaky filo filled with melt-in-your-mouth meat, egg, almonds, spices, cinnamon, topped with powdered sugar and more cinnamon. Now if someone had described this to me, I would have said, hmm, that doesn't sound very good. I'm not usually a big fan of cinnamon and meat together. But this was absolute heaven.


The filling:

My main dish, Couscous Marrakesh. It was good, but by far the least delicious thing I ate. I was totally full at this point anyway, that I boxed it up to take home.


Rich got the salmon, also delicious.


With his milk and straws.


I didn't get a picture of dessert, sliced fruit in a cinnamon ginger sauce and sweet mint tea. I didn't want to blind the people next to us. How did I forget the wonderful service, they washed your hands for you before and after you ate, and at the end put this awesome rose oil water on your hands that moisturizes just enough and makes your hands smell so good!

I guess I should have asked the guy next to us if he had ever used a camera before, before I had him take our picture. I've taken less blurry pictures out of a moving car, but anyway, I'm glad we did get A picture.


Rich, I had a really nice dinner with you. It was a relaxing end to a hectic and tired day.

Eating Well

I was reading a random blog the other day, and the subject was veganism. This girl was really into creating vegan food. I guess she had a craving for something non-vegan and had recreated it vegan. She listed what she had used to make this dish, and among the ingredients were all sorts of things like Vegan Cream Substitute, Egg substitute, etc. It just seems so silly to stop eating animal products for "health" (and I guess a lot of people, for the animals' sakes) and replace those things with artificial fillers and chemicals. I think that a lot of these substitutes could be made from natural things at home, but there seem to be many vegans that buy their substitutes already made. This doesn't seem any healthier than buying a frozen TV dinner. Not to mention the cost. It seems to me if you are worried about the way that animals are treated, you could take all the money you are spending on special vegan food and use it for meat or eggs that come from a local source that you feel comfortable with. (An aside, many vegans also claim to be environmentalists, but buying packaged food is a waste of energy, fuel and packaging.) The truth is natural foods are good for you, including those that come from animals. You need those vitamins and minerals, and often animal products are the best way to get them. People worry about how the animals are treated, maybe they should worry about how they are treating themselves as well. I'm not saying that veganism can't be done well, I think it can, but I have a feeling that is the exception not the rule. I wonder how many vitamin deficiencies, or long term health effects result from poor nutrition due to veganism.
I took anatomy and physiology and nutrition recently as pre-reqs, I felt it was really eye opening, and I think everyone should have to take these classes. They are like owner manuals for your body. I am by no means a nutrition expert, but I did learn enough to know that it is extremely complex, what interacts with what, what can or can't be absorbed in the presence of this or that.
I guess it's really none of my business, nor does it affect me, but sometimes I feel like people don't realize how important health is. How important it is to take care of your body, and to educate yourself. You only get one body, so take care of it now and you will be thankful later.

To do list

Things accomplished this weekend:

Chemistry homework
Chemistry Lab
Laundry, including my sheets and quilt
Work yesterday
Toilet scrubbed
Nalgenes scrubbed and bleached
Practiced with my macro lens
Cleaned up ant traps
Caulked the door
Made my bed
Burned a ton of DVDs
Sent off my appeal letter to Mt. Hood
Taxes

Things left to accomplish:
Scrub shower
Look over my chemistry test for this week
Clean my kitchen, including the dining room table
Vacuum my room √
Grocery shopping √
Errands √
Finish and mail PCC application
Complete exit interview for my loans at OSU √
Fill out my Blue Cross application
Get to volleyball tonight √

More Macro

Well I'm sure everyone is sick of bug pictures, but this is my blog, so I will post what I will. I found a giant yellow jacket today, and was kind of bummed I didn't get any decent pictures from it. It was moving the whole time which made it impossible to get a clear shot. What an impressive looking insect up close. I did keep in mind that the thing could kill me, and should have had my epi pen handy but I was too busy trying to get pictures. This is the only one that was even close to in focus. I was reading about my lens/camera and it sounds like there is a pretty steep learning curve for my lens with focusing and depth of field. I just need more practice.




I have much better luck with dead insects and a tripod, of which one was bestowed on me the night of the eclipse. I'm so thankful for it. I'll try to get some more attractive macros up here, things like flowers and butterflies.

Eclipse

Apparently the last full lunar eclipse until 2010. I'm glad I caught it, it was impressive.

Take Two

Ok....I am getting this. And realizing it is IMPOSSIBLE to keep still even with a small tripod, especially in any low light at all. These are my second try. They are still a bit blurry, but I will get this! This photo isn't that great, but I got excited when I could see compound eye!

MACRO!!!

I've only tried out this badboy once, but I definitely see potential...there's only one that I actually am happy with, but I don't think that's too bad.








I think if I play around with depth of field a bit I can get a good image, with more parts in focus.

Sirens and flashing lights

Well I just got pulled over for the first time, ever. Not very much fun. And kind of funny after a night of knitting and babysitting! Apparently I have a headlight out. I'm still a little shaky after all the adrenaline pumping through me.
In other news Aaron got me a macro lens for Valentine's Day!!! I'm so excited, and I can't wait for all the bugs to come out so I can take extreme close ups of them! He also made me carrot cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, and lots of wonderful little things. I am lucky :)

Ant Death

The second it got warm I had ants...I need to caulk my door, they just walk right in like the own the place. I have concocted a lethal cocktail for these unwanted arthropods:

1/4 c water
1/2 c sugar
1/2 tbsp boric acid

Set it out around their trails and wait.
I do feel a little bad. Just a little. They mean no harm, but if I let these guys stay, soon there will be thousands! I did have fun watching them today, seeing how long it would take them to find the sugar and trying to figure out how they communicated to each other. We'll see how long it takes...

Fantastic Day

Today was so great, I woke up pretty early. Did my chemistry homework first thing, and worked on an essay question for an application. I got some laundry done, cleaned up the kitchen a bit (found an ant convention on my floor), and ran some errands. I went over to Bald Hill, I love that I can go to Dixon, but I miss trail running. Today was actually warm enough to go and it didn't rain much, it was a really nice day to go up. The trail was muddy in parts, but that just made it all the better. The moss is so green on all the trees, the view was beautiful with a light fog cover and some snow still in the foothills. A tiny golden crowned kinglet and his mate came within two feet of me and just hung out, and I was reminded why this is so much better than running on a treadmill. It's nice too when it's a little rainy out and there aren't many people out. I finally have a ton of dinner ideas for the next two weeks so I can start planning and eating better. I'm going to make:
Pizza with pepperoni, mushrooms, bell pepper and olives
Beans and rice in the crockpot
Scalloped potatoes with beans in the crockpot
Pork chops with home made applesauce and couscous
Salads!
Pasta with herbed feta
and I have half a chicken pesto calzone from McMenamin's leftover from last night.
Yum!
I'm finally feeling like myself again, I really think the warm weather helps, and once I start exercising it makes me want to eat well also.

Valentines...

Happy Valentine's Day! I know it's early, but I was feeling it. I got my Valentine's packages shipped out and delivered. For some reason I'm pretty excited about all the pink and red and hearts this year. I made cookies and a few Valentines. Fun stuff.



So I got a letter today from Clark College in Vancouver inviting me to an orientation day (!!!!!) I'm excited to finally be hearing back from places.


Some things I'm stressed about:
MONEY
My car running worse after its $400 tune up
School and all the unknowns
My increasing shoulder pain waking me up at night

Some things I'm happy about:
Hearing back from dental hygiene schools.
Flowers are sprouting up outside my door!
It's not dark when I get off work.
Valentine's Day
My free subscription from Bon Appetit started today
It's the weekend, thank god.

Uneventful.

My life is truly uneventful as of late. I can feel winter wearing on me and I am really looking forward to spring with all its color and life, not to mention warmth. I have been reading about what we can do and see in the Yucatan and I'm really excited. I don't think it will be too difficult to make our way down to Belize and that makes me happy.
These are my first attempts at super macro with my new camera. Tomorrow we have a class field trip (probably indoors due to weather) so hopefully I will get a few nice shots.