365: Cutie Little Post Office

Thought I'd snap a picture of the cute little post office that houses our mailbox! Just a little small town place where people are friendly and the mail woman knows us by sight. If you've ever sent us anything (or are thinking about it) this is where we get it! Ta da!

365: Crazy Bug

Carmie is OBSESSED with bugs. She is particularly fond of moths. She runs and jumps through the air trying to catch them and eat them. Since the rain came last week we've had a plethora of moths. Getting her to concentrate on going to the bathroom or eat dinner is nearly impossible. Nerdy girl.

365: WANT

Sigh. I've always wanted a VW Bus. We saw this totally cool one today while driving around Chico with our friend & house guest Mad Melvina. Too bad it was $15,000 and I don't have that just laying around. BOO. Some day I will have my Sweet Pickles dream.

365: Remnants of a Good Time

We're sticking to our couple's New Year's resolution and having more people out to the house/hanging out more often. This one snuck up on us--Ange's friend Melissa came to visit from San Francisco (and is now my friend!) and one of my friend's texted me to see what we were doing for the evening so I invited her over. Then Ange remembered one of her friends' partner was out of town so she invited her! We ended up having dinner and cracking up until after 1 am! Definitely a great night. Yay for impromptu gatherings!

365: Bazinga!

I admit it. I'm totally obsessed with The Big Bang Theory. I've seen it in the past and always thought it was funny but never got "hooked." I think I just had too much going on to dedicate time to get into it. During Christmas my sister got us addicted to so many shows. I mean really, what else is there to do in chilly ass Indiana?!?! The Big Bang Theory was one of them. I've taken it home with me. The best part is that there are reruns of old episodes almost every evening. I've been DVRing them all and watching them pretty much nonstop. They've pretty much become my new Law & Order: SVU. Just wayyyy funnier.

365: Recruit, Recruit, Recruit!

Today kicks off the first official day of recruiting for the Gambia trip. I was going to give a 5 minute pitch to my Community Health class...but they were so pumped about it that it turned into 30! Whoops! I already have 5 students who are "totally going." I just need to get them the application and have them turn in the deposit and we're already halfway to our minimum! Can't wait til we have the all the students signed up so we can start having meetings and getting to know each other!

365: People are Funny

I don't know what is funnier: the original note or the fact that campus police actually took the time to write out a ticket for the illegally placed funny lock.

365: Naughty, Naughty Dogs

Someone was apparently very hungry today. That is a box of dog treats torn to shreds. The recycling containers live in the basement with the dogs. I guess if you're hungry enough an empty box with a promise of crumbs is enough to get you by for the day. Sad story for Carmie--she's the only one who cuddles in this "house." BUSTED.

365: Secret Smiles

Every time I use condiments at home I make smiley faces with them. It works best if I have two different sauces (see above), but even just one will work. Next time you see me eating something with condiments, you can guess I have a secret smiley face hidden amongst my food.

365: (Winona's) Wild Wine Weekend!

Today was a BLAST. We hit 5 spots & sampled from 8 wineries. I don't think I've laughed so hard in ages. This was at the first stop and goofball's look was only a preview of things to come! I think we celebrated Winona's birthday in style! We're definitely going to have to come back to Santa Cruz soon!

365: Finally Arrived!

After the longest, rainiest drive ever we finally arrived in Santa Cruz. Poor Ange is beat--she does not like driving in the rain! Luckily my cousin hooked us up with a "suite" ass room at the resort where she works and now we can unwind in comfort! Here's to a great weekend!

365: And So It Begins...

Ange and I have been warmed that the heretofore nonstop gorgeous weather was an anomaly and that it would start raining soon. We chose to ignore them. It's only rained 3 times in the 6 months we've lived here.

Today we can no longer live in denial. It has rained all day. Gray skies, puddles, the whole shebang. I had a lot of walking around campus to do today. By the time I got home I had frozen prune-cicles instead of feet.

Anyway, it's better than snow!

365: New Quilt!

Ange and I have been looking for a new quilt/bed spread for a while. This is more difficult than it might seem. Ange and I have very different tastes. My favorite colors are pink and red--she hates these colors. Her favorite colors are blue and green -- neither of which I care for particularly much. I like black as an accent color--she likes brown. I like bold & wild patterns--she prefers more subdued things. In addition, although we have a king size bed that it needs to cover, I'm the only one who will be using it. Ange has her own special blanket she uses and I use the flat sheet and the quilt/bed spread. So it has to be thick enough to keep me warm but thin enough to accommodate my side of the bed only when we sleep. Also, we're cheapos. So it needs to be inexpensive. But hardy enough to stand up to lots of washings (see previous post on Ange's clean linens issue). See our challenge?

But today I found the perfect quilt! It was on clearance at Target for $26.98 (check on the cheap). It was thick, but not too thick (check on spatial size). It had less obnoxious greens and blues, but also purples and yellows (check on colors). Had a nice crazy pattern, but not over the top (check on visual appearance). I sent Ange a text and she loved it! It's been washed and dryed and is just waiting for bedtime. Score!

365: CAUTION: Winter Has Arrived!!!

This is what "icy" looks like in Northern California. We had our first "hard frost" last night. Ange and I pulled up to campus and nearly laughed ourselves silly. The whole lawn is filled with caution tape. It looks like they forgot to turn off the sprinklers and the sprinkler water turned to a bit of frost. The ridiculousness of this is almost too much.

365: Mmm

Vegetarian sloppy joe's. Perfect way to end a sloth-like day. Less than a week til school starts again! Eep!!!

365: 2012--The Year of Projects

Or should I say "Ange's Year of Projects." Not me. I just play a supporting role in all of this. And by supporting I mean, I sit in a camp chair enjoying the sun, drinking mimosas, petting dogs and saying things like "Great job honey!" Ange's two current projects are repainting a fire poker set we got at a thrift shop for $2 & restaining a wine rack we also got for $2 at a thrift shop. Great job honey!

365: Hosting a LGBT Teen Dance

Much angst. Awkward slinking around. Lots of fishnets paired with cut off shorts and leg warmers. Chaperones trying too hard to be cool. Perplexing music requests. Me rolling on the floor in the corner giggling myself to death. Good times.

365: Yeah. We're Those Kind of People

Ange and I made our first batch of homemade laundry detergent tonight. We've always been (sort of) hippies at heart and we're just taking more steps towards fulfilling that identity. Back when we first moved here and my JC girls sent us a congratulations on everything box Colleen sent us a whole bunch of homemade samples of goodies. We'd used everything except the laundry detergent. When Ange was little she had cancer and spent a lot of time in the hospital. If you've ever been to a hospital you know how they smell. As a result of this childhood experience she has an intense sense of smell and favors heavy scents when it comes to her bedding. I have never felt strongly one way or another so I've always let her dictate our laundry purchases. After her Pinterest revival during the break she decided to take the plunge and try out the detergent Colleen sent. She decided it was fragrant enough and since it was homemade we should calculate the cost, and if inexpensive enough we should go for it. Uh, turns out, it's way cheaper. Like < $0.05 a load. So after gathering our necessary supplies we decided to live big on a Friday night and go homemade detergent crazy. It's a wild life but someone has gotta do it!

365: Spreading the Love

I took my good friend MP geocaching today. It was super fun which was not surprising. I love geocaching, love being outside on nice days, had good conversation and spread some geocaching love to another person!

This sign, however, I did not love. Luckily it isn't summer so we didn't have to worry about snakes. Ewwww.

365: Beautiful Day

Today was another sunny and beautiful day in California. Even better was that I has two very good & productive meetings. I finally got all of the info I needed to turn in my third round of info needed for approval of my Africa trip this summer! Keep your fingers crossed peeps! I have students that are desperate to make the trip!

365: Resolutions

Ange and I have resolved to eat less and move more this year. We aren't really new year's resolution kind of people; we're just doing it for ourselves. We've had some tumultuous couple of years (in a mostly good way) and we've just gotten out of good habits lately. Since we got back from Indiana we've been trying to work in daily walks when possible, even if they are only 10-15 minutes. We figure if we can squeeze in small walks a couple times a day, most days of the week it will do wonders for our health. Tuesdays are Ange's early days at work so she got home early enough that we could squeeze in a longer walk before it got dark. We ended up exploring our surrounding area for about 45 minutes! This is just one shot of many that I took on our walk.

365: Giggles

You want to know the best part about working your booty off, earning a PhD, and finding a kick ass job?

(Besides, of course, inspiring young minds, changing people's lives, and all that jazz.)

Not having to wear anything but pjs for days on end! I've only left the house twice in the past week.

But don't let that fool you -- I haven't just been laying around eating bonbons. I've actually worked my booty off. I just get to do it in a robe and slippers!

365: Funsies!

Wine and games? I'll take it!

365: Mennonite Madness!

We went to a friend's birthday party tonight. We had so much fun, met some new people and had some yummy food. Best of all, we learned two new games! The one you see pictured is called either "Mennonite Madness" or "1 to 100." Obvs I'm going to go with the double M because that's way more fun to say. The other game we played was called Four Mary's. Which also has a name that doesn't describe the actual game play. But still super fun! Good times :)

365: Now Starring in...The Housewife!

This morning Ange dropped a Pyrex take-away container on the counter that shattered into about a skamillion pieces all over the kitchen. Even after we picked up the main carnage I kept finding itsy bitsy pieces everywhere. I couldn't let little pitty-pats get any glass stuck in them so I decided to get out the vacuum and zip around the kitchen. Did you hear that record screeching to a halt? It did. Trust me. I don't do vacuuming. This is the first time I've even touched the vacuum since we've moved in. Vacuuming is Ange's domain. Once I got it out and did the kitchen I decided I would just do the whole dang house as a surprise for my boogsy. She loves to come home to a clean house and it will give her less to do this weekend. It was barely worth it. It took me almost 2 hours to vacuum and mop the entire house! Whew it was too much work for me! Thankfully I don't do this often. I might die of exhaustion. Academia is the life for me!

365: Snuggle Time

This week has been kicking our butts. Ange is still sick (on the mend, but still sick), we're both covered in poison oak (please note the back scratcher), and our online classes are kicking our butts. We decided around 9 that all we could muster up the energy to do was to cuddle in bed and watch Modern Family.

365: Obsessed

Lately I have been obsessed with popcorn like WHOA. I am possibly even more obsessed with the popcorn button on our microwave. I've had microwaves with them before but they never worked worth a damn. I'm not a very good popcorn maker on my own--and by my own I mean listening to the pops and stopping the microwave when more than 3 seconds pass between pops or whatever the weird measure is suppose to be. Too much anxiety...now? Or wait! Now? Was that 3 mississippis? Arghhh! I always burn it or have about a billion unpopped kernels. But no more! This button works to perfection!!! It gets it right every single time and I don't have to have a 4 minute long anxiety attack while it's cooking. I can just walk away and violá! Perfect popcorn. Love.

365: My Amish Wife

Ange got really into Pinterest while we were on break. Now she wants to turn herself into a walking Etsy shop! Her first project: homemade candles. We spent some time at thrift stores and Michael's this weekend investing in her dreams. We'll let you know how the projects turn out!

365: Yummy Midnight-ish Snack

It's not quite midnight, but close enough for me. We found these yesterday at Winco. I love multigrain Cheerios and I love peanut butter. Ergo I love these. They are as good as I thought they'd be! Nothing like a yummy snack when there is work to do!

365: Perspective

It is mid-60s and sunny today. I probably wouldn't appreciate it as much if we hadn't just arrived from rainy, cold Indiana. Good way to start the new year!