Indian Loot

Today we celebrated our neighbor/friend's birthday with a delish Indian lunch. After lunch we visited a Patel Brothers grocery store. This is where you can get all of your Indian groceries - what fun! I was inspired and picked up a few instant-style Indian items, hoping that it will give me the confidence to start cooking from my Indian cookbook. It will be quite helpful now to know where to get the Indian ingredients!

I have also included a photo of the rarely seen Belle kitty. She is meowing because she wants me to pet her.

TJ's Greatest Hits

For all of your special occasion transportation needs . . . Wahooptie.Saturday morning we took the camera with us on a hot and steamy 8-mile run through grounds. I thought we were going to melt - but we lived to tell the story.

(Above) My home away from home while at U.Va.

I thought this was a cool pic. The curvy walls to my left enclose the Serpentine Gardens. Straight ahead is The Rotunda at the top of The Lawn. All bow to Mr. Jefferson.
Jody - "Blah blah blah Mr. Jefferson. Blah blah blah Grounds. When I was a first year blah blah blah." On our way to Edgar Allen Poe's room on The Range.JAS kissing Homer's butt, as is ritual when streaking The Lawn. Obviously I didn't streak this morning but maybe I did a few years ago . . .
JAS and CDW hot and sweaty on The Lawn.I had forgotten this about C'ville - the cabs all have these funny slogans and mottoes painted on their trunks.
CDW enjoys an Archer as a big storm rolls over the Blue Ridge Mountains and into the Ville. We were in C'ville less than 48 hours, and managed to have Arch's frozen yogurt twice!
And we continue to eat our way through C'ville with next stop Bodo's Bagels. Bodo's makes the best bagels EVER. This Bodo's is located on The Corner in C'ville (The Corner is the actual name of a little district of shops, restaurants and bars right across the street from Grounds). For the entirety of my college experience the sign here said "Opening Soon." It said opening soon when I visited U.Va. as a high school senior. It said opening soon a year after I graduated. It finally opened a few years after I graduated. I guess that "soon" can be a relative term.
Schroeder family - you know you love St. Maartens! CDW and I split a yummy cheese turkey burger and cheese fries. Heaven! My very fave bar/restaurant hangout in Cville.
There was a photo booth at the Bat Mitzvah party. Fun!

Last weekend we headed down to Charlottesville, VA. Sadly, the hectic pace of graduate school for the last two years prevented me from my usual frequency of visits to my alma mater to relive my glory days . . . so I was pretty excited. We were there to celebrate Brie's Bat Mitzvah, which involved a few great parties, but we also had a lot of unscheduled time, and we took advantage of that.

Surprise Visitors

So one random Thursday afternoon I get a text from my cousin that says "3 hour layover in your neck of the woods." Jess and Marc were en route to NYC, and got stuck in Baltimore for a few extra hours on account of some bad storms. Bummer for them, awesome for us! I picked them up at the airport, and we were able to hang out for just about an hour before I had to drive them back. Oh well - it was wonderful to see my West Coast cuz and her husby even if only for an hour!

Memorial Day Weekend

CDW and Charles enjoy homemade potato chips at the SoWeBo Arts Festival.
We went for a hike at Sugarloaf Mountain. It was hot. Really hot. We rewarded ourselves afterwards with a trip to a winery. Score.

That is one beautiful girl doggie.

It was really hot this Memorial Day Weekend. I mean crazy hot. We had fun anyway!

Homemade Ice Cream

The ingredients.
The tools.
The gooey goodness.
The finished product. I'm not sure which I will like better - the little popsicles from the ice cube trays, or the dixie cups. I'll get back to you on that.

As most of you are aware, we will be making some changes in our house while I am not working. We'll be trimming the fat anywhere we can expense-wise. One fatty piece is ready-made doggie ice cream. I will not mention a brand name, but for many years I have purchased a certain brand of ready-made dog ice cream in the freezer section at my grocery store. It is the perfect treat for Fido after a long hot walk, a tramp in the woods (right, Aunt Joan?), or a play date. But these bad boys will set you back. No more of that for a little while!! Ingenious Aunt Sarah found this recipe online, and today I decided to give it a try. I give it an "A" in these categories: ease, preparation time, availability of ingredients, doggie interest in taste-testing.

Ingredients:

32 oz. plain yogurt

1 mashed banana

2 Tbsp. peanut butter

2 Tbsp. honey

Directions: Mix all ingredients in your blender. Pour into ice cube trays or dixie cups. Freeze. Let your mutt enjoy.

This Week's Achievement

So far my biggest achievement this week is getting Abbi a haircut. Why didn't I think of this before? It's been a long time since I had a dog that needed haircuts (Bessie), but someone else I know was talking about their dog's haircut, and it came to me. Abbi has always had a rather shaggy look which was cute, but her hair tended to get little tangles, which I had to comb out to prevent matting. She was covered in matts when we found her. In any case, brushing is not her favorite. It is actually the opposite of her favorite. So I packed up a bundle of treats and took her to the groomer. I held her and fed her treats while the groomer shaved and trimmed as much as she could. The result has been an adorable Abbi, and I swear that she feels very cute and very cool (both temperature, and otherwise).

Graduation Day

I did not actually get my diploma on Friday. Contained in this envelope was a very cool drawing of a turtle.
The four MPH grads from our department - Talya, Megan, JAS, and Ranwa. I've had a lot of classes with these very smart ladies!
SKN and JAS.
JAS and CDW.
Talya, Anne, and Jody. I worked for Anne at my assistantship. Boy will I miss having her as a boss. She is the coolest.
Uncle Bill, JAS, and Aunt Joan.
The whole fam! Aunt Joan, Gloria, CDW, JAS, Sue, Uncle Bill, and SKN.
JAS and SKN, pre-party.

Last Friday I graduated. I am now a Master of Public Health (MPH). Truth be told, the graduate school experience has been quite humbling, and leads me to feel like a master of nothing . . . but I will take the degree anyway.

We were fortunate to have lots of loved ones make their way to Charm City to celebrate with us. My mom, Chris's mom, Aunt Joan and Uncle Bill, and my oldest and dearest friend Sarah. What a contingency! The joke of the weekend was that our house was like a clown car. If people were standing outside and watching us they must have been thinking "How did they fit all of those people?? . . ."

In addition to the actual graduation our visit included a wonderful Indian dinner, a fabulous lunch on the deck at Little Havana, and a rockin' graduation party. Again, we had no idea what the maximum capacity of our home was before this weekend! Aunt Joan and Uncle Bill weren't able to stay for the party, but Sarah and the Mom Squared team were the best party help ever. If not for them everyone might have arrived only to munch on frozen pizza bites or something. Instead, these ladies helped me assemble an overly ambitious menu of homemade hors d'oeuvres, and did an amazing job of clean-up. I'll bet they were happy to get home, and away from all of the work here in Baltimore!

So what am I doing now? Well, I'm unemployed. I'm torn because the idea of a summer off really does appeal to me, but the idea of not having a paycheck does not appeal to me. So, this week I will start the job search. I will keep you posted.