Retreat, Band, Sweeney, and more unrelated fun stuff

I'm trying to catch up on what we've been up to before I leave town again this weekend (a church ladies' retreat in DFW - I'm excited!).

I think I summed up all I'm going to about the last weekend in March... on to April!

On the 4th-5th, we had a church ladies retreat in town. I was helping with part of it, and ended up spending most of my extra time during the week preparing things for that. The most amazing thing for me was that I never got stressed out about it - I'm not sure if people who saw me an hour before time would have guessed it, but I felt at peace about it all. My heart never started to race, I never forgot things because I was doing too many things at once, and the phrase "nothing is going to work" never crossed my mind. It may not sound like much to you, but that's a lot to me! It was really a blessing because I wasn't distracted the whole time and I was able to enjoy what was happening. Weird / sad how I pray for things and then act surprised when I get them.

Skip ahead to the next weekend - last weekend! Friday night Joe and I went to the University Bands concert on campus (A&M). I was in the top band for my first two years of college (I did one semester of both choir and band, but then switched to only choir). The wind symphony (what they call the top one now) still has the same director I had. He is one of the most intimidating people I've ever met. Joe said that he could see the tension in the group change after a guest conductor when he returned to the stage. Once, the clarinets (what I played) were not getting a difficult section of music exactly right and he got mad (a common occurrence). He told us that we each had to go into his office and play the part (alone) correctly before the next rehearsal. If we failed to do so, we would start the next rehearsal playing the section (individually) for the entire band. We all played it well for him instead, but that was a lot of pressure! But that group made some beautiful music. So it was good to hear them in concert, also because I miss that type of music. Of the nine pieces we heard, I had played three of them before (which makes it even more enjoyable for me).

Saturday we took our new laptop back to Best Buy because the CD / DVD drive randomly stopped working. We also did a bunch of cleaning and organizing. We ended the day watching Sweeney Todd. I knew that it was supposed to be really gory, but I'm not sure anything could prepare you for listening to a happy song while watching the singer cuts men's throats. At least it wasn't realistic gore. I actually liked this song (A Little Priest)... until I realized that they weren't totally joking.



And just so we don't end on that note, things we've done sporadically:
Joe's had four soccer games in the last two weeks, but he'll miss the game tonight. We're going to hear this guy sing. Sunday the playoffs start!

I've almost finished getting the garden going (several peppers and Roma tomatoes are almost ready to pick), I just have to get some mulch so hopefully the squash won't rot this year.

This will sound silly, but we've been keeping our house clean! That's one of those things we'd liked the idea of, but historically haven't done well on. But for a while now we've kept it pretty clean (if you're imagining spotless, then you obviously just found me on Google and don't actually know me). What's even better is that we've had a few last minute things where people were came over and we didn't have to say no or stress over last minute cleaning. So that's been nice, but taking up a bit more time on a daily basis.

*whew* Now you're all mostly caught up! If I have time, there will be a fun post later tonight. If not, have a great weekend!

Attack of the Ladybugs!

I like ladybugs. But hundreds of ladybugs... it starts to get creepy.

Saturday, March 29th, I bought several plants for our garden at the A&M plant sale. I've got them all planted and set up (with tomato cages and the like) now, so I'll take a few pictures to post soon. When we bought the plants, I noticed that several of them had a bug problem. We asked one of the horticulture students who was helping what they were, and our worst fear (they are just plants, you know) was confirmed: aphids. So after planting the garden Sunday, I went to a nursery in town and bought some ladybugs. The only way to buy them was a refrigerated small container with over 200 of them. I was told to release them after dark so they were less likely to migrate. See the two ladybugs in the upper left-hand corner of the picture below? That's what they said would happen. Then they lay eggs and the larvae also eats the bad garden bugs. (I hope this is very educational for all of you.)

Like I said, Sunday night we went out to eat with the Wakefields and Blands (hehe, if she finds out Chalyce will fake-kill me for linking to that and then drawing even more attention attention to it with this parenthetical statement), so we didn't get home until very late. Joe was a great sport, and soon we had ladybugs EVERYWHERE! Don't believe me? Here goes:

All the tiny dots of the sidewalk were ladybugs - it was hard not to step on any!

Ladybugs on my hand!

Ladybugs on the water hose - why did they like it so much?

Ladybugs in my hair - I felt like things were crawling on me for hours!

Vet School Open House

I'm trying to catch up with the promised pictures, so this was back on March 29th (3 weekends ago - yikes).

Joe and I went to the vet school open house with Stephanie, Jada, Jenny, Sam, and two of Sam's grandparents. Jada and Sam are both between 1 and 2 years old. The open house is pretty cool, especially since it's all free! There were boy and girl scout troops from all over Texas visiting for the day. First we met a lot of different types of dogs, as well as some horses.

Jada and a BIG dog.A horse with it's bones painted on.

We went into a petting zoo that had goats, sheep, ducks, rabbits, a llama, a donkey, and a very soft wallaby. Jada kept trying to feed the animals, but didn't want to get too close to their mouths. We also saw Radar, the world's tallest living horse, but it was a little hard to see how big he was since he was not very close to the fence.

Joe and I with Sam and Jada

The kids were troopers, but Joe and I hung around a while longer after our friends had to leave. In search to find a friend of ours who was helping out, we went to the hands-on exhibits. One of the things to do was to take a carnation and stick it in liquid nitrogen (very, very cold). Then you take the flower out and crush the petals in your hand. All this in an effort to make science look cool. (This is Joe. My arms aren't that hairy, thank you very much.)


We also saw the exotic animal exhibit. I probably wouldn't do it again (mostly because of waiting in line for it for over an hour). The first animals were rabbits, followed by rats, hamsters and guinea pigs. So I was thinking "Exotics? Really? Where's that camel they had on the advertising poster?" They did end up having a bunch of lizards, snakes and turtles, which seem slightly more exotic to me. Joe and I got our picture taken with a giant snake. I think it was some sort of albino boa constrictor. What ever he / she was, he / she was strong and heavy! (Joe is holding the head.) Jada and Sam were much more fun to hold!

plug - cake making

I case you didn't know, I like to bake. Not cook, mind you, but bake. If you like to make cakes (or do so despite your distaste), I highly recommend buying this Wilton product: Bake Even Strips.

A friend tried to make a cake using the same cake mix I had, but she said it didn't come out as moist. The only controllable difference (we can't share an oven) was that I use the Bake Even Strips. They aren't super cheap (about $8 for two), so I was hesitant to recommend them, but did anyway. You may be able to get them cheaper at WalMart (even the small one here has them) or Hobby Lobby using one of their 40% off coupons.* I've had mine about three years and use them at least every other month, and they are still in good condition.

I made a cake last week, and thought it would be the perfect chance for a little experiment to test whether or not it was a fair recommendation. I was making a two layer cake (with ice cream in the middle), so it'd be fine if the top layer had a dome on top instead of being mostly flat - the perfect opportunity.

I prepared the batter, sprayed both pans with cooking spray, and then added the same amount of batter to each pan. (I feel like I'm at work and should be saying, "The batter was prepared as done previously (Peebles 2005). The sides and bottoms of two non-stick nine inch pans (Wilton) were coated evenly with cooking spray (HEB). After resting two minutes at room temperature, 375ml of the batter was added to each of the pans." If you're not screaming at me to stop, you should check this site out. It's great. Also know that I'm holding back to not make figure legends*.)

Anyway, I put a baking strip on one (just wet it and then pin in place) and not the other, then baked the cakes under the same conditions. Just in case you didn't already think I was nerdy, I also took pictures. (If you've been reading for a while, this really shouldn't surprise you.) But at least now you can see for yourself the difference and not have to take my word for it! On the one without the strips, the center rose and cracked and the outside pulled away from the pan. It was also drier around the edge. I guess it works similar to putting the pan in a larger pan of water (like you're supposed to do to keep cheesecake from cracking).

So buy Bake Even Strips!

*I feel ultra-cheap saying something that costs less than $10 is expensive. Oh well.

** Legends should be spelled ledgends. I've felt strongly about that since about 2nd grade, even willing to sacrifice my grades on spelling tests in efforts to support the cause.

Creativity and Dementia

I just read an article that I enjoyed.

I boycotted the New York Times for about 9 months after they published a specific book review (okay, it was for the last Harry Potter book which they acquired early under shady conditions) before the release date, despite the author's and publisher's request to do otherwise. Anyway, I never found a good replacement for the type of stories they publish, and ended up settling for the Dallas Morning News and the local paper online. I had to stop reading cnn.com all together - what trash it wastes time on!

Anyway, now I'm back to the Times. Here's the article that sparked my interest. I may enjoy it more than you since I work in a medical research lab that mainly focuses on aging and the brain, but I think most people would find value in it. The article discusses how some forms of (basically) dementia can result in one part of the brain losing function and another part developing more function. In some cases, the area that becomes more active is one that is related to creativity. For Anne Adams, she went from a mathematics researcher / professor to being unable to add single digit numbers, but with a wonderful ability as an painter. I really like her Invertebrate ABC's book... when I doodle, it tends to be symmetric and balanced, and that is definitely her style in her work for that book. On a side note, I also find it sweet that her husband wrote the words for the book. It seems like even after disease stuck her, they grew and found new ways to be one, working and creating together.

I'm trying!

I was trying so hard not to get more than a week behind in updating, but it's happening now! You can expect a post sometime next week about our busy-but-fun weekend with some fun pictures. Here's a quick review:

Saturday 7:30am - 9:00 - plant sale at A&M - buy plants for summer garden
Saturday 9:30am- 1:00 - Open house at Vet school with friends (more exciting than that sounds)
Saturday 4:00 - 6:00 - Mary Kay grand opening for my friend Whitney
Saturday night - what happened to this night? I must have been home with Joe
Sunday morning - do dishes and laundry
Sunday mid-day - plan and plant new garden (but missed Joe's soccer game)
Sunday evening - host church (so we came an hour early and stayed an hour late)
Sunday late night - eat dinner with the Wakefields - our friends visiting from Virginia!
Sunday very late night - release 200+ ladybugs to eat the aphids I found on our plants (yes, I took pictures!)

It's been a fairly busy week, too. Our church has a ladies retreat (that I've been working on stuff for) that starts at 6:00 this evening and will last until mid-morning tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it! I have a few things to do this weekend, but it won't be nearly as busy as last weekend, which will be nice (especially since we're just about out of clean clothes).

I like the freedom you have in blogging - I can change from hours of the day to vague "mid-day" type terms and no one can complain! (Actually, they could, but there seems to be a rampant fear of commenting, so no one WILL complain.)