Just a quick update. Most of you reading this probably already know, but: Greg handed in his thesis! He has a month to prepare his defense, and then, he will be finished with grad school. Finished! It's possible he'll have to make some corrections to his dissertation after the fact, but he will be able to get a real job, with a salary large enough to support our family, and we'll actually get to see him every day.
So! Exciting!
James and Evan came in from playing on Monday afternoon to see Greg sitting on the couch. "Dad!" they cried, "Are you done?" When he replied in the affirmative, James asked, "Does this mean you'll get to stay home all the time now?" Sadly, no, but he will be home a lot more often now that he's not spending all of his waking hours writing.
So things are good. We're feeling a little more relaxed now, and starting to make plans for the summer now that we have a time frame to work around. We'll keep you posted as to what's next!
10 June 2009
big news!
08 May 2009
a conversation
Scene: Evan and Greg are looking around the farm. They see a group of small wooden crates nearby.
Greg: Look at all those boxes.
Evan: Oh, they're just the right size for me when I die.
Greg: What are you talking about?? You're not going to die!
Evan: You can bury me in them when I die.
Greg: No, I'll just throw you on that compost pile over there.
Evan: No, you have to bury me in a box!
Greg: Why do you want to be buried in a coffin?
Evan: Yeah, a coffin! Because then I can turn into a vampire and eat you!
08 July 2008
15 June 2008
father's day/weekend photos/weekend recipes
Happy Father's Day! We had a fun day today, celebrating Greg with one of his favorite things -- fresh strawberries. Today was the opening day of the season at the U-Pick farms around here, a couple of weeks earlier than usual thanks to some unusually warm spring weather, so we went out this afternoon and picked fourteen and a half pounds of strawberries. The first, which I neglected to take a photo of, was a spinach strawberry salad that we had with dinner. It's a really simple recipe, one I got from the mother of a friend of mine: spinach, sliced strawberries and crumbled feta cheese with a balsamic vinaigrette dressing. It sounds weird, I know, but the combination of sweet, salty and tangy really works nicely. I used this vinaigrette recipe, and I added about a teaspoon of brown sugar and a little strawberry juice that had collected in the bottom of the bowl. I thought when I was making it that the garlic might be a mistake, but it turned out fine. I'm sure a store-bought dressing would be just as good. And for dessert we had strawberry shortcake! Soooo goooood. I found this shortcake recipe, which is a bit more like a biscuit than cake, but still good. We split each shortcake open and topped the halves with a layer of strawberries. We forgot to sugar the strawberries ahead of time, so we decided to try sprinkling them with cinnamon sugar, which turned out to be a nice touch. Then we topped the strawberries with fresh whipped cream and mini chocolate chips, and most of us were able to refrain from licking our plates clean, but it was hard. That was a good dessert. This one I took a photo of: Hope everyone had a happy weekend/Father's Day!
And then we came home and ate 10 pounds of them. At least, that's what it felt like. But just look at these; I mean, could you really help yourself when faced with these perfect sun-warmed little berries?
You probably won't be surprised to learn that both kids were more interested in snacking than picking the strawberries:
And we managed to eat quite a few more once we got home, with a couple of strawberry dishes. 
02 May 2008
friday photos
A cute photo of me and beardy Greg, just for fun:
Greg and James fishing at the lakehouse a couple of weeks ago:
The boys posing in front of the lakehouse:
Greg and James enjoying the hot tub at the lakehouse:
An example from James' kindergarten April journal, in which every entry involves video games:
Happy weekend, everyone!
16 March 2008
expressions of love
I was going to do a weekend recipe this weekend, really I was, but then I got too busy cooking. You see, last Wednesday was Greg's birthday, and for the people I love (read: the people I live with who have no option to refuse), I bake birthday cakes. And for my lovely boyfriend, I will spend most of the afternoon making a cake full of questionable flavor combinations, dirtying just about every dish in the kitchen, because I love him, and baking is one of my favorite ways to express my love.
Sometime last week, Greg was making popcorn and hunting in the spice cabinet for something to put on it when he spied a jar of molasses. I hadn't realized until that moment how much Greg loves molasses, until he suggested putting it on our popcorn. Then he started rhapsodizing about his ideal popcorn toppings, which included flavors like molasses and mocha and caramel. Needless to say, I shot this train of thought down pretty much immediately, because unless popcorn is covered in butter or chocolate, I won't eat it. But he did give me something to think about.
Later on, I put "molasses mocha caramel cake" into Google and came up with a recipe for Chocolate Voodoo Cake. After looking it over and seriously underestimating the time and effort involved, I decided to make it for Greg's birthday cake.
I started the cake process at 3:30 this afternoon. Now it's around 8:30pm and we've got another 45 minutes of refrigeration until the glaze is set and the cake is ready to be poked with our voodoo needles. In the interest of saving time, I didn't bother to shape the cake, thinking I could mask any lopsidedness with the mousse and/or the glaze. This, of course, didn't work at all, so we've got a very misshapen little cake. And we tried, we really tried with those stupid chocolate caramel voodoo needles, but ours are all blobby, and either too fat or too thin.
Still, I tasted every bit of batter over every step of the way, and I'm convinced that though it is a really strange combination of things, it will taste good even if it's not pretty. And trust me, it's not pretty.
So happy belated birthday, honey. There aren't many people who I'd deem worthy of almost six hours (non-continuous, but still!) of my labor, just for a birthday cake, but you're one of 'em. I just hope this cake is worth it.
04 December 2007
christmas has come early!
Not only did we get our Christmas tree this weekend, but yesterday we received our Lego Star Destroyer.
The boys are already hard at work:
07 November 2007
yay!
Guess who won the Mouse-trap Car contest!
Raise your hand if you're even the slightest bit surprised. No? Neither am I.
31 October 2007
30 October 2007
let's hope i'm the only loser in the family
Anyone who's ever played a game of chance with me or competed against me in any way knows that I have terrible luck. Terrible, horrible luck that keeps me from ever winning anything, including a Nintendo Wii, an iPod (from a contest held on the same site) or a free Dyson vacuum cleaner (from a contest at Rocks in My Dryer).
Amusingly, the only cool things I can recall winning are Bryan Adams concert tickets from a radio station when I was 12, and a Caribbean cruise from the county fair when I was 16. Unfortunately, due to the fact that I was under 18 in both instances, I was unable to collect. Once I hit 18, I never won anything again. (...Well, that's not entirely true. My friends and I won a trivia contest at a local pub, but that was a team effort. Though I did win the tie-breaker myself, and I came home with an enormous, but lovely, Saranac t-shirt. One of the proudest moments of my life.)
But Greg -- if you know Greg, you know that he is one of the luckiest people who has ever lived. He has more luck in his pinkie toe his pinkie toenail a single cell of his body than I have in my entire body. If I didn't love him so much I'd hate him sometimes. But he and James have entered a contest at Geekdad to win a Lego Star Destroyer. (A three-hundred-dollar Lego Star Destroyer, I might add.) To enter, they had to build a car that was powered only by a mousetrap and create a video showing them building and testing the car. Keeping that prize in mind, they came up with a really cute, creative video. You can go to YouTube and check out their competition, but I think they've got a really good shot. Especially considering the deadline is today and there aren't many entries yet.
