Friday rolls around again

Another Friday. Yay.

By the way, this is Allison again.

So, this week seemed really long. More grantwriting, more computer time...though we did have an all-staff meeting yesterday that was a good change of pace. Good to see the people from the other office, get to know them a bit better, and have good sandwiches, delicious kettle chips, and AMAZING cookies for lunch. Spending more of my time on various grants than on the CLT, but that's fine by me. We're kind of in a lull CLT-wise until we know where some projects are headed. I can plunk along on it this month and hopefully get most of it squared away.

In other news, still waiting on grad apps. Aaron's starting to plan his visits to the places he's been accepted. Lucky duck.

I went to the Humane Society last weekend and walked two unbelievably cute doggies. I've been growing more obsessed with my future pet lately. I don't really know why, but I just want to have my own pet. I've had family pets before, which were awesome, but as awesome as Hamster Hobbes was (and Scuzzy as well) I'd like to have a dog to take on walks and snuggle with.

Aaron and I will be catsitting for two weeks, so that might help a little. Or, make it worse. We'll see.

Hmmm what else. Watched the State of the Union. Screamed at the TV. Think this insurance thing is crap. Hate the war. Excited for Democratic race. Went to yoga. Visited Rolen and Lidiya last night. We talk about movies, flowers, and fruit a lot. I might try to candy orange peels like Lidiya showed me.

Weather's getting warmer, so that's good. Weekday bike rides are not too far off, as the days are getting longer, too. We ride on weekends, too far and too hilly, and then to work and back in the dark. Soon, though, we'll have light! Yay! I can't wait for summer in Oregon. It is warm and sunny, never rains, and has long days. Everyone should come visit ASAP. I'm serious. I really like it out here.

Every day (almost) Aaron and I finish our lunches and take a walk around downtown. We walk down the riverfront, then stop at little shops or whatnot on the way back. Aaron's looking for an acoustic guitar (he's now taking lessons) and we looked at a new Italian cheese store and ogled things we can't afford. Corvallis is a really neat place. I don't think I could live here as a kidless twentysomething and enjoy myself for long (aside from the great outdoor options), but it would be a great place to raise kids or retire.

Yoga really killed me last week. It has to be working at this rate.


Tonight we attempt to make baked beans. And, this weekend I am making cheesecake. Wish me luck!

Standard vs. Metric

The other night, Aaron and I debated converting to the metric system. For awhile, I agreed with the camp that metric is just more convenient because it's based on tens and is easily converted from one scale to another. However, upon thinking about the practical realities of the metric system, we came up with a list of reasons why standard beats metrics with a one hundred pound, 5 inch diameter, yard-long stick:


* Miles per hour works out very nicely with our current speed limits being approximately one mile per minute. Imagine if you were going 100 km/ hour (approximately 62 mph or something) and saw a sign that said "13 kilometers left". Difficult to figure out how many minutes that is! But with miles, it's easy to estimate the amount of time left.

* There's no good equivalent for a foot. 10 centimeters? Clunky! Useless! Think about how far you'd have to go out into decimals to compare heights. "I'm 1.625 meters." "Well, last I measured I was 1.630 meters, so ha."

* Celcius degrees are too large to be convenient. The Fahrenheit system allows for a much more accurate daily weather/layers prediction.

We had more, but it's five o'clock on a Friday and I'm out of here. Comment with your own!

A new year already

Hi. It's Allison.

And...we're back. I know it's been a while since we last posted, but it's been busy. We left for our respective homesteads on December 23rd, and returned on December 31st. I, for one, had a great time at home - great parties, a wonderful Christmas, and fun times with friends.

We spent New Year's in Concourse E of the Portland airport. We didn't even stop our rush towards the baggage claim when it struck midnight...so much for marking the passage of time. We just wanted to get home and we were looking at a two hour drive home. Plus, once we got my bag, took the bus to the parking lot, and made it to the free way, it was already one AM.

I was starving as we drove back so we stopped in Salem for some McDonalds. I got gross gross coffee to keep me awake for the next hour. Ick.

Anyhow, it's been good since we've been back. Work is going well. My project had two grant applications due that I helped edit, and I met with the principal of a school in the neighborhood we'll be building in. That meeting was awesome.

Oh! And in our first week back, Aaron met with Gerardo and Mira (his girlfriend) and I came with. Mira and I talked for the whole time about food and school (she's a freshman in college) and before we left, they told us how to make real enchilada sauce. So, we attempted it, which involved rehydrating two kinds of dried chilis that I had never heard of, pureeing them with tomatoes and garlic and then smushing the paste through a colander to get the sauce. The result? Sauce that tasted exactly like store-bought enchilada sauce for a lot cheaper. Mmm it was so delicious. Our last attempt from a recipe ended up with a kind of weak tomato sauce. Gross. This new recipe was amazing.

Also that week we watched the Rose Bowl and were very sad. The next weekend we went for a twenty-mile bike ride, which was really nice since we could get outside again. This weekend we went snowshoeing up Mary's Peak. As in literally up - we couldn't drive up the mountain because it was so slippery, so we parked at the base and shoed(?) up the side of the road. Awesome. We probably hiked 7-8 miles total, so that was tiring but sweet. Expect pictures soon.

We're going to be catsitting for Aaron's supervisor's cat while she and her husband go to El Salvador. Besides fuzzy time, this also means free wireless internet and utilities. Yay.

For some reason, our electric and grocery bills have been really high this month. We are cooking and baking more (and, it's cold), so that might have something to do with it, but we're going to try to cut back. I have been riding my bike on the trainer five or six days a week, and we're both doing some strength exercises too, so maybe we're just eating more. Who knows. I went to my first yoga class last week, too - my mom gave me a series of classes for Christmas so I'll be going for the next 10 weeks. I liked it well enough...I feel pretty confident in my yoga practice but want to make sure that I am using the correct positioning and stuff, so it's good to be in a fairly non-strenuous class.

Still no word on my grad school applications. Harvard's dropped down the list, as their admissions offices lost my GRE scores and is making me very, very angry with their unwillingness to help rectify the situation. The short version is this. Me: I sent my scores in November; I have confirmation of this. Put them in my file. Them: your scores are probably in a box somewhere; call us next week and hope they've shown up. Otherwise, tough luck.

Gah. Time is ticking away slowly on this front. I can't wait to get some sort of sign. Preferably acceptances. Aaron's racking up acceptances and money for law school. Not fair!

Anyhow, I should go check on dinner. We're roasting a turkey that we got for cheap around Thanksgiving. Neither of us has ever done this before, so it was a scary proposition. Aaron proved himself, though, by taking out the gross bits inside. Thank you, Aaron. Now it's basting time. See you later.