hazy shade of winter

I took these pictures the last time I saw the sun.  Which was...sometime last week? It is bad that I can't even remember.

Yup. Winter has returned!

Luckily we managed to avoid the main blast of this latest storm, but we did get more snow and crazy Siberia-esque winds. Or at least what I imagine Siberia is like; dark, freezing, with dry powder flying everywhere in the air.

Someday I will stop talking about the snow. I promise. In a few months.

This week was a bit more "low-key" for me since one of my seminars was cancelled for the week (I say low-key in a relative sense...) but I still have a lot of work to do this weekend! 

{I will share my thesis project eventually. I've just been too lazy to explain it to everyone !

It involves Lake Tahoe, forest reconstruction (simulating forest in the 1800s) and fire behavior.}

Even though weekends with Ben keep me sane and in love with life, I look forward to low-key weekends alone in my apartment with two whole days stretching in front of me in which to bake, relax, shop, and think about organizing and cleaning.

Tomorrow is a prospective student Open House in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences ("my" college, even though geography is hugely social science too) so I have to show and tell in the lab. 

It is ALSO "State Patty's Day," the ubiquitous unofficial Saint Patrick lets-get-drunk-in-the-streets celebration that every school seems to have. The police and school have been trying to quash this year. You know, so there are no more alcohol related deaths, destruction of public property, and hundreds of extra police calls.  The ensuing drama has made the school newspaper every single day this week. 

Oh, college. 

There ALWAYS seems to be a Visit Day on the biggest party events of the year.

Not going to lie, I did participate {in the much tamer version} back in the day...

and I kind of miss the days...or maybe just the friends :)

the Situation

So this is what the laundry-corner of my apartment looks like on a typical day...

Well, a productive typical day [note stacks of half-folded laundry!]

Seriously, one of the biggest dangers of living by myself and being lucky enough to have a washer and dryer is that there is NO ONE ELSE that ever needs it, i.e. NO ONE ELSE who can force me to fold my laundry or kick my clothes out of the machine.

And yes, the drying racks do seriously obstruct my way to the pantry.

And yes, that is my toaster oven you may spy sitting on the floor. That is its toaster oven spot. I've got counter space, but not THAT much counter space people!!

Soooo the clothing basically sits in the dryer until I run out of a "limiting factor" (usually sports bras these days, although it was definitely underwear back in college. Once freshman year I started to go through bikini bottoms and *maybe* even went commando in the face of a laundry shortage. Oh the days!) and am forced to empty it to make room for a new load. Like, every 2-3 weeks or so.

If I know there are clean clothes chillin in the dryer that I need, I will even start digging them out to wear.

It's like...an extension of my closet!

Aaaa is this wrong?

sleepytime ritual

Not every night, but most nights, I go to bed with a chocolatey creamy giant mug of molten chocolate goodness.

My homemade cocoa. YOU can do it too!

I have perfected the recipe, but it is highly adaptable, depending on your chocolatey needs.

It is not very sweet, but it is intense, and if you love the richness of pure dark chocolate,

you will kiss your Swiss Miss goodbye. 

The Perfect Decadent Cocoa Recipe

-Take your biggest mug, fill it with almond milk (or whatever milk is in your fridge--but if you like almonds I highly recommend trying almond milk. it is amazing.), and microwave until it is warm. 

-Add ~2T Hershey's cocoa powder (the kind you bake with), stir to dissolve big clumps, and keep microwaving until the cocoa is hot.  Stir again to make sure all cocoa clumps are gone, smashing them against the mug with your spoon if needed (go for the kill!) Add more cocoa if you are a chocoholic.  Add vanilla if you are a vanillaholic. Oh, that's just me.

-If you're not yet weaned off your super artificially sweetened commercial cocoa packets, add sugar/honey/agave/etc. to taste.

-Finish with as much ReddiWhip your mug will contain, and a bit of peppermint schnapps if you are done with quitting your grad school reading for the night.

mmmmmmzzzzzzzzz

sunshine and olympics

I realize that I have been talking about snow a lot lately...but this weekend I got some much needed SUNSHINE!

After another crazy busy week I went down to Baltimore to be with my calming influence {Ben!} because I seriously can't relax when I am by myself on the weekends. I am always stressing out, thinking about all the things I should/could be doing. 

We just lounged around, ate, and did work [all of the things that we do best] but it was still amazing.

AND I feel caught up for this week.

Some fun things were also accomplished, such as

-cooking apricot chicken and asparagus

-baking oatmeal applesauce blackberry muffins

-brownies and ice cream!

-Olympics watching [saw the Dutchman take gold in speedskating, juggernaut bobsledders, and freaky Russian ice dancers]

-a beautiful run in the SUN through the park and past the harbor with giant yachts

The countryside may be melting, but it is still cold and grey here in the mountains :( Alas!

Well I am off to be productive!!
Have an amazing week!

...still here

Happy Friday!

I am still alive, just sucked into the whirlwind/vortex/maelstrom that is another week in my life!

Seriously, this semester is insane and is wiping me out.

I have to be on top of things 150% of the time in order to stay, well, on top of things.

So please excuse the erratic posting schedule :)

The weird thing is that time is flying SO fast, I can't believe it's almost March!

Usually at this time of year I am getting hit by major, incapacitating spring fever, but I think this year spring will be here before I'm even ready for it.

If you know me, you know that is not normal.

For right now, I'm completely fine with February.

And that, my friends, is a first.

beautiful snow adventures

Over the weekend, Ben and I took a miniature getaway into the snow-covered landscape of central PA--just what I needed after a superstressful week!

When I say snow-covered I mean the highway runs four feet below the surface of the surrounding snowfields, with a plowed snow dike bordering the roads.

We made a stop at a little winery 

They gave us delicious wine to taste and let us explore

It was so gorgeous and magical in the snow

[please excuse weird wind hair]

[and taped broken sunglasses]

The original buildings were over 200 years old and dripping with icicles

I absolutely LOVE Pennsylvania stone. So pretty!

I love adventures with Ben even more.  Everything is mysteriously more fun when he is around :)

more snow, busy week

[the sky is not blue today, it is white, but this picture is pretty]

The reason I never post during the week anymore:

My weeks are so terribly front loaded and I always race around in a panic Mondays through Wednesdays trying not to get overwhelmed with everything I need to get done.

I usually end up spending lots of unproductive time because I don't know what I should attack first and then I feel even worse about life.

Right now I'm trying to put together the rough beginnings of my thesis proposal and it is SUPER intimidating for some reason! Definitely unneccessary. I'm trying to convince myself that it should be fun because it is something I am interested in, and that I am totally capable of this!! But I still psych myself out.

This morning I am still really stressed out and all I want to do is bake and cook delicious recipes on my mental back-burner like Eggplant Mousakka and Morrocan flatbreads.

I just need to BREATHE and hang in there until tomorrow!

snow weekend

I woke up on Saturday to find myself living in a cozy snowcave!

[view out my lowerlevel window]

We got lucky here in town and only received 14" of snow...although since we were on the edge of the blizzard it varied a lot in the area, some neighboring towns got a lot more.

It's been gorgeously sunny every day since though, so the roads are already clear and dry.  Ready and waiting for the next dumping that comes tomorrow! Ridiculous.

[snow campus]

I really like winter sunsets, the colors are so delicate and thin but the snow makes the world glow

p.s. Ben is having fun in Baltimore; it is basically a

(fun) natural disaster zone because they have no real snow removal infrastructure in the city and got twice as much snow as we did up here! It's a good time to be a teacher...snowdays indefinitely???

[Ben's car-yeah...obviously we didn't see each other this weekend!]

hydrangeas in the snow

When I arrived home today there was a little red box waiting outside my door in the snow...

and it had my camera cord in it!  And other fun things made of fuzzy yarn and lacy paper and sparkles. Thanks Mama and Grammy :)

So being newly reunited with my cord, I extracted the pictures that were waiting for me in my camera and found these snowy hydrangeas from my front step in Illinois .

[Did I mention the snow? We are getting hit by the epic Northeast Blizzard of 2010 as I type.]

Have a lovely weekend, whether you are snowbound or not.

My plans include some baking, attacking my backed-up laundry situation, a baby shower, superbowl party, and of course many hours of reading and writing for school.

Hopefully I can put a dent in my expectations; I usually plan too many things to do on weekends and end up disappointing myself when I can't accomplish them all! Alas.

Well I'm off to make another humongous mug of tea.

Today I realized I am a tea junkie. 

My mountain of boxes is getting outta control.

repeat photography

Happy almost-Friday everyone! Oh my goodness, where is the week going?  I've been pairing up some repeat photos of Lassen Volcanic National Park in CA in the lab and I think it's really cool...so I am going to teach you about it!

Repeat photography is one of the tools we use to visualize vegetation change in a specific location.  It's exactly what it sounds like; we take an old picture of a national park taken in the 20's, 30's or 40's back when the parks were being established and advertised, then go back out and find the EXACT SAME SPOT where the photographer took the picture and take the exact picture again.  Almost as soon as national parks were established, an enormous fire suppression policy took effect because wildfires are bad and we should put them out, right? (wronnnng) We are now realizing that fires were an important part of lots of forests and ecosystems because they cleared out underbrush and allowed big trees to grow without competition for resources, among gazillions of other reasons.  Fire suppression has resulted in the growth of LOTS of little trees that would have been wiped out otherwise.  Fast forward 80 years and these little trees are getting pretty big, which creates MORE fuel for future fires to burn, thus creating a bigger risk for high intensity fires that aren't natural (aka BAD). 

Comparing photographs of the same site reveals how forests have changed from fewer bigger trees to many smaller trees, which also blocks the dramatic vistas that characterize the national parks. 

Here's an example of my favorite from Yosemite. The picture on the top is from the early 1900's and the one on the bottom is from the 1990s. 

{original}

{today}

WAAAA! If you go there today, you would have no clue that what you're seeing is not natural at all! 

Forest and park managers are working to restore natural conditions by using prescribed fire, and researchers help by determining what "natural" or reference conditions were.  And that is part of what I do at grad school!

  

Groundhog's Day Eve Birthdays

Today is Groundhog's Day Eve, aka my mommy's BIRTHDAY!

She is a super amazing mom, and even though you are probably not reading this today Mama, I just wanted to give a little post for you.  :)

It is also Ben's mom's birthday, so if YOU are by chance reading this Pat, happy birthday to you too :)

And happy new job!