SoJo & Co. » highs and lows

The Whole Story (or Lack Thereof)

osarah — Thu, 14 May 2009 09:12:16 +0000

I apologize for giving out “bad” information yesterday when I said the Texan was no longer printing paper copies. Based off the Twitter messages I read, that was what was going on. However, later in the day, they posted a message that they were NOT ceasing to print paper copies, they were only switching printers. How confusing! When they posted the messages

“Thank you to the Texan printing press crew for all the years of service. We appreciate everything you have done for us.”

and

“We’re working on the last issue to be printed on our printing press…”

you can see how people got the wrong idea. If only the person tweeting those messages had said “We’re working on the last issue to be printed on our printing press before switching to the Statesman’s press” the misunderstanding wouldn’t have happened!

Oh well.

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We tried another new recipe recently: Grilled Asparagus with Orange Dipping Sauce.

The recipe is (again) from Real Simple.

Image taken from www.realsimple.com

Since we don’t have access to a grill, we did the broiler method. Also, green asparagus is hard to come by here, and we could only find the mini green asparagus, so we used that (Chelsea, I’m sure you would have approved).

The sauce is really interesting and is a perfect partner for the asparagus. With a mixture of mayo, orange, tarragon, anise and cayenne pepper, it’s definitely a flavorful addition to the veggie.

Note: I didn’t use fresh tarragon, because I couldn’t find it. I also didn’t crush the anise seed…because I forgot (oops). Regardless, it still turned out great.

I really suggest you try this sometime soon! Yum!

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Also, today is Thursday, which means it’s “Hi/Lo Thursday,” a blog carnival from the Riggs Family Blog. Check out their blog to read everyone else’s highs and lows for the week.

Our Lows:

Having to wake up at 5 AM on Tuesday to get John to work by 5:50 AM.
Poor John having to get up at 4 AM this morning to be to work just before 5 AM.
Getting stressed out over our to do list.
Not being able to find my passport…I have to find it before tomorrow since we’re going out of town for the weekend.
Having extreme internet problems. Can’t watch our Slingbox.
Discovering I’m caving to the iPhone craze. Now I kind of want one…

Our Highs:

Finally getting our repaired coffeemaker in the mail. They actually gave us a new machine altogether. We have enjoyed sitting at the kitchen table in the morning with a cup of coffee and homemade yogurt.
I am LOVING my morning yogurt with some honey and blueberries. Holy cow. Tastiest breakfast ever.
Experiencing a couple mini-thunderstorms this week. You know how I love them and they make me happy.
Being extremely productive all week.
Our excitement as we look forward to going to see Jacoline in the Netherlands this weekend! Note to self: learn a few basic Dutch phrases while there.

The Mad Scientist

osarah — Thu, 07 May 2009 10:30:15 +0000

This past week, John and I have tried several new recipes, which were all delicious and worth sharing with y’all.

(Side-note: I am trying to use y’all more often. I mentioned yesterday that I had stopped using it so much, and I miss it!)

Our culinary endeavors began with Artichoke Pizzas last week. I loved every bit of those crispy, vegetable-packed pizzas. I also discovered how great pita bread is for a quick pizza crust. On Friday, we used our left over pitas (cut in half horizontally) to make quick personal-sized pepperoni pizzas. We just covered the crust in a tablespoon of olive oil and threw it under the broiler for 2-3 minutes until it was crisp. Then I put some tomato sauce, oregano, basil (I think), mozzarella cheese and pepperoni on top, put it back under the broiler until the cheese was melted (which was less than a minute). Viola! Easy-peasy pepperoni pizzas.

Over the weekend, John was inspired to try concocting some more interesting treats by a blog he reads, Life Hacker. The blog author wrote about groceries that were cheaper to make at home. Although for us, neither of the ones we attempted were cheaper – yogurt and granola – the results were fantastic. (A half-gallon of milk costs us $4.09.)

I have to give all the credit to John for the yogurt. He made it while I was at the movies with a group of girls (seeing Confessions of a Shopaholic), and he said the process made him feel like a mad scientist. Did you know that to make plain yogurt it only takes a small bit of yogurt plus milk?? The recipe he used can be found here.

The yogurt takes a long time to make (about 6 hours in the oven and setting in the fridge overnight), and in the morning, you get creamy, slightly tart, mouth-watering yogurt. I have tried 3 brands of yogurt since we made this, and none of them compare. So you can understand the consistency, I made a short video:

I put about a spoonful of honey in and mix it around with the yogurt and fruit. John has become a big fan of mixing the yogurt with our granola, which we made together on Sunday (click here for the recipe). Oh my goodness. It was so easy, it made our apartment smell amazing, and it tastes delicious. Why wouldn’t you make this?! Also, it doesn’t clump up like other granola, which I was thrilled about. Typically, I think granola can be a pain to eat because my jaw gets tired from chomping down on all the hard clusters. Give this one a shot. You won’t be sorry!! Here’s a photo of the granola with the yogurt in the background:

see? no clumps!

The rest of this week has been a pretty boring one for our kitchen. However, I pulled a few new recipes that I plan on trying next week. If they’re any good, I’ll share the recipes again. Enjoy!

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I almost forgot, today is Thursday, which means it’s “Hi/Lo Thursday,” which is a blog carnival from the Riggs Family Blog. Check out their blog to read everyone else’s highs and lows for the week. Like last week, I’m going to end with our highs, because I want to end on a happy note

Our Lows:

Driving back and forth like a taxi driver to John’s work 3 times a day every day this week.
Not having enough time in the day to get everything done and dealing with the frustration that comes along with that.

Our Highs:

Beautiful weather today!
Taking Béni to the park and having another yellow lab there for him to play with. (He really tired himself out!)
Enjoying wonderful food all week.
Overcoming my fear of driving in areas I don’t know around here, and making it back safe and sound

- Sarah

Artichokes – A Quick Dinner

osarah — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 10:30:33 +0000

John and I have been wanting to have something with artichokes for dinner, but since I have never used them in cooking, I had put it off for quite awhile. I had no idea what to make! Earlier this week, I went to Real Simple’s website and searched their recipes for something with artichokes. I found this recipe for Artichoke Pizza with Lemony Green Bean Salad.

Photo from RealSimple.com

I decided to try it since it looked pretty simple, and wow! it was delicious! It was also extremely fast to fix. Once you have the almonds chopped, it takes less than 10 minutes to make. In my opinion, the red peppers act as a kind of tomato sauce, so I was liberal with those. Oh, and one tip: be careful not to overdo it on the lemon juice on your green bean salad. I made that mistake the first night, and they were a bit too tangy for our taste.

Bonus: there’s only 457 calories per serving, so I did not feel guilty whatsoever about having double chocolate fudge brownie ice cream for dessert.

If you try this recipe, let me know what you think of it. I’m definitely adding it to my regular recipe repertoire (oooh alliteration!).

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Today is also “Hi/Lo Thursday,” which is a blog carnival from the Riggs Family Blog. Don’t skip this week’s – I have some pretty big announcements listed below!! Check out their blog to read everyone else’s highs and lows for the week. I’m going to end with our highs this week, because I want to end on a happy note

Our Lows:

Yesterday, I was so overwhelemed by driving back and forth to John’s work 4 times (yes, 4 and it’s 30-40 minutes round trip), plus taking care of Béni who has seemed to hit a “terrible 2′s” sort of stage, and dealing with “post clean up” that I started crying around 6 PM when John called me to come pick him up from work. I was just so frustrated that I had been trying to make the bed, do the dishes, and get some homework done all day but everything else had to come first.
My left arm has been hurting a lot for the past few weeks. I think it’s from carrying Béni up and down 2.5 flights of stairs several times a day. (He now weighs about 26 lbs.) Yesterday, my arm gave out twice while carrying him and I dropped him, which upset me even more. John thinks it’s tendonitis.
This one is kind of a mixed high and low: several of my friends have recently gotten engaged (yay, high!), but I am really bummed that I cannot be there for them during the planning process. I’m also sad that we have already had to miss so many weddings of our good friends.

Our Highs:

We have made plans for our one year anniversary!! We are going to Paris for a 4-day weekend the week before our anniversary. I’m really excited to be able to see Paris in the spring since last time we were there it was December/January (2007-2008). We have already made reservations to have dessert late one night on the patio of a restaurant near the Eiffel Tower with a great view as well as dinner reservations at a restaurant we LOVED last time we were there.
We put in a request for an exception to policy so we could move to the other housing area, which is actually in town. It got approved!!! (We weren’t optimistic about it going through.) The move will allow John walk to work and I can have the car to run errands and also drive myself to work should I ever get a job offer (that’s a whole other deal…). Additionally, that housing area is right near the metro system (the Straßenbahn), so we’ll be able to utilize public transportation to get downtown now instead of navigating the narrow streets and parking garages in our big Xterra. We don’t know when we will get to move because we’re at the bottom of the list, but it will happen eventually. Yay!
Béni is dreaming and just started barking in his sleep. It’s the cutest little “woof” ever. I love him.
In light of my frustrations yesterday, I had John take the car so I didn’t have to drive back and forth this morning and to bring him lunch. So far today I have done the following (and it’s only 12:22 PM):

showered, blow dried and straightened my hair and put on make up
made the bed
taken my graduation gown and hood out of the bag and put them on a hanger (yay for getting these!!)
put away some dirty clothes
dusted the bookshelves, tv, entertainment area, coffee table and one side table
walked Béni
gone to the store and gotten lunch and dinner
started baking chocolate chip cookies for John’s office
got the air conditioner working again
read a couple blogs
updated this blog

and I still want to:

schoolwork for tomorrow
work on a friend’s website
reply to emails
clean the bathtub
address my graduation announcements
prepare Mother’s Day cards for mailing
get my mom’s Mother’s Day gift ready to go
get oil changed

So…that’s it for me. I know it’s quite a list. Hopefully, I’ll get it done! What are your highs and lows for the week?

- Sarah

Hi/Lo Thursday

osarah — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 08:41:24 +0000

I’m at a loss for what to write today. I blame it on all the creativity being sucked from my brain by writing these papers these past few weeks. Since I’m drawing a blank, I’ll just stick with “Hi/Lo Thursday,” which is a blog carnival from the Riggs Family Blog. Check out their blog to read everyone else’s “Hi/Lo” posts.

Our Highs:

Getting an air conditioner!!
Finishing my paper on the Saur Revolution (in Afghanistan) and its subsequent affect on Afghan women.
Getting through 5 pages of my 7-10 page paper on intercultural adoptions.
Loving on Béni everyday, especially this morning when he was extremely interested in the shower and kept barking at it.
Being extremely proud of Béni for learning “leave it” so quickly. Now if only he could master “drop it”…
Looking forward to seeing what an apartment on MTV (the other housing kaserne here) looks like so we can decide if it’s worth it to pay to move there.
Also looking forward to dinner at Chili’s and brunch at the Kaffeehaus and hopefully a walk up on the Königstuhl this weekend.

Our Lows:

Having lots of stressful dreams.
Not getting to see the wonderful bluebonnets in Texas in person this year.
Not getting to celebrate my dad’s birthday with him.

All things considered, it’s been a great week! Now if I could just finish these last few pages of my paper…

- Sarah

Couch Potatoes

osarah — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 10:05:22 +0000

I have joined John on the couch. After 2 days of non-stop cleaning and stress about various other things (see yesterday’s post), I wound up with a massive headache today. Despite the headache, this morning has been nice. We have just relaxed on the couch and watched HGTV. We also have some great shows on DVR to catch up on: Secret Life of the American Teenager (our guilty pleasure), Biggest Loser and Lost. We are also going through season 1 of Ugly Betty here and there and plan to watch Heroes when we get a chance. Wow, we sound like big TV junkies, but I promise we’re not. We usually watch 1-1.5 hours of TV a day when we’re not feeling like junk.

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As is the norm now on Thursdays, this post is part of “Hi/Lo Thursday” on the Riggs Family Blog. Check out their blog to read everyone else’s “Hi/Lo” posts and get your link on their site.

Highs:

Getting a lot done the past 2 days
Coming up with a potential name for our puppy
Catching up on much-needed sleep the 2nd half of this week
Seeing the weather get up into the 50s a couple times this week (for the first time in MONTHS!)
Going bowling last weekend with John…in the 10th frame, he missed a turkey by one pin (aka he bowled 2 strikes and 9 pins)!

Lows:

John NOT getting a turkey in the 10th frame…
John being sick
Having a headache today
Being overwhelmed and stressed about cleaning, school, a potential job, etc etc etc…
Seeing the exchange rate go up, which is bad for us, because John gets paid less

- Sarah

A Singing Banana?

osarah — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 10:48:18 +0000

I can’t remember the last time I had a GOOD dream. Most mornings, I wake up thinking “that was a scary/bad/strange dream.” Last night was more of the same, but I remember a brief part of the dream that wasn’t so bad. I remember being with a group of 4-5 people and we got hungry for lunch. Someone had a bunch of fruit, and so I grabbed a banana (our fruit of choice this week with dinner). When I peeled the banana, it started to sing! It was like those light-activated noise makers. The sound wasn’t coming from the banana itself and I didn’t see anything in the peel, but I wanted to figure out where it was coming from. Unfortunately, John’s alarm went off during my investigation, so I’ll never know how the banana sang.

The banana was not singing any song in particular (at least that I can remember), but it would have been pretty funny if it was Gwen Stefani’s Hollaback Girl, because it could have played the “this [stuff] is bananas b-a-n-a-n-a-s” part.

All this talk about bananas reminds me of Denny’s Nanerpus commercial from the SuperBowl. It was in our head for weeks. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you can see it here. I admit, I have probably watched it in excess of 10 times. My favorite part is where the banana octupus’ eye falls off.

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It’s Hi/Lo Thursday again!

This post is part of “Hi/Lo Thursday” on the Riggs Family Blog. Check out their blog to read everyone else’s “Hi/Lo” posts and get your link on their site.

Highs:

Marica & Stefan’s engagement party (aka our first non-Bible study social event in months)
Keeping the house cleaner than normal this week
Not feeling compelled to spend all day on ChaCha to earn a little extra money
Getting my email organized
Shopping for puppy supplies
The warmer weather!!! The average high has risen about 8 degrees in the past month. It’s so nice to have the high be in the low-mid 40s. This weekend it’s supposed to be in the low 50s and sunny. I’m thrilled!

Lows:

Feeling sick on the day of the Faschings parade, and as a result, missing out on the fun
Having John called away twice this week during lunch. Normally he comes home every day for an hour for lunch, and we really love having that time to eat lunch and chat in the middle of the day. I miss him when he can’t come home!
Burning my hand

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In today’s totally irrelevant video, I present to you my nephew. I found these videos from his birthday party last year and love his smile and his adorable run.

- Sarah

Hi/Lo Thursday

osarah — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 20:11:51 +0000

I don’t have much to say today, but it was definitely worth it to come to the blog to ask for prayers for Abby, who is beginning another difficult round of chemo.

Please visit their blog and participate in their Hi/Lo Thursday post if you’d like!

As for our highs and lows this week…

Highs:

Getting to go out for coffee with Diane while John was at work
FINDING A PUPPY TO BRING HOME!!
Enjoying a relaxing non-Valentine’s Day on the 14th
Going to the German movie theatre for the first time

Lows:

Finding out John has to go out of town for 5 days the day after we get to bring the puppy home.
John: Getting whacked in the head and bleeding this morning.
Watching Tatiana sing on American Idol (ok, kidding, kidding.)

That’s it! No “totally irrelevant video” for today. It’s bedtime, so I’m not going to fool around with iMovie. I’ll post something tomorrow.

What were your highs and lows for the week?

- Sarah