What a day

I had my interview at PCC Rock Creek for the full time, 1 year temporary faculty teaching position in the math department a few hours ago. I don't think I am the right person for the job... I might be wrong but I don't feel like it went well at all.

I also found 1/3 of my corn field had been trampled in the night.

I hope the day starts looking up.

Summer is finally here!

It took forever to get here, but its summer! I've already gotten a pretty nasty burn by accident. Mostly though, I've spent alot of time in my yard doing my grading and lesson planning, and CJ and I have spent some fun times out of the house together.Last week we used our coupon that I found on LivingSocial for a buy-one-get-one cruise on the Portland Spirit. Neither of us had ever been although we've always wanted to. So I bought the tickets and didn't tell CJ, and quietly waited for him to have a slow day at work on a Friday and come home early. Lucky me, he found out Thursday that he didn't have to go to work, so we spent the whole day shopping together. Bought him new shoes and tools and such. Went to Dairy Queen. THEN... Surprise trip to Portland for a cruise!

It was so much fun. We both felt like we were on a real cruise ship like our Alaska cruise last year! Made us both really crave another cruise. Nothing like sitting around, being served drinks, nowhere to go, constant live entertainment, constant changing scenery... ahhhh. It made us both feel all cute and romantic.

We then went for tofu at SuperBowl. We used to eat there on his lunch breaks back when he worked at Saturn when we were dating. Brought back so many happy memories! To finish off a wonderful day, we went and saw Despicable Me. It was very cute and funny. Predictable and definitely for children, but I loved it. This will be one of those dates I'll remember when I'm old.

Today, CJ had another surprise day off. I love this! We went to Beaverton Farmer's Market and got some cherries, strawberries, apple butter, and fresh baked bread.

I know I would get sick of it eventually, but right now I wish it was summer all the time!

Quick Weekday Trip to Margaritaville

Yesterday after I made my last post, it did warm up considerably! So I went to the garden and took some pictures of my cute little plants' progress :) I felt inspired after a lovely blended tropical rum cocktail!

These are my green onions I planted from seeds. They are already quite tasty!

I have a mini corn field too!

I'm hoping these little yellow flowers turn into cherry tomatoes soon.

These are my peas. There are a few flowers which I think means the beginning of pods.

I have three strawberry plants. This plant has yielded two strawberries, and none from the others yet.

Now is where the margaritas come in. CJ came home from work (which is going great, by the way,) and I started on dinner. Shish kabobs!

I skewered the chicken after letting it soak in Sweet Maui Teriyaki Sauce, and skewered pearl onions that had already boiled for a few minutes, red orange and green peppers, and fresh cut pineapple. Yes, the one in Chilly Summer Day. I then grilled them outside in the sunshine.

I made the margaritas myself. I put about 4 shots of tequila in a shaker (with ice) about 1 shot each of limeade and lemonade, a dribble of cointreau, and a squeeze of real lime. I then strained it into salted rim glasses. They were so tasty that we went back for a few more...

Complete meal with a rice bed for the skewers and salad! The rice was Jasmine Basmati rice. It really added to the flavor of the skewers.

This morning CJ and I felt a bit of jet-lag from our quick return from Margaritaville. But it was worth it!

Chilly Summer Day

Brrrrr!! I'm so cold. My fingers are so cold, typing is not quite as easy as usual. The weather is so strange this year :(

Even though its about 65 degrees out, I'm pretending its summer. I tried to lay out in the sun (what little there was) but gave up after about five minutes. I went shopping and got sunflowers for my kitchen, limes for margaritas, and peppers and pineapple for the barbecue chicken skewers that I'm going to make for dinner tonight in the back yard.

I really really hope it warms up soon! I have goosebumps all over my legs!

Sudden Creativity Bred from Boredom

I woke up. I ate. Watched Star Trek with CJ. Posted blog. Was bored as hell.

Its gonna take a while for me to figure out what to do with my life now that I have no homework!! After about an hour of feeling sorry for myself that I had nothing to do (crazy, right?) I realized I have so many art projects waiting to be started!

I took a picture of my bedroom, and used Gimp to come up with a concept of what kind of artwork I want to make for over my bed.

Its really rough since its just a sketch in Gimp, but the goal is to begin with lots of layers of ink wash in different shades with movement.

Then gently etch in over the top lights and darks in wispy and jagged strokes to create the abstract image of branches, leaves, and grass.

The problem is that I have no idea what to use as a canvas. I am playing with the idea of getting some high quality paper and glueing the pieces to some rustic boards or frames. I don't know what else ink wash goes well on. Ideas?

My New House, Part II

I finally finished cleaning to the point that I was ok with taking pictures, although some of the pictures were fuzzy for some reason. I didn't notice till I made a mess of the house again:-P oh well. At least I can post them. And I finished my job application too! :)

For those of you who have never been over, I'll try to give you a sense of walking through my house. So far you've already seen the spare bedroom (future nursery), my bathroom, and the master bed and bath. Here's the hall just outside these rooms:

And as I was taking this picture, just to my right is another room. CJ's den (which he will have to share with me once our family grows):

So thats pretty much the whole upstairs. I don't much care to show you the laundry closet! I do want to think of some way to put some art on this wall though:

Here is my kitchen:

And the living/dining room:
I love old black metal things! Like phones, radios, cameras, and movie projectors!

On this shelf are some more neat old things, like those LIFE magazines and other old books, another camera, a view master, and that little mailbox safe. Fun! hehe

Now here's the rest of my living room:
Well that was it! Tomorrow I teach Math 261 at PSU at 9:15 am. I need to put the finishing touches on the syllabus still.

Dinner instead of Cleaning

It seems like no matter what I do, I feel like I should have done something else. Today I spent most of the day working on an application for a full-time temporary position at PCC Rock Creek. Yesterday I cleaned and felt guilty for not working on it... today I worked on it and felt guilty for not cleaning.

CJ came home today after a 9 hour shift, but we both felt like he was home early! I ran to the store to get fixings for dinner, and decided to scrap the day and spend the evening drinking wine and cooking.

I made chili without beans (my tummy says thank you!) and cornbread. The cornbread was admittedly from a Jiffy box, but I followed direction

s and even let it sit an extra 15 minutes to ensu

re that they would turn out super fluffy. And they did!

The chili was from scratch. I've actually been making chili from scratch since we got married. I found out from my professor Paul Latiolas (he's from Louisiana!) that my recipe for chili is very similar to the one his mom used! It is mainly ground beef, onions, tomatoes, spices, and cocoa for that special flavor. CJ loves it! It goes well with beer, and wine if you happen to be a wino.

Yum!! Maybe tomorrow I'll get around to making My New House Part II. :-D