Yesterday, we did the sort of thing that Americans do on the 4th of July when they live in a warm weather state.

We went to the pool!

This pool is far nicer than most, because it is at a friends’ home.

Here we are headed down to the pool.

But this photo also serves another purpose, because you can see the little awning covered area that is next to the pool. This is where we did the other Key American Event on the 4th of July: we grilled. (We being the male half of the couple that owns the home.)

Of course, to put a true Texas spin on the holiday, we grilled meat for fajitas.

But believe me, the fajitas were really fantastic, and a real treat, as compared to burgers and hot dogs.

And we finished the meal off with another Key Food on the 4th of July: apple pie with vanilla ice cream on the side.

yuuuuuuuuum.

it was a lot of fun!

Right now, I’m really thankful that I do not have HBs cold that is making his voice hoarse!

One key thing that has happened since my last post is that we finally submitted my first-author manuscript from the work I did as a post-doc to the Journal of Neuroscience! Finally! The lab was trying to do some additional experiments after I left to add to it, and it took until now to decide that some of them were just not going to work, and others were able to work. Of course, this is not the end of that, because the manuscript will have to be reviewed and the reviewers always want something changed. We just hope it is minor and not additional experiments!

A second key activity is that as part of Lent, my church has a day where they try to get everyone involved in service. We ended up having about 230 people participate in a variety of projects. I was one of the organizers to have a small musical concert at an assisted living facility. It was a lot of fun to sing some of my favorite songs. And the residents were soooooooooooo appreciative. This idea is something that I hope to take with me for a future church. It requires so little time from us, but it is so meaningful.

Last night, I sang and was one of the readers of the scripture in John that talks about the events leading up to and including the crucifixion. Good Friday and Easter are always more meaningful for me than Christmas. I love the festivities of Christmas, don’t get me wrong. But Christianity is really all about the events that occur during Lent. And the songs are heart-wrenching on Good Friday.
The readings were moving, but it was really uncomfortable to be one of the people in the crowd yelling “Crucify him!” But I think that is part of the point; we are supposed to be uncomfortable.

For Easter, I bought a very small bouquet of flowers on Wed night to enjoy while I’m here at home on break. I hope to take some photos of them later. Right now, I’m committed to getting the grading of exams done today. And I’m trying to get them done in time to see a 1:00ish showing of How to Train a Dragon in 3-D. I think I’ll be able to do that.

So, more later.

Merry Christmas!

It is Christmas morning and HB is still asleep, so we haven’t had our usual Christmas morning cinnamon rolls yet.

Christmas Eve was so very special yesterday.

Even with the snowstorm, all of us on the Worship Team made it to the services. The quartet that I was in practiced our 4 songs really briefly. They were a capella, so it was important to “remember” the songs. Once everyone arrived, we had a chance to run through the first verse of each of the main songs in the service. But we ran out of time for the worship leader and I to practice our duet. Thus, at the first service it wasn’t quite as relaxed as the 2nd and third, but I’ll get to that in just a minute.

Here is how the evening progressed once we finished practices.

The quartet that I was in sang 4 songs out in the lobby to welcome people into the church.
Lo How A Rose Ere Blooming – 1st verse only
Angels from the Realms of Glory (chorus is “come and worship, come and worship, worship Christ the newborn king”)
It Came Upon a Midnight Clear
Joy to the World

During the first service (3:15), I didn’t sing up in front with the group. I just went up for the special music. My solo verse was not as good as it had been at practice, but that is sort of how it goes for me when I have to sing solo in front of people. But the harmony part was really terrific and my voice was all it could be.
Between first and second service, there wasn’t much time, but a few people from the Worship Team told me that we sounded good.

During the second service (4:15), I sang up front with the group. The service was as follows (this is more for my sake)
Oh, Come, All Ye Faithful
Litany of Lights (lighting of the Christ candle) and responsive reading
It Came Upon the Midnight Clear
The Christmas Story – Luke 2:1-7
O Little Town of Bethlehem
The Christmas Story – Luke 2: 8-12
Away in a Manger
Children’s message
The Christmas Story – Luke 2:13-20
Our special music – Babe in the Straw by Derri Daugherty and Steve Hindalong – Caedmon’s Call version from album City on a Hill
(this is the one that was recorded)
Message
Candle Lighting
Silent Night
Scripture Reading John1:1-5
Joy To The World

During the second service (4:15), my voice was right where I wanted it to be during my solo verse. I felt like it went as well as it had ever gone before. Afterward, four people or so from the Worship Team told me how well it went and how great we/I sounded. The sound team also told me that it sounded really great.
The recording is the raw version with the levels not mixed – but I had asked them to put it on a flash drive for me. When I listened to it last night, the keyboard (accordion setting) is overpowering, our vocals are the next loudest part, and you pretty much can’t hear the guitar. So, I am not going to share it until I get a version that has the levels evened out.
I’m hoping they will do that within the next few weeks!

For the third service (5:15), everything went as planned. This time, our song sounded even better!

Now, for this next section, I’m not trying to brag. But this was the first time I did a good-sounding solo for church. And I need to write these things down so that when my confidence is so-so in the future, I can read these. Plus, this is the sort of thing my parents will enjoy reading.
Afterward, I heard from more people. A woman (didn’t know her) specifically came up to the front while I was gathering my things and thanked me for sharing my gift. She said it was a Christmas gift to her to get to hear me sing.
A friend who is in theater found me too to tell me how pure my voice sounded and how beautiful the song was.
The wife of one of the sound people also told me how wonderful it was.
The pastor stopped me and told me how she thought it sounded wonderful and thanked me for singing and for sharing. She mentioned too how the song fit with the children’s message and the main message just perfectly. We hadn’t planned that ahead of time.
Those compliments really had me floating and really made me glad that I stayed here for Christmas Eve. There was a day or so where I’d contemplated flying to TX early to spend this time before Christmas with my sister’s family and my parents. I’ve been sort of weepy these past few days and somewhat regretting my decision to stay, which is a pattern for me at this time of year when I’m away from them. And of course this year, I’ve been missing out on these extra days with my nieces!
But I stayed, and I’m so thankful that I did.
And I fly to TX tomorrow night! (assuming that I can fly out of here with the way the weather is right now)
I’ll be there for 2 weeks! (I come back the weekend before classes start)

I’ll be writing more in the upcoming weeks. And hopefully finding a way to put our song in an accessible place once it is re-mixed. I can guarantee that I’ll be posting tons of photos to Flickr!

May the blessings and joy of Christmas be with you.

I send a hug to you,
Danielle

even though this last one is overexposed, I kinda like it.

Happy Easter everyone!

Yes, I have my Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!  HB got me a Wii for my birthday, but he gave it to me early.  It was actually here the night that Galadriel died.  He thought it would be a good distraction.

So, over Spring Break – which I just had last week – I played some MarioKart.  AND right at the end of my break, my b-day present from my parents arrived.  They got me a Wii Fit!  (which is how I know my current Wii fit age)

I’ve already unlocked super-hula hoop (6 min), advanced step and free step, boxing, advanced snow slalom (balance), the bubble balance game, the penguin balance game, and the snowboarding balance game.  I like the balance games the best, but I do the aerobic games to actually get a workout.  I’ve also unlocked some strength training and yoga stuff, but I really suck at those, so I’m leaving those for later.

On the yoga, you have to keep your center of balance in this little yellow circle and it detects when you are swaying.  My “trainer” tells me that I’m swaying and that I should use my core muscles to hold my position.  yeah…. core muscles, I have those, right? 

HB and I are going out to supper tonight.  We’ve nixed the Zelo thing, since we’ve had a lot of unexpected expenses recently.   So, we’re headed to Outback.  yummmmmm.  steak.

And I made the chocolate chip cheesecake for us over the weekend.  It is pretty good.  I think I might have overbaked it just a tad, because it is a tiny bit drier than I remember.  But it is still pretty dang good.

Well, I hope things are going well for you.  Take care, Danielle

Overall, it was the best meal I’ve had out probably since our Anniversary supper last July.  So, we were due for a good meal.  And I think this one beats that one hands down.   Thus, I’m hard pressed to come up with a meal that was this good.

Since we’ve been to this restaurant before, I remembered a little bit about the decor.   But I’d forgotten how beautiful it is inside.  When we walked in, I was struck by the colors and architecture, and the lights which were these wire shapes of different sizes (at least 4 feet long) that had other colored cubes and spheres inside them that had lights inside.  They were really cool and unique. (you should click on the link to just see the photos of the decor which come up and rotate right away)

The menu quickly caught my attention, because they had lump crab cakes for an appetizer.  Which we ordered right away along with a lemonade for me and a martini for HB.

It is funny to mention a drink, but since I don’t drink caffeinated beverages anymore, I usually really don’t like my beverage with supper very much.  Now, there are places with good non-caffeinated drinks, but they are more rare than the wealth of ho-hum ones.  This place had awesome fresh squeezed lemonade.

They served us warm bread with excellent soft butter, and then the crab cakes came out.  OMG, they were so good.  I really love crab.  And these were lump crab cakes with no filler and very little material to even connect the crab pieces together.  They were just incredible.  I fell  in love with crab when we lived in Baltimore, MD which is known for crab.

I ordered a salad with goat cheese and balsamic vinegrette.  The goat cheese was soft and just sharp enough to complement the dressing beautifully.  The greens were mixed organic baby greens and just delicious.

For my entree, I had sea bass (medium well) on a bed of farro mixed with cooked spinach.  It was surrounded by a spicy tomato cream sauce that also had pieces of lump crab in it.  This time, the crab wasn’t as good as the crab cakes, because the sauce diluted the flavor of the crab.  But the sea bass, oh, it was wonderful!  It had some spices on it that I couldn’t really place, but were definitely more middle-eastern than anything else.  It was cooked perfectly and one of the best pieces of sea basses I’ve ever had.  The farro is a grain, kind of like a barley.  Mixing it with the spinach gave it a really great flavor.

I was getting relatively full at this point, but I really wanted dessert, because I remembered how good the molten chocolate cake was….

… so of course, I ordered it.  To choose a tea, they brought out this tea chest that had a really clever design.  It held large test tubes of tea (probably would hold 50-75 ml) so that you could admire the color and composition of the tea.  I chose their special blend that had green tea, peppermint (an interesting combo and not one I’ve had before), and some other flavors – I don’t remember at this point.  Of course, green tea has very low levels of caffeine in it, but I decided it would be fine to drink it.  And it was.   Just like before, they brought it out in a little iron tea pot on an iron trivet.

And then the cake came out and it all came back to me.  It was definitely the best version of molten chocolate cake that I’ve ever had anywhere.  And believe me, I’ve tried a lot.  If a restaurant has it, and I’m ordering dessert, I always get it.  Even cheesecake doesn’t beat it out.  Although, speaking of cheesecake, I think I’ll make one for our B-days this year.  HB’s and my birthdays are separated by one week, so we usually have 1 week of dessert between them.  I haven’t made our chocolate chip cheesecake recipe in quite a while.

Like I said up front, the meal as a whole was just incredible.  I think it might become one of the main restaurants we go to for special occasions.  And just think, our b-days are right around the corner!  (March 12th for me, March 5th for HB)

And that also means a Wii is right around the corner! 

It was a great way to celebrate Valentine’s Day.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention the music.  This restaurant plays the one of the best mixes of music.  Zelo and Outback probably play the most of the songs that we like.  We heard the Beatles, Sarah McLachlan, Eric Clapton, and others that I can’t remember now that it was a week ago.

And HB and I listened to some Hip Hop on the way to and then  variety of music on the way home from the restaurant.  The Rihanna, the Shakira song – the one about the hips – Beyonce, Britney (yes, a new Britney song), Red Hot Chili Peppers, Greenday and I can’t remember the others again.  It was a lot of fun!

I’m not into Facebook and Twitter. This is my outlet for talking to friends and family instead. I always put my blog address on my Christmas cards just in case someone wants to pop by and hear the latest.

I started blogging on New Year’s Eve in 2004, so I usually think of starting on Jan 1, 2005, because I forget it was officially Dec 31st. I started by back-posting some of my cycling stories that I’d sent as letters to family and friends. My intro post on Dec 31st is one of the few times I made a point of posting my cropped face from the front. That was back when I wore my black-rimmed glasses.

Over the 4 years, I’ve written 564 posts and had 3,294 comments.

I’ve made friends who I never would’ve expected to find. Some of them still blog: – in no particular order -

Squirl
Amber – Ladymadaysia
Ern
Kalki
Honestyrain – honesty-rain not honey-strain.
Poopie

One friend got into blogging more recently that I knew in “real-life” before reconnecting with her via blogging. I met her when I was in graduate school.

Jenski

Others have fallen by the wayside and were blogging ferociously, and then decided to quit blogging. Most of them felt they didn’t have time for it anymore. Some of them still have their blogs up on the internet though.

Ladybug
Closetmetro
Sheryl – Waveofmodulation
Momo
Amanda B.

And others read regularly, but don’t have blogs

TexasSeestor
Mom and Dad
SeaQueen
my mother-in-law reads occasionally
Denise?

BTW: HB fits into a special category – i.e. reads, doesn’t comment, but has a blog that says his name, so I never link to his blog.

I hope I haven’t forgotten anyone!

Anyway, thanks to all of you who come by regularly and still connect with me in this unique way.

I’m glad we are friends (and family – as the case may be).

Since my policy is to not show pictures of anyone’s faces, you’ll have to look on Flickr to see some of the dress-up gifts I gave my niece.  She was afraid of the cape that I made, but I would imagine that with time, she’ll become more comfortable with it.  In addition, I gave her a princess hat, a cowboy hat, beads (and a small bag to put them in), boas (white and pink), sparkly glitter shoes (red and pink), a cat outfit (ears, tail and bowtie), and ballerina skirts. Oh, and I got her a mirror from the dollar store.  It was a total impulse buy and appears to be one of her favorite parts of her Christmas gifts.

Here is a picture of the cape when I was sewing it, and when I’d finished it.  Note the sequins and sparkly silver ribbon.

And here is a picture of the sweetie Max.

May you, your family, and friends have a wonderful Christmas day!

I had a really great Christmas Eve.  Left for church at 1:45 to practice before the 3:15 service.  Practice went pretty well.  Good thing we practiced though. 

The time in between practice and service was really nice.  I had a nice talk with one of the guys I sing with. We talked about our families’ traditions at Christmastime.  We listened to the flutes and piano practice their pre-service gathering music.  I listened to them before every service, beautiful music never gets old.

I was actually a little nervous with the first service. Something about the excitement of Christmas, maybe?  Thus, when we got to the part where I needed to read the beginning of the Christmas story, I stumbled over Quirinius.  And then almost completely flubbed Galilee and Judea.  *sigh*  I completely know those words.  I’m not sure that I’ve said them all that much, but I think saying them in front of people is always harder.  Oh well.  I got Galilee and Judea right on the 2nd service and by the 3rd service I got Quirinius too.    The minister wished me Merry Christmas as I was leaving after the 3rd service and we laughed about how I finally got it on the 3rd try. *grin*

Today, we’ll start with cinnamon rolls and presents.  Later today, we’ll have our traditional meal of dill pickle doobers, ham, mashed potato casserole, green bean casserole, and biscuits.  I’ve still got some cranberry/pineapple/raspberry jello that I saved for today too.  It should be great!

Funny enough, HB was telling one of the chefs at work about the mashed potato casserole sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  And the chefs who cook for Christmas dinners for shelters and such in MN decided they were going to make mashed potato casserole this year!  They got big donations of cream cheese – which was the main stumbling block.  So, HB went in yesterday and he helped make a huge vat of mashed potato casserole. He said they used a pound of onion flakes!

I watched some Hallmark Christmas movies last night while he was out cooking.  There was a really funny one on this year called The Most Wonderful Time of the Year.   I’m pretty sure it was new this year.  It was really good.

Well, the cinnamon rolls are ready, and they are too gooey to type and eat, so I’ll be signing off here.

Merry Christmas!