February 13, 2010 - Posted by danielle- 4 Comments
It is official! I have been offered and I have accepted a job offer for a tenure-track position in biology at a small liberal arts school in Texas!!!
wooooooooooooooo hooooooooooooooooo
The image above is something I created to make notecards on Snapfish. I am going to send cards to people at my future school who are in my new department, were on the search committee, the provost, the president, and the woman in development (i.e. will be helping me get money for research). The school colors are black and gold, and I thought they might enjoy a card with a flower in the school colors. So I searched my numerous flower photos in my huuuuuuuuuuge iPhoto library (currently 9,800+ photos) for a yellow flower and can you believe that I found this tulip that actually has a black center in it too???!!!
Was this meant to be, or what? I took that photo in April 2007.
I really just thought I’d use a daylily that was yellowish green. But when I saw this and popped it on the design, I realized it was the right one.
Note, I can’t take credit for the idea for the background. Something similar was on Snapfish. I just copied it in the colors of my choice with the sizing of borders and lines of my choice.
Anyway, about the job:
Location: about 45 min (?) from Texas Seestor’s house! Maybe 30 min from where I might live (?). You know what this means? It means that I will get to see her, her hubby, and my two darling nieces on a regular basis!
Also, mom and dad are retiring in the area, so I’ll get to see them too! They haven’t picked a house, so it is still a bit up in the air as to how close I’ll live to them. But I have hopes that they will be close!
School: smaller than my current school. But my current school is the largest liberal arts school in the country, because of the way it is designed. (I can’t really say more without giving everything away about where I am, etc.)
People: This is a BIG draw for me. The search committee was actually made up of people all across the school, which is really unusual. There was someone from chemistry, kinesiology, and hispanic studies on it (along with the bio dept chair and another bio person). They all get along really well. We were actually laughing and joking on my phone interview. My on-campus interview was really great too.
There was this whole school reception after my seminar, where I met people from all over the school and everyone just seemed to get along and emphasized how much of a positive aspect that was for them at the school.
As for the students, the professors all had very positive things to say about them. They were shy at first in my guest lecture, but really warmed up to me pretty quickly. So, I think that we will all get along well. 
Courses: This is the other main draw for me. I’m was hired to teach a course in one of my specialties: molecular biology/molecular genetics. I’ll also teach their intro bio for majors and a non-majors course. And one semester of anatomy and physiology.
Research: This is the one drawback. There are internal grants that I am almost guaranteed of getting for my usual lab consumables ($3600 a year). But to get some of the larger equipment that I have currently, I’ll write small proposals with the people in the development office. Then they will go to donors in the area and try to get them to donate money to the school/my research. This was the most involved part of my negotiations. I tried to get the school to actually give me start up money. In the end, they just don’t have the funds to offer any start-up money. BUT the provost did have an in-depth conversation with development and the woman in development is pretty confident that we can get the money. If not, I’ll just have to change directions in my research to do less expensive stuff. Which I can do. I just hope to continue doing neuro stuff.
Religion: The school is affiliated with the same denomination of which I am currently a member! This is not the denomination that I grew up with, but it is what I found when I went looking for a local church that has contemporary music. Again, could this be a better fit?
I don’t have flowers to celebrate; with it being Valentine’s day weekend and all, the prices are just jacked up too high. BUT HB bought me chocolate truffle cake! We had some last night while we watched the opening ceremonies and just finished it off (I stopped mid-post to have tea and cake).
Note: I had to take this next photo really fast, because HB was ready to eat the cake when I realized I hadn’t taken any pics!
It tasted even better than it looks!
We had passion fruit papaya tea with it.
yummmmmmmmmmmmm
October 5, 2009 - Posted by danielle- 2 Comments
I have had about 5 sick students per week for about 3 weeks who have had to miss class because of H1N1-like symptoms. Which I suppose isn’t many, considering that I teach over 100 students. But the bad thing, of course, is that when these sick students are “better,” we meet one-on-one to go over what they’ve missed.
I had 2 students who thought they were better and then relapsed really badly. So, I suppose it was inevitable that I’d get sick too. Not to mention that HB appeared to get it. The first time, I thought I’d gotten off easy with a mild case of just headache, sneezing, cough, sore throat and no fever. But this second time, I’ve had the fever part too. Yuck, I say.
I definitely feel more run down this round too. I pretty much slept for most of the day Saturday and Sunday.
I know no one really wants to hear the complaints of someone who is ill, so let me see what else I can tell you….
1) I’ve rediscovered my cache of herbal teas. They aren’t something that I drink much until it gets to be winter. So, it has been nice to delve into them again.
2) I just barely started Dan Brown’s book on HB’s Kindle last night. He had it with him for the weekend, and he had to do some work stuff over the weekend.
The Kindle is interesting. I really like that it is lightweight and I don’t have to use 2 hands to “hold it open.” This is a big advantage when reading while I eat. Usually I have to find something heavy (I use a stapler) to hold open my paperbacks when I eat. I used to have this multi-tool, which HB jokingly referred to as the “book tool”. When I would misplace it, I would utter something along the lines of “Have you seen my book tool?”
It is nice on my lap too. I haven’t quite figured out what happens if the computer chip goes wonky. I think that the books for an account are stored on Amazon…
…. but that always makes me a hint nervous.
I really like that HB isn’t collecting more and more paperback and hardback books that need physical space in our home. We are out of bookshelves. We already have whole containers of his books in our basement storage area. I think we need a library.
Anyway, I’m not very far into the book, so no news on that front. I’ll give you my general opinion without giving anything away once I’ve read it.
3) I have Thursday and Friday off! These are our “free days” which I suppose is like the equivalent of fall break. I will be spending it making sure my job application for the permanent position at school is up to par. oooooooooooo.
Now I just have to get healthy.
And stay healthy!
February 21, 2009 - Posted by danielle- 2 Comments
Well, I’d been thinking about posting a recap of our Valentine’s Day dinner at Zelo and then I ended up sick this week. Not sick enough to miss work, but sick enough that my enthusiasm for pretty much everything was decreased. Jenski asked about supper too. So, now that I’m feeling less runny-nose-y and tired, I’ll give you the menu and my impressions.
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!
November 8, 2006 - Posted by danielle- 6 Comments
My doctor has told me to drink no more than my regular cup of tea in the mornings. This means that on the weekends, I don’t get to make a pot of tea and leisurely drink the whole thing. It also means that when I’m cold at work, and it is the middle of the day or afternoon, that I can only drink decaffeinated tea instead of regular tea.
The main problem with decaffeinated tea, as I see it, is that it tastes terrible. It has none of the round and rich-bodied flavor of regular tea. It tastes like Lipton or stale, old tea. It has a similar flavor to when you try to brew a second cup of tea from the same basket of tea leaves – an attempt to be frugal that I only made once because of the terrible taste.
I do have some Wild Berry Plum decaf tea from Republic of Tea, but it is far too fruity for my tastes and doesn’t have enough black tea taste. Probably because the decaf black tea taste is so terrible that they’ve bumped up the fruit flavors to cover it up. I’ve looked through their catalog carefully for decaf teas, but most of the teas that I enjoy do not come in a decaf version. Again, I’m convinced that the taste must be too wretched for their standards.
Now that we are going into the winter season and a nice cup of tea sounds so much more appealing in the afternoons, it is disappointing to have this realization. I guess I’ll have to switch to herbal ‘teas’ or tisanes and just give up on black tea altogether.
Well, except for my wondrous cup that I get to enjoy over breakfast, of course. mmmmmm teeeeeea. (I say as I sip from my cup of All Day Breakfast)
January 23, 2006 - Posted by danielle- 14 Comments
Ladybug had wondered (in the comments of my Friday posts) where HB was taking me over the weekend to celebrate the completion of my written thesis.
Well, I came up with the idea that we could go have high tea! I had read about a local tea house that served high tea on Saturdays. Now, to give you some perspective, for several years now, HB and I have talked about going to a high tea. Usually our discussions are prompted by some article in the newspaper listing off places that serve tea and a mention of how one of them serves high tea. Usually, the places serving high tea are fancy-shmancy hotel-like spots that required more planning than either of us ever seemed to be able to muster. I guess we got spoiled when we lived in Ohio and could go to Special Teas for, well, special tea at the drop of a hat.
On Friday, I looked up and called the local tearoom and Lo and Behold! they still had room for 2 for high tea on Saturday. Yay!
The tearoom is a farmhouse that has been restored/decorated as a tea place. The structure of it reminded me a lot of my grandparents’ place in Indiana. Our table was by an nice bay window and I could look through the wavery old glass and see a couple of very large trees.
The place settings were pretty, and made me all excited to be there.
I’ve never actually been to a place before that had so many utensils. My fancy dinner experience is somewhat limited.
We drank Lemon Soltice tea, a blend of black tea that had lemon, vanilla, licorice, and some berries in it.
I was a bit wary of it, because in the past, I haven’t enjoyed tea that is lemon, or vanilla, and I avoid licorice like the plague. I thought it was a bit odd that we didn’t get to choose the tea that we were going to drink, but I had a feeling going into it that was going to be the case from reviews I’d read online. However, the tea grew on me. After a cup of it, I found it quite pleasant. I couldn’t taste or smell the licorice, so all was well. And the lemon was offset by the vanilla and vice versa, and that made the tea fine. The tea also went well with the food.
First, we enjoyed a warm fruit compote. Very tiny chunks of apples with raisins (golden) and craisins topped with cinnamon and with the flavors kind of blending together.
Second was the scone. Oatmeal, maple, walnut with Devonshire Cream.
The scone was good, but the cream was to die for. YUM. For me, this was the highlight of the whole tea experience. Afterward, I decided that I’d be happy just going back for tea and scones sometime. If I could choose the tea flavor.
Third were the tea sandwiches.
Including pork tenderloin in pastry, curried chicken with gruyere cheese, and salmon in a phyllo crust. I liked the curried chicken one the best.
Fourth was the spinach and pine nut quiche. I decided to pass on the quiche. The eggs were too runny/custardy for my taste and I just couldn’t get past the smell of the melted butter of the crust. I have a really strong aversion to the smell of melted butter or melted cheese, even now, I can almost smell it and feel slightly nauseated by it. bleck.
Fifth was a Grand Marnier sponge cake. It was a fruity cream filled roll cake. The cream was cool and had pieces of orange and/or pineapple in it that made this cake a cool and light ending to a large meal.
All in all, it was a lot of really good food and nice tea in a lovely setting. I’m glad that I finally got to experience a ‘high tea’, although I think I now know that I’m just as happy having nice tea with a single dessert or scones and don’t really need all of the extra food. I did buy a couple of new tea blends too, and HB and I tried one of them over breakfast on Sunday. It was quite good. I’m looking forward to trying the other one today with lunch.
It was a special way to celebrate this stage in my graduate work.
Tea anyone?
January 13, 2006 - Posted by danielle- 10 Comments
This is the Indian blanket wildflower that I fell in love with while we were visiting Texas.
If you haven’t noticed by now, I’m particularly fond of flowers that change their coloring or shading within a petal or within the center of the flower.
I thought those pictures might be a nice cheer-me-up to all of us today. Particularly those of us *ahem* who are beginning to be tired of snow and/or being cooped up inside. But you know what makes being cooped up inside just a wee bit more bearable?
That’s right! chooooooooooooooooocolate.
Now, you may look at that collection and say to yourself “OH MY GOSH, Danielle!? Are you planning to OD on chocolate? REALLY, calm down, honey, you are almost done. No need to be drastic!”
Or you may say “Wow! HB bought all of that for you at the grocery yesterday? A truer sign of love has ne’er been found.”
(but only if you say things like ne’er. And who says words like that today? Not I! said the bear, I ne’er say ne’er.)
*ahem* Don’t mind me, I’m feeling loopy for some reason. Maybe it is the lightheadedness from yearning for chocolate. All of the blood has left my brain and gone to my stomach.
Anyway, where was I?
Oh yes! OR you may say to yourself, “geeeeee, I wish I could get a better look at those chocolates, because I Swear one of them wants to be eaten!”
Do you seeeeeeee that?! That one has a spotlight on it!
It clearly needs to be eaten.
Ope! It just fell out of the wrapper.
Well, we can’t leave a mess around the house, now can we?
yummmmmmmmmmmm
Flower pictures were taken with our Sony Cybershot DSC-P71 and chocolate pics were taken this morning with Dee-Dee.
December 25, 2005 - Posted by danielle- 8 Comments
HB and I usually try to surprise each other with gifts that the other one wouldn’t expect. Some times this works out better than others, as you might imagine, or perhaps you have first-hand knowledge and can completely relate. There was the year that I found him an unusual bar set, where each tool had eyes cut out of it so that each one looks like an animal of some sort. You know, the ice tongs look like a shark, the martini strainer looks like a lion, that sort of thing. I think that was one of the cooler gifts that I’ve found for him. Well, at least I always thought so, but maybe it because I liked it a lot too. And now that I think about it, he really did seem more thrilled about that scotch I got him a couple years ago too…
Also, we usually do the traditional wrapping of the presents placed under the tree, that sort of thing.
But this year, HB went a different route and led me down to our living room with my eyes closed.
And look what he got me!
Isn’t it cooooooooooooooool?!
At first, I was surprised to see a Really Red teaset. But MAN, just look at that teapot!
It can blast out at you like a neon fire-engine.
Or look like Alladin’s lamp.
How could I resist something with such great curves?!
It really is striking. Get it, striking, HB strikes again?!
tee-hee! Don’t mind me, I’m just happy and tired, all at the same time.
I took all pictures with Dee-Dee, my Nikon D-70. For some I used the combination of a tripod and self-timer (for the first time) in order to avoid the whole blurry/shaking/too much caffeine issue.
November 25, 2005 - Posted by danielle- 7 Comments
I’ve never been a big fan of the pumpkin. Now, I’ll be the first to state that they are rather lovely as a fall decoration or as a means to satisfy my need to hollow out fruit, carve it into an odd design, and plop a candle inside, as a turnip lantern substitute.
But turn it into a pie? bleck.
See!? Even the pumpkin says “bleck! don’t make me into pie!” This is assuming you are wearing your imagination caps and can envision the stem as a nose.
Where was I? Oh right.
No. Even though eating pumpkin pie may be a holiday tradition, I prefer to fulfill my holiday dessert calorie intake another way.
That would be the chocolate silk andes mint pie. It may not look as pretty in the pic as I had hoped, but let me tell you, with a little heated chocolate fudge sauce drizzled on top. *smacks lips* Can’t be beat.
Best eaten with a spoon, of course (one of my personal preferences that I mentioned on Squirl’s blog recently).
I know someone who needs a piece of pie right now. If you are in the mood for a funny story, go read how Sara spent her Thanksgiving evening.
March 9, 2005 - Posted by danielle- 9 Comments
A few things struck me while visiting Minneapolis. Note, I’d call it Minneapolis/St. Paul, the Twin Cities, but alas, we didn’t really visit St. Paul. Evidently the people in St. Paul have a bit of a complex about not being mentioned most of the time, but well, there ya have it. We drove through it and didn’t stop, so Minneapolis gets the mention this go round.
Where was I? Oh yes, things that struck me.
1) Minneapolis is prepared for cold, nasty weather.
I think that it is so incredible that there are miles of skyways connecting the buildings downtown so that you can travel from one end of downtown to another without needing to venture outside. I was impressed with the idea of it, back before I’d ever seen it, when HB had simply told me about it. But until you actually see it and experience it at lunch hour on a weekday, well, there is just no comparison. You can see a few of them in this pic.
I think I am even more appreciative of the idea of traveling inside to get from building to building after the day I had yesterday. Here I was, semi-sick/recovering and I had to walk a few blocks outside to get to a different building. This meant that I slogged in the pouring sideways rain to get there, and slipped in the sleeting sideways ice pellets to get back. ugh.
2) Minneapolis is a city that appreciates good food.
For those of you who are vegetarians (for ex. Honestyrain) well, close your eyes/ears for a minute. I had some of the best sausage and bacon that I’ve had in years at the restaurants in Minneapolis. ooooooooooooooh be still my heart. (please, no snarky remarks about how the cholesterol in the sausage and bacon will be sure to still my heart if I’m not careful, yada, yada, yada, I’ve heard it all before.)
Okay, you can look/listen again. I had an incredible cinnamon roll for breakfast one day (at Keys), and a caramel roll another day (at Hell’s Kitchen). Oh, they were heavenly.
Then there was the lunch at Brits, where HB loves the fish and chips.
After my lunch of fish and chips, I could see why he would go on and on about it everytime he visited. I can’t wait to go there in the summer when they have the lawn bowling.
And then there was our special tea time. Well, tea time for me, coffee time for HB. We went to Zelo’s in the late afternoon on Friday. It was our chance to savor the excitement of embarking on this new chapter in our lives and of getting to explore the city together. It was also our chance to celebrate a successful round of interviews for me and his birthday a day early.
My dessert and tea
Why don’t we get a better look at that, shall we?
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm it was goooooooooooooood
or gurt-ah.
His dessert and coffee
We saw some cool artwork too. But that doesn’t exactly fall into the category of food, does it?
Isn’t it incredible? The pic of me at the beginning with it, is a reflection in the base.
February 15, 2005 - Posted by danielle- 7 Comments
Here ya go, Ladybug.
The pile on the left is for you (the right one is for me). I made it a bit bigger, ’cause I think you deserve it.
