happy halloween!

my only awesome idea this year was to dress as burritos and go to chipolte for my free burrito (like i used to do in college). dallas didn't want to go so we have no awesome burrito pic. nuts.

speaking of halloween sweets, i've started a blog designed specifically for martha's cookies, the cookie nook. my goal is to have it done in 1 year....which means i've gotta get moving!

ezra also did something to his hip playing rough in the snow. we felt sorry for him so the dog got some extra love: he has a heating pad on his pillow.

we know, he's spoiled, but he loves it!

happy halloween eve!

http://myhusbandisannoying.com/ was having a photo friday of halloween costumes that your hubby has worn and i was quick to send in dallas' pic from a couple of years ago. he made it on the website. here is that post:

From Andi:
“My husband is an engineer and actually is a nerd. he decided to dress up for halloween at work one year and the best thing he could come up with? Being a nerd.”

quote of the night:

dallas: "i miss my big bed of pillows" (referring to the hotel room).
andi: why don't you use one of these decorative pillows?
dallas: i can't! they're textured!

clearly at our house we are far short of the hobbs, nm holiday inn express. maybe our rating will go up if i serve a continental breakfast in the morning.

today the roads were so much better than i thought they were going to be. on an even more awesome note, driving is no longer a frogger fest in my jeep because yesterday..... drumroll.... I GOT BLINKERS!!

it seems like a rediculous concept but my blinkers went out sometime before Christmas last year and i just havn't got them fixed yet. yes, merging onto interstate is scary..... switching lanes in packed traffic....scary...but not anymore!

be thankful you have blinkers!
this is the line of semi's in line at the chain-up pull over area close to our house on instertate. it was a pretty popular place to be this morning

snow day!

no school today....dallas got sent home from work...

SNOW DAY!

i'm still having a hard time believing that we have 12" of snow and it's still coming down! ez has so much fun outside (notice poor sad looking lilac bushes in background).
and when he comes inside he's the most pathetic pit bull in the world

i've decided that i'm very happy i didn't strive for all a's my first go-around in college. my chem test tonight (that i did flunk, i'm very sure of it) has left me zit-faced and exhausted. i stared at my test for 3.5 hrs tonight before giving up and having dallas take me out to grab food afterwards. if i had done that for my 4 previous years ..... phew! that's a lot of zits!

tonight while we were eating it was dead silent so i thought i would bring up some kind of conversation. it went something like this (and yes, i'm really into conversations at the moment)

andi: so we started disecting our kitty cats in a&p today. ours was HUGE! it was like 2 williams put together *shove fries in mouth without stopping to breathe* you wouldn't believe how much fat was on this cat! and it was so heavy! oh and i think one of my lab partners totally butchered it already, which makes me really mad because i'm *fries, again* so anal about the dissection....

dallas *unable to get a word in*: *has begging eyes, about to lose his cookies* can we please talk about this later?

ooopsie. sorry dallas!

speaking of fat kitties....

dallas made it home last fri night from new mexico.
he has turned into quite the weather pansy.

example:
andi: (looking up from drying my hair).... are you going somewhere?
dallas: (in goose filled puffy coat made for really cold weather and stocking cap).... no
andi: then why are you wearing that?
dallas: i'm cold. what is the house set at?
andi: oh, somewhere between 63-66
dallas: i think i'm going to turn it up to 70
andi: no!! you can't do that! do you know how hot that is?!

so now he's resorted to wearing a long sleeved shirt thingie, and right back to where he was before he left: on the couch, coffee in hand looking at his ipod touch thingie

i wish i had more exciting things to blog about but i have a huge test monday and am currently trying to figure out:

what is the pOH of a 0.10 M solution of pyridine (kb = 1.4x10^-9)

exciting stuff, i know

part B of the question should ask:

why, or should i even care?

i have the ingredients to make cookies but i don't feel like doing the dishes.

maybe i'll wait till dallas is here tomorrow. :)

new diet!

when i was grocery shopping the other day the pomegranates were on sale, so i thought, what the heck? i decided to go out on a "crazy!" limb and buy not only 1, but 2.once i got home i realized that i had forgotten how much of a pain they are to eat...which got me to thinking this would be the perfect idea to write a diet book about (*disclamer: this diet isn't exactly what most call healthy). the book will consist of 1 page and that 1 page will say: eat pomegranates every day for the next 8 weeks.

you will either:
1) do the diet
or, what i would do:
2) get so frustrated eating them (getting the outer layer off first, getting a couple of pod things, getting the juice all over your hands and lap and then spitting out the seeds) that you'll give up and won't eat anything

this cow has some attitude and is thinkin what i'm thinkin...what up a&p test?
yeah, that's right.
i aced you today
next up: chemistry on monday
and then a breather.... of course,
just in time to make cookies!!!

i always get a kick out of the people in my class. i know "there is no such thing as a stupid question" but the people in my class actually do ask the stupidest questions. here is a great example from a person who claims to be in pre-health....
during the test...
teacher: class please omit question #73
student: why?
teacher: because the picture didn't copy off well enough for you to see
*long pause*
student: so you don't want us to do #73?
teacher: no
student: so do we skip it on the scantron?

(meanwhile i'm banging my head on the table, waiting for the painful conversation to end)

as always, i had a great trip home!

somehow i always get stuck single-handily being on the garden clean up committee (im sure you can imagine how great it is!). so the only thing that could have made the trip even better would be having beezer there to throw the rotten tomatoes at.

hm... what to do on a friday night?

play beetles rock band on wii with your parents!

we had a really good time!
somehow i got 100% on vocals,
none of us know how it happened.
if you've ever heard me sing,
you'd wonder too

just a plug.....

needing a relaxing mini vacation?

come to the holste homestead bed and breakfast between now and thanksgiving and you will receive a complimentary turkey to take home for your holiday meal
(you get to pick out your turkey looking out the window during your breakfast)

Cookie #1

although not Martha's cookie, my old roommate, Sandy's

PUMPKIN COOKIE

like a small cake,
these are perfect for the season,
retain their moisture very well,
do need frosting (sugar or cream cheese)
disappear fast
overall rating: 4.6
*note: overall cookie tastes better than dough*
"needed a more cream cheese frosting"
"have delicious aftertaste"
"mmmm small cakes! take them away before i eat them all"

COOKIES!

as everyone probably already knows, i have a "small" love for cookies. "cookies" was my nickname on the swim team growing up, i make them when i'm bored, when i'm stressed, when i'm happy, when i'm procrastinating, whenever we go somewhere i'm asked to bring:
cookies!......
so it only makes sense that i should too, blog about cookies.

someday when this is more up and running i'll have a seperate cookie blog. but for now, this will do. everyone has heard of "julie&julia" the movie and the book. basically julie makes all of julia's french cooking recipies in 1 year. i am going to make martha's cookies. i really don't like a lot of things that martha (stewart) does (theyre just a little too fancy for me) but i will say, her cookie book looks absolutely AMAZING.

here's how it's going to work:
1) i make the cookie
2) designated cookie testers rate it on a scale of 1-5. (right now i have specific people that are rating the cookie. if you would like to be a tester (local, or not) please contact me and we'll talk about adding you to the list.)
3) i post any fun info about the cookie, comments, and picture on blog. hopefully this will be happening at least on a weekly basis.

***please note that i do NOT like cookies with frosting, so if you're into the whole "tulip shaped sugar cookie with green frosting stem and purple flowers" it won't happen . just fyi.

i will not be posting recipies because, well, i don't want martha suing me for giving her entire book away on the internet

happy birthday!

gwen, or wonderwoman as we call her on the laser tag court, had a super fun birthday party this weekend! we all played laser tag and then ate pizza somewhere downtown-ish that started with a "p". yes, i know, very specific.

here's to another great year, friend!
gwen, accepting her laser tag score card on the lasertag podium while a dozen kiddos screamed happy birthday at hermmmmm pizza (and gf noodles)!

thank you for all your color help, but i have finally decided,
out with the tan and gold!

since packaging up the comforter set and shipping it back...
i bought a new one locally w/ coupon, of course!
have been to home depot 3 times
painted the room
got some awesome lamps

things are finally starting to shape up.

now if i just had that much motivation to do the laundry.
takers? anyone?

snowy days!

it was killing ez that we didn't go out for a walk first thing this morning. i let it warm up to a whole 22 degrees, put his little doggie jacket on him and we made it to the neighbor's house before he stopped walking, ran back to me shivering and then clearly decided himself we were not going on a w-a-l-k.

he hates cold days and is making it known via pit-iful (ha!) eyes that he is completely miserable today.

fall things, like raking leaves!

what is the difference picture A and picture B?

pictureApicture B

yeah, i know, not much. so when ez gives me this look:as in "throw the ball lady!" i can't even figure out where the ball is at! so looking for it, trying to throw it (which takes forever since i'm such a girl-thrower) and then raking leaves as fast as i can before he comes back is quite the task. fortunately you solo leaf rakers, there is an efficient way to transport the leaves to compost, as ez demonstrates:
don't worry guests-- this is one of our old queen sized fitted sheets (which work better than flat, by the way), so any of you staying here won't have to worry about finding this under the covers.

we really want our patients to feel comfortable in the clinic. i do think having a reading magazine in the bathroom is a bit overboard. we really don't want you THAT comfortable :)

its only taken 11 months to get to this point...

color help, par favor

once upon a time when we first got married we got a really cool comforter on sale. we really liked it a lot until i decided to wash it (without reading directions, of course!), which resulted in all the insides balling up into several large and small lumps, and we have now called the blanket LUMPY. lumpy is scheduled to be picked up by the garbage truck today (after not giving up on it all summer) so i had to buy a new comforter..... triggering me to re-do the entire bedroom.

since you all did so well with the bathroom color i'm giving you another task. i ordered a comforter set from overstock and thought it was just tan. turns out it is tan AND gold. this is fine because the metallic reflects light down there. anyway, i'm very torn about the color since there is virtually no natural light down there. please, please, vote on the color of the bedroom and help me decide--- you only have until sat.

things to take into consideration:
a) again, like, NO light down there
b) i REALLY don't want to turn into my mother and have a tan and gold room (no offense mom!)
c) i'm scared that a light smokey grey color will be periwinkle
d) just return the comforter set?

(yes, i do realize that there are pillows that match each other [along with decorative pillows,] which may be a bit much for us. )

THANK YOU!!

!

a little FYI for all you cyclists:

a little advertisement for the powerbar gel/gu things-- you can put these thru the wash AND dryer and they're still intact!....phew!!

today for my chemistry class we went to the argo mine in idaho springs. i somehow talked chelsie into going with me, as misery loves company! :) it was actually pretty interesting, if yo'ure into the whole chemistry thing.

the water coming out of this tunnel flows around 300 gal/min and it has a pH of 2.5-3. this is the same acidity of your stomach acid. underneath the water are extremophiles. in order to survive, extremophiles are bacteria that do not live where normal aerobic bacteria live. (other examples of extremeophiles are really cold places, really hot places, really basic [pH basic, in the OH- sense] places...). The rust color is from metal that is in the water, oxidizing from the acidity (this is the same rusting that happens to metals in every day life, like your car). to avoid this water going directly into clear creek, it goes to the argo water treatment plant first.
the water treatment plant:
gathers 1200-1400 lb of metal/day from the water
20,000 lb/day are turned to non-hazardous waste

it was an awesome fall day!
did you know that the man who donated the water wheel to the town of idaho springs attributed his good health to never bathing and never kissing girls......? just fyi

also for those of you wondering what dallas actually does for work (because even i really don't know exactly what he does....), this was in the water treatment plant. a part of his work deals with making computer programs that run the plants. he makes screens like this:

does anyone else have this problem?!

you have to look closely but my phone is always between 12-15 minutes behind. yes, its VERY annoying!

is there a fix for this?