Cane Rosso

As you know one of my fellow post-docs and I enjoy trying out restaurants and for our December dinner we chose Cane Rosso (featured on DDD on Food Network). I will admit that we had been trying to go here for several months but our lives have been just a bit crazy recently. But it finally happened and it was wonderful.

There are two locations: Deep Ellum and Lakewood. We choose Deep Ellum, mainly because it is the original and closer to work (also we can pretend we are cool by going to dinner in a cool part of town). Parking is a nightmare in that area so be prepared for that.

The atmosphere is great, I felt as if I popped into someones house for dinner and it seemed really cosy. This is a pizza place, but it serves neopolitan pizza: very thin crust with lots of toppings that you have to eat with a fork.

We got an appetizer. I think we got the focaccia, which was good. We were both starving so. It is essentially a pizza crust with some olive oil drizzled on it after it comes out of the oven.

So good

I got a pizza with sausage, tomatoes, and mushrooms. This was delish. I would totally eat this again. I ate about half of the pizza and took the rest home as leftovers and it was still good then.

Saumya got a different pizza (she doesn't eat meat so we couldn't share) with peppers and different veggies. I think enjoyed hers as well and only finished about half of it.

This place definitely earns the post-doc seal of approval. I would eat here again and will probably be taking my guests here if they crave pizza. I was very very happy with everything about this place. Let me know if you give this a try.

Blueberry dump cake

My mom and I decided to try a different version of the apple dump cake that I brought last year to thanksgiving at work, which you can read about here. She got blueberry pie filling and an angel food cake mix. I didn't love the cake last year but I will admit that it wasn't terrible so I had medium hopes for this. My mom's friend had made this for her and she liked it, so we were golden. I will admit that I was just a tad concerned about it since the recipe was mix together and bake. Oh well, what could go wrong.

Gotta love two ingredient cakes!

Well, for starters the cake turned purple.

 But let's get real, purple isn't bad. So we just pressed on and baked the cake for a while until it looked done. I think it was about 40 minutes around 350, perhaps.

After lunch we got around to eating the cake. I am not a fan.

 The cake had a really odd texture and the flavor was not the best thing I had ever had. My thought on these cakes is:
-if you are on a diet this is kinda like cake
-if you love canned pie filling, this is for you
-if you are not a fan of canned pie filling this will taste like a cheap substitute for yummy cake.

I have decided that I will not be making anymore of these cakes, the two ingredient thing is cool but they just don't taste good. This doesn't mean the I will never try this or something like this again, I probably will but it will just be a while. Have you ever made one of these cakes? Did you like it?

The Camellia Crossing Gleaux Run

When I was home for thanksgiving several years ago we realized that there is a 5k the night before thanksgiving. I will admit that I have made little effort to make the run over the years mainly due to the complications of traveling and trying to make everything happen the night before the big meal. This year we decided to make it happen once I decided to hit up the LSU v A&M game and would be home for the whole week. I mean what could be hard about a 5k the night before thanksgiving, it should be warm and then after I can eat pie.

As the week of thanksgiving rolls around and we are in the midst of one of the coldest thanksgivings I can remember in south Louisiana the running of this 5K now seems a tad silly. But I have faith, it is going to get warmer on Wednesday night… yeah no. It turns out that Wednesday night was one of the coldest nights of the week if not the month. So there I was looking at what I packed, which is some but not all of my warm running gear and thinking this could be a long 5K.

In the end my mom decided since she had been a little sick that she just couldn't get out there (I think this was a wise choice, no one should get sick during the holidays) so my Sister-in-Law, Honor, got the extra place at the run. As we all get ready for the race, we start digging in our race pack and realize that we have gotten all kinds of glow in the dark stuff. Sweet!

We set out from the house with our greedy little fists full of glow sticks. Once we get to where we are going to park we take a minute to get all of our stuff together and on. It turns out we parked a long way from the start line (this happens to me just about every single race that I run, oops). But we head down to the starting area and wander around until the race starts.

We are ready!

As I had been running for a few weeks I decide that I am going to leave the family in the dust and jog the whole race. I also scoped out the course map and realized that this was a flat race, which is always easier.

Post race!

I ran the race in about 40 minutes, which is really good for me. I think I might have been able to run just a tad faster but I didn't want to burn out before I got to the end. I am pretty sure I under paced myself but that is just what happens sometimes. Oh well, I was pretty excited with the time.

Here they come!

My dad and Honor were about 5 minutes behind me and while I waited for them I had the obligatory post-race banana and some water. Once they got finished we headed to the race party for some food. One of the main perks of a Lafayette run is the food at the end of the race is usually very good. Each racer got two drinks (non-alcoholic) and some food.

Yummy

I opted for the jambalaya, which was so good. I also got lots of it, so it was nice to have something warm and filling at the end of the race. My dad got some Chili, which he said was pretty good. Honor got a shrimp bisque, what was more like puree and less like soup. I think she was a little underwhelmed by that.

After we ate, we were freezing (I think the temp was close to 40) so we walked back to the car and then headed home.

This was a great time, the cold was a little rough after the race but it happens. I hope to be able to run this again next year.

Who says you can't go home?

When I was invited to speak at Texas A&M this fall I jumped at the chance to have a valid reason to spend a few days in College Station. I begged my bestie to come down for a few days and spend sometime at our old school. I headed down to CS on Thursday morning to guest lecture in an intro Chemistry Class, CHEM 100.

I rocked my talk. I tend to have a few slips in the majority of my talks but this one I nailed. It was at that moment that I realized that I wanted to be a professor and stinking soon. This was a talk about one of my projects that we are about to publish a paper on in a few weeks. I loved the feeling of standing there and sharing what I thought. The questions at the end were a little fun but I think my favorite was the one about whether or not Mike Evans should be a heisman candidate. For the record, maybe but I would love for Johnny to repeat.

The water tower aka. home

The next day I had several meetings with different faculty about being a professor or different parts of academics. It was neat to hear different perspectives than I usually hear but I did enjoy the challenge of trying to figure out what type of school I want to teach at (someday there could be a post about this, no promises obvi). But in between meetings I took a few minutes to walk around campus and see some of my old haunts. It was fun, a little weird but all in all good to see the school.

The clock tower

Academic Building, I used to read for class in this plaza

The H2O fountain outside of the Chemistry Building

The chemistry building, I lived here

Walking through campus on the way to the game

It was so fun to get to see so much of campus and several different faculty while I was there. I am pumped about the next steps in my life and I think I am going to try and hit up a game next season. I realized that I need to spend more time (and probably donate) to my Aggie Home as I may not be this close for much longer.

This month is going to be Crazy

As I am sure that you know I love Christmas, which means that I also love the whole month of December. I will admit that as soon as Thanksgiving ended I started playing Christmas music essentially nonstop. I am pretty excited about my Christmas tree, which should be delivered on Friday! I am sure that will be a great story for another day. But I thought that I would share my goals for the month, and let's be honest I am hopeful that more of them get accomplished than last month.

Big Goals:
Take time to enjoy the season and remember why we celebrate
Don't turn down invitations to parties and fun events, even if I am tired
Go easy on the Christmas Cookies (I have a plan for this)
Be active 3-4 days a week
Spend time with Lily every week
Complete two house projects (i.e.: the pantry, my closet, the craft closet, my jewelry table, etc)
Buy something fun for Christmas Eve and maybe New Years Eve
Finish a craft project (too many laying around the house to just name one)
Blog often
Mail Christmas Cards before I leave for Lafayette

I am sure that I have some great small goals but they involve things like get to work earlier, get in bed earlier, keep up with my laundry, and a million other things that are similar.

Do you have a full plate this holiday season? I feel as if when I look at my calendar it is already so full I wonder when I will have time to watch my Christmas Movies. I hope that you take a few moments to really appreciate the reason for the season and take time with family.

As always here is a cute pic of the Lil-monster…

Such a cutie… stealing half of the bed

November Review

I am not going to lie, I have no idea what happened to the month of November. I feel like just yesterday I was in College Station and now it is December (and a high of 75 today). I wish that I had an excuse for not keeping this up to date but I don't. It was just one of those things where I would say tomorrow… I'll blog tomorrow and now the month is over. Maybe this month will be better, hahaha.

Anyway, let's see how I did on my November goals
-Blog more frequently (hopefully 3-4 a week, not a month)
-Run 2-3 days a week
-Try 2 new recipes
-Get my new plates for my car
-Take the dog down to whiterock lake twice
-Find something fabulous to wear to the A&M/LSU game (as well as the A&M/UTEP game that is in two days!)

Well I would say that I failed on just about all of those.

I did finally get new plates on my new car! My dad helped me put them on when I went home for thanksgiving!

I also found something fun to wear to the A&M games that I went to. I got a fabulous fleece that I am loving as well as some maroon A&M shirts.

I ran more frequently that I tend to but honestly not nearly enough for the amount of pie that I ate last week at home.

Eh, at least I feel like the month was good and I got to spend time with lots of my friends and family which is always a bonus. I don't have much else to say about those goals… I mean what could I say since I didn't actually get any of them really finished! Yikes. There is always December!

A&M v utep

I was invited to speak in a Freshman Chemistry Class on Halloween so I convinced Stacee to come down for the weekend so we could catch the game and see the sights. I took some pics around campus that I will try and share but there might not be many words we shall see. On Saturday morning we shopped and then walked in research park for a while. I was getting so excited for the game, it was hard to think about anything else. 

Eventually we got to campus and had a few beers and we wondered through the Bonfire Memorial and walked around campus. Before the game we headed down to Northgate to grab a bite to eat (we had high hopes of hitting up a tailgate but it just didn't happen). After dinner we walked back through campus and just saw the sights. 

Once we got into the game I realized that I should not be allowed to purchase tickets. Apparently, the handicapped seats that I accidentally purchased were not seats. It was one seat and a space for a wheelchair. Crap. We stood there for a minute speaking to the people in the next seats, who said that this has happened to several people, then we decided to just find somewhere to sit for a while. We got super lucky because those people never showed so we just enjoyed their seats. We were however right under the lights so excuse the red glow in some of the pics.

I am not going to lie the band is one of my favorite parts of the game. It was amazing. I love every single second of the band playing, when I was a 2%er (aka a bad aggie) I would go to the game at the end of the first quarter and leave in the third. That is right I just went to see the band. Yikes, I was so dumb.

The Fightin Texas Aggie Band

The Block T

In some ways a day game against a great team might have been a little more visually exciting but we could totally afford these tickets and it was nice to watch the Ags BTHO utep (BTHO: beat the hell outta). The first quarter was a little rough but I would guess they were working on a few of their crazy moves that they are going to need to beat the Tigers (mizzou and lsu). 

 At the end of the game the team sings the fight song with the rest of the fans that are left (yet another thing I had never seen before). It was neat to watch the guys celebrate with the fans that watched them play.

Fight Song

 After the game we decided to walk to Northgate and grab a beer at the Dixie Chicken. I will admit that my beer was not that cold and tasted a little off. Actually, it tasted like college… so it was fine. We had our beer and then realized that we were tired so we walked back to our car and headed home for the night.

Hitting up the Dixie Chicken after the win

This was a great way to spend the day with Stacee, it was so fun to see the Ags win and just enjoy so much of the city that we grew up in together. I hope that we will be able to go again next season, maybe even to a conference game! Love it.

All in all, best day ever with one of my besties!

College Football

As football season is in full swing, there is rarely a Saturday morning that I am not watching College Game Day with plans to catch the Aggie Game on TV. I know that it is pretty rare for a girl to love college football but I do. I don't know that I really enjoyed it as much as I should have while I was in college but now I love it. I read the blogs, I follow my teams, and I cheer with best of them. I think I really fell back in love with football in St. Louis when it was an escape from the trials of grad school and a chance to hang with some Ags. Recently, I am enjoying the football just for me.

When a chance came up to catch the Ags in College Station at Kyle Field (before renovations) came up, I jumped on it. I also stepped up to the plate to buy in on some tickets to see A&M play in Death Valley (LSU, for you non-cajun folk). I am seriously considering buying some season tickets for next season or at least seeing if I could get on the list or maybe just saving a few dollars and buying more tickets.

Either way when Saturday morning came and it was time to spend the day prepping for the game, I was pumped. Actually, I was a little tired and concerned that an 8pm kickoff would be rough. Oh well, at least I was in College Station and I was ready.

Besties

I hope to write another post with the rest of the pictures from Kyle Field but I will just say this that it was one of the best nights I have had in a long time. It was so fun to get to hang out with my girl Stacee and watch the Aggies BTHOutep.

I find that I spend most of my summer waiting for football to start and love the 12 weeks that really encompass the season. I don't mind spending a Sunday afternoon watching some professional football but I love spending my Saturday's watching the Ags and the LSU Tigers. I look forward to sharing my pics from the two games that I will see this season.

Gig'em Ags!!!

Haircut

Many months ago… when I first moved to Dallas I needed a haircut and I didn't get one until just this week. I will admit that my hair was slightly out of control before I finally got it cut. I was so afraid that I would hate it that I put off getting my hairs did for over a year. Yes you did read that right I put it off for a year which means that the last time my hair was cut was April 2012… over 18 months ago. I finally decide to get my hair cut when I realized that it was taking my an eternity to get ready since blow-drying that much hair took forever.

Before… so stinking long

I asked around for a good hair salon and got lots of interesting answers and finally decided to try Toni&Guy. This salon has a scale so you pay more for people that have more experience. I think this is great because I don't really want someone just out of school. I found one that was pretty close to work and then put off calling for over a week. Then I bit the bullet and called and got an appointment for the next day.

As I walk in I thought I was going to pass out, what if it looked horrible? what if I get a bob? what if I look naked? There were so many panicking thoughts running around in my head that I just didn't know what to think. Finally this wonderful woman named Sandra came around the corner and brought me back.

She listened to what I wanted and when she cut my hair, she would cut a little off and ask if I liked it before taking more off the bottom. In the end I took about 4 inches off my hair.

In the past I would chop my hair off and then let it grow out. I did this because I was too poor to get it cut all of the time but now I think I can afford to cut my hair at the length that I actually like. Crazy! In the end I think this might actually be a little longer than I wanted it to be but that is OK next time I can just have her take a little bit more off.

Here is the reveal:

I am loving it

I am going to try and get a better pic but selfies are somewhat hard to take and still look flattering. This was before my big talk at Texas A&M, more about that soon.

Happy Halloween

I wish I had a great costume pic of me or Lily but I am actually out of town so there will be neither of those. I just wanted to take a quick moment to say that I am actually trying to get better about posting but I think I am over pressuring myself to write something fabulous. We shall see how that turns out in the month of November. I thought that since a new month is about to start I would share my goals for the month.

-Blog more frequently (hopefully 3-4 a week, not a month)
-Run 2-3 days a week
-Try 2 new recipes
-Get my new plates for my car
-Take the dog down to whiterock lake twice
-Find something fabulous to wear to the A&M/LSU game (as well as the A&M/UTEP game that is in two days!)


In other news here is a cute picture of Lily to tide you over until I come up with something a little more enticing.

DC Pics

When I finally finished the post about the Korean War Memorial I realized that I had a few other pictures that didn't really fit into any of the other sections but I thought that I would share then with you. I don't have much to say about these things but I thought I would just give you an insight into what we saw. I am sorry for the vast number of me and my dad selfies but as I looked through my pics I realized that in some ways they are a tour of DC selfies.

Front of the white house… didn't see the president from here

The back of the white house, you can't get very close on this side

I love the sunset on the capital building

This was such a great trip I wish I could share more of what I saw but in the end we were only there a few days and I am already dying to go back. There is so much to see and we just saw a small chunk of what there was but it was so fun to be there with family and learn so much about the Korean War. I am so honored to have been able to share this with my family.

The Korean War Memorial

I know it has been months since I posted about our trip to DC but this post was running around totally unfinished so I decided it was time for a little more DC (the earlier posts are here, here, and here). I did consider posting this while the government was shut down but let's get real I am sure someone would have asked me to take it down since we were not allowed to visit the memorials when it was closed. Anyway, this is not the place for a political ramble this is about honoring our Korean War Vets. 

We were ready for the bus

The morning started very early since we had to ride a bus from the hotel to the pentagon to get screened by some very cute secret service gentlemen. After that we rode another bus over to the Korean War Memorial and once we got into the fenced off area we couldn't leave. By this point I realized that something very exciting was about to happen... I was going to get to see the President!!! Sweet.

When we walked into the ceremony everyone got a bag of goodies which included some snacks, a very odd looking hat, a towel, and a wonderful book about the Korean War put together by South Korea (we might have gotten this after the ceremony but it is in the bag now). My grandfather got a medal for his service which was given to him by members of the American Military.

At this point we took our seats, maybe 50 yards from the podium, and waited for the excitement. There wasn't a whole lot going on at this point, there was a wreath laying by all of the nations that participated in the war, the president, and most of the military groups (including the POW group and the KWVA). 

Eventually the ceremony got started and several people spoke prior to the president getting up to speak. I may not be his biggest fan but it really was an honor to hear him speak to my grandfather and apologize for the governement forgetting about them. So often the Korean War is thought of as the forgotten war because so many people just never wanted to talk about it. The Pres then spoke about our military today and vowed to stand up for them and also vowed that even when our men came home from overseas that we would not be getting rid of all of our weapons like they did after WWII. This was my favorite part of the morning. 

This is zoomed in but on a regular camera... so close

I was honored to hear the president speak. After that part of the ceremony we were able to head back over to the Memorial which had been closed that morning (so that the president could lay a wreath). It was neat to see the memorial in the day and hear my grandfather talk about the different types of people that were displayed. It was so neat to hear him talk about the War and listen to his stories, so often he wouldn't talk about the memories because they were so terrible but it was fun to hear him talk with some of his friends or other men that served. 

The USMC Wreath

This memorial was the whole reason that we were in DC and it was so neat to see what the President had to say and to listen to people honoring the men that served because they were asked to by their country. I loved seeing my grandfather honored for his service to the USA. I will admit that by the end of the ceremony I was melting, this was the hottest day that we had in DC, but I would not have missed this for the world.