Holiday Spirit

While Milwaukee finally had its first snow fall this past weekend it still doesn't feel like it's time for the holidays.  I'm not into it this year and getting my decorations out has been a chore.  Could be lack of sunlight, could be depression.

Even school doesn't have much in the way of decorations; just these things they stick in the planters.  Of course they're all covered by snow now.

I need to put up my tree.  Maybe that will help.

Thanksgiving & Its Perils

This past weekend was Thanksgiving, a holiday filled with food, family, and *ahem* Black Friday shopping.  Due to weather concern I spent my Thanksgiving in Milwaukee instead of with my family in Minnesota but I did make some traditional Thanksgiving fare (sweet potato casserole, pumpkin pie, toffee cookies, and dinner rolls) so I didn't completely miss out on the food portion of the holiday.

While I love shopping, I chickened out this year for participating in Black Friday.  It was very very cold outside!  The original plan was to hit the outlet mall at 10 PM Thursday night.  After a large temperature drop in the middle of the afternoon on Thursday I decided my plan was rotten and that I should just go shopping on Saturday instead.  Yes I could have gone out Friday still, and yes you can (for the most part) get all the same deals online that are to be had in stores, but I didn't really need anything to warrant the crazy shopping.  All I really need are more clothes to replace the ones that I've destroyed working in the lab.

Thanksgiving sure does have its perks.  It's on a Thursday which pretty much guarantees that one will have Friday off from work and maybe Wednesday as well.  When I was working on my bachelor's and master's degrees these days off meant nothing to me as I would have had final exams the week before and the whole week of Thanksgiving as a "break."  Now that I'm in the working world I just get Thursday and Friday off from work but as a graduate student at a big, semester schedule school I no longer have a break.  I had my microbiology class on Tuesday like normal, but my once-a-week Thursday class was moved to Tuesday to account for the day off.  There went my normal Tuesday afternoon work in the school lab time.

On a trimester schedule the week of Thanksgiving was nice because I didn't have to worry about anything school related.  No exams, no homework, and nothing upcoming!  Not so much now.

The peril of having a four day weekend is that now the likelihood that I'll have a lengthy to do list is high, and the likelihood of my accomplishing anything from that list is low.  Sigh.  Today I have a test in microbiology, my part of a grant proposal due, a meeting with my advisor, and some lab work that I've been putting off.  Today is going to be busy.

Anniversary

Today was my five year relationship anniversary with George. Thanks to Facebook and it's reminder system there was really no way for either of us to forget the date. In celebration of the big day (since it is in the middle of the week and all) we had a nice fancy dinner at home. George even got me roses! George is not a buy-you-flowers-randomly guy so this was a big deal.

A Dozen Beautiful Roses!

For the fancy dinner we stayed in and had a home cooked meal. But fancy! Ha. We had seared steak with caramelized onions and Gorgonzola, crushed red potatoes with buttermilk, and steamed asparagus. This meal was one I found on EatingWell.com's 500 calorie dinners and since George and I are trying to eat healthy this seemed like the perfect meal. It turned out really well too!

Mmmm...tasty.

We had a nice dinner together with angel food cake (plus strawberries and whipped cream) for dessert.

So here's to George. My number one fan. The only follower of this blog. My foundation.

The First Labor Day

Today I got to experience something akin to the First Thanksgiving...but from the view point of the Native Americans in the United States.

My research group held a BBQ along with many other research groups in the civil engineering & mechanics department. It was a good chance to get out of the lab, socialize (eek!), and meet other people in my department. The civil department (in an American university) does not contain many Americans. In fact, there were only three of us at the BBQ. The rest of the group was comprised of two from Denmark, three from South America, one from Africa, and many many people from China. Everyone was very excited to be having an American BBQ on Labor Day.

When I arrived one of my professors was setting up the grill. He recruited my reluctant boyfriend to man the grill and seemed as pleased as punch to be learning the art of grilling from an American. When it came time to cook one of the boys in my research group took over, gleefully wielding the tongs. While I was there it felt as though I was standing just off the coast of the Atlantic (in reality I was just off the shore of Lake Michigan) listening to the newcomers speaking (I can't understand anything in Chinese!) while sharing some age-old tradition (in this case, BBQ).

Truth to be told, I haven't attended many BBQs in my lifetime. More when I was younger but since I've gotten an electric grill I just haven't seen the need to drag out the bag of charcoal and toss on some lighter fluid to make dinner. What I really enjoyed from this BBQ was all the different food. Sure there was the typical meat & veggies on a stick, the Johnsonville Brats, pork chops, but there were also baby soybeans, noodles, and traditional Chinese desserts. I wish I knew what the desserts were called! Not quite as sweet as typical American (or European) desserts but light and tasty just the same.

Overall, I thought it was a very interesting experience and I'm pretty excited to experience more holidays with my research team.