School Life

Last week was a stress filled and busy one, and while I'm hoping that the semester gets better from here, I'm having my doubts. What's worse is that Monday was labor day, so my week wasn't even as long as it could have been.

The week started out OK on Tuesday, with Physics and Biological Oceanography (bio ocean) and bio ocean lab. Nothing too bad here, just three hours at a microscope cataloging and drawing different diatom and dinoflagellate species (such as these guys; aren't they cute?).

Both of these pictures belong to the Center for Integrated Marine Technologies since I didn't get any good pictures through my microscope.

Wednesday, however, found me a basket case as I went through work and chemistry lecture a nervous wreck due to a chemistry quiz and oceanography speech on the plastic in the North Pacific Gyre. I won't know how I did on the quiz until tomorrow, but I don't have high hopes. And I'd love to say that I needlessly worried about the speech and pulled it off wonderfully, but I really can't say that since I BLACKED OUT and have no recollection of the speech at all. I remember the guy going before me sit down, and the guy going after me standing at the front of the room starting his speech, but between that is just a vague memory of staring at my cue cards wondering what the heck language they were written in. Talking with a classmate later, I seemed to have done OK, since he said my speech was the most coherent and informative of all the other speeches. I'll take his word for it, at least until I go over the speech with my professor (and chair of the department and former boss) and get my grade sometime this coming week. David was fantastic and just held me while I cried and slowly calmed down after getting home.

Thursday was a little better, with mostly a repeat of Tuesday. My bio ocean professor (and faculty advisor) has offered me a job monitoring harmful algae blooms off our coasts as part of a statewide study. I would love to take it, but am going to wait until I know a little more about what the job requires. She is also going to help me turn the job into my senior research project that I must complete before I graduate, so that's a big bonus. And it's much closer to my field of interest than the PG&E sampling is, so unless the hours are crazy I'll probably end up taking the job. After class I headed over to the Oceanography department mixer, which was fun, but I don't do too well with lots of people. I'm glad I went though, since I'm now signed up with the Oceanography club and talked to many people about the PG&E marine sampling project and hopefully some of them will apply.

Friday I muddled through physics lab and a chemistry lecture and headed home. I don't think I've ever been more glad for a weekend. I didn't get much of anything done (like housework or canning pickles), but I've spent a lot of time relaxing and detoxing from my week, and I have my homework done, a weekly menu planned for next week, I started knitting a washcloth (and have restarted it 4 times already), and have started reading Diet for a New America, which is turning out to be very good in a kind of depressing way....

I'm off now to do some more knitting and am hoping next week will be better.

Ups and Downs

The stress from school and work is already getting to me. I woke up this morning feeling cranky and just generally depressed. Poor David was tip-toeing around all morning before he went to work trying not to set me off. Hopefully this is just a short term thing, and in a day or two I'll be back to normal.



We went to the farmers market today and picked up lots of goodies. Flowers, cantaloupe, blackberries, raspberries, apples, peaches, cucumbers (for pickling), grapes, plums, and asian pears followed us home today. I'm going to make some bread and butter pickles and possibly try to make some apple-plum butter, and once the peaches ripen completely I'll peel them and freeze them for smoothies or pie.


Now that I have my computer back, I can also show you some pictures of what's been going on over here:

Freshly canned tomato sauce.

Picking blueberries at the local pick-your-own

Getting roses from David

Much Needed Rest

I'm so thankful today in Labor day and I don't have classes or work. Saturday and yesterday were spent climbing over rocks and getting drenched by incoming waves, and crawling through stinky Humboldt Bay mud. But everything is taken care of now (except some paperwork, which shouldn't take too long and I'll probably do tonight), so with the exception of two lab write-ups (mostly finished) and physics homework, I have the day to take care of housework and to just relax and possibly start some knitting.

Menu for this week:
Today: Make chili con "carne" (from Vegan Lunch Box) in crock pot, make a loaf of bread, and bake potatoes for tomorrow. I'll be freezing most of the chili and using some for dinner tonight and lunches throughout the week.
Tuesday: Baked Potato Soup (from Veganomicon) with homemade bread
Wednesday: Leftovers since I won't be home until almost 7pm
Thursday: The Oceanography Mixer is tonight so I'll be eating there or eating leftovers when I get home.
Friday: Pasta Primavera with Miso Dressing
Saturday: South of the Border Couscous salad
Sunday: Homemade pizza/calzones

Lunches (and snacks) from last week:
Monday: 4 "ham" roll-ups (veggie ham spread with vegan cream cheese and rolled), 1 plout, 1/2 nectarine, sweet potato fries, peanut butter oatmeal cookie, and one rice cake with peanut butter.
Tuesday: Slice of veggie meatloaf, colcannon (kale and mashed potatoes), mushroom gravy, granola bar, 1 lemon drop, an apple, and some carrots.
Wednesday: 7 pieces veggie sushi, 1 cup edamame in shell, soy sauce, apple, carrots with peanut butter, 1 lemon drop
Thursday: Slice of veggie meatloaf, colcannon (kale and mashed potatoes), mushroom gravy, 1 C blueberries (picked locally), granola bar
Friday: Didn't eat lunch (bad!), had a granola bar and an apple.

Student Life

Yep, I know I must be back to school now. It's 11:30 pm, and I have to get up tomorrow at 4 am to go out sampling marine algae. I'm still up because I have a bio oceanography, physics, and chemistry lab that I need to do write-ups for, a speech to prepare, 6 chapters to read, tons of homework problems to do, and sampling equipment and paperwork to gather up and prepare. And it's only the first week.



Oh boy.

Preserving Summer

Some how this summer I got bit by the canning bug. With school starting tomorrow, I doubt there will be much time for me to continue, but I don't feel too bad about what I got done:

• 2 quarts + 3 pints tomato sauce
• 6 pints applesauce (3 cinnamon, 3 plain)
• 11 half-pints blueberry syrup (much more than the recipe said I'd get!)
• 5 cups blueberries in the freezer.

I have some cucumbers from the farmer's market that need to be used up, so I may try a can or two of pickles some night after classes or after I collect samples next weekend. Or I may put away the stockpot for now and focus on learning to knit in my free time (yeah right, what's that?).


Blueberry Syrup (from Ball's Preserving Website):
8 cups blueberries , crushed (about 3-1/2 lb)
6 cups water
1 Tbsp lemon zest
3 cups granulated sugar
2 Tbsp lemon juice
3 (16 oz) pint glass preserving jars with lids and bands (I used half pint jars)


Combine blueberries, 2 cups of the water and lemon zest in a large stainless steel saucepan. Bring to a gentle boil over medium heat and boil gently for 5 minutes. Transfer to a dampened jelly bag or a strainer lined with several layers of cheesecloth set over a deep bowl and let drain for at least 2 hours.

Prepare your boiling water canner. Heat jars and lids in simmering water until ready for use.

Combine sugar and 4 cups water in a clean large stainless steel saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring to dissolve sugar, and cook until temperature reaches 230°F (my thermometer only went to 220, so I just guessed...). Add blueberry juice and bring back to a boil for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in lemon juice.

Pour hot syrup into hot jars leaving 1/4 inch head space. Process the jars in the canner for 10 minutes. Remove onto a clean towel for at least 24 hours before checking the seal.

Last Week of Freedom

Only two more days and then my days of freedom are over. It's so sad! And I still have so much to do! Things kept coming up, so I never ended up picking blueberries, but if the weather is decent tomorrow I'll go out and see what I can get. I'll also need to pick up some more canning jars, since I'm almost out of the pints and the quarts won't fit in the pot I'm using for a canner. Never to fear though, some of the quarts will be used to make jack-o-lanterns in October and others will probably be used for soup/cookie/brownie mixes.

Monday and Tuesday I spent several hours meeting with my faculty adviser for the PG&E project, and have gotten all the paperwork caught up for that. I wish the Feds would figure out how to make a decent spreadsheet, explain what exactly they want, and eliminate at least half of the paperwork! I guess it gives me experience in filling all these stupid forms out, and how to keep good scientific records and notes, but really, for what we're doing I shouldn't have to be keeping track of all this. If I would have known I'd be doing all this I don't think I would have taken this position, or at least I would have tried to get a better hourly wage. If I can get a group together, we'll go out next weekend at 6:00 AM to collect samples for the third quarter. Not what I want to do with my first weekend of the school year, I can tell you that.

I also got my hair cut on Monday. It was almost to my waist, and I wanted to keep growing it out, but it was really damaged, so I chopped it all off up to a few inches past my shoulders. I didn't like it at first, but my head is much lighter now, and I don't feel that I need to keep my hair pulled up all the time. With so many hours in labs, though, I'll probably have it up most of the time anyway.

Yesterday I was called out on a sea lion rescue (which is why the berries didn't get picked yesterday). We ended up not going out until 5:30 in the evening, and drove all around Big Lagoon looking for a place to get down the cliffs somewhere close to where the sea lion had been reported. Eventually we had to use a rope to climb down the cliff where it was about 10-12 feet tall and then walked along the beach for a good half mile at least. We never ended up finding the animal, and the tide had already come in and was starting to go back out, so whatever tracks that might have been left were gone. Hopefully the sea lion's out there somewhere swimming around happily, but realistically he's probably not. So back we trekked and used the rope to climb back up the cliff. I'm feeling a little sore today, but mostly it's from where I was carrying the heavy net on my shoulders.

Well, I'm off to bed. Tomorrow I want to pick up the house, pick berries, start the syrup cooking, and take care of a bunch of other little things so that David and I can enjoy our last free Sunday together before going back to the grind. I probably won't end up getting everything done, because I'm lazy like that, but even if I get most of it done I'll be happy.

P.S. Oh, I forgot to mention this before. Before leaving for the Alaska Adventure, I weighed at my parents house and was 243 lbs. When we got back I was 225 lbs., and now I'm hovering between 219 and 222 lbs. (I've been weighing every day, but have started only weighing once a week now). I guess only eating trail mix and hummus for two weeks was a good thing!

My Vegan 100

Hannah posted this in response to the similar Omnivore's Hundred and I thought I'd go ahead and play along. Probably won't make it by the end of this year, but maybe I'll try to eat all of these before the end of next year. I haven't crossed anything out, because I'm willing to try anything, but I think there's a few things on here I'll probably end up passing on, or at least save until the very last day ;)

1) Copy this list into your own blog, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Post a comment here once you’ve finished and link your post back to this one.
5) Pass it on!


1. Natto
2. Green Smoothie
3. Tofu Scramble
4. Haggis
5. Mangosteen
6. Creme brulee
7. Fondue
8. Marmite/Vegemite
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Nachos
12. Authentic soba noodles
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Taco from a street cart
16. Boba Tea
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Gyoza
20. Vanilla ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Ceviche
24. Rice and beans
25. Knish
26. Raw scotch bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Caviar
29. Baklava
30. Pate
31. Wasabi peas
32. Chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Mango lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Mulled cider
37. Scones with buttery spread and jam
38. Vodka jelly
39. Gumbo
40. Fast food french fries
41. Raw Brownies
42. Fresh Garbanzo Beans
43. Dahl
44. Homemade Soymilk
45. Wine from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Stroopwafle
47. Samosas
48. Vegetable Sushi
49. Glazed doughnut
50. Seaweed
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Tofurkey
54. Sheese
55. Cotton candy
56. Gnocchi
57. Piña colada
58. Birch beer
59. Scrapple
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Soy curls
63. Chickpea cutlets
64. Curry
65. Durian
66. Homemade Sausages
67. Churros, elephant ears, or funnel cake
68. Smoked tofu
69. Fried plantain
70. Mochi
71. Gazpacho
72. Warm chocolate chip cookies
73. Absinthe
74. Corn on the cob
75. Whipped cream, straight from the can
76. Pomegranate
77. Fauxstess Cupcake
78. Mashed potatoes with gravy
79. Jerky
80. Croissants
81. French onion soup
82. Savory crepes
83. Tings
84. A meal at Candle 79
85. Moussaka
86. Sprouted grains or seeds
87. Macaroni and “cheese”
88. Flowers
89. Matzoh ball soup
90. White chocolate
91. Seitan
92. Kimchi
93. Butterscotch chips
94. Yellow watermelon
95. Chili with chocolate
96. Bagel and Tofutti
97. Potato milk
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Raw cookie dough