It's snowing

"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas..."
So incase you haven't been following my pictures on facebook I have put some on my blog.
This is what it looks like outside out home today. We haven't cleared our driveway because our car is sick. We think that it has a bad alternator but we will probably only find out on Thursday. Then I will no longer be house bound.

Here is a pic from the carriage ride that we took recently. We went for a tour of old homes of Weston. It was nice to look inside the old homes. Some were remodelled and look all modern. Some tried to stick with designs that were more true to the age when the home was built. For example one home that we visited had a kitchen that had a floor and walls of exposed red brick. It look pretty cool, but kinda cold for the winter. It also had an open hearth that you could just walk into. You could roast a pig in there probably (a small pig maybe a pig let).

Here is a picture of some cookies that the local catholic youth baked as a fundraiser. They were delicious (I suspect that there were some moms and grandmas lending a hand). We picked an assortment of cookies and treats for $5/lb. They were delicious.

And here is the picture of our town all dolled up for the coming of Christ (or seasonal tourists).

This is probably the only Christmas decorations we will do this year. It seems kinda pointless to me to put up a tree if we aren't gonna be home for most of Christmas or on Christmas day. We did decorate it with ornaments that James has collected over the years.


Here is picture we took while we were at Hubii's sister's place in Iowa. Her husband is showing everyone how he practices putting the baby in the car seat and buckling her in (he is practicing with a doll).

At college the Math club had a ginger bread house decorating contest. But they made it with gingerbread trains. And no one actually made a train.
There were three groups of students two of the groups made one entry each, the third group weren't really a group and submitted individual entries.



This group's entry came with a story about ants, human, aliens, and the fourth dimension.

This one collapsed shortly after the picture was taken

A jack of hearts



And the winner is....
Moustach man!

Just so you know this gingerbread is really bad. We hope that everyone is having a good time. It's really cold here (as you can tell from the snow). I will be doing my GRE soon and hope to apply to a couple of Uni's here for grad school. Hopefully I can get it all completed soon.
James will be done with school soon. His last class is today and next week is exam week. Then his break will be done and he can get some house work done ;)
I hope everyone takes this Christmas time to relax (easy for the housewife to say) and reflect on all the great gifts that we have received over this year.

Merry Christmas!!

Biometrics

If you have had any contact with INS or USCIS you will know what that word means. Shame. Shame and long lines. When you get an appointment for biometrics you have to go in and have the finger prints of all your fingers in all possible combinations scanned and put into a government database so that they can identify your body when the zombies attack.
It actually wasn't so bad, the Kansas City location was a lot less busy and the staff and officers were much more friendly than at the office in Atlanta.
But friends, let me tell you, if you think that your drivers license photo was bad you haven't seen a greencard photo. They look like mugshots. I got to look at my photo for my future card and let me tell you it wasn't pretty. First you feel like you are being booked having had your prints taken. Second they don't let you smile. What!!! What's wrong with a smile? Well the problem I hear is that smiles on photographs mess up facial recognition software. Well the jokes on them because my natural state is smiling!!

I haven't had enough pictures of Hubii on here so here's a picture of him after he drove home in the snow.

I feel kinda lucky that 20 minutes from Weston in Leavenworth is a tiny Korean grocery with a small restaurant on the side. I ordered the Jampong. It's not great but it's ok. I really shouldn't order sea food when I live 20 hours from the coast. I didn't order the Jajangmyeon because I was feeling very cold. But if I ever need a fix they have it on the menu. I feel like it's a mini blessing.
Last night I attempted to make Panna Cotta.
I served it on fudge sauce. The yellow lumps are from the gelatin not dissolving well. It was ok, but this was a first attempt so I was just happy that it gelled at all (although I don't think that not gelling was a possibility).
Here is a photo I took of a Walmart near Kansas City:
Why did I take a picture of a Walmart, well because the facade reminded me of another supermarket that was just down the street.
It looked even more a copy where we were because the "Whole Foods" was also in green. Unfortunately it was too far for my bitty mobile phone to snap so this is just off the interwebs. I am gonna go get dessert while Hubii finishes this post.

Wifii has gone to get some Panna Cotta for us to eat, so I need to finish up this post. I've been really busy with end-of-semester work. I gave three exams this week and now I have to grade them. But the semester will be over soon and then we can start the next semester. It is enjoyable to interact with students and learn new things, but this week has been tiring.

Very sore body

This weekend was chock-full of fun activities for me (not so fun/ work related activities for Hubii). At least it started out well. Below is a picture of Hubii with his apple compote stuffed crepes. He loves pancakes, waffles etc so we make them every Saturday (he has been making his own every weekend since graduate school days I think).

Hubii doesn't usually dress up just for crepes though. He had to go to work that Saturday for a parent and prospective student open house for the college. But it was only till 12 so he was home by lunch.
After that he spent the day grading homework and exams :( Hopefully, in future semesters, once he has his lesson plans and exams mostly done, he won't have to work over the weekends.
I had a much more enjoyable weekend. As some of you know I have been playing in the Leavenworth Soccer league this fall. For all this season I was playing with a team that for the first few weeks lost all the games (though not too badly) and for the rest of the games had to forfeit as we were short. Just before the final league they decided that we could be broken up and divided among the other teams. I was given to the team that needed an extra lady. Well we played 3 games this weekend one on Saturday and 2 on Sunday and in the end I was part of the winning team! I was super luck, especially as I had been on a team that was doing so poorly all season.


Hopefully I will play again in the spring. By them I hope to figure out how to dribble the ball.

Little knobbly bones

Last Saturday we went to lunch with a professor who teaches at Hubii's work and the prof's wife and two girls. His wife also teaches at the college but as an adjunct. She is Chinese and found a great dim sum place (well great in that it had variety but not as good as Atlanta, which I guess is not as good as in Asia). But it was yummy!
And for the first time in my life I ate chicken feet. Fried chicken feet in black bean sauce. Not the tastiest dish in the world but a great way to leave nothing to waste. I didn't want to be gauche and take a picture of the feet at the restaurant so here is what it looks like on the menu.


After that we came home to prepare for the trick-or-treaters.We didn't have awesome costumes for the kids we just recycled last years costume and became generic witch and her cat. Unfortunately we started to late and didn't get too many visits. I would say 5-6 groups came by. The upside is that we have waaaayy to much candy left behind!

Fall!

So if I haven't been posting for a while I apologize. I place the blame solely on this book:


I loved this book. I was rapt, I could barely stand to put it down. It was so exciting I felt as if it gave me a heart attack! Why hasn't Scify made a mini series of this already!!!?
I am now reading Paladin of Souls also by Louis McMaster Bujold and set in the same world as the Curse of Chalion. I was so excited to read it I started reading whatever I could on Amazon before the book was delivered to our library.
Converesly, may I tell you what I do not like? 24. I know that people are in love with it but I don't care for it. I saw the first half of season One and it was good. It was exciting and the twists were not too annoying. But Season 2 started out interesting but I was sick of how things never worked out for Jack and Kim kept getting into worse and worse trouble (spoilers ahead). After the bomb blew up it was downhill from there. He couldn't prove that the recording was fake, then the chip was damaged but maybe they can get the data off of it, oh no they can't get the data, then he tries to get the guy who made the fake, Jack finds the guy who agrees to work for him, then the guy stabs the president's wife and escapes... and that is when I stopped watching.
Season 3 was worse than that. In every episode they had some twist, something to make things more annoying and frustrating. First it's about drugs and terror connections, then it's about a kid with weaponized disease, then it's about stopping Jack from breaking Salazar free, then it's not, then his watch breaks.
I like twists but I can get overloaded with constant changes in the direction of the plot. It nauseats me slightly and just when I feel like I am in a groove and can get into the action I have to change gears. No thanks. I find these constant plot changes show a lack of mature writing talent and are just cheap and easy gimmicks to keep people watching.
aaaahhh... well I am glad I got that off of my chest.
We also had a few of Hubii's students over for Soup night. The college tries to build community ties between the profs and the students by having the professors host a dinner for the students at their homes. Three of his students made it and were treated to palak paneer and butter chicken. Thankfully none were too picky and seemed to enjoy my 'exotic' dishes. Let me tell you paneer is expensive: It cost $6 for 12oz of cheese. It seems even more expensive as making paneer at home is reasonably easy and I have almost mastered it myself. But the palak paneer came out pretty well. This despite the fact that I was going easy on the spices to keep it palatable.The picture isn't great as I took it with my mobile phone.



Last night Hubii and I carved a pumpkin. I think that it came out pretty well. You can't really see the pumpkin, just the carving. But i think that the moon came out pretty well. I can't wait for halloween. I hope that kids will come to the house. I fear that we have lost our neighborhood kids to convenient for parents Trunk or Treats. But we will see.

Fall in Missouri

So it has been very cold here for the last week. Day before yesterday we had freezing conditions overnight and yesterday it hovered around low 40's before giving up the ghost and dipping to mid 30's overnight. I don't want it to be winter yet, but then I never want it to be winter. I would like to be in Australia where people eat ice cream at Christmas time.

Saturday one of our neighbors raked all his leaves into the street and set fire to them. I was shocked and half expected the fire crew to show up but they didn't. He just had a huge smokey fire going for half the day.
One good thing about fall is all the fall festivals. Two weekends ago Weston held Applefest. It was kicked off with a parade and had all kinds of apple treats, plus mini hay bales!
I think they were lost, because the parade went the other way.

Hubii's sister and brother-in-law were able to visit us during Applefest. We ate many apple confections including apple funnel cake, apple dumplings and an apple pie that we took home with us.
Hubii and I bought a hay bale and some gourds and pumpkins to decorate our front doorstep.

While I was in Platte City, to get my new driver's license, I was trapped by the home coming parade for Platte County High School. It was a highlight to a mostly frustrating day. I went to the DMV three time only to give up my lovely GA license for a sheet of paper.


A piece of paper with a squished photo.
And now for a photo of my recent baking adventures. Orange sticky buns, click to see them in the sticky glistening goodness. Enjoy.

First Use

Hubii is not feeling too well so he stayed at home today. So to comfort him and soothe his aching body I made Dhal Makhani. It gave me to opportunity to use my new cookware.

We had it with leftover naan, although rice would have been better combo. I also took a picture of the pie pumpkin that I bought at the store. It's really cute, it looks like it's hiding. I couldn't find canned pumpkin. They probably hid it because they had pumpkins in the produce department.

More picnics and baking

Last Saturday we went to another picnic held for a new Iraqi student who studies at Benedictine. It was held at a nearby park that had a super jungle gym. I had to climb it.


The Iraqi student is a student of Hubii's. It would be nice to talk to him more but he needs to make friends among the students. Still Hubii will see him all semester hopefully he will feel like part of the college family.

Seeing as I have a whole lot of time on my hands I have been doing a lot of baking also. I made some donkey's ears for Hubii's student to eat at the early morning optional class. They have a cherry jam filling.


I also tried my hand at naan. I found the recipe at vahrehvah.com I highly recommend it. The guy who does the videos is totally adorable. Plus the recipes are pretty good. The naan turned out ok, but it could use some work.

See: now coming to Missouri to visit us will be worth the trip!

Uplifting Day

I had an uplifting, if slightly superficial day. First I joined a gym.


I was getting a little depressed because many of the nearby gyms were expensive with swipe cards that you had to pay for and enrolment fees and monthly dues of $40-$60 a month and being too far away. I went to this gym in Leavenworth (20 minute drive). I like it, it's just like the gym I used to go to in Atlanta. It made me super happy.
I also discovered that you can get NCIS episodes streamed from CBS. That made me so happy I said a prayer of thanks to God. It really lifted my spirits (I know I shouldn't watch so much TV. It's like thanking God for letting me a couch potato).
Then while I was looking up different engineering companies in Leavenworth the doorbell rang. I thought that it would be either the landlord or James. Instead it was a package from UPS.


It's my new Dutch oven from Kitchenaid. Hubii said that he would buy me one if we had to move half way across the country for his new work. Now we are even. But don't worry we were always even, we moved for us not just for him.
Now Hubii just got home and told me that we were invited to the picnic with the Chemistry department! I love a good picnic. I feel like I am having a blessing filled day. Hopefully I will remember it and not forget this feeling as soon as the next lull arrived.

Labor Day Weekend

Hubii does not get Labor Day off as he works for a private university that does mostly whatever it sees fit.
We did have a good weekend though. We went for a run at Weston Bend (not too fast though we were restrained by the speed limit).
After we got home we drove to Independence, Missouri for the Santa-Cali-Gon Days Festival. We did not find out at the fete what Santa-Cali-Gon was. We did get to eat smoked pork chop on a stick (the stick sold us).
Later after I looked at the website again I found out that it was named Santa-Cali-Gon Days to commemorate the City of Independence as the starting point of the Santa Fe, California, and Oregon Trails. Who knew! It was like a county fair, except it was held by the city of Independence. I would have liked to spend more time there but it was hotter than I had expected. Hubii and I did get to eat some home made ice cream sandwiches but I was not dressed appropriately for the heat. It was a good thing we left when we did because as soon as we got into the car the scattered thunderstorms appeared.

So we left in good moods and full of fair foods.

Now I don't need to go to the Grand Canyon

Last night Hubbii and I finished this puzzle that we got for Christmas. It took us 3 days. You see I have a lot of time on my hands. It had images from Bryce Canyon, Zion National Park and Grand Canyon.

Getting into the Swing of Things

This is a picture of the Red Barn Farm in Weston. I go here, if I have cash, to buy fruits that they get from nearby farms. They do not have a lot of selection but it's fun to get non-commercial varieties of corn and watermelon etc. And yummy too.

In the past two weeks Hubii has been going to school and getting into work groove. These last weeks was full of faculty orientation and picnics. Yes you read right; picnics.
They monks had a welcome dinner for faculty and family the Friday before school started. The cafeteria staff grilled out burgers and a couple of different kind of hot dog/ sausage-y things. The monks gave us salads, tomatoes and fruits from their garden and some one brought a few huge kegs and a pump. Yes, once again, you read correctly they had kegs of beer. I love this place! Well not really because I don't like beer, but it's the thought that counts.
We also went to yet another ice cream social and this time they had home made ice cream!! The social was held at a little country church that was on a road that didn't even show up on our GPS at first (we had to add in gravel roads to find it). But that ice cream, I wish you could have tasted them. They were sooooo creamy. They told me their secret but I won't blurt it out on the internet. See how friendly they are here. It melts my ice cream chilled heart.
Yesterday we were at a potluck picnic at a professor's house. Everyone brought lots of yummy food. The best thing there, at least conversationally, was all the home brewed beer. If I cared anything for the taste of beer I would remember the different types. The only ones I remember were oatmeal stoat, creme ale and some rye thingamabob.
It seems that cottage industries (beer brewing, wine and mead making, goat cheese making etc) are the main source of entertainment for the professors here. I wouldn't blame them, they live quite far away from major cities. Soon, I will be one of them too. Fermenting strange fruits and liquids to extract their intoxicating wonders.
Hubii has taught his first complete week of classes. I think that he likes teaching but he doesn't like preparing for class. He is also worried about how to grade homework and tests. Hopefully once he gets into the swing of things he will have time to prepare for lecture, make HWs, tests and projects and grade them all. But he is wonderful and still does his chores around the house. Maybe I should pitch in a bit more but until this housewifii thing becomes permanent I don't want Hubii to change.

Sooo.... that's the highlight, in my opinion. Maybe next week I will get Hubii to give you his side of the story.

Wedding Vacation

So last week we went on a wonderful vacation/ Holiday to Canada. We went a week before my cousin Amanda's wedding to hang out with my family. We visited my mom's brother (Raju Uncle) and his family, then my mom's sister (Beena Aunty) and her family.
While visiting Beena Aunty we saw a show put on by my cousin (Logan). He and his sister (Kerala) were in a theater camp for the summer. Now we finally know where the song 'One Night in Bangkok' comes from. It was written for the musical Chess. It was a fun musical and had some rocking 80s style music. I loved it! We also got to visit Niagara Fall and the Butterfly Conservatory. I think that the butterflies were actually nicer than the Grand Canyon. But there are so many parks and rides I would love to go back and go biking through them.

The wedding was also tons of fun and I got to dress up. Plus we were finally able to make it to a morning prayer at the bride's house. Hubii is cataloging all of my family. We hope to make a comprehensive family tree. I thinks that my family is thoroughly impressed with my husband. We also got to hang out with all the cousins who came for the wedding.


But now our vacation is over and we are back in Weston. Hubii started work this Monday. This week is new faculty orientation. I have been staying home and either baking or looking for a job. So far baking is going moderately well and job search not so well. But hopefully things will look up after I get to know more people in this area.

State Park

Yesterday evening I used my breadmaker to make cinnamon rolls but I didn't bake them. I wanted to see if I could delay the baking till today morning. I baked them up and it came out ok. They rose well but they were too crusty on the outside, maybe from over-baking.
After breakfast we packed PB&J sandwiches and headed to Weston Bend State Park. We hiked to an overlook of the Missouri River. Part of our hike was on a paved trail and the rest was on a dirt trail. It was really pretty and supposedly we could see to Fort Leavenworth. After Lunch we took the road back to where our car was. I am glad we did because James spotted some wild raspberries. Probably the same that Lewis and Clark ate and wrote about.
We forgot our camera so there are no photographs. Sorry but we will post some soon and try to keep the blog interesting.

Slow Beginnings

We are mostly settled into our new rented duplex. We have been exploring and are now kinda familiar with the area. Familiar in the sense that if we get lost we know where we are lost in. We put up towel rods and towel rings. Wifii finally finished stitching a valence for over the front door.
Recent conversation:
Hubii (sitting on the floor next to dismantled vacuum cleaner as he hacks away at long black hair ball twisted onto the vacuum's round brush): When will you get a hair cut?
Wifii: After the wedding at some point.
Hubii: I felt like I just hacked all this hair out last month.
Wifii: I think you did.

But there are more interesting things to do here. Last Sunday we went to the icecream social at a nearby church. They had bingo, a silent auction, a country store and HUGE slices of cake for just a dollar. So we had cake and icecream (2 large scoops for a dollar) for dinner on Sunday.

I have been doing a lot of cooking. I have a lot of time as I am a house Wifii. But it is boring me. I have pledged to read one article from Popular science or popular mechanics everyday. Hopefully this will feed my inclination towards engineering. I had been reading a lot of cooking and food related books and blogs. But I really should stop. I don't need to encourage a love for food. It is inate in my system.

I am also going to use my library more often. It's been a while since I blogged for readers so it might be a while before this becomes more interesting and less rambling. But keep reading and commenting!

The reality sets in

This blog is for our friends following our lives in Kansas-Missouri. We may end up living in a city but I thought the title was appropriate because James is Country Mouse and I am Town Mouse. And James has big ears.
James recently got a job in Atchison. Atchison is a small town, it's not in the country. The problem is it is really far from Kansas City or any larger city. We were looking in Leavenworth and Weston and Platte City for places to stay.
When we visited Weston I found that there is only a grocery store there. Oh Okay. Soo... I never realized that having a Kroger, Publix, Ingles is a luxury. I just can't get over it. No Supermarket. The closest supermarket is 20 minutes away. This may not seem like a lot of time but you have to realise that I stopped shopping at Super Walmart because it was a 10 minute drive and the Kroger is 6 minutes away. And I actually like the Walmart more as it has more ethnic food. Also I have never lived more that a 5 minute drive from a supermarket.
The problem is that I go to supermarkets like some girls go to Macy's. It's my retail therapy.
OK... slowly sinking in. I am not going to be living the charmed life anymore. I am gonna have to earn my keep. Waahhh!!! This is nuts. My paradigm is shifting with a clutch.
I have to blog this. It will be awesome. I will be your very own Paris Hilton/ Nicole Richie from the Simple life. James will be the poor regular folk that have to deal with Paris for every episode of new madness.