How do you measure a year in the life?

Tuesday passed by pretty uneventfully for most people, but for me it was a pretty big milestone. On August 10th, 2009, I got on a plane that was one way from Raleigh, NC to Kansas City, MO. From there, my dad and my husband picked up my mom and I, and we started a journey that led us to our new home in Lawrence, KS. We sold or gave away a lot of our furniture so that we could travel easier, so we had to stop at Nebraska Furniture Mart before coming home so we'd have a bed to sleep on that night! My dad and Michael had spent the previous 2 days driving 1100 miles in our Jeep with our two cats because we didn't feel comfortable transporting them on a plane. I remember having a lot of anxiety about this move. So far, it's been the biggest of my life. Even for college, I only went about 40 miles away to Chapel Hill, NC. I mean, I'm even in a different time zone now! Being apart from my family and friends in NC is undoubtedly the hardest part of living in Kansas. Thank God for skype, cell phones, facebook, and planes. Now if only there was a direct flight from KCI to RDU I would really be in business!

We moved here so that Michael could further his career by obtaining a PhD. So for me, this has been a leap of faith for sure-to pick up my roots, from the place I've lived for the past 24 years, to follow my spouse as he goes after the next step. But I'm glad we're here. Before I knew Lawrence, I pictured flatland, nowhere to go, nothing to do, and for the first few weeks here, I didn't know how I was going to meet people. I'm so glad I was wrong about all of that. Through KU, EastLake, MoKan Greyhounds, nd Michael's family that lives here, we have met so many amazing people and done some really fun things, and Lawrence has transitioned from a means to an end to a pretty cool place to live. Here's a quick summary of our first year in Kansas:

-Michael started and completed his first year as a graduate student. He received a 4.0 GPA his first semester, taught a biology lab in the spring, interned at NIH in Maryland over the summer, and is set to begin year #2 next Thursday. He hopes to complete applications for fellowships this fall and will continue to teach undergrad biology labs. Year 2 will be pretty important, as he will have to take his oral exam at the end of the year and pass it in order to continue with the program.

-I started out working part time with the company I'd worked for in NC, helping with a project online. By the end of the year my boss offered me a full time position as a social media manager, taking care of our company's facebook, twitter, and a couple of other websites. This has been the best possible evolution of a job for me. I still get to interact with some of my favorite clients, I get paid to update facebook, share news, blog, and be a part of the social media wave. Working from home may not be for everyone, but I love it.

-We attended KU football games. Our favorite was KU vs. Duke...it was a total unexpected but sweet surprise to see our rival from the ACC out here! Even better that KU kicked their butt. ;)

-Our first Thanksgiving in Kansas where we made everything ourselves. And it turned out great! Michael is a fantastic cook and smoked the turkey on our grill, which was possibly the best turkey I've ever had. It was so nice to have a relaxing holiday where we could do things on our own time and veg out and watch the Thanksgiving parade and the dog show, although we did miss our NC relatives.

-After Thanksgiving we went to the Plaza in Kansas City for the lighting of the plaza lights. It's a big ceremony here, complete with bands playing and fireworks. It was very cold standing outside on Thanksgiving night, but very pretty. We had a blast decorating our house for the holidays and made lots of cinnamon rolls and sugar cookies.

-We narrowly escaped a blizzard on Christmas Eve that hit Lawrence. We were at home in Raleigh where it was 60 degrees! We had a great adventure using the 4 x 4 in our Jeep when we arrived back at the airport to a snow bank of 2 feet in front of our car.

-Speaking of snow, this winter was my first time really driving in it. I'm still a little apprehensive, but it helps knowing that Lawrence is pretty good about getting the roads salted and plowed. It was one of those things where if I didn't suck it up and learn how to use the 4 x 4, I wasn't going to go anywhere all winter because by the time snow finally melted, another batch would be coming.

-In January, we adopted our greyhound, Penny! She has been so much fun and really brightens my life. She is my first dog and has been a real joy. Penny has given us so much love that we are now advocates for greyhound adoption through the group we went through to get Penny. They are the best dogs, seriously! :)

-March was a hard month. I went home for a couple of weeks and basically within those couple of weeks my life changed forever. We went from my mom pushing through her chemo meds, to transitioning to hospice, to her passing away on March 31st. I will say that the outpouring of support my family received has been incredible, and really touching to see how many lives she made better just by being their friend. She inspires me everyday to be a kinder, loving person and really think about the things I do/say and how that will affect me long term. Life is TOO SHORT for petty crap! I just see it differently now. My dad, sister, and I are still struggling without her, but I think as the months go by our bond gets even tighter.

-In April we started the process of trying to find a church home. We went to a few places and met some really lovely, nice people. But I didn't feel a true click until I found EastLake Community Church on Facebook. Church for people who don't "do" church...it's been the best church experience of my life! The sermons are relevant to real life, the pastor, Matt, always weaves in funny stories to keep us entertained, they encourage questions and feedback, and there's nothing weird about it.

-Through EastLake, I found the opportunity to join a growth group, which is a small group that meets every week. My growth group studied Anne Lamott's Traveling Mercies, and the 8 weeks I've spent with these women have been nothing short of amazing. We've been able to have some really deep discussions, but also have fun and have some girl talk, too. Having a safe place to vent about whatever, cry about my mom, and talk about God and how He's working in my life has been a true blessing. I have made some true friends for life from this group!

-In June, right before Michael left for his internship, I fell while taking out the trash and broke my right ankle. Fabulous, right? It really put a damper on my spirit for a little bit, but in hindsight it gave me an opportunity to bond with my sister. She flew out from NC and stayed with me for almost an entire month, helping me clean the house, taking care of Penny, driving me everywhere I needed to go, and providing me with company. This was probably the last time we'll live together like that, and so it was really cool to have that time with her. She's getting ready to start grad school in the mountains of NC so having that sister bonding time meant a lot to me.

-Other little tidbits: Michael and I started a garden and have successfully grown tomatoes, lettuce, herbs, and bell peppers; we've been on barbecue tours of Kansas City and have discovered the amazingness that is burnt ends; we've seen Lawrence's quirkier side with things like Busker Festival, Art in the Park, and even crazy random sightings of a teddy bear walking down 19th St; lots of wonderful local restaurants we've fallen in love with, giving back through volunteer projects with greyhound adoption and EastLake; learning how to make homemade bread; and much more I'm sure I'm forgetting!

So in short, it's been one heck of a year. I'm excited to see what year #2 will bring! So far we've got: membership class at EastLake at the end of August, the Great Greyhound Gathering in September, a Vegas wedding in October, Dad coming out here for my birthday/Thanksgiving, Christmas in Raleigh, and who knows from there!

My Achilles Heel

That would be the fall Yankee Candle catalog, which happened to come today. Fall scents! Cute pumpkin votives! Skeleton tea lights! Haunted house tea warmers! Come to mama. I think it's that signal that cooler days are upon us (even though today it was 101 degrees, ugh) and that means the holiday season isn't too far off. I love, love, love the holidays. The baking, the decorating, spending time with family, shopping, everything that goes with fall, I am excited about. I have very happy memories of going to Yankee Candle at the mall with my mom and sister and spending lots of time there just smelling all the new candles, even though inevitably we'd always get her favorite scents, Macintosh Apple and Autumn Wreath. I think this is probably why perfume and bath product stores don't aggravate my sense of smell like they seem to do most people...I was exposed at a young age.

Yeah, I'm thinking I'm going to have to make an order soon. We're almost out of our current candle anyway, and the evil, evil catalog has scratch and sniff pages. That's just evil. I'm thinking I'll get Candy Corn to try something new, and a Macintosh for mama. That scent is burned into my memory when I think of her. :)

I need more to talk about besides food...

Life goes on here in the Rowland house. Not too much to report, really. We were both pretty busy the past couple of days with work. Michael did get his classes scheduled for the upcoming semester, though. He's taking biochem and numerical analysis. That would kill me, but he's looking forward to it. He won't know which class he's teaching and the time until after classes begin on the 19th. We're hoping for a different class this time. Last spring he taught a biology lab that was about plants and organisms...not his favorite branch of biology.

Tonight we tried a new recipe for dinner...looking ahead a little bit to fall. This was a crock pot recipe and holy wow. So good. It will definitely be going into our rotation. It was worth getting the kitchen all hot to make the bread to go along with it. I don't have an exact recipe, but Michael basically put a kielbasa sausage, lentils, carrots, diced tomatoes, onion, celery, some herbs, and water into the crock pot and set it on low for about 8 hours. It was hearty and delicious! As good as it is now, I bet it will be even better when it's cold outside. You know I took pictures!



I may have had 2 bowls.



Tasty homemade bread from the 5 Minutes a Day cookbook.

One last thing: I've volunteered to run ebay auctions for Mokan greyhound adoption, the group that gave us Penny. Last night I put up a gift certificate for 2 nights in a spa suite in the Sheraton hotel in Toronto, Canada. All of the proceeds from the auction go to Mokan, and right now the bidding is set for $25. Two nights and a VIP certificate for local attractions for that kind of price, AND you're helping out greyhounds looking for their forever home? Can't be beat. If you're looking for a nice, quick getaway, jump on this. The auction ends next Wednesday and the certificate has to be used by Sept 30th, and does NOT include airfare. Here's the link: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=160464680907&_trksid=p2762.l1259#ht_1001wt_1139

Lunch post

Just a quick post today, as I've got a follow up appointment in a few minutes to get to regarding my inserts for my shoes-I think just to make sure they don't hurt and are fitted properly. Last night Michael grilled chicken on the charcoal grill and we sat outside with Penny, just talking. It was nice. And what an excellent lunch for us today! I stuffed the grilled chicken into a pita along with lettuce, tomato, and homemade tzatziki sauce (he just sort of tasted as he went with greek yogurt, dill, garlic, lemon, and salt...it's supposed to have cucumber but we didn't have any) and MAN! what a yummy sandwich. That with some fresh cantaloupe made for a great lunch today.

Aurora and Stars

First post from little old me here! And it's about geeky stuff!

So tonight a coronal mass ejection hit Earth, a pretty nice sized one too. What's that mean? Aurora borealis, one that can be seen further south than the Arctic Circle. Northern Kansasbarely made it into the visible region. We went north of Lawrence to an old gas station that was pretty much closed (for the night or overall, dunno, but there was very little light),parked the car and saw what we could. At this latitude, it should show up as red glows. We saw a lot of red flashes to the north, I don't think it was heat lightning because it was only in the north.

Anyway I set up my camera with the tripod on a 60 second exposure and took two photos, one towards the horizon and then a fun shot of the stars.

See the red streaks just above the hill in the center and just to the right of the hill? I'm pretty sure that's it! And now, stars!

Pooches and Pork Chops

Ugh, Monday. Even though I don't have to drive anywhere to go to work, I still manage to get "a case of the Mondays" sometimes. Especially when the weekend was so great! Saturday we ran errands, grocery shopped for the week ahead, and made bread (see previous post). Yesterday we went to a picnic for volunteers and adopters for the adoption group that gave us Penny, our greyhound. We had a lot of fun! It was really nice to meet some new people who are just as crazy about their dog as we are, and to see 30 greyhounds at once was really cool. Each one would go around and put their face in your lap for some attention and pets. When one dog got riled up over a sudden movement, they would all rush over and then race around the yard together. Penny even got into the little kiddie pool they'd set up for the dogs at the end, although I think it was because it was so hot out and not an actual desire to get wet. We were outside from around noon to 4pm and thankfully we were in the shade, because it was a hot, hot Kansas day. That continued into today...it hit 100 and with the heat index it felt like 115. NO THANK YOU! The A/C felt the same way and couldn't cool the house below 82 degrees. I will be hitting up a coffee shop tomorrow if it's the same way.

Of course, now that I set up just how hot it is outside...who's nuts enough to fire up the grill for dinner? Uh yeah...that'd be us! But it was worth it. We made pork chops, mashed potatoes, and an afterthought that turned out amazing: bruschetta! Michael grilled a few pieces of the leftover bread we made, and chopped up tomatoes, oregano, basil (all from our garden), garlic, salt, pepper, and olive oil. It was fantastic! So much that I had to take a picture. ;)



Michael took a ton of pictures at the picnic, here's just a couple. There's plenty more on his facebook page.



Penny with her biological brother, Patch. It was so cool to see them together. They ignored each other at first but gradually it was like "Oh yeah, I know you. 'sup bro?" Penny is technically the older one of their litter but Patch has a good 30 pounds on her.



Aw, doggie love. Even though she visited with everyone, she knows who gives her cheeseburgers. ;) In case you're wondering, all the greyhounds wore muzzles just for their own safety, not because any of them are dangerous. It's just that they run so fast, and have thin skin, so even a nip while they're playing could get serious.



"I'm not gettin' in any further than this, so don't get any ideas that bath time will be fun for me now!"

Baking bread

Michael and I got the crazy idea yesterday that we wanted to make bread. I'd had the book Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day for about a month and was waiting for him to get home from DC before we tested it out. I'm happy to report that this bread recipe resulted in a delicious loaf of basic, crusty bready goodness. From the basic 'master recipe' you can make all different kinds of breads so we're looking forward to experimenting. I'm already planning to make sandwich bread, baguettes, and pizza dough. The '5 minutes per day' is a bit of a misnomer but it was SO easy to do and totally worth it. When you make the initial batch, it really does only take about 5 minutes to mix up....just some yeast, lukewarm water, salt, and flour. That has to rise for a couple of hours, then you put it in the fridge. If you're wanting bread that same day (like us, the impatient people we are), it should sit in the fridge for another 3 hours. THEN when you take it out and cut off the portion you want, it sits for another 40 minutes out in the room temperature kitchen before being baked for 30 minutes. We started this around 5 so we weren't finished with our loaf until 12:30 in the morning, but it was SO worth it to have a slice with strawberry jam for breakfast this morning. The recipe makes 4 loaves, so we've got a 2 week window that the dough will be good to make more bread. According to the book, the longer the dough has to mature, the better the bread will be, so that's another plus! But I can totally see us mixing up the dough on weekends to use throughout the week...who wouldn't want to come home to a just baked loaf of bread to have with dinner? All I'd have to do on weeknights would be to shape it into a ball and throw it in the oven...it almost seems like too little work for such a yummy result. If I can make this, anyone can, so if you've ever wanted to make your own bread, I highly recommend this book!





The dough once all the ingredients were mixed up.



Um...late night bread making makes my hubby a little loopy.



After its rest in the fridge, I form the dough into a 1 lb ball.



Before it goes into the oven, we scored it with a knife.



Fresh out of the oven! There's nothing like fresh bread scent...yankee candle's got nothing on this. Mmmm!



Close up once we dug into it this morning. Soft and chewy on the inside, crunchy on the outside...perfect.