Arts and Crafts

Just so you know; its not all work and no play around here: I did accomplish one fun task this weekend. I made these lamps - they are hanging candle holders which I converted to electric lamps. I put river rock in the bottom and lined the inside with parchment paper to which I glued sea grass...a pair of these hang beside a mirror over the couch :)



I am not quite finished with lectures, but getting there and this should be the last one I have to do from start to finish for the rest of the quarter. Off now to dinner at the folks house - they have been experimenting with new recipes in their retirement so its sure to be a very yummy dinner!

Wow - okay - so its April already??

I laughingly went through my photos and there was a nice sized folder for February Fun and an even larger one for March Fun...so, what about April? Good question. I have not taken any pictures this month. Since returning from spring break, my life has been packed just about every hour of the day. I don't know that its necessarily a bad thing, but it is for sure, a tiring thing. On top of my normally busy week of teaching, I also have jury duty next week because apparently the universe thinks I need one more thing to do - also this is holy week and if you're a singer - this means more church services - so...April fun is hiding well. I am not called for jury duty tomorrow so it will mean my "normal" day of teaching from 8am - 7:15 pm - whee! So I sit here on this Sunday of gathering clouds, writing lectures for class next week and wondering how I will make up the day(s) I end up missing if called to serve on a jury.

Making all of this stress seem doable is the promise of a new day - the opening of baseball starts tonight with a Braves v. Phillies match-up and our local single A team, the Sand Gnats, will be underway soon as well so I might just make it to summer after all and hopefully I can find some fun along the way.

Cheers!

The end of Spring Break

Returned today from a trip to Atlanta to visit Jerry and April and celebrate their second wedding annivesary - aka St. Pattiversary since they were married on St. Patrick's day. We enjoyed Jerry's home brew (Kolsch and Doppleboch) and many many oysters. Shopped at IKEA, H&M, and hit the Trader Joe's on the way home.




Unfortunately the early part of spring break was hampered by a yucky cold I am still not entirely over so the trip to Florida didn't happen. All in all it was good break...went to the parade on St. Patrick's day,


spent one day at the beach,



and ate pretty well. Now I go back to school and I need to get back on my running routine. Since the congestion is almost gone from my ears this may be possible soon.

Spring Break!!!

Spring break has officially begun. In the grand tradition of time off - I have caught a cold. Wheee!! Hopefully it won't hang around too long and at least gives me an excuse to sit on the couch for a couple of days and not feel too guilty about it. Television is not cooperating with anything cool like a West Wing marathon or anything but I'm finding enough to keep relatively entertained.

As promised - here is the post race picture: I think we look pretty good for having just run 5K

Springing Forward

We celebrated springing forward by cleaning off the trampoline and piling in the back yard with some food, friends and beverages.

Shamrock Run

Friday I ran the annual Shamrock Run. It is a 5K run which benefits the March of Dimes. I'd say there were approximately 1400 runners in downtown Savannah Friday evening. Race time was at 6pm and the course wound its way through the squares downtown both starting and ending in City Market. I ran the Bridge Run back in December with minimal training and finished in a fairly respectable 36 minutes considering the first half of the course is uphill. I have been running a few times a week since then and was excited to run again. My goal was 34 minutes. I wanted to shave 2 minutes off my run. I was excited when I crossed the finish line at 32 minutes and even more excited when I checked the race results online and my chip time was actually just under 30 minutes!! I was, needless to say, quite excited with the result. I convinced Heidi to try the 5k - her first and she had a respectable finish as well and Suzanne registered at the last minute since she was off and she did well also. We wanted a before and after picture but so far, we only have the before - the after was taken by the race photographers so that will come later.



In the meantime - it is turning to spring here in Savannah. We walked around downtown Savannah today in shorts! whoop. More of that to come for sure. Tomorrow we are breaking in the trampoline and springing forward with a vengeance. More pictures to come!!

Getting ready for spring/summer eating

It has been a long winter of proteins that aren't from the sea. As spring approaches, that is beginning to come to an end. While this does mean that oysters are going out of season, it also means lots of other treasures: I have been remiss in keeping the food blog updated so I am going to double post this one - forgive. Here are a variety of seafood treats I have had of late.

Talapia - breaded with Parmesan, bread crumbs, and garlic, fresh veggies with feta:


Sauteed shrimp, wilted spinach, roasted new potato:


Crab cakes, baked potato, (cesar salad not picture):