Skip to main content

Winter, Finals, and Honeymoons

Image
By
Winter's here, after a very long, and stunning fall. We've already had one round of freezing rain, and a little bit of snow (followed immediately by said rain). Needless to say, I have upped my consumption of hot chocolates in direct relation to the dropping of the temps. In the 30s tonight? Just one will do. In the 20s, you say? I think I'll have a refill, please.

In my endless pursuit of procrastinating studying - during which the house gets sparkling clean (miraculously!) and Christmas cards and baking also somehow get done (amazing how productive I am, isn't it?) - I tried out a new baked tofu recipe. We finally figured out how to fry tofu the right way a while back - dipped in flour and deep-fried - but I was pretty unimpressed with our marination efforts.

This time, I modified a recipe found here: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/baked-tofu-bites/detail.aspx and baked instead of fried the tofu. Instead of maple syrup, I added honey, subbed mustard for ketchup, and randomly added red chili, black bean sauce, and ginger paste to taste. I let it all soak in a big ziploc bag for about 4 hours before taking it out to bake...With some salt, pepper, and sesame oil on top, it went in the oven (375) for 30 minutes and turned out uber-tasty! And also, much cheaper than pre-baked tofu at the store.

Yum. We're also finally planning our honeymoon - leaving in a week! I'm sure our wallets would have benefited from earlier planning but, hey, what can you do? I'm so excited... I think it's my first real vacation in 2 years. I also think we both really need a break. When I come back, it'll be time to apply for summer externships, which I'm hoping to try to work in with the good ol' day job, plus school. So, recharging the batteries will be a very good thing. Updates on the trip once we return - we've become huge fans of TripIt for organizing our itinerary (thanks, Pieter!) so it should be easy to collect the highlights of our trip and post.

Our plans are to split our time between wandering, doing nothing, and exploring Argentina - hopefully at a very leisurely pace. This will tie in nicely with my goal for 2010: to slow life down a little, and enjoy it more. With a little over a year left of my 20s, I am ready to dial it down a notch. Also: yikes! I think it's time to start the cliche'd "list of things to do before I turn 30". For Sapun it'll have to be the list of things to do before he turns 31. Ha!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Saturday Morning Comparisons: by haiku

By
2 haikus 9 am Sunday morning in downtown Austin: Cyclists in spandex spin by Amidst the stench of vomit and homelessness Empty streets save for a motorcycle parade. 9 am Sunday morning, Alstadt, Mainz: The sun is shining A giant farmer's market fills the plaza Pedestrians, bikers, families smiling together.
Post a Comment
Read more

Repatriation, Month 2

By
We're in the second month of returning stateside. What an evolution it's been. We relied heavily on family to get us through the first few weeks, spending nearly every weekend with cousins. It was nice, but they have their own routine, and we needed to establish our own. Finally, with the house painted, new floors installed, furniture delivered (hallelujah!), assembled, and boxes (mostly) cleared out, it looks like a house we can live in. Camping had become exhausting and wore the kids out. On the other hand, suddenly having a full house somewhat overwhelmed them - they would start massive fights over a single toy, ignoring the fact that there were now quite a lot of options to choose from. Given our long-term exhaustion over the past several months, this has been an annoying challenge. We have started to establish more of a routine though, and I already feel my mood lifted because of it. I hope it's the same for the kids. The early morning school routine hurts (whyyyyy...
Post a Comment
Read more

6 Months In (almost)

By
We're coming up to our 6th month here. It feels especially poignant because our kindergartener finished his first semester in an American school. And boy was that first day full of tears. That day, that week, I think the whole month - every dropoff for every kid, every whatsapp text from a friend back home - anything set me off with this horrible guilty feeling that we had made a terrible mistake. (Full disclosure: I still feel like this nearly every day, but at least I'm not in daily tears about it...?) I'll never forget that first day of kindergarten. Staying at a dumpy (yet somehow $120/night) hotel with a free breakfast (truly, free breakfast at American hotels is the saddest breakfast), our son asked us to pack him a lunch. How? I asked him to please buy, it would be warm, he could eat well, and ... I didn't have a kitchen. He said, how about an egg sandwich? I put together the saddest egg sandwich I'd ever seen: 2 dry pieces of toast (no matter how much I ad...
Post a Comment
Read more