Update #4

The great news: Thanksgiving is here! Although I won't be home with my family, things are looking good. I received a package from my uncle Gary and aunt Mary containing Lefsa, my favorite holiday delicacy. They sent it to make me feel more at home. I can't believe how sweet they are too me. 

Alicia is handling the turkey this year. We've got a 14lb frozen butterball turkey that we're brining at Alton Brown's suggestion. Alicia's got more about that on her blog. My job on turkey day is stuffing (care of my grandmother's recipe), rolls, the veggi tray, and moral support.

We're also hitting the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The parade route ends across from Macy's, which is one block away from my school (where I'm typing right now). Our plan is to start here and walk up the parade route until we find a nice place to stay.

The good news: Of course. Alicia passed the bar! This should be great news, but It happened almost two weeks ago now that most of you have already heard it. But I thought it required at least a mention here.

We celebrated with Nicole (Alicia's friend from Minnesota who happened to be in town), and good times were had. Hopefully, pictures will soon follow. But if you're not patient, Alicia has it covered on her blog already.

The bad news: Thanksgiving preparations resulted in an influx of groceries in our apartment, which has made our storage closet almost unbearable. My plan tonight is to clean it. Which isn't bad in itself. What's bad is I've been procrastinating on it. Shame on me.

What I've thought about: Klein bottles and mobius strips. The mobius strip is a one sided surface you can make by twisting then taping the two ends of a strip of paper together. Don't believe me that it only has one side? Trace one side with your finger, you'll reach everything on the paper. The klein bottle is a bottle that is one sided as well.

I've been studying them a bit lately and to be honest, I always thought the mobius strip was cheating... how could it really only have one side?? Apparently, it does.

What I've enjoyed: Eating out of the fridge. To clean out the fridge to fit the new food coming in, Alicia and I have been making an effort to eat all the food that doesn't ever seem to go away. This means frozen meals, sauces, etc. My mother warned me about "owning" food, and she is right. It can be bad if you don't keep up with it. So it has been fun trying my best to eat everything older.

Livia Pictures

Back by popular request, here are some pictures of Livia: 

Update #3

The Cost Co. load Alicia and I brought home last weekend.

The great news: Nicole (Alicia's friend from college) is coming to visit this weekend! Good times to be had. I've been scrambling to get enough work done so that I can be lazy while she's here. I can't wait to be lazy!

The good news: Midterms have left, and my students did fine. Both classes had students with 100%, and my second class only had ten students with a D or lower. That seems like a lot, but it's pretty good for a college math class.

The bad news: I've felt overwhelmed lately. So much to do, and I never seem to get it done. It'd sure be nice to not feel guilty all weekend.

I guess it's just hard to balance work that I will appreciate immediately (like doing the dishes) versus work I'll appreciate four days later (like reviewing class notes). Ugg. I've been in school most of my life and I still haven't gotten this "studying" thing down.

What I've thought about: Computers. I keep thinking of the many reasons why a new computer would be nice. I could buy a "Skype Handset" which would basically give Alicia and I a home phone. We could store all our photos on the computer, we could have all our music in one library, and we could have a central computer which allowed us to easily back up our files. 

Plus, if the computer was in the bedroom, we could have a monitor there and watch television. I haven't had a TV in the bedroom in about four years, so that thought tickles me. 

But, my laptop is still working fine four years later. I just can't reasonably go buy a new computer. But I can think about it. 

What I've enjoyed: Fresh chopped tomatos in salsa. I never knew it was so simple to chop tomatos and throw them in salsa. Up until this point, I've always bought canned tomatos. But fresh tomatos make a huge difference. 

Halloween Parade

I've got some Halloween pictures to share. Better late than never, right? 

First off, here's me: 

And here's Alicia:

There's a spooky atmosphere, as captured by this photo:



Turns out, the spooky atmosphere is caused by green hair:



In that last one, you can see the what the parade was about: cool puppets. I'm sure there were a ton of costumes, but we weren't in the front, so they remained invisible to us. Here's a better idea of what those ghosts looked like:



The old fashioned faces were a nice touch.

There were floats:



This one in particular was cool, but it stopped in front of us for about ten minutes.

It was fun though, costumes everywhere. I've never seen New York so crowded and that says a lot.