Well it has been a while

So much has changed since my last post. I graduated from UMass in 2009 and started a post doc at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. Since moving here, we bought a house! It is sometimes scary being a homeowner. We also have and enjoy two Pudelpointers. They are great companions!

Recently Ashlyn, our one year old Pudelpointer, decided to tear her cranial cruciate (similar to the ACL in humans). The soft cast is absolutley huge!! The surgery she had done is called the TTA (Tibial Tuberosity Advancement). I hope to post the x-rays of what she had done soon. The biggest challenge is to keep her quiet and stave off her boredom. I have been reading about other dogs that have had this operation and what the owners have done to help with keeping the dogs minds occupied. I might try this once the cast is off (3 more days) and we remove her Fentanyl patch. It is difficult for me to see her so quiet. She is usually such an active young dog. This was a very costly surgery, but absolutely necessary. Yeah, we may be eating meals of just beans and rice for a while, but we love her too much. If we did not do the surgery, she would be in pain the rest of her life and become very arthritic. I cannot wait until she is fully recovered. She is going to be a great agility dog (I think anyway)!

I think I will use this blog to keep people up to date on her recovery. I hope it helps others that may be in a similar situation.

Lunch Pic and update

Howdy!

The next day I made goji berry chilie from the Dr Fuhrman website. It was better than I expected! 4 stars. I also had the salad with apples pictured from my previous post. Next to the soup/rice/kale container is a container with ground cherries from our farm and oatmeal/ raisin "bread" for breakfast.




Today I am still trying to get over a cold. I have been mainly drinking water and eating raw salads with apples. Hope to be better soon!

New Tote for Lunch

Sometimes I peruse Vegan Lunch Box. One day she posted about Lunchsense lunch box systems. Now I am very enamored by it. However they are a tad expensive and I was not sure if it would fit my needs. The lunch system uses Lock and lock containers. As luck would have it, the local Big Y had the 32 oz container. So I decided to buy two of them and pack my lunch for today in them.

Just an FYI, my usual lunch is a large salad (1 lb of green leafy goodness). However, I wanted a change up. So lately I have been having 1/2 of my salad for lunch and save the rest for dinner. This way I am not always locked into (maybe obsessed is a better word :p) eating my salad all at once and have a little more freedom. Plus I am a recovering foodie.

Well I am pleased to say this worked.


In one of the containers, half is filled with salad (8 oz) and the other half is filled with a cut up honeycrisp apple from our CSA. The other container has 8 oz of steamed kale, brown rice and Eggplant and Chickpeas in Peanut Masala from Fat Free Vegan. Yummy!

This is going to be a fun and interesting experiment. Vegan lunch box is a great resource. Not sure if I am going to be able to have the time to make all the cute things she does.

The other lunch system that I am interested in is the Thermos Nissan 48 Ounce Wide Mouth Stainless Steel Lunch Tote

But for now, I am going to search for more Lock and Lock and experiment.

Tune in for tomorrow!

New York, New York

Well Mr. T and I finally made it to NYC while we during our tour of New England. We decided to stay on Staton Island and get tickets to a Broadway show, Wicked. We left on Friday and planned on staying until Monday.

After a grueling travel day, Mr. T and I decided to eat at Bonobo's in NYC. So we took the S.I Ferry over to Manhattan then boarded a train, then found Bonobo's (an all raw vegan fast food place). Anyway it seemed to hold promise. I decided on the nut pate sampler and Mr T had a nut patty over a bed of greens. My sampler was also over a bed of greens but it was not long until I was wishing that the greens to nut pate was reversed. Once back on SI, Mr T and I started to feel really ill. Fortunately nothing came "up" but lets just say our impression of Bonobo's is not good. We were disappointed to say the least.

Mr T went right to sleep when we finally got back to our hotel room after the Bonobo's experience. I however, was to nauseous to sleep so I watched the news. That is when I first heard that our show we came to see might be cancelled. Well I did not want to wake Mr T about this, but it sure made it more difficult for me to get to sleep that night. Fortunately, we will be getting a refund for our tickets!

So instead, we toured NYC. We went to the Rose Center for space and science, the metropolitan museum of art, the Guggenheim, and the Museum of Modern Art. We also went to Moo Shoes (a vegan shoe store) and picked up a book titled "A Vegan's guide to NYC 2008". Very valuable guide to have.

Since no Bway, we went and ate at Candle 79. Very nice ambiance and food, but not 20 bucks a plate nice. However I must recommend Angelicas. Food was just as good as Candle, but half the price! We tried to eat at Zen burger, but it was not open yet. Guess it helps to read the description in the book.... oops!

All in all it was a nice get away. Not very relaxing but definitely got my mind off the lab and other woes!

I packed green smoothies for Mr T and I along with salad for me with my beetnut dressing! Since it was sooooo cold out, we used our car as a fridge (too cheap to pay 15 bucks a day for a fridge in the hotel... probably would not be big enough to hold the volume of food!)

Orange Girl

At the lab they call me Orange Girl since my skin has an orange tint. This seems almost fitting since growing up I was called Pumpkin since I was born on Halloween. It is interesting how life can come to a full circle if you get what I mean. Needless to say, one of my favorite colors is orange or orange tinted things.




The day before my Bday, we went to Salem, MA -- home of the infamous witch trials in the 1600's. The town has definately played that claim to fame up! It was somewhat disturbing seeing the marketing and almost celebrating of the witch trials (a very horrible, horrible thing that happend to some very innocent people). However we must learn from our past to hopefully not repeat it. Posted above is our guide Herb, who gave us a candle lit tour of Salem (and told some haunting tales).
The Grasshopper restaurant is one of our favorite places to eat when we are around Boston. It is a wonderful vegan restaurant where one can closely eat ETL. My plate came loaded with Kale with some faux lobster. Awesome stuff!


Right around the corner is T.J. Scallewaggles, a vegan pizzeria and sub shop. We had to stop there and try some. Not ETL, but a definate treat.

Red Sux (Go Rockies!)

Well it was possibly fate that I would be living in Mass when the Red Sox played my Rockies in the World Series. So of course I had to walk and talk big the week prior to the series. But alas, I had to wear the shirt of the victors today. Ah well life goes on.... there is always next year!

This weekend was yet another busy one. I made two weeks worth of juice (collards, cabbage, apple, and carrot). I also dried 4 trays of sunflower seeds. I got the seeds from my farm. They grow a bunch and we can go and cut down the heads. Of course now I need to shell them. I will soon start doing pumpkin and other winter squash in my dehydrator. I used to do them in my oven, but sometimes I would forget about them and turn on the oven to bake something (like a pie) and they would get burnt.

Well I am off to take several baths to wash off any fibers that got on me from the Red Sox (or as we say... wet soxs) shirt. :)

More fun down at the Farm and other stuff

Wow this is a record for me. Consistant blogging. I really never kept a journal so this is a new experience. Actually I am taking a break from working on my poster and slide show for the Boston ACS meeting.

Our CSA has three pick up days: Sat, Tue, and Thur. I ususally go on Saturday to get the majority of our share. Then we go again on Tuesday to buy extra lettuce and greens to round out the week. Sometimes on Tuesday, I will do the pick your own crops, get flowers, and herbs. This Tuesday I was just planning on getting some more lettuce and flowers. But the shop must have sensed me coming because there was an unlimited supply of second tomatoes. And you guessed it, I brought home not one, but close to two flats of tomatoes. We really enjoyed the Tomato Bisque, so I thought I would try canning it. This meant going and picking some more parsley and basil.

Thought I processed all the tomatoes last night, I did not get to do the actual canning . (I had to get back to the lab and take care of an experiment).
The mixture needs to cook down more and I need to check about adding lemon juice ( tomatoes are on the cusp of being acidic enough for canning). With all of the ingredients, I filled my 7 quart PC to the brim! So tonight I am going to cook it down in batches and hopefully start the canning process. Nothing like homemade tomato soup on a cold New England night!