A little housekeeping:  I thought I could use a little updated look, but I haven't made the formatting all right.  My header is way too big, but I don't have it saved on my computer right now. 

I went and had my teeth cleaned today!!  Yay.  They feel so ... clean. 

My two labs that I am teaching are going really well.  I love being a university lab instructor.  If I could only break into the professor world.  I will continue to try to climb in any doors that they open to me.  :)

Tonight I am going home to make stuffed shells for dinner.  They are going to be delicious!  And I really wish the weather would make up its mind to stay cold because I REALLY REALLY want to make soup.  I love soups, stews, and chowders.  I rebelled and made some chicken and rice soup last week because Jared had a cold.  Thankfully, I didn't catch his cold.  I am so grateful for that.  I am craving some good potato and ham or simple potato chowder.   Soup also calls for a batch of rolls.  I love Autumn.  Speaking of weather, it is way too hot!

Last night Jared and I spend the evening watching the end of Martin Chuzzlewitt.  What a great movie.  I didn't enjoy it the first time I watched it.  I thought it was rather weird and the main character, Jared's favorite character, Pecksniff ANNOYS me.  But the movie has grown on me.  I enjoyed it greatly this time around.  The book is going to be on my reading list soon.  Maybe after Jared and I finish reading Harry Truman we can jump into this book.  Here are the books on my reading list right now (but first I have to buy them... NOTE: Christmas presents - Mom and Mrs. Shelton you should talk to each other before buying any of these - ha).  I have been eyeing these beautiful books for a while.  I have read a lot of review about them and can't wait to read them.  Which reminds me, I am so glad that we don't have internet.  I don't have time for it.  

Okay, here are the books:
* The Case for Working With Your Hands: or Why Office Work is Bad for Us and Fixing Things Feels Good. By Matthew Crawford
* Made By Hand: Searching For Meaning in a Throwaway World. By Mark Frauenfelder.
* The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. By Nicholas Carr.
* Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy. By Eamon Javers

8888

Yesterday I turned 8888 days old.  I celebrated by going to La Tolteca for lunch (for two of my co-workers birthday).  We haven't been out for anyone's birthday since my birthday (in June).  We don't go out much... After lunch I went to pick out apples with my Dad.  Tonight Jared and I are making applesauce with the parents!  I love making applesauce (oh, and eating it warm).  Love love love. 

 

I made gingerbread (or as Jared calls it, "gingerbread cake") and real whipped cream Wednesday night.  It is so much fun to whip cream into whipped cream.  Plus, it tastes fantastic.  I love autumn!  One of these days I might post pictures of all the delicious food that I am making.   Saturday I am making rolls for the women's luncheon at church.  Sunday I am making chocolate mini cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.  Next weekend I will be making an apple crisp.  I might have to make a batch of gingerbread cookies soon.  I need to find a source for cheap bulk molassas.  Does anyone know if Sams carries it?

 

My new snack to nibble on before lunch is apples and peanut butter.  And I am still on my sesame stick kick.  I bought another bag at T.S. Smith yesterday when we went to pick up apples.  Dad bought me some apple doughnuts too.  <3  Thanks, Dad!!  I also made chex mix last week and this week and Jared made some Shelton mix.

 

Last night Jared went to school to study and write his research paper outline.  I turned Les Miserable up really high and sang loudly to it while mending the holes in the knees of his pants.  Patching jeans is a lot harder than I thought because you have to patch them by hand.  Pushing a needle through two of three layers of jeans is rather difficult.  But they are finished now and he has another pair of pants back in the work rotation.  I still have one more pair to finish (and start).  ha ha.  Isn't it incredible how we can listen to almost any song that we want to, at any time.   I think that is really amazing and I am very thankful for it.  Music makes me happy.  I am thinking about borrowing some books on tape from the library and listening to them while I sew (and Jared isn't around to read to me).  We are 2/3rds of the way through this Harry Truman book.  It is fascinating!!!  I have really enjoyed it.  I stopped reading my Oppenheimer biography for a while to read my Bonhoeffer biography (anyone see a pattern here... time wise... all of our books recently have been placed in the early to mid part of the 20th century or written in the early to mid part of the century). 

 

My car is still in the shop (we had to return it to get some things fixed that were supposedly fixed the first time).   It is kind of annoying to have to leave the house, drop Jared off, come back to the house, wait around my phone for a call from Jared, go pick Jared up, and drive back home.  I mean, it isn't really that far, but it is just the fact that I have to stop in the middle of things and I become all distracted.  Also, it isn't as if Jared has a fun car to drive.  If he had a little zippy car that was easy to climb into and fun to drive, I wouldn't mind driving all over the place.  But his car is HUGE.  The doors are super heavy and they never shut right.  It sits so low to the ground that I have repeatedly told him that when I we are expected a baby, I refuse to climb in and out.  I have enough trouble as it is now (mostly because my side of the car is parked next to the curb and it I am almost sitting at curb level when we pull up).  Anyhow, I am thankful that we have a running car, even though it is tough of my legs (I'll think of it as gym squat time). 

 

It has been so nice to have Michelle, Jamie, Dasha, and Anna come over the past two weekends.  It is really fun to have people in your house.  The older I become the more I just enjoy sitting around and talking.  Sitting down and talking to someone face to face beats the phone, the Internet, or all the other ways of communication that we have. 

 

Well, hope all is going well in blogger land.  Once I get to a computer with unrestricted Internet access (and have a decent chunk of time) I am going to start narrowing down my facebook friends.  That will probably be in another 6 months.  ha.  Maybe I will post pictures too.  :) Just maybe...