Monday, September 19, 2011

Finally Some Progress!!!

Friday was a GREAT day... After a long summer of hard work I finally finished Chapter 2 of my thesis!!! I also had my first chapter come out in print (you can view the abstract here) AND I finished the first week of teaching without a hitch! Diego is also progressing nicely! He has one chapter left to do revisions and his thesis will be off to his committee members...his defense...definitely before Christmas!

First and foremost I want to say Thanks to all of my friends nearby and in cyber space for your patience. It is hard but necessary to completely immerse myself in my work and I will need to keep at it for the next two chapters! I will keep you updated with my progress as I achieve "small" victories!

Of course it hasn't been all work. I do have to have some diversions to keep me from going absolutely crazy! Like my garden (the photos are from earlier this year)!
Kale
Our upside down tomatoes...they had white flies but still produced lots of cherry tomatoes.
Our herb garden was out of control! We also had lots of tomato plants everywhere! I made sauce with them for the winter.
We had lots of peas and the brussel sprouts are starting to form!
Our potato plants flowered...did you know the smell amazing!?! AND they made about 2 kg of potatoes! I planted red ones and they are delicious!
We also made a lot of delicious food...like this amazing Hawaiian Pizza! I made 3 batches of strawberry jam (Diego LOVES it on yogurt), 2 batches of strawberry-rhubarb and one batch of plum jam. They are all very tasty!
We had a couple of small side projects too (that are still in progress...). We were inspired to make our kitchen space more efficient so we magnetized our wooden cooking utensils! Now we have more counter space (no utensil holder) and they are right where we need them.
We also magnetized our existing spice jars to go on the side of the fridge and freed up some space on the shelf above the stove...it was a nightmare of crowded jars and spices were hard to find...not anymore!
Can you see the hanging wooden spoons? We drilled holes in our salsa spoons so we could hang them within reach...now they are no longer crowding up our drawer! Can you tell we have been spending too much time cooped up at home??!
The last item of note is my new found passion for vintage hairstyles! Diego bought me the above book for my birthday (end of Aug) and I have been doing vintage styles ever since!
I did this one on my b-day dinner out. I had victory rolls at the front, late 40's style. Many of them are time consuming and require patience BUT once you get the technique right then you can start making it more efficient.
This one is my favorite. It is a 30's style and the front has a finger wave. It is also one of the easiest to do! I usually do half at night (like foam curlers) and then sleep on it so it only takes 15 mins in the morning. Although, you do have to sleep in a kerchief! Diego loves the styles and laughs every time he sees me in a kerchief. I have yet to venture and try the beehive! I will let you know when I do!
Back to work! Ciao for now!

5 comments:

  1. Yay, yay, yay on your thesis news! And I LOVE the back of your hair in the bottom pic. LOVE!

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  2. Ditto what Sherrie said about your thesis news! So glad your garden turned out so great. And I am so impressed with how you did your hair. I can't even do a simple braid without botching it up.

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  3. Hi Allie! First of all, love the vintage hair-do's! Wow, it's been a long time! I had lost my link to your blog, and kept thinking I wish I still had your email. I then, for the first time in almost a year signed into my Blogger blog (I now write a different blog, and write for a Natural Parenting Site so I hardly check Blogger, though I should!) and saw that I still had this! I have lots of reading to catch up on! ;) I'm not sure if you've heard, but Jonathan and I moved out west and are now living in Victoria, B.C. I'd love to email and catch up. I was so sad that I didn't have your contact for us to get together before we left town. We would have loved to see you and Diego, and hopefully will again when we're back visiting at some point next year. If you'd like you can email me at Arpita{dot} Monahan{at} Gmail {dot} {com} FYI - Writing the email like that will foil spambots, in case you're wondering why I'm being weird! ;) Hope to talk to you soon... in the mean time, I'm going to scope out what delish recipes of yours I've missed!!

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  4. Like everyone is saying "love, love the hair" and that pizza looks pretty yummy. Yay on the thesis news.

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  5. The place looks amazing! You certainly did a great job organizing all the stuff in your home. I bet you also have the magic touch when it comes to your thesis writing. And it is a big help with thesis to have a break and do other stuff to help make you relax and relieve some stress caused by thesis writing.

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