guess what?

i LOVE to cook. love it. there is nothing better than putting everything together and coming up with something that looks like art that you get to eat and it tastes delicious. this being said, i do not cook very often. i think this comes from a combination of me having to be in the mood to cook and chris, who also loves to cook, taking over the kitchen all the time even when i say i'll cook dinner. he makes the best dinners (deep fried chicken wings YOWZA) so i don't mind so much.

i finally decided to learn how to cook one summer when i was 19 and home alone a lot because my family was out of town. all i knew how to make were peanut butter and honey sandwiches. after about 3 days of only eating cereal and pb and honey sandwiches i decided i needed to learn how to cook. it seemed like one of those essential life skills like driving and... i'm not sure what else. probably doing taxes but i don't do my own yet... not sure i should be admitting that. anyways, i got a cookbook from the library and started learning recipe by recipe. i liked this cookbook so much i bought it and it is currently sitting with all my other cookbooks in my kitchen.

so here is a recipe i'll share with you. it is super easy and doesn't require many ingredients. i love looking up recipes (this is pretty much the only reason i use pinterest) but then become discouraged when i see the ingredient list. there's 10+ ingredients, i maybe have 4 or 5, and would spend money on another 2 but that's about it. i'd like to think i'm not the only one like this. anyways here is my super easy and low ingredient recipe:

super kale salad (adapted from a recipe from the chew)

1 bunch kale
1 red pepper, sliced
1/4 cup (or so) olive oil
1/4 cup (or so) balsamic vinagrette
red pepper flakes
coarse sea salt (really use the coarse and not normal salt. it is the best $3 you will ever spend, i swear)

add red pepper flakes to olive oil and balsamic vinagrette dressing
tear kale into a bowl along with your sliced red pepper
toss dressing with salad
top off with coarse sea salt

see you in another two months! LOL

:)

so i am sad to admit that it is beginning to feel like fall. i took colt out yesterday and it was windy and drizzling and yellow fallen leaves had made their way to the ground to swirl up into piles or float within puddles. in new york this would be my favorite time of year. we would take road trips up the coast where i could really appreciate new england and i would get to break out my peacoat (for some reason it doesn't feel the same wearing it here). the summer has come and gone and i have done a terrible job blogging. it is not my fault.. really. i spent it doing research for my thesis, working on an archaeology project in yakutat, and going to weddings and seeing all my favorite people. so i think it's ok if i've neglected the blog.

OH fieldwork! i think i really needed it this summer even if i didn't like not being able to talk to my favorite people for a month as i was sans service. i think i needed to be reminded that YES actually i do love archaeology and this is still what i would like to do with my life, that i haven't changed my mind when i made it up when i was 12 after watching a national geographic special on the incas. graduate school really has a way of making you feel miserable. i am not trying to be dramatic... but there is a kind of all-consuming pressure that looms over you as you sit in class, speak with professors, write papers, present your work. the first year i felt the only thing i was learning was how to feel inadequate... everyone seemed so much smarter, more engaged, read articles in their free time! and here i am thinking... why would i spend my free time reading articles when i could be watching vhi and playing wii? this is the start of my third year in the program !!! and you know... i feel pretty good. i am done with classes. one bibliography is written and another will be done by the end of fall. my prospectus is halfway written (thanks IRB for having me submit a proposal) and i get to spend next summer doing what i love best... going to archaeology culture camps! anyway this is way more than i would like to read as a blog reader so i will stop. but here are a few pictures of my summer fieldwork adventures. until next time.

this is my dog colt. actually this is my boyfriend's dog but i claim him now as well. i think colt loves me more anyway... just kidding (sort of). anyway his name is colt and he is a rather...er... voluptuous border collie. i, however, have several nicknames for him. they are:

colty
nolty
smolty
smolt
colt mccoy
colty mcnolty
stinker
stink dog
stink butt
stink
butt
mister
mister stink

and he answers to all of them! he is a very lovable, goofy, and strange dog and i cannot imagine life without. i never had any pets growing up besides fast fred, our turtle that my brother had when we were in high school. fred was cute in the way that turtles can be cute and i remember certain things about him before my brother sold him to buy video games. these certain things are how once we fed him oranges he refused to eat anything else. how we would leave him on the kitchen table and forget about him until we would hear a loud clunk and see his shell swiveling on the floor. i would take naps with fred sometimes... like i could pretend he was a soft kitten or something... and how i would wake up by him poking my eyeballs with his head.

colt is soft and sweet and like a child to me and its hard to believe how much i love him. isn't it funny how much we love our pets? i would like to get a cat someday. i had always imagined myself with my own apartment with a nice old cat but i skipped this step when i moved in with chris and moved out of my townhouse with my roommates. but it is still in the life plan to get a cat so maybe this fall we will adopt one. chris says this is a terrible idea, that i want to adopt a "dying" cat, and why would we get a cat when we could get another dog. but i can see it now... we'll get the cat and she (or he but we'll go with she) will stay home with chris while he works/plays video games all day and curl up on his lap and purr and they will become the best of friends and she'll want nothing to do with me. but yes. we'll get a cat someday.

first post

hello blogosphere,
so i have returned and am reviving my old blog. i would have started posting to that again but cannot log in cause now blogger is all gmail-ified. oh well. well hello! when we left off i had decided to move to anchorage to go to graduate school marking my determination to do something with my post-grad life. well here we are two years later. isn't that crazy? i like to think so. i am still in school (although i often fantasize about quitting) and am interning (and will hopefully be getting a real job with benefits soon) and am in love with a new boy (man) and his dog. also i am now 25 but we won't discuss that.

well anchorage has been warm and sunny. and by warm i mean mexico hot. it is ridiculous but i love it. it has been 75+ and sunny almost this whole month. hailing from southeast alaska i consider 60 and overcast a pretty nice day so this has been awesome. it's like a real summer! it's been a long time since i endured one of those.

anyways i am at work so i better go. hopefully you'll be hearing more from me.

lots of love,
f