Diet Update

Jeff and I have made it on our diet all week! We have a free day tomorrow which I'm looking forward to. Except I can't figure out what diet-breaker it is that I want to have! Cookies, Chad's famous pina coladas, a big bowl of cheesy pasta, pizza....too many good things to choose from! It really hasn't been too bad so far. The hardest part has been breaking our evening snacking rituals. We are both night-snackers and bad habits are hard to break!

We don't have much planned for the weekend but, we might do our part to stimulate the economy and finally purchase our 47" (or 52", still undecided...is it worth $100 an inch for the extra five inches?) LCD TV with our recently received rebate check. Actually, its our belated Christmas gift to ourselves that we just haven't gotten around to buying since January! It will be a welcome addition to our TV room. Our little 37"seems so small after watching my dad's 52" for a week over the holidays! Of course, this would mean I'll have to spend the weekend hooking it up (Jeff does many things but, electronics is not one of them) and that'll eat into my dissertation work time...a real issue!

Anyway, we wish all our our readers a great weekend! And especially our Moms! We love you and appreciate your love, support, and encouragement. Our lives are better because you're in them!

The Real Diet Begins...

Bathing suit season is in full-swing in Florida and Jeff and I decided it was time to get serious about our diet. We do pretty good normally, healthy food, running regularly, but we want to have more dramatic results. So, today we began our high (lean) protein, no dairy, low-carb diet (I know, sounds exciting, huh?). We've turned it into a bit of a challenge with Craig & Cassie which should make it more motivating and fun. I'll keep you posted on our progress!

We had another nice weekend. I am starting to buckle-down and work on my dissertation on Saturdays. It's not much fun (I missed the trip to the beach) but, it'll feel so good to get this rather large monkey off my back! I'm making good progress and so far, I'm still on track to finish this fall.

Jeff and I both have trips coming up in the next few weeks. Jeff is headed on a cross-country road trip with his buddy, Brent. They are driving from Gainesville to Washington (yes, state) in Brent's big truck, pulling a 16 ft. trailer, and two dogs in the cab. It sounds like a disaster to me but, he's looking forward to it! I'm headed to San Francisco for work and am looking forward to it. It's been years since I've been and it's one of my favorite cities. I'm hoping to carve out an afternoon/evening to eat some clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl, shop, and catch up with a good friend.

Ashley and I are also trying to plan a fabulous vacation. Paris in August/September?? Hopefully, we can find some reasonable airfare. It's pretty expensive right now!

New Toy!

So, Jeff and I tend to be "late adopters," meaning those individuals in the population who adopt new technology later than most others. In keeping with our tradition, Jeff has been using his little cell phone that came free when we first signed joined the world of mobile phones four years ago (we were late adopters with that too). He desperately needs a new one and has been looking around and quickly became taken with the T-mobile dash--a "smart" phone. Anyway, we know we're behind but, we finally bought our first "smart" phone last night. Jeff, being the kind guy that he is, let this one be mine. After all, in our relationship, I'm the one that will truly test all its functions. I'm pretty excited about my new toy and Jeff should have one soon (if it performs as well as we hope)!

All Done!

All done with finals, tests, studying, etc.! Whahoo!

Fun Weekend!

In between our study sessions this weekend, Jeff and I finished up the parade of homes with the Copelands and Greenhalghs. It was a fun day and our favorites from last week were still our favorites this week. We finished our afternoon with a great dinner at the Olive Garden. For some reason, Jeff and I never seem to go there but, we both had delicious dishes (I had the stuffed rigatoni w/ chicken and Jeff had the steak gorgonzola alfredo) and are likely to return.

It's finals week this week. Both of our exams are on Tuesday so, were gearing up for what will be a busy start to our week with a couple of long days. It's finally sinking in for me....last class ever, last exam ever, last time I have to study ever... All pretty exciting!

As a more random note....Jeff and I were talking today about how we enjoy all the wildlife around us. Just sitting on our back porch this afternoon we saw a blue jay, two male cardinals, one female cardinal, a woodpecker, a hawk, and our usual assortment of lizards and squirrels. We're so blessed to live in such a beautiful place, surrounded by so many beautiful things!

Have a good week, all!

How do you celebrate you last class ever???

By skipping it!! So, yesterday was to be my very last day in class as a student (It's pretty hard to believe I couldn't possibly go to school any longer without changing professions!). When the alarm went off at 7am I thought to myself....go to my last class? Or sleep in? After all, it was the last time I could skip class and sleep in. I'm sure I'm not the only one who would've chosen to sleep (Jeff was grateful)! I have my final on Tuesday morning and then I'll just have my dissertation to complete (which is progressing nicely)! Yeah!

Jeff has been busy with his end-of-semester tasks as well. His trying to register for what will be his last class in his master's program so that he'll get to spend his last two semesters just doing the project for his thesis. He's excited about a long break from classes before he (hopefully) starts dental school.

Other exciting news....Lost and Grey's are starting new episodes tomorrow night! I can't lie, I've actually enjoyed the forced hiatus from TV since the writer's strike. I've had the opportunity to re-evaluate how involved I want to be in these shows and have chosen just a few (Brother's and Sisters, Lost & Grey's) to follow. It's been so nice to sit on our back porch and read/chat with Jeff instead!

Unproductive Weekend

Jeff and I had big plans this weekend to be productive and work on all of our end-of-the-semester school work. Classes end for both of us tomorrow (his for this semester, mine forever!) and we have loads to do. Saturday morning began well. However, we were quickly distracted when Cassie and Craig invited us to the Parade of Homes. The builders in the area put this event on and it features a few dozen new home throughout Gainesville that they let you walk through. Needless to say, we went and didn't get anything we wanted to done! We enjoyed it so much that we're doing it again this Saturday...visiting a few of our favorites and a bunch we didn't get to see and hopefully taking some pictures!

I did find the following online...it's the sketch and floor plan of our favorite home. It has become our new dream home (and the Copeland's too). Some day....








We capped our unproductive weekend off last night by attending a BBQ at Brent and Erin's. We had a great time and definitely busted our diet!

Orange & Blue Debut

I hope you all had a great weekend! We sure did! Friday, Jeff played hooky and went to the beach with some friends. I, unfortunately, was not able to go...all part of being a grown-up working full time! I did get to have a fantastic dinner at my favorite sushi restaurant on Friday night with Ashley. It was good to catch up and the food was delicious. Saturday we all got up bright and early and headed to campus to enjoy the Orange & Blue game festivities. ESPN's College Gameday was broadcasting live from the Swamp so, we spent a little time trying to get on tv and cheering as good-gators do. The game was fun, they estimate about 61,000 people attended (really, to watch a scrimmage). We managed to find a spot in the shade that we were really grateful for. We celebrated the game by treating ourselves to some chicken nachos at the Ale House, which are my favorite football treat and are so unhealthy that I can only enjoy them during football season (four more months 'till we can have them again...).

All-in-all, a pretty great weekend! It's great to live in Gainesville and even greater to be a Gator!

Pics of the College Gameday guys. Kirk is as handsome in person as he is on tv. Too bad he was a Buckeye...










Amy & Ashley in our orange & blue



Brent's last even as a UF student (That's why he has that sad-looking face...)


The team takes the field...

First Signs of Fall Football...

Anyone else ready for football season?? I am so excited for the Orange & Blue game on Saturday! For those not familiar with UF football, this game is the annual spring football scrimmage. Really, tens of thousands come to Gainesville to watch the team scrimmage. It's so fun and will be even more exciting this year because ESPN's College Game Day will be broadcasting from here! Tebow, Kirk, college football...sounds like a great day to me!

We had a nice relaxing past couple of days. We enjoyed General Conference at home and treated ourselves to a handful of the new, limited edition, strawberry milkshake oreos...they are so tasty! I highly recommend them! Jeff made it home from Texas safely and it sounds like he had a good experience at the conference. I'm just happy to have him home!

Hope you all have a good week!
Go Gators!

Coming Soon...

New on my "to-do" list is to create separate blog for just my recipes. It seems I update them too quickly! I'm hoping to start working on this over the weekend but, it'll have to take a back seat to my dissertation for a week or so! I'll post a bunch of the ones from past posts once I have it up so, stay tuned...

As a quick update, Jeff is in Dallas this week presenting some of his research at a conference. It's his first "business" trip and it sounds like its been a good experience so far. He comes home tomorrow evening and I'll be happy to have him home!! Just in time for a nice General Conference weekend at home...

I've been working on my dissertation with renewed vigor this week. My first paper is just about ready to submit for publication (I'm shooting for next week) and I've been busy running the statistical analyses for my second paper. They are coming along nicely and I'm hoping to have a draft of that paper ready by the end of May. I think I may have convinced my committee chair that a December finish is definitely feasible and I'm still pretty optimistic that I can do it.

As an interesting commentary, I was watching the NBC Nightly News last night which included a story about a research study that concluded that humans really don't need to drink 8 glasses of water a day. While this was interesting, I thought Brian Williams' concluding comment was great, something like, "This further supports our view of research...just keep waiting and eventually a study will be published that confirms your way of life." The geeky, research scientist in me thought this was funny. :-)