Guess who has a job [again]?

This guy! (Bobby, not Sophie)

The job rollercoaster continues! Bobby was just hired on as an electrician in Vancouver, WA which bypassed all of the crazy laws that stopped him from being one here in Oregon. It looks like it's probably jump temporary until the job is done, but he's excited to be doing what he loves again! He doesn't ever think he's amazing, but he really is. That was a grand total of 2 weeks unemployment before finding a new (better paying) job that he enjoys even more.

On a random side note - I made these candy bottles to hand out during a presentation and just wanted to show them off!

Just because I'm becoming a boring Pharmacist doesn't mean I can't be a little creative right?

Happy (belated) St. Patty's Day!

In honor of the grand tradition of drinking too much on St. Patrick's day, Bobby bottled his beer this past Thursday.

Capping the bottles

Only 4 weeks to go!

And I did what I do best... BAKE! I only have pictures of the Sugar Cookie prep, but I also made Grasshopper Cookies (Green Mint Choco-chip), Buckeyes, and brownie bites.

Baking tends to take over my kitchen completely...

And this weekend I tried out a new recipe - Chocolate Crackle Cookies. And, man, are they delicious! They taste like little brownie cookies coated in sugar. You can gain a pound just by looking at them...

They're even pretty before you bake them

And super pretty when baked! I love the contrast of the dark chocolate with the sugar.

 And then there's our new weekend breakfast standard. For the past few weeks I've been making these Banana Crumb muffins for breakfast and they are delicious!



I adore the polka-dot liners :)



6 Years and the Iditarod!

Today marked our 6th wedding anniversary! It's crazy to think that we've been together that long since I still love the heck out him! We were planning a trip out of town, but with Bobby being laid off we decided to stay around town and make it cheap. But we actually had a blast!

We went to the Portland Saturday Market which was had a lot of great stands, delicious elephant ears, and only a few soap-box preachers.

One of my favorite stands - they make tons of wacky stuff out of old kitchen utensils

He still looks dashing!

Out on the waterfront

While at the market, we happened to stumble across the Portland Urban Iditarod, or rather it ran right through us. What is the Urban Iditarod you ask? Well, it's the funnest race I've ever heard of! I ran out of camera memory, but here's a taste of what it looked like:

See the pirate ship? Mario and the Princesses? The huge golf bag and golfers?  Those are all "Sled dog" teams. The "dogs" have to pull the sled (shopping cart) with a musher in charge of them. They race from bar to bar stopping to refresh and get smashed. It was one of the funniest, most energetic things I've ever seen. I totally want to join next year!

After the market we went to the famous McMenamin's Kennedy School for lunch and drinks. This was previously an abandoned elementary school until the McMenamins got their hands on it. The entire school has been covered in art and the rooms re-purposed. The classrooms are now hotel rooms where you can stay the night. The boiler room in the basement is a bar. The gym is a dance hall. They even put in a movie theatre and a full restaurant, which is where we had a late lunch.

The ceiling of the courtyard restaurant inside

 

Cheers! McMenamins makes great micro brew beer on site.

All along the corridors of the school they have benches and these gorgeous windows

In the patio behind me is a giant wood chimera stove they bake pizzas in.

Not quite as much fun as we had 6 years ago, but a fun day nonetheless!

Lab Day

We had Compounding Lab today, and I got to feel like a *real* Pharmacist for a few hours!


All decked out for the compounding party

My lab partner and myself. We were both smiling for the picture and then realized you can't tell at all!

They had to split us up into 3 groups since there's 100 students and even then it was a tight squeeze!



My final products: a Suspension, Capsules and Troches (Lozenges)

We got to take home our capsule machines and I had to show off for Bobby and made a little Bob Spice Capsule.

He's such a good sport. :)
Don't worry - I didn't make him actually take it

My baking skills actually came in quite handy - I was the 1st to finish and my stuff turned out looking good! I still want to work retail pharmacy when I graduate, but it was a lot of fun to see the other sides of pharmacy as well!

Unemployment

Guess who's unemployed?
This guy:

* Picture unrelated

I think this is an all-time record for amount of posts in a few weeks for me! But I have news to share, albeit sad news. Almost 6 months after starting at the Garage Door company Bobby worked for, they have officially gone bankrupt and closed their doors. But now that it's over I can publicly say that Bobby was absolutely miserable there. The owner was crazy (literally - he had brain tumors) and he was treated so poorly. But they paid him well and the unemployment here is worse than Arizona- no one's hiring. So he worked hard, didn't complain, and we appreciated the paychecks. But now we start the process again of finding him a job.

On a related note - know anyone in Oregon who's hiring? I know a hard-working, good-looking, bad-joke-making, super-sweet, dependable man for the job!

A Hoppy House

In a effort to avoid studying I find myself baking more and more. This weekend I so far have made my Oatmeal Choco-chip cookies:


I just bought a cookie scoop and they come out so pretty now!

 Dog Treats for Sophie The Puffin:

Yes, I know she's spoiled.

And Fudge Puddles:

Fudge Puddles: amazing peanut butter cookie-like things with fudge in the middle.



I don't even want to think how many calories were in the dough I ate (other than the dog treats - I steered clear from nibbling on that dough)! But I love baking and missed having something creative to do.

I think I may have inspired Bobby since he started to feel creative today too and decided to whip up a batch of beer! This batch is an lager called "German Oktoberfest" and will be an amber beer once it's finished.

Adding the malt - we used canned since it's easier

And I'm sure it'll be great in 5 weeks when it's done fermenting, but for now we have a very, very hoppy house. Before he put in the hops it smelled kinda like grape nuts, but now that the hops are a-boiling it smells less like grape nuts and more like ass.

The source of the smell. :)

Ahhh... The things we put up with for love (and beer) :)

Have plans in 5 weeks? You should come a crack open a few with us!

George

It's quite obvious that Bobby & I are dog people. We don't need kids - we have Sophie! And my graduation present will be a great dane (can't wait!). In fact, Bobby's wanted to make his own breed of dog since he was a little kid. But fear not - we are responsible pet owners and Sophie The Puffin was neutered right away (even though I'd love tiny Sophies!).

An example of a tiny Sophie :)

 But did you know we are totally cat people too? I miss my George like crazy. George was our cat in Phoenix and was the greatest cat ever. ever, ever. really. Even my non-cat-people friends loved him. He was indoor/outdoor cat and was potty trained to go outside. Yep - no litter box needed. In fact, if he ever got locked in too long and had to go, he'd go in the bathtub - easy-peasy cleanup! He adored Bobby and would actually come when called. He terrorized the neighbor cats, caught pigeons bigger than he was, and wasn't scared of anything. He loved to hide in boxes and jump out to scare you when you walked by. He really wasn't a cat; he was a tiny, weird person. I still chuckle when I think of the time he fell off the roof while we were sitting outside and looked distinctly embarrassed. I swear he was blushing under his fur.

I was trying to show off our new wood floors, but George had to show off his sexy bod

Trying to catch some rays

We didn't adopt George; he adopted us. A little while after we bought our house I begged Bobby for a kitten, but he didn't think it was a good idea. Christmas was around the corner, but I had come to terms (begrudgingly) that I was not going to find a kitten under my tree that year. But perhaps Santa works in odd ways? This was back when we smoked and I spent a lot of time on the back patio. I was having a smoke before work in December when I felt a soft something wrapping itself around my legs and there was George. He was mangy and under-nourished, but all he wanted in the world was to come into our house. He didn't want food; not unless he could have it inside. He decided that this was his home. And he never left. But we did....

"If I am in your suitcase you cannot leave."

George loves to be outside. He spent most of his days roaming the neighborhood; it was his turf. The vet guessed he was about 2 when he adopted us and we assume that he lived in our neighborhood since he was a kitten. He was already spayed, so he was someone else's before he was ours but nobody claimed him. It felt like he always belonged to us. But, we couldn't take him from having an entire neighborhood to roam and then confine him to the attic of a Victorian house in Oregon. So he now lives with our retired neighbors who love cats but had sworn off having any more because it was too hard to lose them. They've always loved George. In fact, for years on nice days when they left their doors open he would walk in to their house like he owned the place and sleep under their bed. He spent as much time on their front porch as much as he slept on ours (they even had a bench for him). So I know he's in good hands, but I miss him just the same.

Even Sophie loved George. Actually, she especially loved him.

But we are going back! I will graduate in 2013 and hope to have a job in Phoenix waiting for me when I'm done. We're going to move back into our house and although George is no longer ours, I hope to have him sneak into our home so I can see him again. :)

Since I don't have videos of George being awesome, I direct you to Maru, the cat who loves boxes even more than George:

I hope you get a chuckle out of him too. :)