Now that I am back in school I am barraged daily by undergrads wearing really awful clothing -here are some of the worst offenders.

A couple of weeks ago I saw a boy sagging his pants so that you could see his plaid boxers...he was wearing skinny jeans. He was SAGGING skinny jeans.

Yesterday in the library I saw a girl standing at the reference desk talking to a research librarian. She was wearing only a white camisole, black leggings, and of course Uggs. She looked like she had stripped out of her clothes and was standing there in just her long underwear.

Lately I have seen tons of girls wearing sweat pants tucked into their boots. In my opinion, this always looks ridiculous but especially when the sweat pants are bright red and really baggy. That girl liked like a Russian folk dancer.

On any given day about half of the student body wears MSU apparel -but why they wear green sweatshirts with red sweat pants is beyond me. Not the same person in the previous example either, this example came courtesy of a bean pole skinny male who strongly resembled a Christmas tree.

Not that I am so fashion forward...but at least I don't look like a slutty wanna-be-gangster folk dancing Christmas tree.

My, oh my. I am up to my chin in work this week.

On the school front I have my usual reading plus the rough draft of a paper due *gulp* tomorrow.

On the home front, an old friend from high school is coming to visit for a couple of days. I'm feeling a little pressure about this visit. Showing my age, I guess, because I haven't seen this person in about 10 years but he's a good friend of my sisters and I'm feeling like its a high school reunion, or something. You know, I'm nearly 30 and I feel like my life should be in better order than it is. I don't normally feel this way, it's just the prospect of seeing someone from so long ago that's got me thinking about it. So, despite the overwhelming school work load I have been doing laundry and mopping my floors. :)

The CSA is done for the year. Which is sad and a relief because with school I have been a little overwhelmed with getting food put away for the winter. But, I will really miss all the fresh veggies. I have a lots of canned veggies and fruits, 2 completely full freezers, and lots of squash and root veggies. It will be interesting to see how long everything lasts. I need to do an inventory of everything so that I don't forget what is at the bottom of the freezer. :) I still need to stock up on more winter squash and I need to finish making applesauce. Still, I am feeling pretty good about all we've done.

Here's a question though. When you buy rutabaga from the store it is waxed, can we do that with our own rutabagas?

Boy this was a long weekend.

We had some friends come into town on Friday...originally it was just going to be one friend who my husband went to college with. But, he decided to call some more friends who live in Detroit so they also came over to visit us. The more the merrier, I say. When he called mid-afternoon to tell me that we had more guests coming I was in the midst of rearranging the living room -a task that is now only mostly completed. In my haste to get things ready for guests i have yet to hook up the vcr, dvd player, and other electronics.

I made roast chicken for Friday dinner with mashed potatoes and sauteed Brussels sprouts. We bought some Challah from the neighborhood bakery and our friends brought several wines. An all around successful dinner. Mmmm, we tried a mulled wine, heated and served in mugs. So perfect for the cool weather we have been having. After dinner we went out for more drinks and ran by the store on the way home to pick up an air mattress -now all you visiting couples can sleep comfortably instead of squeezing onto our twin-sized guest bed. :) In the morning we went to one of our favorite breakfast restaurants and then sent our guests on their way home.

But, my weekend was only half over... (get it, because it was Saturday afternoon...half way...never mind...you can tell I am tired). We headed down town to a bar that was hosting a beer class about Belgian beers. History, variety, and samples for $5. Every third Saturday the bar does these classes but this was the first one. It was great! We tried lots of great beers, my favorite of which was a Belgian Strong Ale -alas, one that was home-brewed so I won't be having it again. It's the same style as Delerium Tremens but it tasted very different. I also tried a rasberry lambic that I actually liked -it tasted just like raspberry jam, too sweet to drink much of but very delicious.

And still my weekend was not over. We picked up some groceries and headed over to a friends house to start cooking up dinner for a surprise birthday party for another friend of ours! He was turning the big 4-0. Woo Hoo! We made guacamole, chicken tacos, yellow rice, black bean dip, and a bucket of fresh margaritas (no bottle mix for us!). We gorged ourselves and then I went home to work on homework while everyone else went out to a concert. The surprise was a big success too, thanks to the orchestrations of his girlfriend. We had a lot of fun.

Sunday morning -I slept in and woke up an 10:00. Mmmm, what a nice lazy morning. I contemplated letting Dan sleep but decided to wake him up instead. "Honey, it's time to get up, it's 10 o'clock". "Don't we have morning church today?" he asked. Yes, yes we did. Worse still, I was supposed to make bagels for it! (Normally we have church at 4:00pm but, at my insistence, we have church at 10:00am once a month). We dashed off for the store to pick up bagels and made it to church 40 minutes late.

We came home, did some housework and some homework. Watched football with some friends, and had my new favorite hot chocolate recipe. Both the Seahawks and the Bears lost -not such a hot week for our teams.

Now I am going to go to bed so that I can get up for school bright and early tomorrow.

Chores I did today: took out the trash, put potpourri in the bathroom, swept, washed half the windows in our living room, washed dishes.
Chored I did not do today: laundry -and I am pretty sure that neither Dan nor I have any clean clothes left. Should make tomorrow morning interesting.

I am currently holed up in an otherwise deserted room in the library basement. Welcome to the Graduate Study Room. No one is ever down here so it's the perfect place to go to get away from everything...or to take a nap on my long, 15 hour, Wednesdays. Seriously, I have only ever seen one other person in here at the same time i was...and I think she was disappointed I came in because she had to hide the food she was eating (no food allowed, boo). There are no windows so time passes at its own rate. And the door to get in is buried behind some obscure stacks...perhaps the special collection on Turf Grass? I don't know but it is peaceful and quiet in here.

I made chicken and dumplings yesterday because I needed something I could bring to school in my thermos. My Tuesday morning class was moved to Tuesday evening so I had to leave the city by 4:30 to get to class on time and I had to bring my dinner with me. I was nervous that the dumplings wouldn't hold up in the thermos but they were perfect. Which is good because I am having leftovers again for dinner tonight.

I have been trying to make soup for dinner at least once a week, now that it has turned cool. Lately I have been making potato soup or some other root vegetable soup. Very simple to do. Saute some onion, herbs (think bay leaf), and garlic or ham in a stock pot. Add diced potatoes or other root vegetable (Enough to feed everyone, just as if you were making mashed potatoes). Cover with part stock and part water. Boil until vegetables are tender. Mash the veggies in the pot and you have creamy delicious potato soup that will fill you up and keep you toasty warm. Serve it with bread. Also, you could milk or cream to the soup if you wanted but it really isn't necessary.

Of course, this week I made chicken and dumplings which verges on being a stew rather than a soup but I'm going to keep it in this category. And, on Sunday we went to my parent's house where we had grilled cheese and tomato soup for lunch and beef stew for dinner. I love soups. They always leave me satisfied and they can be made with such a diversity of ingredients. No matter what you have on hand, you can make a soup.

My other favorite soups include:
corn chowder
sausage and apple soup
Italian wedding soup
potato, bean, and kielbasa soup
pumpkin soup
chickpea and tomato soup with pasta

What are your favorite soups?

The weather in Michigan has been cool and crisp this last week, too autumnal for August but now that September is upon us the coolness is more comforting than annoying (even if it does kill the tomatoes).  And really, it is the perfect weather to start school in, full of magic and good possibilities.  When I was a child I always wanted cool, blustery weather for the start of school.  I wanted to wear my new sweaters and tennis shoes and jackets and all the other wonderful new things I had been given for the school year. Of course, it is still the summer season when school starts and so it was often hot and humid.  Happily, I lived in a variety of climates and some of them (like Northwest Oregon) were cool enough to make me happy.