To me October means fall, but when the forecast for the next few days includes highs of 85 degrees or higher, I start to wonder if it really is fall. I want cool crisp air. I want to see the leaves changing color and I want to make soup! I also would love to turn the oven on to make some no-knead bread to go with the soup. I should try making real bread sometime.


Ribby update:
Back and one front piece are done and I have about half of the second front piece done. I ordered two more balls of the Charcoal and luckily they are the same dye lot! I can't believe how lucky I am. I really wanted to keep it all one color. I hope this sweater will replace the Old Navy hoodie I wear at work everyday.

I have some socks I need to knit, but this sweater has become the only thing I want to work on. I guess i just really want to wear it. I am surprised how fast it is going. I figured it would take me a couple months, but I still have a zipper to install which could take me that long.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention our road trip. It was nice to get away and learn a little more about culinary school. I think I could really enjoy it. With approximately 4.5 hours of class each day, I would easily be able to work while in school. Reading the class descriptions made me excited. Funny thing is, I still need a few of the gen eds they require. I think I need econ, environmental science and speech. Weird.

I know I like the Twin Cities and Minnesota. I would be close to most of my family and even closer to our cabin! It looks like living expenses would be about the same. We are considering buying a house, which is a scary thought, but I like the idea that I wouldn't be handing my money to a landlord each month and never seeing it again. I don't even want to think about how much money I have spent on rent.


Hello??


By the way, I know I don't have a lot of readers, and never expect to, but I would like to know who you are so I can get to know you too. If you feel like coming out of hiding leave a comment. It's another one of those delurking days, not the national one in January, but my curiosity is getting the better of me.

I am really looking forward to this long weekend. I didn't really get a break last weekend because of the class and I was so tired afterwards that I needed a few days to recover. I think I will spend most of the time cleaning out my closets and knitting. last time I seriously cleaned the shower, I completely missed the spot under the built in soap dish and it is really nasty now. Of course I am going to make an attempt to get my license on Saturday. I also plan to do a little more research on the towns that have culinary schools I am interested in.

I want to finish the the Charade and Leyburn socks done so I can free up my needles to do some more Christmas gift knitting and crocheting.

Our first of three classes at the GymNest on Thursday nights is full of four year olds. They were fairly well behaved, but last night didn't involve much actual tae kwon do. The class description specifically says it is for 5-7 year olds, but the Nest doesn't seem to go by their own descriptions. Four may be old enough for their gymnastics classes, but it is not, generally speaking, for tae kwon do classes. One parent even expressed some concern about the size of the class and the age of many of the students. Most are signed up on a weekly basis and we will lose a few as the weeks go by, but I am sure there will still be a few kids I wish had waited a year before starting.

I guess there has to be a little letdown after the success. I screwed up the gel twice (Using electricity we run our DNA and RNA samples through gels to tell us how big they are. DNA and RNA are polar, so they have a "+" charge at one end and a "-" at the other.) when I was analyzing the mRNA I made from my clone. At least it wasn't the same mistake. I will do it again later today. I also dropped two vials of embryos I am staining. I think I recovered most of them, but I don't know which embryos were stained for which thing. Yesterday was not a good day at the lab for me.

After work Josh picked me up and we went to the Field House to work on some kicks. It was nice to kick the paddle after the crappy day at work. I am not even sore today! That doesn't mean I won't be tomorrow. We didn't do a lot because it was so hot and humid. Of course, the temperature dropped 10 degrees by the time we drove back to the apartment.

I haven't done a ton of knitting lately. I finally turned the heel on the second Leyburn socks and frogged the Charade sock to start again on slightly larger needles. It was just a little tighter than I wanted and the stitches were too stretched when I put it on. I have used up the yarn I frogged so I am about where I was before frogging. Liz, I am using bamboo needles because my other set in the size I need are in use for the Leyburn sock. They aren't so bad after awhile.

I had a dream last night that I was in a flood, not sure where, but I was carrying three bags, one of which is my project bag with the Leyburn socks. I was being pulled through the water by something and I could see i was losing stuff from my bag. I saw my crochet hook float away and something else. Well, I just pulled out my sock from that same project bag to turn the heel and I noticed I am missing a needle. I am sure it is on the couch or in my other bag, but then again, it may be lost in the flood..

Ok, I am seriously considering culinary school for baking and pastry. That one is near the town that has a brewing course Josh is interested in. It's also the school my cooking hero Alton Brown went to. That's not the only reason I chose it though.

food science?

Someday I should decide what I want to do with the rest of my life. I know I don't want to work as a research assistant forever. It's fine for now but not interesting enough to me to make a career out of it. I have thought about culinary school for quite awhile, but something, I don't know what, has always held me back. I think part of it is the fact that I have a degree in biology that I think should be put to use. A few days ago I stumbled upon an article from over a year ago about Culinology. I must say I am intrigued. It combines my science background with cooking and baking, two of my favorite hobbies.

There are programs in several schools and few are even somewhat close to where I live now(NE, MN, IL). I know I need to make a decision sometime. We already signed our lease for next year, so I have a little time to think and figure it all out. Josh doesn't know how to go about what he wants to do with his life, and I am just starting to figure it out for myself. I wish I was better at making decisions.

Could this be the career for me?

I have been thinking about culinary school, but I don't want to let my biology degree go to waste. I think this may hold the answer, or at least a starting point, to what I want to do with my future. A food science degree is always an option as well, but I also want to be able to do some actual cooking.