After a long day's work...

...I came home to find this in my fridge:

...thinking it might be Joshua's leftover Mexican food, I hesitantly peeled back the cover...

SURPRISE TRUFFLES!

1 Across: Alzheimer's Preventer

Recently, Karis and I have been doing a lot of crossword puzzles. I've always been intimidated by crosswords, I don't know a lot of pop culture, names of actor/actresses, or names of historic people and places. And you have to learn how to do a crossword puzzle, you have learn how to think like a crossword puzzler.

So, Karis and I have been starting off easy, we did a few Monday puzzles, then Tuesdays and now we're on our set of Wednesdays (since we mainly do NYT puzzles).

Interestingly, there are a few words that seem to be favorites of crossword makers: lei, tael, and sri (as a few examples).

I suppose Karis and I are now learning crosswordese.

For anyone who wants to begin puzzling, a good (I think), free, not too difficult (usually) crossword is the USA Today Daily Crossword - they also offer Sudoku and other puzzles.

First Day of Spring

Today I started the West Virginia Master Naturalist Program, run by WV Department of Natural Resources and the Potomac Valley Audubon Society. To become a certified Master Naturalist you need to take 64 hours of classes 48 hours of core classes and 16 hours of electives) and do 30 volunteer hours (in West Virginia or for West Virginians). And then each year you need 8 additional hours of training and 16 additional hours of volunteer work.

Core topics include Amphibians and Reptiles; Aquatic Habitats; Birds; General Ecology; Insects and Spiders; Mammals; Names, Classifications and ID; Nature Interpretation and Teaching; Recording, Sharing and Preserving; Terrestrial Habitats; Trees; Shrubs and Woody Vines; Wetland Habitats; Wildflowers and Weeds; and Wildlife Habitat Improvement.

Electives cover Geology, Succession, Mushrooms, Astronomy, Butterflies, Weather and Climate. (I'm really excited about the mycology class.)

My day was 12 hours long today (about 10 hours of class, plus 2 hours driving), and then tomorrow is more of the same. Classes are one weekend a month, and most of the rest are in (or a lot nearer to) Shepherdstown.

The Awful Din

(Milo and Dynne)

We now have an iPhone (but that's a different story), the point is we now have an iPod/mp3 player - my 5 year old iPod broke a few weeks ago... maybe a few months...

While an iPhone is a lot more interesting/valuable than simply an iPod (it has apps). Anyway, we can once again put music on a digital device. However, because my iPod had more memory than our new iPhone (and because it has apps; and because there are now 2 of us), we don't have enough room for all our music.

I managed to get my iPod working, but if moved it probably won't work again, so I went to take music off of it. But our computer has 6 GB free, and there are 18 GB of music on my iPod. So I was faced with a dilemma.

What to delete?

The 6 GB of NPR podcasts was an easy first choice, but that left at least 6GB left to delete.

The problem is that I have a lot of music I never listen(ed) to, but feel like I should have (Radiohead, Pink Floyd); and I felt that if I like one album of an artists, I should have them all (Johnny Cash, David Bowie).

I also have a lot of music on my iPod that I don't have anywhere else (ironically, Defiance, Ohio sells their music for $0.99 a song on iTunes, but offers it for free on their website).

Long story short: we have an iPod, we'll put some music on it, I lost a lot of music.

If you give a Karis a Cookie...

Almost every week we bake a new batch of cookies (because we eat a few dozen a week). Thankfully we have some great cookbooks, our main cookie cookbook is Martha Stewart's Cookies, though Rosie's Bakery All-Butter, Fresh Cream, Sugar-Packed, No-Holds-Barred Baking Book is our overall baking cookbook (pies, cakes, etc...).

This week I made (finished an house ago) "Hershey's Perfect Special Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies" - which isn't in our Martha Stewart book.

Last week's were "Cakey Chocolate Chip Cookies," with butterscotch chips instead of chocolate. One really nice thing about the Martha Stewart book is that it's divided into different sections: Light and Delicate, Soft and Chewy, Crumbly and Sandy, Chunky and Nutty, Cakey and Tender, Crisp and Crunchy, and Rich and Dense.

And the week before that were Snickerdoodles (ours don't have cream of tartar - who new most did?), which I had heard of but don't think I ever had before Karis first made me them a few months ago (actually, I might have had them before that, just didn't know what the name was).