The Doctor will See You Now!

Last Wednesday I defended my dissertation. About twenty people came to see it which I really appreciated and it was great to have the support. I felt really positive about how my presentation went as I stepped out into the hall so that my committee could talk for a few minutes before I came back into the room to answer questions. Instead of asking me to come in for questions, my adviser came out into the hall, gave me a big hug, and said "Congratulations, Doctor!"

They passed me without questions! We did talk some more afterward but all the pressure was off. This picture is me popping champagne so that the cork dents the ceiling in the lab. Then I got to sign the dent"Dr. Ellen Quillen."

Pretty-in-Pink Popsicles

My first real recipe on the blog!  This was inspired by a couple things.  (1) Leftover watermelon from last week’s hot dog extravaganza, (2) Summer’s memory of making watermelon-lime popsicles with her mom, and (3) Dreamsicle-inspired orange and vanilla yogurt popsicles from  Zoom Yummy. 

In preparation for the move, I have been trying to get rid of stuff so I was planning to make these popsicles in some Dixie cups using forks as sticks.  But then I saw these adorable popsicle molds on sale at the grocery store – how could I resist?  So I came home and made these pretty pink popsicles!  The yogurt gives them a slightly softer consistency than an all-fruit juice popsicle and when you bite into them you get large shards of ice that make me happy (although Geoff finds them weird).  Anyway, they are yummy - look:

These popsicles are probably more on the grown-up spectrum.  The favorite popsicle around our house are the Edy’s All Fruit Lime Bars which are pretty tart so these watermelon-lemon popsicles are as well.  Less lemon juice (or none at all) may make them more to your liking if you are used to a sweeter popsicle.

Pretty-in-Pink Popsicles
Makes about 18 in my molds

4 ½ c. watermelon juice
18 oz. lemon yogurt
2 lemons, juice and zest.

1.    Place chunks from about half of a seedless watermelon in the food processor and blend until smooth. 
2.    Pour into strainer and push through as much of the pulp as possible with a rubber spatula.  This left me with about 4 ½ cups of juice but if it a little more or less, don’t worry.
3.    Whisk in yogurt, lemon juice, and zest.
4.    Fill molds to fill line (don’t overfill, it will make a mess!) and freeze.
5.    If you have to freeze in multiple batches, be sure to stir the mix thoroughly before pouring as the watermelon pulp settles.

The Yarn Stash

I mentioned recently that one of my goals for this year is to use up all of my yarn.  That may not sound like a big deal to most of you (although those of you who knit – or live with me – know how quickly it piles up), but it turns out I have about 15 pounds of yarn.  How do I know that?  I weighed it all during the World Cup final.

I realized that the only way I could use up the yarn was to figure out what I had.  Since the majority of my yarn is partial skeins left-over from other projects and I wanted to know how much yardage I had, I figured the best way was to weigh it.  Each skein lists both the total weight and the total yardage so it is a simple ratio to figure out how many yards I have.  I made this table of the yarn, weight, color, and yardage in Excel by the end of the first half.

During the second half, I compared my “to knit” list to the yardage I have and came up with a plan.  I love OneNote which came with my Microsoft Office package for this sort of thing.  I have a page with small pictures and links to each pattern.  Now that I have a plan, all I have to do is knit my way through each of these 20 or so projects (ha!).

So you can track my progress, I added my yarn stash to the sidebar at right.  I’ll cross off yarn as I knit it up – but don’t expect to see anything done before I defend on August 4th!


Oh, and congrats to Spain - that was a beautiful goal!  I was cheering for the Oranje, but only because I wanted tiny new Oranje fan Penny to get to see her team win when she was 10 days old.  Spain played a great game.

America's Past Time

We had a great weekend with our friends Summer and Joerg who came to visit.  We took them to super-rural PA for some local, organic food and microbrews.  We had a bunch of friends over for some grilling and made Sonoran hot dogs, Chicago-Style dogs, and Hawaiian dogs.  All yummy.  We even made it to two baseball games and saw some crazy cube-shaped fireworks:

Sadly for the players, the eyeball races are always my favorite part of the game:




I hope you all had a fantastic Fourth and enjoyed the long weekend! Back to intense dissertating tomorrow.

28 Before 28: Month 1 (and 2...and a half)

So I had grand plans to update you all on my 28 goals on the 15th of every month, but as you may have noticed, that didn't happen in May or June - mostly because I was working on goals 1 and 2.  So, in review:

#1 - My dissertation is about half done and I'm planning to defend it in August (as soon as I can find a date that works for everyone on my committee!).

#2 - I've had two post-doc phone interviews so there are options in the works - I'll tell you more when things are finalized.  To get some of the other projects I have here at Penn State finished, we're probably going to stay through the end of the year so I won't start a post-doc until January.

#7 - I have been jogging off and on as a way to clear my head but it is dreadfully humid here now which makes it harder to motivate myself.

#8 - Well it has been two and a half months and I baked one loaf - but it was good!

#13 - I have volunteered twice in the past two months to work with high school students to teach them more about anthropology and genetics.

#14 - I've gotten started on this!  Since we gave up our lease effective July 31st we will have to move into an apartment here in State College in August and then move again in December.  Two moves in six months is the motivation I need to finally start getting rid of stuff!

Not a bad beginning to my goals.  I wasn't really expecting to get too many things on my list before I finished the dissertation.  I have lengthened the list though!  The additions are:

19. Use up all my yarn
20. Make my own yogurt and cheese
21. Be vegetarian for a month and vegan for a week
22. Learn to Decorate Cookies (hey!  I've already done that one!)
23. Visit two national parks
24. Read two of Shakespeare's plays and two Historical Biographies
25. Visit California (recommended by Craig)
26. Media-Free Saturdays

Media-Free Saturdays may not be a weekly occurrence and definitely won't happen until I've finished the dissertation, but the idea is that on Saturdays I wouldn't check my e-mail, turn on the TV, read blogs, or anything else electronic.  Instead I would read, craft, whatever else doesn't involve a screen of any sort.  You would not believe how much time I spend in front of screens.

Any ideas for the last two spots?