Hello All! Well it's been over a year since I last posted and that's just pretty pathetic. I was thinking about this blog (if you can even call it that) earlier this morning and I thought, wow what a failed resolution! Then I wondered why I was so bad at posting and I've come to a conclusion: I have a very unexciting life!
Don't get me wrong, I love my life. But I can go a week without talking to my mom and she'll say, "What's new?" and my answer is typically...nothing. There is nothing new going on. I'm a grad student, I basically work on my research 7 days a week. Now some people will look at that and say, wow she's dedicated. To that I say HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! No, I'm not. I would be totally happy working 8 hours a day for 5 days a week and taking the weekend off. However I have this problem some people call procrastination. My research is done either with pencil and paper or on a computer. Which means the majority of my time is spent in front of a computer...where the internet is...which means I procrastinate ALOT. Even when I make progress in my research it can be summed up in a couple of sentences. "I finished my simulations, they look good. I finally figured out that theory I was working on." So what could I possibly fill up a blog with? This is the question I came to when I was getting ready this morning. Then suddenly it hit me!
I could write about everything I do when I procrastinate! Now this may sound boring but in order to keep myself busy with my procrastinations I have to create projects. It takes no time at all to check facebook which means I would be back to work quickly but to plan a dinner menu for a couple weeks at a time, well that takes some commitment!
So I am renewing my commitment to this blog (hey, look at that, another way to procrastinate). There may not be alot of structure to it as basically it's just going to be whatever project I'm filling my time with at the moment. I've been trying alot of new recipes, I've recently become obsessed with DIY and HGTV so now I'm planning my dream home, and I'm forever trying to eat healthy which doesn't always work out but I'd like to share with you any ideas that have helped me. I'm also on foodfolio.net (https://foodfolio.net/erindienes/) so join up (you can just login using your facebook or gmail info) and follow me! Whenever I share recipes there I'm sure I will also post something about them in the blog as well.
Lastly my first tip for those trying to eat a little healthier. I use Fage 0% Greek Yogurt in place of sour cream, always. This means in recipes, for tacos or quesadillas, always. About a year ago a friend of mine told me about this yogurt so I thought I would try it. After one spoonful, I was like YUCK! that tastes like sour cream! To which she said, I know isn't it delicious? Well in my opinion yogurt should be sweet and should NOT taste like sour cream. But it gave me the idea to start using it instead of sour cream. The consistency is slightly different from sour cream but I truly believe that you cannot taste a difference. We use it for tacos all the time, my husband loves it. I've put it in multiple recipes that call for sour cream and nobody every notices a difference. Some nutrition facts are listed below. I got them from the Daisy brand sour cream website and the Fage website. I've done the math to make the number of ounces the same so that we can directly compare them.
Daisy Light Sour Cream - 6 oz
Calories: 240
Fat: 15 g
Carb: 12 g
Protein: 12 g
Fage Total 0% - 6 oz
Calories: 100
Fat: 0 g
Carb: 7 g
Protein: 18 g
I hope you find this helpful and let me know what you think if you try this substitution. Also feel free to leave comments regarding any healthier substitutions that you use as well! Talk to you soon....
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Just for a day.
So it turns out that I'm not doing very well at updating this blog :-) In an effort to not completely stop writing in it I have decided to make you all jealous. For those of you who don't know, my husband and I are both graduate students at UC Davis. This past quarter my husband was taking a couple classes, TAing for a rather time consuming class, tutoring for other classes, and doing his own research. I was also very busy with my research, my job as a student researcher, different consulting projects, and tutoring. Because of this most days were spent in the same building but separate places and our evenings were much the same.
About a month ago friends of ours mentioned a bed and breakfast they had been to and how much they liked it. So like the good little researcher I have become I went straight home and started researching this chain of bed and breakfasts (Four Sisters Inns: for those of you that are interested). By the end of the day I was dying to go and working out a way to convince my hubby that he was also dying to go :-) Apparently he had felt the effects of the quarter as much as I had as it wasn't very difficult to convince him. So we decided to book one night at the B&B during the school's Spring Break. (I say the school's Spring Break because unfortunately we are passed the time in our lives where it is also our Spring Break :-) ). Now one night may not seem like much but it turned out to be absolutely perfect. For a little more than one whole day we didn't talk about statistics, we didn't check our email, we didn't bring anything with us that could tie us to the real world!!
On the drive to the coast we stopped at a restaurant called the Whole Enchilada and had fried artichokes for the first time ever. There are fields and fields of artichokes in this area. When we got to our destination we walked around town, stopping in at little shops, went through the Farmers Market (and got a basket of unbelievably delicious strawberries), and watched people surf out by some seriously dangerous rocks! That night we strolled through Monterey, bought a sand tapestry (pictures below), and thought seriously about doing a laser maze challenge before coming to our senses. Later that night we decided we wanted some wine so we went to the liquor store to buy some. Before checking out we remembered that we didn't have a corkscrew so we had better get champagne instead. Since we are super classy people we settled on a fine bottle of $5 pink champagne. The best part was when Chris insisted that the cashier print a receipt, to which the cashier grumbled "Oh yes, make sure to give that to the boss for the expense account".
The next morning we got up early and walked down to the beach to watch the sun rise. Unfortunately the clouds on the horizon were a little too thick, so the sun rise was a bit disappointing. If I figure this out correctly there will be some photos of our trip at the bottom of this post. If not then see facebook for pics. Anyway that was our trip in a nut shell. We had a great time and I would recommend that everyone get away from work, school, kids, pets, etc., even if just for a day.
About a month ago friends of ours mentioned a bed and breakfast they had been to and how much they liked it. So like the good little researcher I have become I went straight home and started researching this chain of bed and breakfasts (Four Sisters Inns: for those of you that are interested). By the end of the day I was dying to go and working out a way to convince my hubby that he was also dying to go :-) Apparently he had felt the effects of the quarter as much as I had as it wasn't very difficult to convince him. So we decided to book one night at the B&B during the school's Spring Break. (I say the school's Spring Break because unfortunately we are passed the time in our lives where it is also our Spring Break :-) ). Now one night may not seem like much but it turned out to be absolutely perfect. For a little more than one whole day we didn't talk about statistics, we didn't check our email, we didn't bring anything with us that could tie us to the real world!!
On the drive to the coast we stopped at a restaurant called the Whole Enchilada and had fried artichokes for the first time ever. There are fields and fields of artichokes in this area. When we got to our destination we walked around town, stopping in at little shops, went through the Farmers Market (and got a basket of unbelievably delicious strawberries), and watched people surf out by some seriously dangerous rocks! That night we strolled through Monterey, bought a sand tapestry (pictures below), and thought seriously about doing a laser maze challenge before coming to our senses. Later that night we decided we wanted some wine so we went to the liquor store to buy some. Before checking out we remembered that we didn't have a corkscrew so we had better get champagne instead. Since we are super classy people we settled on a fine bottle of $5 pink champagne. The best part was when Chris insisted that the cashier print a receipt, to which the cashier grumbled "Oh yes, make sure to give that to the boss for the expense account".
The next morning we got up early and walked down to the beach to watch the sun rise. Unfortunately the clouds on the horizon were a little too thick, so the sun rise was a bit disappointing. If I figure this out correctly there will be some photos of our trip at the bottom of this post. If not then see facebook for pics. Anyway that was our trip in a nut shell. We had a great time and I would recommend that everyone get away from work, school, kids, pets, etc., even if just for a day.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Bring on the Jetsons...
Being a housewife is tough but being a housewife whose also a grad student is absolutely exhausting. I haven't been sticking to my schedule during the day perfectly but given that I just started implementing it I feel that I'm doing fairly well. Getting up at 6 in the morning really isn't that hard until about 2 in the afternoon when I find myself falling asleep while staring at my computer. Today I was able to push through just telling myself you only have to make it until 5. But that's not quite true. At 5 I take Jewels to the park or for a walk and then I come home and make dinner. Now all of that wouldn't be so bad except that with making dinner comes the hassle of cleaning up after dinner. There's unloading the dishwasher and reloading all the new dishes that accumulated throughout the day. There's putting all of the stuff you drug out to make dinner with back and cleaning everything that can't go in the dishwasher. And when you finally get a chance to sit down you just stare at the carpet and think man I need to vacuum! Then there's laundry, cleaning, menu planning, and all of those other horrible weekly chores. I don't know how you housewives do it! I know I'm being a little (okay maybe alot) whiny, but I'm TIRED!! So I say bring on the Jetsons. I can't wait for the days of robots that do all of these chores for you :-)
Well those dishes aren't going to do themselves! Mom, I promise I will write something profound tomorrow :-)
Well those dishes aren't going to do themselves! Mom, I promise I will write something profound tomorrow :-)
Monday, January 3, 2011
Success/Failure
For me today was in many ways successful and in other ways a failure. Today marked the beginning of my new self imposed schedule. Essentially I created a schedule that I want to stick to throughout the rest of my time as a grad student. I will explain the basis of my schedule but first let me explain my need for a schedule.
For those of you who don't know I am a 4th year graduate student studying Biostatistics at UC Davis. This essentially means that I am passed all of the coursework and now am working independently on my own research. While you're in courses, school in many ways is much easier than an actual job. Imagine a job in which your boss tells you exactly what he/she wants you to do and gives you a week in which to get it done. You take the week to do that job and then the next week you get a new assignment. I loved being in classes. No self-motivation needed. You're given an assignment and in a week you will be graded on that assignment. You work hard to get it done and when the due date comes you turn it in and you no longer have to worry about it. Research on the other hand is a job in which your boss says "Hey come up with a project that no one has done before and that will take around 2 years to do and get it done". Needless to say you need a good amount of self-motivation which I seem to be lacking. Hence the reason for a schedule.
So in an attempt to get it together and start making some progress I set a daily schedule for myself. Essentially I get up at 6, work out, then from 9-5 I work on my dissertation research, my gsr research, and any consulting projects that I'm working on. At 5 I stop all work for the day, make dinner, and then take the rest of the evening off. So today I managed to follow my schedule to a T until about 3:00 when I took a nap :-( I'm hoping it takes me about a week to get adjusted to this schedule and make it work. I was pretty disappointed when I woke up from the nap but I will try again tomorrow.
I know I'm kind of blabbering on but I promised myself I would treat this as a journal. I'm done for the evening now so I'm going to relax and prepare myself for tomorrow morning :-) I hope you all had a wonderful day and I hope that you will continue to work on your New Year's Resolutions. Perhaps one of my New Year's Resolutions should be to keep my New Year's resolutions :-)
To be continued....
For those of you who don't know I am a 4th year graduate student studying Biostatistics at UC Davis. This essentially means that I am passed all of the coursework and now am working independently on my own research. While you're in courses, school in many ways is much easier than an actual job. Imagine a job in which your boss tells you exactly what he/she wants you to do and gives you a week in which to get it done. You take the week to do that job and then the next week you get a new assignment. I loved being in classes. No self-motivation needed. You're given an assignment and in a week you will be graded on that assignment. You work hard to get it done and when the due date comes you turn it in and you no longer have to worry about it. Research on the other hand is a job in which your boss says "Hey come up with a project that no one has done before and that will take around 2 years to do and get it done". Needless to say you need a good amount of self-motivation which I seem to be lacking. Hence the reason for a schedule.
So in an attempt to get it together and start making some progress I set a daily schedule for myself. Essentially I get up at 6, work out, then from 9-5 I work on my dissertation research, my gsr research, and any consulting projects that I'm working on. At 5 I stop all work for the day, make dinner, and then take the rest of the evening off. So today I managed to follow my schedule to a T until about 3:00 when I took a nap :-( I'm hoping it takes me about a week to get adjusted to this schedule and make it work. I was pretty disappointed when I woke up from the nap but I will try again tomorrow.
I know I'm kind of blabbering on but I promised myself I would treat this as a journal. I'm done for the evening now so I'm going to relax and prepare myself for tomorrow morning :-) I hope you all had a wonderful day and I hope that you will continue to work on your New Year's Resolutions. Perhaps one of my New Year's Resolutions should be to keep my New Year's resolutions :-)
To be continued....
Saturday, January 1, 2011
New Years Resolutions
So I've been thinking about doing this for some time but apparently needed the push of the new year to get me started. I got the idea from a friend of mine (that's you Bethany :-) ). My New Year's Resolutions are
At best this will help others through similar struggles and let them know that they aren't alone, and at worst it will simply be a therapeutic way for me to reflect on my life :-)
I guess that is all for now, will write again soon.
- To start writing in a journal.
- To do a better job at keeping up with friends and family.
- To start and finish my wedding album (I'm ashamed to say it's been over two years since the wedding).
- To get on a schedule and stick to it!
- And finally to lose weight.
At best this will help others through similar struggles and let them know that they aren't alone, and at worst it will simply be a therapeutic way for me to reflect on my life :-)
I guess that is all for now, will write again soon.
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