Beer bloggin

So Paul and I decided we may want to start a beer blog. I hope this does not have a poor impact on our health but here is the first picture. All pictures here on in will be shot by Paul and will thus be much better. So last night we had Abbey Ale by Abita (Louisiana - NO area?) and Ale Smith's Anvil beer (San Diego). The latter we had with dinner - it's an ESB but full of flavor the latter post-meal. I was much richer and very malty. It reminded me of Boont's Seasonal Holiday beer but little less spicy.

Mac and cheese

So I made mac and cheese for a friend who just had a baby. Here is my first post of my cooking therapy: Thanks martha!

http://www.marthastewart.com/article/perfect-macaroni-and-cheese

Writing, oh writing

So being in a PhD program is apparently a lot of writing and its about facing your writing demons (this will also a forecast for the rest of your life too). So in thinking about what I read that inspires me I become a little schizophrenic. There is the academic and the non-academic; the more inspirational stuff coming from the former. Uh-oh. So for the me stuff there are a couple of books that I am (not) reading that come to mind one the detox solution by Fitzgerald - ultimately a book to keep you centered when you feel inadequate and lost (all totally normal feelings during grad school) and the other eastern body western mind by Judith (allows me to explore my own individuality) then recipe/food blogs which have turned into my therapy (a way to create concrete things that I can share and make others happy with - or try). So back to my assignment about finding inspirational reading.... TBD and TBC

Mountain Time

Thanksgiving weekend we went up to Big Bear. It was beautiful and it was nice to get a dose of mountain air and towny-goodness. On Sunday morning when I woke up I felt like I wanted to move there, but I somehow made it back to the temperate coast. We did a lot of hiking - one day through boulders and the next up a fire road to nice views of big bear lake. We also had some house adventures of a gas leak and meeting the infamouse Wally Gas (actually names Wally Wallace). The boys were able to ask a fellow customer at Taco Bell to lend them her truck to transport a new stove home in exchange for purchasing her lunch and Wally Gas came back to install the oven so we could have a nice cook-up on Saturday. Big Bear was beautiful I would love to go back when its snowy, rainy, or sunny:)

Greening Health

I get excited every time I see more published (particularly outside of academic journals) articles linking greening and public health.  I hope the green fad only gets stronger and permanent and that we can link it more concretely to public health to achieve both ends but less deterministically and achieve all the other factors such as improvements to other areas of our individual, social, built, political (and more) environment. I am not sure how it all makes sense for me but here is the article that motivated this blurb.  http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-11-08-green-inequality-N.htm=

I also saw the LA equivalent of Critical Mass blazing down North Beverly in Beverly Hills last night and I wanted to honk my horn in support -- but I was walking.  Anyways I was excited to see the bicyclist presence in LA:)

First Day of Bloggin

So its my first day of doing "this" and think that it will be a good way as I have yet moved once again and in the beginning of my PhD to track my thoughts and experiences in a collective way -- here goes............... this picture tugs at my heart -- I miss New York and spent way too much time down by the GW trying to tire out my dog. This little red lighthouse for those who arent familiar is a symbol of resiliency - I am going to try and remember the story so here goes, but for those who want a factual telling there is a children's book calle the little read light house and the big grey bridge. Anyway when "they" wanted to build the bridge to connect upper manhattan to new jersey the lighthouse was going to be torn down, but the neighbors of the lighthouse resisted and said there could be both - now once a year there is a little red light house celebration commemorating how great this structure is! So needless to say I am looking for pieces like this in my new surroundings to give me my bearings:)