2009 in Review

With 2009 coming to a close, I thought it might be nice to look back at some of the happenings of 2009. Some good, some less so, it's been quite a year in these parts...

January:

• Group trip to Chicago to visit Simmer, where Jess and Angie more or less met
• Jess and Angie start dating
• Finished submitting grad school aps (7 in all)

February:

• Grad school admissions decisions received, accepted to 6/7 programs I applied to
• Picked U of M SPH to attend in the fall

March:

• Jess, Matt and I moved into a great rental house

April:

• Submitted my honors senior thesis entitled Freedom to Live, Freedom to Die: Health Disparities in El Salvador
• Graduated Cum Laude from EMU with a major in Health Administration and minor in Human Biology, with Departmental and University Honors

May:

• Matt proposes on the 16th

June:

• Jess starts his photoblog, thedirtstreet.com, featuring a new photo every day, and really starts immersing himself in photography

July:

• Matt started working as a Meter Reader for Consumers Energy

August:

• Matt bought a Ford Ranger for work, saying goodbye to his Jeep.
  

September:

• Started my first semester at U of M

October:

• Filled the house with awesome people for a Halloween party

November:

• My first meatless Thanksgiving, followed by a hilarious night of billiards and UNO at my mom's house with our friends

December:

• Jess laid off from Great Lakes Cycling and Fitness, where he's worked since I met him
• Finished my first semester of Grad School
  

As you can see, I really I had stretch to fill every month. But, here's to 2010!

1/4 complete and Holiday time!

Cocoa getting into the Christmas spirit

Well, it's official. I am 1/4 done with my Master's degree. For the most part everything went well during my first semester. It was definitely a learning experience, and as much as I may complain about the long hours spent studying and writing, and the headache that is group projects, I am very happy to be studying what I love and learning something new all the time.

It is time to start looking for a summer internship, a requirement of my program. When I did an internship at EMU I completed 350 hours, unpaid - and I had to pay for 9 credit hours of course work to get the credit for graduation. Luckily in my UM SPH program most students find paid internships, and we don't have to take any classes to coincide with the requirement. In fact, we can reduce our credit hour requirement for graduation by 1-3 hours depending on the number of internship hours completed.


Dinner I made at my Mom's on Christmas

I am spending today recovering from 3 days of Christmas. On Christmas Eve we drove up to Caro for the Tinsey Christmas. Mimosas were sipped, ping-pong was played, and a good time was had by all. Christmas morning Matt and I had breakfast with his family and opened gifts. The we went to my Mom's where I made lasagna from scratch for dinner, and many crossword puzzles were solved. We then went back to Matt's house to watch a movie and hang out with Melissa, Josh, Jess and Angie. The day after Christmas I pried my way in to my frozen car at 7:30am to make it to work at 9am in Ann Arbor, worked til 3, then at 4 the VanCamp Christmas started back in Ortonville. After an evening of alcohol, apples to apples and a white elephant style DVD exchange, it was time to pronounce the Christmas of 2009 complete.

Jon being a lush.

My first meatless Thanksgiving

I am taking a break from 3 papers, stats homework, and some other small assignments that are looming over my head right now. And only 18 days to get them done! I know I can do it, but that doesn't mean my stress level doesn't elevate around this time.

Thanksgiving was a nice distraction though. I got to spend time with family and friends, eat amazing food, and sleep in for a few days. I thought this week's recipe post should be a recap of my first vegetarian Thanksgiving. Here was the menu:

Protein: Quorn Turk'y Roast
Gravy: Recipe from AllRecipes
Stuffing: Purchased from Plum Market in a box, had no animal products, used vegetable broth



I think that's all of my meat free accommodations. My mom and I made everything the day before Thanksgiving, the day Matt and I ate with her and my Grandma, and then on Thanksgiving I was able to just heat up my left overs at the Tinseys. Overall I thought everything tasted great. The gravy was probably the best, I was really impressed with how it turned out. At my house everyone used it, there was no traditional gravy, and no one seemed to mind it. The fake turkey was a little bland, especially because I forgot to thaw it and was in a rush come dinner time to get it cooked. A little salt and pepper would have helped, but with the gravy it was fine. The stuffing had a fine flavor, but also needed the gravy to make it a little more moist.

My mom of course made her completely homemade pumpkin pies, which were delicious. I made cupcakes to take to Matt's, the recipe was from a Rachel Ray magazine. They were pumpkin with cream cheese filling, very good.

In closing, a picture of something other than food, the crew at the Tinsey Thanksgiving :)

High Price of Cheap Food

This article covers pretty well one of the reasons I am not currently eating meat.

Getting Real About the High Price of Cheap Food

Recipe a week!

I got this idea from my friend Allison. Basically between grad school and 18 hours of work a week, I don't have a lot of time to think about what to eat - and I really don't have time to cook every night. I've decided to start making one new recipe each Sunday night, big enough to have a few left overs. This way I have an extra lunch or dinner around for the next few days that I don't have to worry about. This is my third week, and so far it is working well.

Each week I am going to post the recipe I made, and how it turned out. Here are the first three recipes:

11/1/09 - Potato and Corn Chowder, from Student's Vegetarian Cookbook

1 tbs olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
2 medium stalks of celery, thinly sliced (about 1 cup)
2-3 medium russet potatoes, cut into 1/2 inch cubes (about 4 cups)
3 1/4 cups lowfat milk
1 cup frozen corn kernels, thawed
1/4 teaspoon salt
pepper

1. Heat oil in a saucepan. Add the onion and celery and saute over medium heat until the veggies soften, 7-8 minutes, stirring frequently.
2. Add the potatoes and milk. Cover and simmer until potatoes are tender, about 20 minutes. Mash up some of the potatoes in the pot with a potato masher to thicken soup. Add the corn kernels. Cook just until heated through, add salt and season with pepper to taste.
(makes three servings)

I love this soup! It is easy and tastes great. I have made it before, and it one of those things that I think tastes better the next day, after everything can mingle together longer. I actually didn't eat any the night I made it this time and had three servings ready to go during the week.

11/8/09 - Easy vegetarian slow cooker chilli

This was great, I really loved the taste of the vegetarian baked beans in it. I used a can of "chilli beans" instead of chilli powder, because they were already seasoned. Made some rice to serve the chilli over and it made for a nice filling meal, will be making this again!

11/15/09 - Brown Rice, Tomatoes and Basil

Not sure about this one yet. I used the champagne because I don't like vinegar, so I thought it would be a better option for me. I like the idea of this recipe, but something about the flavor was a little off to me. When I ate it the rice was still quite warm though, and it says to serve at room temperature, so perhaps that would make a difference. **Update, yeah, not making this again. Just not a good taste.**

It's been a while...

Long over due post I know! School has been in full swing since September, so I have been a busy bee. The first week or so of class I had to do some adjusting to get classes that worked right for me. I am quite pleased with how the lineup turned out overall. Here's an overview of my classes:

psychosocial factors of health behavior
intro to biostatistics (required class)
health care organization, an international perspective
social technologies and health communications
families and health

Midterms have come and gone, and so far everything has been going well. Between work and class and homework and a social life, I could probably have done a few things differently to stay more focused, but overall I think I've managed to keep a good balance. Most days I don't get home before 7pm, which is leading to some exhaustion but it wouldn't be grad school if I wasn't exhausted.

I am valuing more and more the time that I can spend with my family and friends. My time with Matt keeps getting cut shorter and shorter. I know people with husbands in the military who have to live with long term separations, and I am very thankful that I am not in that situation. Regardless, it is really hard to know he is an hour away and I can't see him at the end of the day. And for a few weeks now I have been day dreaming about Christmas break. I can't wait to come home and sit around with my mom and grandma and do crossword puzzles, and for Christmas with the Tinseys.

Tradition vs. Offbeat: Dancing

Dancing has been kind of a touchy topic with us lately. Here's the deal.

Matt and I hate dancing.

In our almost six years together we have danced a few times. Matt can't hear rhythm, and we are definitely awkward and self-conscious while dancing.

We have been to weddings before where the dancing felt forced and as a whole it was obvious that the group would rather not dance. Because of this we don't want to have forced/organized dancing at the wedding. That's why we want to have other things to do at the wedding and why it will be earlier in the day. There will be music playing, and if people want to dance, I'm not going to stop them.

How is it that dancing became a requirement for weddings anyway? Here's a few other couples who felt the same way we do:

Jamie & Chris

Amy & Mikel

Amy & Mike