I might drown in the amount of words piled around me

I am coming to the end of my first semester as a full time PhD student.  The end of a semester in school is never easy no matter what level of schooling you're in.  My husband is working on his BS and the end of each semester is no picnic for him either, so trust me I have no woe is me issues for being in a PhD program.

That being said...

Woe is me! lol.  I'm writing a manuscript for a maybe one day to be published article on clinical supervision of substance abuse counselors working within the military population.  Mouth full isn't it? Try writing it about half a billion times over the course of 10+ pages.  Not to mention the naggy detail that academic writing requires that you PROVE every little fact you mention.  I mean really, I have to PROVE that service members have less rights to privacy, I can't just say it, I have to say it and then say who else said it, where they said it, and preferably who they said, said it and where.  Which when I put it that way doesn't actually prove anything but hey I guess that's academia for ya.

When I'm all finished though (hopefully by tomorrow) I have fun fun stuff to share.  Did you know that Selma is the Antiques capital of NC?  I learned this yesterday...

"They spent two months at sea to reach a strange new world, and barely survived once they got there"

Some years we really do feel like we've barely survived, don't they?  As I sit back and enjoy a quiet cup of coffee while my girls watch tv in another room, and my husband sleeps quietly, I know that this year is not one of those years.  This is a year like the first Thanksgiving.  A year when after struggle and strife everything just comes together and life is as good as it can get.

I have so much to be thankful for this year (I shared some of my many blessings here).  I honestly don't even feel like I know the person I used to be before the Agius crew came into my life.  As I struggled to explain it all to a friend last night I faltered, and couldn't come up with the words that encompassed the change.  I then realized it could all be summed up to a single sentence: I'm a Mom now.  That simple fact is the greatest gift I have ever been given.  Not just because of the joy that my girls bring to my life but also because of the many lessons that they (and my lovely husband) have taught me.  It's not all about me anymore, and it never will be again.  It's about my family.  How things impact them, what choices will be best for them, how do I explain the hard stuff to them, are they learning the right lessons to become good, strong people.

It's a lot to simply walk into at 26 but I would not change a thing. In working to teach them the important things in life, I have remembered what those things are.  I heard in a song once that a woman should live the life she would want for her daughter, and be the kind of person she would want her daughter to be.  I'm not there yet but the journey so far has been spectacular in and of it's self.

I am also so very lucky to have an amazing partner to go the journey along with me.  I know I gush about Tony a lot on here but I can't help myself.  I always thought that I knew what I wanted from a man and Tony really is all of those things, but he is so much more than those things too.  He is everything I wanted and all of the things I didn't know I needed

So when I look back over the year today and try to sum up what I am most thankful for I stumble and struggle to put it in to words but again I find it boils down to one sentence: I am most thankful for the simple fact that I'm an Agius!

"Turkey Trot Trot Trot across the Lot Lot Lot, Feeling Fine Fine Fine, Until Thanksgiving Time"

Friday was the first of several Thanksgiving events for our family.  Actually Friday way the first 2 of several Thanksgiving events.  The Air Force picked Friday to be turkey day so we went to Bella's preschool (on base) for Thanksgiving lunch and then went over to the hanger where Tony works for a 2 hour (really? two hours?) Thanksgiving celebration (it actually turned out to be 3.5 hours, whoa I mean whoa that's a lot of male bounding over some turkey folks, though I think I may have made friends with a girl in Tony's shop, so yay for new friends)

I happen to think I make one of the BEST Turkeys out there (ego I know but I PROMISE it's AH-MAZING) and since I got up at 7:30 AM on my day off, with no kids to take to school, to roast a turkey, I figured I'd share with you.

So what are the secrets to the perfect turkey you ask.  There are two, the brine (if you've never brined your turkey, this is why it comes out dry no matter what you do to prevent it) and the Turkey Triangle (Alton Brown you are a genius!)

So for the brine.  I use the recipe from Chez Panisse because their turkeys have been rated the BEST in the country for years.  So here's what you need:

A large Stainless Steel Stock Pot (the brine contains A LOT of salt which may pit aluminum pots)

2 1/2 gallons cold water

1 1/2-1 3/4 cups kosher salt

1 cup granulated sugar

2 bay leaves

1 bunch fresh thyme (or 1/4 cup dried)

1 whole head of garlic, cloves separated and peeled

5 whole crushed allspice berries

4 juniper berries, smashed (I can NEVER find these in the stores here in eastern NC so I know from experience picking them straight off the bush is totally FINE)


What to do:


Mix everything together in your pot, making sure that all of the salt and sugar has dissolved.  Then add your turkey. (do I need to tell you to remove all packaging and organs? yes? ok do that first).  Make sure the turkey is COMPLETELY submerged


Let the bad boy refrigerate at least 12 hours but no more than 24 hours ( I've been known to fudge it and only do 6 hours and it's worked out just fine).  Another good lesson learned, if it's cold enough outside and there is no room left in the fridge cause well it is Thanksgiving, you can toss everything in a cooler and set it outside.


When you're ready to roast the turkey remove him from the brine and give him a good rinse in cold water, and pat dry. 


Here's where the genius of Alton Brown comes in.  I saw his Thanksgiving special (Romancing the Bird, I think it was called) a few years ago, the man is kooky but brilliant none the less.


Rub your turkey down with Canola oil (doesn't change the flavor but promotes browning)


Take a large piece of aluminum foil and form it into a triangle over the Turkey's breast leaving the legs exposed, remove and set aside


Place aromatics inside the cavity.  Alton suggests seeping a whole cinnamon stick, apple (sliced), and onion (quartered) in hot water for 8 minutes before placing inside.  I use a quartered apple and onion, skip the seeping and the cinnamon, I did it by the book one year and had cinnamon flavored turkey, not bad but definitely not what I was going for.


Place your turkey in a roasting pan, breast up (VERY IMPORTANT, messed this up one year too).  Tuck the wings under themselves so the tips don't burn, and place your turkey feet first into a 500 degree oven for 30 minutes.


When your 30 minutes are up you'll have a beautifully browned breast but a mostly uncooked bird.  

Here in lies the genius of the Turkey triangle.

Place your triangle back over the breast.  (This prevents burning).  Drop your oven to 350 degrees and continue roasting for 2-2.5 hours or until your turkey reaches 161 degrees in the thickest part. (if you're measuring the temp use a digital meat thermometer and NEVER remove the probe, if you do you'll release all those lovely juices that we've been working so hard to save.


When your turkey is ready to come out of the oven remove and cover with aluminum foil, another pot, a lid whatever you have on hand, until you are ready to serve (at least 10 minutes though if you're ready right as he comes out).  These lets the meat rest and keeps everything nice and hot too.  I left mine covered for over an hour Friday and he was still PERFECT by the time we got around to eating him.

Now of course me being me I forgot to take a picture of the finished bird but here's one from Alton's page on FoodNetwork.com  My presentation wasn't quite up to par but my bird was almost an exact match.

Happy Roasting Folks!

"Thanks"

I've been more than a bit grumpy lately.  Between my school work and various upsets in my personal life I haven't been one of the most pleasant people to be around.  It's really time to get over that.  I have a lot to be thankful for in my life, and so I thought I'd write an extra post this morning and share some of the good with you, since I've been all too heavy on the bad lately.

So I say Thank you Lord for giving me:

An amazing husband, who got up this morning at 6 AM and built a fire before going to work because he knew I would want one when I got up

Our families, who love and support us unconditionally 

(though the sheer size of Tony's family is a bit intimidating and that's only his mother's side, he's still got a dad a step mom and another little sister who aren't in this photo)

A love that just won't quit

(not that I'd ever want it to)

These two crazies

Our furry babies, Samson and Delilah

(forgive the poor quality phone picture, my camera hates me right now)

Funny, I'm kinda noticing a theme here: Warm fire, warm family, warm heart, warm hugs, and warm blooded beasts.  I'm thinking I'm pretty thankful for the warmth in my life right now.  I guess that's not too surprising when the temperature around here dropped a shocking 30 degrees yesterday lol.

Warm or cold though I am truly blessed :-)

I'm linking post up at 

"Have a Holly Jolly Christmas"

I have a somewhat OCD love of uniformity.  Every year for Christmas for the last several years at at least I have used red and lime green decorations.  A little different but nothing crazy.  This will be Tony's and my first Christmas as a married couple (read last year he was still trying to rope me into forever and let me do whatever I wanted for the Christmas decor, lol).  At Tony's request we're going to be livening things up this year and going for a "White Colorful Christmas".

 Check out my pinterest board of Christmas inspiration:

I have a feelings there are going to lots of projects are here...

"If the scholar feels that he must know everything about any topic, he is in trouble - and will not publish with a clear conscience."

I know I have been remiss in my posting this week.  Unfortunately this is likely to continue into the next week or so.  I have a presentation tomorrow, a presentation Tuesday, a midterm Tuesday, and a manuscript due a week from tomorrow.  My 2 presentations are done thank goodness, my midterm is in Biostatistics so there very little I can do to actually study but I desperately need to make my formula sheet (it's allowed I promise!), and my manuscript? Well I've got a title page, 1.25 pages of text, and all my references so it's a start.  Not a great start, but a start none the less.  Minimum of 8.5 more pages to go.  I'm writing about clinical supervision of substance abuse counselors working with a military population.  Do you know how many other people have ever written on this topic?  Cause I'm not finding ANY.  Sounds good right?  Easy to publish when there's no other publications on the subject, sure.  But it also means I have to reference to tell me whether or not what I'm writing is remotely accurate.  Ugh.  Just wait until dissertation time.  Anticipate the rants, go ahead, you know they're coming...

"Grumplstiltskin"

(yes that is wedding cake to the eye, Round 1 goes to me!)

For years I have been referred to as "the dark and twisty one" of my group of friends.  Lots and lots of bad decisions, lost tempers, and other bizarre/unconventional choices over the last 15 years have earned me this title.  I mean really most of my good friendships started with me hating whoever it was for some silly reason or another.  I'm honestly lucky that anyone even speaks to me any more.  Case in point, the first time I met my would be sister-in-law, I'm pretty sure she reconsidered dating my brother, since he came with such a loud, foul-mouthed little so and so for a sister.  

I scared her, its true, she admitted it once after one too many mixed drinks.  In my defense, I had had a very bad weekend and my brother had given me no warning what so ever, that he was bringing his new girlfriend to dinner and I happened to have liked his last girlfriend quite a bit. (Over 6 years later, I am sooo glad he married the one he did, because she makes him silly happy, while the previous girl was all dark and twisty like me, which is probably why I liked her, but also why she made my brother crazy.  Also I found out my sister-in-law nearly took the ex down at a party which earned serious points with me. I know, I know, dark and twisty, yeah yeah whatever).

Anyway I share all this skeletons in the closet type stuff in the spirit of honesty and transparency, and as a bit of an explanation of why my marriage works.  Ha! I know, you were expecting me to say why marriage has problems or why I make my husband crazy or something negative like that, right?  Bear in mind while I might be a bit dark and twisty, I am still a trained therapist, I know how to make dark and twisty function almost as well as bright and cheery (and seriously what kind of person is that happy ALL the time anyway).  

I got pretty lucky when I met Tony.  He is just as dark and twisty as I am, if not more so.  We have a very affectionate and spirited marriage that regularly involves play fighting.  Our new neighbor didn't know what to do with us the other day as we stood in the yard laughingly jabbing elbows and hurling insults.  He finally gave up, smiled, and said "You guys are hilarious".  

(and that would be ice down my wedding dress, Round 2-Tony)

You see Tony has let me be me, even when being me means letting some of the angry out (I've had a lot to be angry about in my life but that's not a story for today).  Funny thing is when someone accepts you for who you are, the angry starts to go away, and you're left with all the good stuff that was hiding behind it.  We're certainly not the model of a "normal" marriage.  He's purposely gross, I purposely rib gouge, but we're best friends, and we give as good as we get.  It's like Tony always says, "If we were nicer to each other we' probably just get bored and move on".

So while our marriage may require protective gear at times (kidding mom, we were zip lining!), I got to love that this Grumpy Gus loves my F*ed up, Insecure, Neurotic, Emotional (get it? F.I.N.E., counselor humor hehe) dark and twisty butt.

"A fair is a veritable smorgasbord orgasbord orgasbord."

You all remember Templeton from Charlotte's Web, you know, the rat.  Well there is this song sings while he runs under the fairgrounds, and it was stuck in my head the whole time we walked around the NC State Fair a few weeks ago.  I think it started when Alexis asked what we were going to do at the fair and Tony answered, straight faced, that we planned to jump in the trash bins and play around.  Gotta love my hubs dry sense of humor.  Makes the kids laugh so what the hey.

Anywho, the girls had a blast.  There were rides, food, candy, and livestock.  We even consented to one of the pay per person side shows that housed live bears in a trailer that from the outside didn't look like it would hold live people let alone half ton bears but it did.  Playful guys too, acted just as I would have imagined gigantic dogs would, playing with tires instead of chew toys.

Alexis had a blast on the rides.  She was terribly disappointed that she wasn't tall enough for most of the rides but she made the most of the ones that allowed her on with an adult.

(poor Tony had to ride the spinning ones with her, I can't handle these beasts anymore)

Bella was even allowed on a few rides: The Mouse Trap (a cat and mouse version of a Haunted House) which Tony and Bella enjoyed while I closed my eyes and did my best to blindly comfort a screaming Alexis and the Ferris Wheel, which we all enjoyed.

Since Bella only got to do a few rides, we found other things that she could do with us.

She had a blast, and I suspect she hardly knew she'd missed out on anything.

I loved watching the girls check out all of the farm animals, especially the cows.

The geese however were another matter

These suckers were trying to bite through the cages.  I'm glad Bella got over her fear of loud knows cause these guys would have sent her packing a few weeks ago.

All in all we had a great time, and fun was had by all.  Tony and I ate ourselves sick, and the girls loved having an excuse to eat all junk food all the time.  I'll leave you with a lovely pic of one of my favorites noms of the day

 (chocolate covered strawberry kabob. I die!)

ugh

Ever heard of interstial cystitis? Probably not right?  Thats probably a good thing.  I had never heard of it either, at least not until I was diagnosed with it.

So what is IC?  IC is "a long-term (chronic) inflammation of the bladder wall" source.  What does that mean?  Well really the short, not totally embarrassing talk about my bladder version is I did something wrong, ate something wrong, drank something wrong, got too stressed, missed a few med doses, something my bladder is not liking and now it is 4:18 am and I am awake and in P.A.I.N.  


I have been up for the past 3 hours doing my usual IC flair up routine:

1. take a bunch of meds
2. lie awake in bed hoping it won't get too bad
3. accept that it's getting bad
4. take more meds
5. eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich so meds don't cause vomiting
6. drink a TON of water
7. take a hot bath
8. drink more water
9. sit up for hours waiting for the sheer lack of sleep to over power the pain response and knock me back out

It's a fluid process and goes back and worth several times, usually lasting 6-8 hours.  I know sucks doesn't it. 

Let me tell you how much it sucks, I have a presentation in 5 hours, a 1 hour's drive distance away (you try driving with a spasm-ing bladder, so not cool).  I'm guessing class this morning isn't going to happen.  Hopefully my prof is understanding and doesn't hate/fail me for this.  I'm emailing my materials to him as we speak (or type rather).

As difficult of a position as this particular flair up is putting me in, it's really not worst predicament IC has caused me.  A few weeks ago Tony went on a hiking trip with his oldest brother while the girls and I stayed home because of work, school, etc.  I had a flair up one night that week.  Talk about a crash course in parenting.  Keeping a brave face, cooking dinner, helping with homework, feeding children, all the usual stuff, plus being in immense pain is HARD!  Our 2 yr old isn't too difficult to distract but our poor tender-hearted 6 yr old pretty much can't find out anything is wrong or else she worries over it for days.  Literally days.  When I had my wisdom teeth taken out, she checked in with me several times daily for weeks to see "is your tooth still hurting you?  maybe we should go to the doctor"

So sure it might be now 4:42 am and I might have an estimated 2-3 more hours of this but at least my girls and my husband get to sleep on blissfully unawares and I can whimper and eat my pb&j without fear of discovery

"It's quiet...too quiet"

Usually we think of fireworks as being pretty great, right?  And literal ones typically are, but the non-literal, verbal, interpersonal ones that have been going off in my house since yesterday?  Not so so groovy.  

This is the part where I type a bunch of stuff that I really shouldn't put out onto the internet, reread it, realize that I shouldn't put it out there, and delete it.  Bah!

Have no illusions, being a step-parent is hard, and is not for the faint of heart.  I knew this going in to my marriage and took it on happily.  I knew what baggage came with my new family.  It's not that I'm complaining about that really, it's just that the last 6 months I have gotten a taste of what our life is like without the baggage and now that I'm having to face reality again, I'm having some growing pains.  :-(  

"had a bad day again"

Ok so no today was not a bad day, today was actually a pretty good day.  It's really tomorrow that I expect to be bad.  Tomorrow is the day that I've been dreading.  I talked about it here, so I won't go into another lengthy explanation.  The short version is that the first wife is going to be back tomorrow.  She called tonight to schedule a visit with the kids tomorrow afternoon.  We told them they'd see her then, they're excited.  I wish I could share in their enthusiasm...

"Its not easy being green"

I have a slightly unhealthy attachment to the color green.  We have been in a serious relationship for about 15 years now and really as much as I love Tony, I don't see Green and I parting ways any time soon.

My poor husband, who was pretty big on neutral and slightly more saturated than pastel colors, has had to adjust his mindset on appropriate color choices for home decor since marrying me.  I LOVE color, and given the choice I'll choose green 9 times out of 10.  The remaining 1 time is because I feel bad for making Tony live in a green room and want to "compromise" with something like say a bright orange (hallway color, LOVE it).  

When it came time for registering for wedding presents, I knew I wanted one thing.  A KitchenAid standing mixer.  If you have one you understand, if you don't you have no idea how much easier your life could be.  Imagine my joy when this bad boy made it's way into my home.

Pinterest is certainly not helping with the obsession.  I can't get this bathroom out of my mind since I repinned it from my sister-in-law's sister's pinterest board.

My lovely, generous, wonderful little 6 year old doesn't help either.  The sweetheart "surprised" me with a green glow stick last night because "I know green's your favorite color, Mom"

(seriously how did I get such a sweetie for a daughter)

And this room by Girl in Air simply makes me giddy

And just to fully stress the point of my obsession.  Check out some wedding pics

(Can you guess Tony's favorite color?)