Great day to be alive!

My morning started early. Quite early for a Saturday morning as I arose slightly after my alarm clock went off at 5:30 am. You know in the moment I think, "Why am I actually doing this? Getting up this early so I can drive to Topeka for a service appointment on Mom's car a 7:30am. It's definitely not that big of a deal and now that I am into the morning hours I am quite thankful for the appointment that started my day off early.

The Lord blessed me abundantly this morning with an amazing sunrise. Prior to the viewing of the giant ball of flame on the horizon I enjoyed using my imagination to see the mountains view that was created from a cloud formation with just the right light to really appear as if I was traveling into the mountains.  I have already gotten the oil change and enjoyed the free coffee in the waiting room. Following this brief appointment in Topeka I zipped on over to Lawrence for my favorite stop, WheatFields. Let's just say that WheatFields at 9am on a Saturday is quite crazy. But I love it. I thoroughly enjoyed my fritata sandwich on sourdough bread. I left the store with three loaves of bread and a bran muffin. Presently, I am enjoying my pumpkin pie latte at a nearby book store and hope to finally order my seeds for the future abundant life on Round-to-it Farms.

Life is good and God is Greater!

Comprehension

Grading baking laboratory reports makes my head hurt. Right about now I am really wondering how much I actually learned while pursueing my own bakery sciency degree. So much of the formal education system is about hearing or reading something and then regurgitating it at a later date. When that date passes, the information gained tends to leave the mind. It isn't until we are asked to upchuck it again do we really know how much we learned or did not. Seriously, grading these lab reports has showed me how many of the details I simply forgot or never truely understood. It is now that others' grades are dependent on me that I am forced to attempt to really understand. I'm learning a lot, but it comes with a little bit of pain. A headache as I read and reread the same material over and over again. The comprehension is coming, this is good.

Excitement!

I woke up this morning pretty excited for the day. Tara walked by my room and announced her excitement for the day as well and we both decided that it was going to be a great day! Attitude is everything; I only wish I could wake up everyday as excited to get it going. What would that take?

IHOP harvest grain and nut pancakes loaded with blueberries and topped with banana made the start to my day great! Did you know they have bottomless pancakes and coffee there? Imagine what you would turn into if you sat there daily and ate pancake after pancake, cup after cup of coffee. Do you think they ever have to throw people out for doing that? I wonder. We went to breakfast with neighbor friends. So good to have such great community out here.

I may not have a personal Valentine this weekend, but my boss/advisor, Dave, gave me a valentine. Never can go wrong with chocolate. After he gave me that, he advised I get the small portion at lunch and make sure to swim hard at the Y. Thanks Dave.

Lunch at The Chef (http://www.thechefcafe.com/) was great. Tara and I ate with a former student of Tara's and housemate of mine. She's pretty great and the veggie wrap and homestyle potatoes I ate were scrumptious. Even though I didn't eat the smallest portion possible, we did make it to swimming at YMCA. Nothing like a good swim before the afternoon naptime.

Tara and I are headed to KC tomorrow to visit my favorite McDowell family ever and probably eat some more really great food. Tonight I made pumpkin bread for added dining delight! Mmm.

Bake lab chemistry

Today in the bake lab there was some serious chemistry going on. Sadly, I'm not talking about the kind when my future husband walks into the room, sweeps me off my feet and takes me away to eat vegetables and bread together. Today I'm talking about the chemistry, laws of physics, or whatever science explains the collection of static electricity in the air. We had some serious electron activity going on as student #1 and I attempted to sift some innocent powdered sugar. It was so serious, as I stood a good 4 inches away from the table and did the total body workout of giggling back and forth in just the right manner to sift the substance, the electricity built up jumped from the table to my leg and zapped me. So loud, others could hear the action as it hit me. Thinking that possibly we were just idiots sifting through a metal sifter on a metal table, we switched to the wooden table. Same thing. As the powdered sugar came through the sieve instead of falling in a nice moutain, you could see it jumping out and attaching to our clothing. Shocks still occuring, we decided they need to put a warning label on those bags of powdered sugar. I'm sure the fact that it's winter in Kansas and if it's not currently raining there is 0% humidity might have something to do with it. But really, although I have a science degree my science reasoning right now can't really come up with any better explanation of the serious chemistry going on in the bake lab today.

Why does life have to be a marathon?

Wow. I've been the Bakery Lab Manager for five whole weeks now and I'm about to make one of those comments I feel like I say often and after everytime I say it I vow to never again say, "It's crazy how time flies." But it's true. Although I only work four days a week, Monday through Thursday, I definitely feel like for those days I manage to accomplish only bakery lab duties. When I get home at the end of the day, with all the greatest intentions of accomplishing great things, my routine has all too often resulted in eating, doing some mindless activity for about an hour and then going to sleep. Yes, my bedtime is about 9:00pm. I think last week I had lights out at 8:30. Lame I know, but man sweeping up those mouse droppings, scrubbing out those metal bowls, and eating all that Apple Brown Betty really tires out this little puppy. Let's just say it's a really good thing that I have added the fairly regular exercise back into my schedule because my job is definitely a hazard to my health. There is a reason why my advisor, aka, the head baker man, remains skinny, despite making some mean baked products. He is a marathon runner, not just your average 30something mile marathon, but 100 mile marathon runner. I think he might have gotten me convinced to train for a half marathon. There's not much convincing to do, I really need to take up running so I can eat more. More to come on that when I'm ready to make a serious committment.