Vegetarian Adventure

Meg and I got together at my new place tonight to try some new Vegetarian dishes. We both prefer Vegetarian cuisine but neither of us really know anyone else to experiment with so it was a treat for us both.

After perusing my Vegetarian Times colllection we decided on Jamaican Curried Tempeh Tacos (only 4 WW points!) as our main course and then we make Glazed Chocolate-Avocado Cupcakes for desert (6 WW points, which isn't terrible for a sweet splurge).

Neither of us had tried Tempeh before so we were a little dubious but it was actually really good. Better than Tofu, good consistency. The lime juice was a little overpowering though. We decided that next time we might switch out the pineapple juice for coconut milk and serve it over rice...yum.

The cupcaks - oh my gosh - SO good! You would never know they had avocado instead of butter/eggs either. I was sad that I couldn't find the recipe over at the VegTimes website, but I did find it here, which was nice. It was also nice to seee someone else trying out new Veg recipes.

Anyhow - it was a nice night of catching up and digging in. I think those cupcakes will be made again soon too.

Weather Wonders

So I'm trying to figure something out. I know that the hurricane names are chosen ahead of time. I know that they are alphabetical (skipping a few odd letters like Q) totaling 21 each year and that they alternate genders. My understanding is that when a tropical depression becomes a tropical storm (over 39 mph winds) it receives a name. Since Fay was the F name for the 08 hurricane list I assume that they use the same list for storms as hurricanes. Now, when the winds reach 80 mph it becomes a hurricane which seems to me is a more appropriate point to assign it a name from the HURRICANE list.. But anyhow. I found out that if there are more than 21 storms in a year (which is mormal since there are about 100 storms each year) they start naming the storms after the letters of the Greek alphabet.

Here is where I get lost - there are 100 tropicsl storms each year, many of which are at sea so we never hear about them. About half of the tropical storms never become hurricanes. Wouldn't those at sea storms take up all of the hurricane names pretty quickly? Shouldn't we hear about hurricanes Beta or Pi at least once each season? I don't remember ever hearing about any hurricanes with greek letter names... So how does it work then? What am I missing? Do they only use the hurricane names for the tropical storms they think will develop into a hurricane?

Can anyone help me figure this out?

PS- writing this from my new iPhone so I can't link but I got most of my info from ww.about.com and www.NHC.NOAA.gov.

Local Happenings

I've jumped right back into life here in Orlando.

I invited Mom to go see Mama Mia with me this Sunday. I kind of wanted to see the movie when I was in St. Louis last week but decided that it would be better to see with someone else. Mom started inviting others and it turned into a big girl-fest which was great! My cousin Mari even tagged along which was a treat since I don't ususally hang out with her unless there is a family event. The movie was actually much better than I thought it would be. It was basically one long music video but the did manage to fit the plot in there and the hole thing was so off the wall that it worked. The dancing and choreography were great and the singing was honest, which I liked. It was fun to see it with a group - especially when pretty much everyone was tearing up for the mother/daughter scenes ^_- however I definitely could have waited to rent it rather than spend the $10 theatre price.

Tonight I had my aunt over for dinner. That was a real treat. I can't tell you the last time we had a decent conversation. I usually see her at family events and we never really get to talk. I got to learn more about what she does for a living and what's going on in her life. She lives really close to me now, so I'm hoping that dinner can become a regular thing for us (at least when I'm in town).

Tomorrow I'm having lunch with an OOOOLLLLLD friend, like haven't seen him since HS old, then Dad is coming for dinner. See? Told you I was jumping back in. :)

Constant Motion

We're moved in for the most part. We still have art and shelves to hang and a few odds and ends, but for all intensive purposes, we're done.


Man, we are not looking forward to doing that again anytime soon! First we had major issues with Budget and our rental truck. Then our friend Rick was supposed to come into town to help us drive down and thanks to weather and flight issues, he never could make it in. So here we have Chris driving a big rig that pulls insesently to the right and me driving Chris's M3 with minimal experience driving a stick. Yuck!

We made it though and Chris's cousins did a great job helping us unload. Mom and John helped us shop for some new furniture and they even stuck around to help us assemble it.

I posted pictures of the move and the new place on Flickr here if you're interested.

Last Friday Chris managed to organize a surprise party for me. I had NO CLUE! We even passed the Pratts on the highway and like a ditz I still didn't figure it out. Chris gathered most of my family and some of his at a swanky joint called Seasons 52 which I love. The hostess, I thought, was going to take us to an empty two-top, but instead she turned the corner and there everyone was waiting for us. It was great! Definitely a nice finish to a stressful week.

Then last week, just days after we got into town, we both had to up and leave. Chris had to fly out for work and I had to visit a customer lcoation. Thankfully it was good timing, we left just in time for the flooding and my parents had Roger so all was taken care of. The customer site in in St. Louis and I actually had time to scope out the city this time around - for the most part I got cheesy or artsy shots, but you can check those out here.


Oh, I almost forgot - the big news. Chris finally made the Utley family a true iPhone family - he got me one for my birthday. I'm testing it out for now, if I dont' like it I can always go back and he can take my new one. But so far I think I like it. It's nice to have access to so much information, some of the little widgets are really helpful, like UrbanSpoon - right up my ally.

Anyhow-I'm procasitnating, I should be working right now....

FL residents

We're all moved in. Now we just have to unpack.

Yay.