Cooking like a real chemist!

Last week I got to experience a pretty intense dose of chemistry review. Tamara and I are determined to get an A in this class. The class has taken a lot of my time this last week, and this is going to continue for at least another 5 weeks. Herbie is getting a lot bigger too fast. He has been a great chemistry student though. Since the lab is the same lab I have already done a few years ago, everything was familiar. During lab, we separated a ternary mixture. We used ammonium chloride, sodium chloride (table salt), and silicon dioxide (sand) and combined them together. We were asked to separate each compound from the mixture by using different methods. The coolest part was heating the mixture and watching the ammonium chloride sublime from the table salt and sand. I was standing in the lab with my lab coat and goggles on with a glass stirring rod in my hand stirring my mixture over a Bunsen burner, and as I was watching the thick white smoke of ammonium chloride evaporate from my dish, I was thinking to myself, "I am cooking like a real chemist!" So far the math in Chemistry seems really easy. Understanding how ions combine to form different compounds, balancing equations, and relearning chemistry nomenclature has been really great. I haven't been doing chemistry for a long time, so this review was a really good idea.
The week ended at "Ditch Friday", but I didn't really ditch from school to go. Sharon and I had a little bit of fun. It turned out to be a really windy day, but it was still very relaxing. Well, I have to get back to doing my homework...

The Pursuit of Happiness in San Diego

Sharon and I went to San Diego for a couple of days to embark on a memorable trip. We woke up bright and early on Tuesday, and were on the road by 8:30am. We made great time when we finally arrived in San Diego at around 2:00pm. We hadn't planned on seeing anything in particular while we were there, we just wanted to have a good time away from home. Our first destination was the "gaslamp district" downtown. We walked for hours to find a place to have lunch. We were famished because we discovered that we were both indecisive people when it came to what we wanted to eat. So we finally decided to eat at "Taste & Thirst" on 4th street. I had a greek wrap and Sharon had a pepperjack cheeseburger. Sharon proclaimed her burger to be the best burger she had in a long time. I thought my greek wrap was good, and it was certainly a portion large enough to share! However, it wasn't made the way I wanted it to be made, which was with their tasty rasberry dressing :( Instead they made it with blue cheese! Finally, her friend Pia got off work and directed us to her apartment near Mission Hills. It was a very cute little apartment and I was happy to have Pia be very hospitable to me especially since she didn't know me. She took us out that evening to a really nice wine bar in Point Loma. I remember getting a "daisy" flight and half a cheese board, and really enjoyed talking and laughing with Sharon and Pia. We had planned to have a night out on the town "like the good old days" but we ended up running out of gas by the time we left the wine bar. We decided to have a movie night instead and put on "Benjamin Button". I don't think any of us stayed up to finish the movie!

The next day we woke up bright and early and went shopping in PB. We walked up and down Garnet to kill time until Pia got off work. For lunch, we both really wanted Thai food. Sharon suggested we use this application on my Iphone that helps you locate restaurants, it was called "urban spoon". I really love this application, it has a GPS system that locates where you are... and all you have to do is choose what kind of food you are interested in and it will show you the nearest restaurants to you that serves the kind of food you like. That is how we found Karinya in PB. It was very tasty. We shared yellow curry and pad thai. The yellow curry was amazing and the pad thai needed some more bean sprouts and peanuts. We also went to the beach and strolled up and down the boardwalk and and do what Sharon loves to do, check out the hotties:) We took some photos out on the beach and got lots of sunshine.
Later that night we went to little Italy and had dinner at "Buon Appetito", which in Italian means "have a good meal". I had risotto made with truffled oil and Parmesan cheese. It really hit the spot :) I found a caffe latte at "Cafe Zucchero" after our meal and we went back to Pia's to plan our night out. Again, we ran out of gas and decided to just go to a bar called "Starlite". It felt like a star was lighting inside. It was two stories, and the upper part of the restaurant was open air and you can stare at the stars! It also had a bar, tables and heating lamps. We had a really nice time out together. The next morning we went out to La Jolla. I wanted to take Sharon to this breakfast place I have been to a few times last year that overlooks the beach, but it was closed by the time we arrived. So we found Cody's next door. That was our last hours in San Diego. We were sad to have to leave San Diego, but I couldn't wait to see Herbie. Sharon played the beach boys and we drove back to Vegas.







Me and Sharon heading home from La Jolla, Ca.

Day Before Mothers Day :)

I really love being a mother. It truly is the greatest feeling in the world. He is learning how to smile. I would kiss him and he would open his mouth with his big eyes lit up displaying this excitement that makes me melt. He is getting really big, he has doubled in size since the day I brought him home. Herbie loves to play "bouncy baby" and "peek a boo". We recently purchased a really nice swing that plays music and automatically swings back and forth. I am not sure if he likes it as much as his carseat. Ricky has conditioned him to fall asleep in the carseat. I don't really like it, but it works. We found a great deal for the swing at the Pickled Pepper event for $40, along with a few bags of really neat baby toys that were packaged into bags that cost only $3! The swing probably would have cost $200 brand new, and each individual toy could have been $5 to $10 so we saved a lot of money going there.

I have been waiting for this week to come since January. It's been 5 months of very hard work, and hours and hours of studying... now that it is over, it feels so good! I love walking around feeling really confident that I know how to differentiate and integrate various types of functions. I also really enjoyed professor Starks lectures, and studying with Tamara. She will be my new study buddy this summer too. No more stressing out about those classes. And yes, I am crazy enough to take summer classes too! How exciting!

I have been so busy with school and work and my own family that I don't have very much time for my friends. Not that I have many, but the ones who are in my life- I really do cherish. It's a good thing that Jan lives down the street and we are able to have coffee now and again. I don't get to see Anthony anymore, he lives too far, I miss his bear hugs ;) Last night I took a day off from the family to spend with my friend Sharon, the Vivacous Glamazon. We were out for 6 hours, shopping! I found some really cute sandals for $20 that were originally $50 at Guess. I was really happy about that! We also ate lunch at RA, and filled up on sushi during happy hour and our tab turned out to be $23.50! Splitting that tab was awesome! That was so much better than the damage Ricky and I did at Kaizen :( (And I doubt he is ashamed)

I am taking a mini vacation to San Diego with Sharon and we are planning to relax! I can't wait to walk around the gas lamp district and vegetate on the beach. Go shopping in Pacific Beach. We might go to Sea World too if we can find someone to hook us up! We are going to stay with her friend to avoid having to pay for a hotel. I will only be gone for two nights and I will really miss Herbie. But I realize that I won't be able to take vacation like this soon. Once Herbie grows up and begins learning how to express his feelings and notice that I am gone, I won't be able to leave. I didn't really want to go on a vacation without my family, but a little break will actually be good for us.

My first age spot. It's really horrifying. Seriously. I didn't think this day would come so soon! I went to the doctor on campus and had him check out this newly formed age spot on the side of my right cheek. He said it was nothing for me to worry about, just a sign of aging and not using enough sun screen. I also have this mole on my back that has since grown to about 3 mm in length, so I am going to have that removed soon. My doctor said it was up to me if I wanted to have it removed or not, but I don't see a reason to have it continue growing larger on my back.

Yesterday I spent an hour studying the facial moisturizers at Sephora. I can't believe a small bottle of moisturizer costs $40-$100. I don't know if I can justify paying that much for a moisturizer. I decided to try Neutrogena Healthy Defense daily moisturizer SPF 45 from Walgreens and hope it works. I hope I don't find out that this will clog my pores and have to resort to paying more for the expensive moisturizers.

I really needed a bang trim last week. I thought "how could anyone mess up a simple bang trim?" I usually go to a nice salon where I can guarantee the person working on my hair is a professional, but I thought any person who has a license to cut hair could trim my bangs. Afterall, I couldn't justify paying $40 just to have my bangs trimmed. So I went down the street to a nail salon that advertised haircuts for $9. It was a disaster. The minute she began touching my hair and I noticed her hands trembling. I felt hopeless :( I am determined to find a hair magician and stick to him, and hope he can make this mop like du go away.

My to do list:

Register for classes
Work on being more precise
Go to bed early
Clean my apartment
Fix my bad haircut


Update: Ricky took me to "B&B Ristorante", Mario Batali's restaurant in the Venetian and we had a three course meal with wine pairings. It was great. I will post some photo's up later.