acclimating to the new life

if i told you that my husband and i made a delicious tofu dinner last night, would you think that i got remarried? well, prepare your mind to be blown, because i am not, in fact, remarried, but last night we feasted on this spicy vegan peanut butter tofu with sirracha, thanks to Kalyn's Kitchen. we've got a groove going for our meal planning, and we've employed a number of recurring "themed" nights, including a meatless monday. i'm not going to lie to you, this was delicious. but it almost burned my face off. it's kind of an iterative process to figure out what my tolerance level for sirracha really is.

berry and bread bounty

another part of our routine has become this weekday farmers market. i think that i've gushed about this a bit before, but we are really loving it. we've capitalized on their bread, pastry, and veggie selection and have eaten there every tuesday that we've been in town. we also tried this ice cream made from oatmeal. (if you're wondering how that went, just picture us saying, "what the heck?! this is made from oatmeal!!" about 5,000 times in a row. and then think more about a creamy ice cream than a sweet ice cream. that pretty much covers it). now, hopefully that description and my photos makes you think that we are well-rounded shoppers, because i'd be lying if i said that today we didn't come home with the following bag: raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, and peaches. we got a little bit out of control with

the fruit.

work-related preparations have been happening this week. matt and i are both still assembling our laboratories. outside of waiting for his internet ports to be turned on, he's got one room that is pretty much ready to go. this means that he should be ready to start collecting data a soon as his study protocols are deemed ethical by the internal review board, and that's pretty awesome as far as quick work goes. he's also put quite a bit of time into revamping his website, which looks great (in my humble opinion) and can be viewed by all here. my setup is a bit slower-going. i'm still deciding how my temporary setup will work, given that the construction definitely won't be happening. however, i did hire two students this week who will work part-time in the lab and interviewed another who seems interested in some independent work with me. between my continuing lab setup and matt's prepping two courses for the coming semester (we start on monday the 26th), the work routine is still being worked out.

Bozeman from Drinking Horse Mountain

its been pretty hot here (i mentioned that nobody has air conditioning, right? :), so we made sure to do our weekend hike last weekend during the morning hours, before the heat was at its maximum. we actually made it to the summit of drinking horse mountain - which is over a mile high according to this website - via a short but very steep trail. being at the top was totally worth it, though, because the views looking back at bozeman were terrific. and matt even let me get a picture of him this time, because i'm pretty sure that his mom wants to see his smiling face on occasion, too :)

then we came back home and were very, very thankful that there is no humidity here. because if there was, that story would end, "and then we spent the whole day looking for window air units."  

the coming week is full of more of the same plus orientations, pot lucks, and welcome-type events for us. it's starting to feel like we actually have a home and jobs here!

(also, if you notice the date on the top of this post, it just happens to be my mom's birthday today. so, happy birthday, Mom!)