Wild couple of weeks!

I didn't realize until today that I hadn't updated my blog in almost two weeks! I've been, and continue to be, pretty busy, so I'll try to catch everyone up.
First, I finished my first paper for law school, and I feel really good about it. I get it back today, so we'll see if my professor felt the same way :) I poured something like 20 hours into it, and it was only 5 pages long, double-spaced. And, I'm sure you will all be surprised to know that I completed it and printed it more than 24 hours before it was due! I am really trying hard to avoid my former procrastinating ways.
I am in the middle of midterms, so in addition to the paper, I've been studying my little fanny off. In the last two weeks, I've spent an average of 70 hours a week at school. yay. I'm trying to get a better handle on maximizing my time. Part of the problem continues to be that I can't run home for a snack to refresh myself or for a quick nap or study break since I live an hour from school. So, I take breaks here, like walking to a coffee shop or reading magazines online. The breaks are good, they are needed, but it means I am now usually leaving school around 7 instead of 5.
I started my volunteer position for HOMELine (www.homelinemn.org) I will be taking calls on the hotline from renters that need help with issues with their lease, landlord, etc. I am excited to get started with that. At my training, the worst call was from 4 college students that had rats in their house! And the worst is that the landlord told them they would need to pay for the exterminator! (That is, by the way, the landlord's responsibility, not the tenant's) Should be interesting!
And, I've conquered my first mid-term. 1 down, 3 to go! I feel pretty good about it. And, even if I didn't, I don't have time to dwell on it because I have 3 more to study for. I will be done with mid-terms on Oct. 8th (at 2:45 pm.) I start my fall break on Oct. 10. I'm looking forward to a week off to relax and catch up on ZZZZs. Plus, I'll be entertaining a few visitors.
And, for your reading enjoyment, a story of wardrobe malfunction:
(for any man reading this, this paragraph will probably be totally lost on you, so proceed to the end.)
I had occasion to wear panty hose last week, and it was very much to my detriment. I had picked up a new variety that promised no panty lines, and no bulges thanks to a slimming control top with no waistband. Women, rejoice! Or, so I thought. As I got dressed, I was so impressed, I decided I'd go back and get 10 pair more they looked so good!
I headed off to school, and since, miraculously, I arrived almost 30 minutes early, I decided I'd walk 3 blocks to a coffee shop near school. As I walked, I noticed that the hose were slipping down a bit. We all know there is no "classy" way to solve this problem in public, so I thought that I'd right them in the bathroom in the coffee shop. The bathroom was occupied, and since I was only 3 blocks from school, I figured I'd just wait until I got back to school. Block 1, the hose started slipping to about mid-butt cheek. By block 2, they are sliding down mid-thigh. Once they got going, it was really like an avalanche. The lower they got, the faster they rolled down! I was 20 feet from the door to the school when they had reached my knees. If you ever did one of those games where you have to walk with a ball between your knees, it was like that. In rush hour traffic. With people staring. The horror.
I managed to make it to the bathroom at school to rectify them before they got to my ankles. Turns out, bulging or not, you need a waistband on pantyhose.
All in all, things are good. I'll probably have little occasion to write before Fall Break starts, so for now, I sign off.

so wrong

This morning started like most mornings: late. I have actually managed to sleep clean through my alarm several times lately, so I think it's time for a new noise on the alarm clock that I haven't learned to tune out. That said, I decided it would be best to skip the task of making coffee at home, and, if I had time, grab a cup when I got to campus before class. This was all fine and good. I had 10 full minutes before class started. This is not enough time to run to any coffee vendor on campus, but just enough time to use the Nescafe machine next to the pop machines in our Student Center.
This was my first encounter with said machine. For those of you not familiar, this machine has a variety of buttons to select the size of the cup, and even how much creamer you would like. Most importantly, it is cheap. 75 cents will buy you survival; not bliss, but hey, it's caffeine.
I plug in my change, make my selection (strong brew, large, and extra Coffeemate.) My classmate and I are chatting, and then I notice, it dropped the cup down, yet it appears to be empty. I investigate, and remove the cup. It is very hot and full, yet it's white. No sign of coffee. The machine dispensed to me, at the expense of 75 cents, a 12-oz (yah, that's "large"-please, have you seen my normal intake?) steaming cup of creamer!!! It almost evoked tears. I was desperate, desperate for a cup of coffee, and I got creamer. Not to mention that even if I had been brave enough to give the machine another go, I had used every cent in my little coin purse, and the Nescafe machine does not take plastic. "So wrong,"I kept muttering the whole 3 flights up to my class, "So wrong."

The good news is, as observed in earlier blog posts, I can run to Starbucks if I have 15 minutes. So, after forcing myself through 1 hour and 15 minutes of class, I bolted down the stairs, grabbed my books, dashed down the block (yes, I actually ran,) got my Pumpkin Spice Latte, dashed back and made it into my seat with one minute to spare. As I enjoyed my liquid joy in a paper cup, I noticed that Starbucks has a new slogan: "We don't just want to make your drink; We want to make your day." Mission accomplished, Starbucks, mission accomplished.

Recipe of the Week: Italian Mini-Chicken Pot Pies

For those of you who don't know, I spent the last three years writing weekly e-newsletters (a weekly email with updates, opportunities and a recipe) to the 1,000 partner non-profits with Food Bank of the Rockies. I had a section called Kookin' with Kelli that featured a recipe using items that were currently available at Food Bank of the Rockies. I was missing that part of my week, so I have been testing out some new recipes on my husband and father-in-law. I don't know that you'll get a recipe every week, but we'll see how this goes.
Last week, I made the Eggplant Lasagna, which was pretty tasty! It left me with some leftover ricotta cheese, Parmesan cheese, fresh basil and tomatoes. My mission yesterday was to use up some of these things, as well as some grilled chicken breasts we had leftover from another dinner. Result: Mini-chicken pot pies (the recipe called them "ricotta cups" which didn't seem to sell my audience on them, so Andy called them chicken pot pies.)
They were a smash hit with both Andy and Mike, and me, of course! They were very easy, especially since I had the cooked chicken on hand. We served it with a salad and everyone was stuffed!
Recipe of the Week: Italian Mini-Chicken Pot Pies
1 9-inch pie crust (thawed if using frozen)
2 cooked chicken breasts, diced
1 cup ricotta cheese or cottage cheese
1/2 shredded cheddar cheese
1/4 cup plus 2 Tbs. shredded Parmesan cheese
2 eggs lightly beaten
2 tsp. Dijon mustard
1/4 cup fresh basil leaves, chopped
1 Roma or plum tomato, diced
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. black pepper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Line 8 cup muffin tin with paper liners or spray with cooking spray. Divide pie crust into 8 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball, then press into muffin cup so that crust comes 3/4 the way up the side. Set aside.
Combine chicken, ricotta, cheddar, 1/4 cup of Parmesan, eggs, mustard, basil, tomato, salt and pepper and mix well. Evenly divide mixture among prepared muffin cups. Top each with remaining Parmesan cheese. Bake 20 minutes, until a knife inserted into the middle comes out clean.
Delicious! Enjoy!
Serves 4

Touch Football Semi-champions!

Since everyone seems completely astonished that I would play football, let me start by saying, "Thanks for the vote of confidence, y'all!" I admit that I hate running, and sweating, so I can see where you are coming from, but I do love football. I decided this could be a great opportunity for a few laughs and to get to know some of my classmates better. My team is the up top picture, compliments of the team photographer, my husband Andy, of course!

A handful of my classmates and I faced of against the sections from the 2nd and 3rd year classes for the Touch Football Tournament, and we won the first two games, then lost the championship game to one of the 3rd year teams. I contribute this largely to exhaustion and heat. Sweltering would probably be an overstatement, but see the next paragraph for why even a normal heat would make me sweaty.

The rules of also stated that at least 3 girls must be on the field at all times, and that for every 3 plays, a girl must touch the ball at least once. Like most of the other teams, we had few girls. At first we had only 4 girls, and 13 guys. We successfully convinced one of our onlooking classmates to play after one long sweaty game so that we could have more girls to rotate in so each of us could get some more downtime. That made a huge difference!

The first pic of me, to be fair, is after the ball bounced off my leg. I am actually a pretty terrible catch, but I worked hard to do defense. While we were out to have fun, and we did, some teams were a little more, how shall I say this? Evil. We didn't let it get in the way of a great day. Even though we didn't win, everyone on my team was really great and I was really proud of myself for running all afternoon.

password for pictures

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enjoy!
Kelli

perfect day

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A perfect day..

Today was a nearly perfect day. I say nearly perfect, rather than completely perfect, because today's class de jour was less than riveting. We talked about whether or not you capitalize which words in titles (for example, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest) for almost 30 minutes, and my classmates, who evidently didn't have elementary, middle school, high school and college grammar under their belts had questions which prolonged the discussion further. Normally, this wouldn't actually irritate me, but it was really putting a damper on my blissfull day. See the slideshow above for pictures of my day.



First thing this morning, well before the sun rose, I had to awake to do homework. I was tasked to write a Personal and Professional Development Plan (see how I use those grammar skills to discern which words get capital letters?) I got to meet with my mentor today, so I had to prepare this "Plan" as well as do a little research about her and her work. I wrote, researched, ironed, blow-dried and put on panty-hose (for every man reading this, you have no idea.) Then, I hit the road. Well, not until after I made Andy take my picture, 5 times.



I spent an hour with my mentor resisting the urge to say "I want your job" and "You are my hero." She is everything I want to be and do as far as work and life goals go. I told Andy that I was focusing on observing and absorbing all her awesomeness while keeping myself from seeming like I might start stalking her. In a nutshell, she is a litigator on behalf of city and municipal governments primarily in employment disputes. Every opportunity for me to work with her that she mentioned, I responded to with a little girl clap and "That sounds amazing!" More to follow on those experiences.



Then, it was time for lunch. I had heard an ad on the radio for a cheese shop on University and Hennepin. I've been getting really lost a lot lately, so I thought I'd give intuition my best shot and try to find it. I found the cheese shop, and a block of shops, restaurants, bars and other such chic things that I have dubbed "the happiest place on earth."See picture, which doesn't really do it justice, but you get the idea. At least, it's my happy place. I think it may be a regular ritual to visit this 2 block area for some cheese, funky retail therapy and a latte. I got this amazing giant sticker called a laptop skin for my laptop. The big red bag isn't Santa Claus's gift toter, either, it's my school bag that holds my laptop, an expansive variety of office supplies, and even has a built-in lunch box! It's great.


Sadly, after this blissful morning, class was a little disappointing, but I made up for it. I hit the Farmer's Market near campus to pick up supplies to test out an Eggplant Lasagna recipe. I got all I needed for $5, came home and whipped up this marvelous dish, and now here I am, relishing. Oh, and blogging.

Back to School Shopping

I have spent the week observing my classmates dressed on various days in suits, some that would make Wall Street captains of industry jealous, which prompted my curiosity. It's fair to say that my usual dress of business casual is top of the line compared to my classmates, who usually sport jeans and sweatshirts. So, I had to stop a few and ask, "Not that you aren't always dapper, but what is with the suit?" They were meeting with their mentors, they all said.
Each St. Thomas Law student is assigned a practicing attorney (or judge) to mentor them and give them real world experience in the legal field. My mentor works for a non-profit that helps county and city governments become great leaders and servants for their constituents. I am not entirely sure what that entails, but I am excited to meet with her to find out. Since all my classmates have taken extra initiative to dress in their business-best, I figured I better do some shopping to pick up something suitable so that I, too, could make a good impression.
Andy and I hit the local mall yesterday to discover that hoards of families were doing back-to-school shopping as well because schools here start Tuesday after Labor Day. We looked for about 15 minutes for parking, which was nowhere near the stores we needed to visit, and then pro ceded to spend 4 grueling hours fighting our way to the racks of every store, tripping over clothes thrown on the floor and being elbowed as we squeezed out of doors back onto the sidewalk. In a word, it was insanity. I have worked my fair share of retail jobs at Christmas time, and let me just say this paled in comparison to Christmas Eve.
Which made me think, "What recession?" Are all these shoppers not feeling the impact of the economic downturn? Or are they simply living as though they aren't tight on cash. Wait, isn't that what got us in this mess in the first place? Americans are living on money we don't have to keep up appearances.
Well, in Great American fashion, I joined them and bought a classy dress that makes me look professional and polished, and makes me feel good, and I justified the slightly inflated cost by telling myself it is a quality, timeless piece that will help me down the road to get a good job and make good money. That's the right answer, isn't it?

State of a-Fairs

Today following my class, I was invited to join a few classmates at the Great Minnesota Get Together, aka, the State Fair. The State Fair here is a really BIG DEAL. This State Fair is like the county fair on Miracle Grow. And, as far as I can tell, the main objective is to eat a whole lot of fried food.
Here's what I sampled (over the course of about 2 hours; don't try this at home):
Poncho dog: this was the best corn dog I've ever had! Could be because it's been about 10 years, probably, since I've had one.
Fried Cheese curd:s these were a little disappointing, honestly. They weren't even as good as the $1 mozzarella sticks at Sonic.
Wine ice cream: chocolate raspberry wine and raspberry red wine flavors-neither tasted anything like wine, so we skipped these after the samples
Fried Reeses' Peanut Butter cups: Delicious, wrong, but delicious. And delicious mostly because it was warm and melty. Next time, I'll just microwave my Reeses' cup or leave it in my car on a hot day and skip the extra calories from the batter, which was flavorless, and deep frying, although I was supposed to be reassured by the sign stating "No Transfats!"
Bucket of Chocolate chip cookies-we shared 2 dozen cookies between us 5, so not that bad, and again, all warm and melty-yum! And that was the small bucket. The medium bucket was teeming over with 4 dozen. I don't even want to imagine what is in the big bucket. Because the buckets are overflowing, there literally thousands of cookies that had been mushed into the pavement near the stand. Imagine gum petrified to the pavement, only thousands of chocolate chip cookies. Disturbing.
Roasted Corn on the Cob: this was pretty tasty, but definitely not worth $3 when it's in season $10 for 10 at the store.
and last, but certainly not least....
Fried Dill Pickles with Ranch dressing: this was AMAZING, divine, actually, and has made me think that maybe I do need a FryDaddy after all
All in all, I wasn't "impressed" with the fair, but it made me decide that in the unlikely event that law school doesn't work out, I'll work for the Food Network going to fairs and festivals, eating bizarre foods and reviewing them. I wouldn't mind that diner review gig either. Plus, I'm totally cuter than Al Roker.