kim schmidt

Last week I decided I was going to be domesticated and make blueberry muffins from scratch. I got the recipe from The Pioneer Woman Cooks and was excited because she loved them. I was disappointed. 🙁 But they turned out nice and fluffy. That’s a plus – at least it wasn’t a total failure.

Summer is officially over. The pool has closed, college football has started, and this week school starts. I am really sad that the pool has closed – but I took advantage of it the past two days!  Fall is right around the corner, which means that winter is right behind that which brings cold, cold, cold and snow.  I am NOT looking forward to snow at all.  But let’s not rush things!  Anthony’s orientation starts next week.  I think he’s a little apprehensive but excited at the same time.  I know I’m looking forward to it.  I will finally meet people!  Thankfully PTS is awesome when it comes to spouses and families.  They actually want to make your experience enjoyable.  I mean, I’m suppose to be in the class photo (which is just beyond bizarre but whatever!)  They have lots of activities planned for the spouse’s during the week and I hope that we really find some other couples that will be our friends.

We’ve been church hunting since we arrived at the end of July.  I never knew how hard this would be.  Our past two churches (the one we got married in and then the one in Nashville) had incredible choirs, young population, and we just felt at home.  Our expectations have been high, considering the amount of Catholics in this area (I mean there are 5 churches within 15 miles of our home).  We’ve tried out 3 of them, and I think we’re going to settle with St. Paul’s.   There are many reasons, one being its right by campus and it has that younger population (and there’s a school attached), and second is they have a young adult group (which is worth its own post another day – I may be helping out with this more than I was expecting).

We are settling down a little bit and getting into a routine.  I’ve found a few grocery stores I can live with, but I like them for different reasons – none of them will ever amount to Publix.  I think I’ve got a little part-time job working in the Communications department at the seminary.  Hopefully it will get my foot in the door with the faculty and I will feel more apart of Anthony’s school experience (Vanderbilt did nothing for spouse’s and would never help you find a job much less offer a position).

It is officially college football season.  Anthony has waited patiently for 7 months for this day to come.  Unfortunately we weren’t able to watch the first Sooner game verse Chattanooga but we’re ready for the rest of the games.  I will leave you with this picture I took of our beloved Oklahoma Sooners last fall when we played the Miami Hurricanes.

Anthony & I woke up early Monday morning to go to the NJ DMV to get driver’s licenses and register our cars. Thankfully we went at the right time as we waited maybe 5 minutes to get our licenses and a few more for the tags. What took the longest was waiting on our vehicle inspections. After we got that taken care of we drove down to Philly. We had aspirations of going to see Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell and possibly the US Mint. Guess what? We only saw the Liberty Bell due to our lack of planning. We drove around forever finding Pat’s and then we stopped at Ikea. It was too late by the time we got to the Historical District to get passes to Independence Hall and it was almost 3 by the time we would have arrived at the US Mint (which they stop giving tours at that time). I’m glad we went though because we now know where, what, etc. for our next adventure.

Anthony on the steps of the 2nd Bank of America

So if you scroll down to the farm pictures you will see our crazy electronic key.  It failed us tonight.  Anthony had rented Clockwork Orange from the library and it was due today.  He finally watched it and we took it back to the library.  I grabbed my drivers license and keys, Anthony had nothing on him.  We lock up, drive to the library and come back in 10 minutes.  Then Anthony tries to unlock the door (you have to wait a few seconds for it to register and then there’s a green light) and it doesn’t work.  The green light blinks 3 times and there’s no unlocking mechanism like normal.  I start knocking on our neighbors doors hoping one of them has the emergercy number with a phone.  Thankfully we met Fran who was the sweetest ever.  She called the emergency number and it was directed to an operator in Los Angeles!  The operator preceds to tell us that if we aren’t elderly or have an infant they can’t help us, that we should call a locksmith!  Our neighbor hangs up and calls again.  Another operator answers and calls the on-site maintanence person for us (THANK YOU!)  It took 45 minutes for us to finally get back into the apartment.  Anthony’s key does work, but I’m going to have to go to the office in the morning to get a new one.  It just blows me away – what if it was later in the evening and everyone was asleep?  Then we would be really screwed.  Also, what good does an emergency maintanence number do if you can’t use it?

Have you noticed the new look?  There are several changes that will be happening over the next few days. I’m really excited about it.

Here are some pictures of our second evening at the Stults Farm. We came back when they weren’t closing up shop with my camera and some cash.

Anthony picking fresh green beans!  I can’t wait to cook them – I think they’re going to be incredible.

Anthony with our green bean loot!

This is bittermelon. I had never heard or seen these interesting melons.

Of course I had to get a picture with the bittermelon!

I know these aren’t that great of bell peppers but we picked a huge fragrant green bell pepper. Again, I can’t wait to cook it this weekend.

This is a random thing, but I wanted to take a picture of this STRANGE key. Its our house key. I think it looks like a pacifier and I won’t even mention what Anthony says it looks like. I know that its a secure thing (I mean we put it in the door, wait 5 seconds for it to register before we can lock or unlock the place). It also allows us into our pool, the workout facility and more.  Its cumbersome too!