Coconut Joys

Summer is in full swing!  I'm reveling in these sunny mornings, hot nights and long days.  I've moved around a lot in the past few years and I always get very confused with the rising of the sun.  My hometown of Amherst, NY is situated right in the middle of the Eastern time zone.  I grew up with summer nights lasting until nine or ten o'clock at night.  Fireworks on the fourth of July couldn't start until at least 9:30 because it was still too sunny before that time.

When I moved to Wisconsin I moved to the leading edge of the Central time zone.  This meant that the days started earlier and they ended earlier, but it also meant that television was on a whole hour earlier!  I loved having Letterman on at ten pm.  Eleven o'clock shows on the weeknights are just too early for me. 

Moving to Colorado proved to be the biggest shock.  Not only is Boulder at the leading edge of the mountain time zone, but it's also the furthest south that I've ever lived.  As winter fell away from the mountains, it would bring the sun to greet you at 4:30 in the morning.  I was so confused my first year there, wonding how on earth the sun could be up at that hour.  Crazy sun, go back to sleep.  At least the Daily show was on at nine pm.  I could get my dose of Jon Stewart and Stephen Clobert and hit the pillows by ten.  The mountain time zone is great!

I joked that I was going to try and live in every time zone before I was thirty.  Since I've moved back to the east coast with only a few months left before the big three-o, I don't think that's going to happen.  But that's okay.  I like this coast, I think I'll stay here for a while.

Cream of Asparagus Soup

I have some terrible news people.  Yesterday morning was going so well, until I went to dry my hair.  My favorite (only), trusty hair dryer was working its magic until it decided it had enough.  With half wet hair, my hair dryer coughed, sputtered and exhaled one final hot breath, then died.  I tried shaking it, pushing buttons, turning it on and off.  Even the tried and true electronic fix of unplugging and pluggin back in did nothing. 

I am now mourning the loss of my hair dryer.  I am also looking all sorts of crazy.  I guess the one bright side of no longer owning a functioning hair dryer (I like to call it an art piece right now) is that I leave the house twenty minutes earlier in the morning.  WIN?

 

Fruit and Yogurt Jars

The heat of the summer is starting to hit most of the country and I’m very excited. I’m the type of person who will not put on shorts until it’s at least 80 outside. And that’s a humid 80. When I lived in Colorado, it routinely got up to 100 degrees during the summertime. However, you would still see me going to work in jeans. I know it sounds cliché, but it’s totally true! It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity, blah blah blah…

Well, I’m back on the coast and there’s definitely humidity here. Lots of it. I can see all the humidity hanging in the air when I open my blinds in the morning. My mornings have been going like this… Alarm goes off – I wake up, excited for a new day. I walk to the windows and open the blinds. My day turns to bad as I realize my hair is going to be crazy today. I’m going to look like Einstein, minus the snazzy mustache.

With all this heat and humidity, I have also been avoiding turning on my oven. Mostly because I’m too cheap to turn on my air conditioning. It was the exact opposite in the winter, when I baked a lot because I was too cheap to turn on my heat. What can I say, I’m a postdoc, we are a cheap bunch. So, instead of baking, I’ve been churning ice cream, making no-bake candies and tossing salads. Today I give you a light, refreshing snack. It’s full of vitamins and topped off with a bunch of protein-rich Greek yogurt. Enjoy some and stay cool!