Blue Apron

Sunday Funday

/ Amanda / Leave a comment

Hi everyone! How was your weekend?

We didn’t work at all! This may be a first. It’s super exciting when you don’t work on the weekend in grad school. A rare beauty of a weekend. Therefore we took advantage of the freedom and lazed and ran and biked and chilled and it was awesome.

Friday night we cooked the first of the week’s Blue Apron meals. Before….

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And after!!

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This was definitely a good recipe. Which is high praise since I’m not a huge pork fan. The carrots in butter completely stole the show (they’re in the picture I promise). Here’s the link to the recipe if you wanna try it out sometime –> Pork Chop Recipe

Saturday was long run day. I got through 6.5 miles with an 8:50 min pace and felt fantastic the whole time! Steve accomplished his longest run yet…yay Steve!

We also spent an embarrassing amount of time watching Dr. Who until we decided that we should get out of the house and attempt to behave like normal people. This is what people do right? So we trekked over to World of Beer and had a couple pints. My second Imperial Golden Stout was particularly delicious. Steve’s IPAs were gross and also gross.

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We then decided to hang out with Kevin and Rachel (Hi Kevin and Rachel!!) at Sahara, one of the local hookah bars. It was a fantastic end to a lazy day.

Today was forecast to be warm (70 degrees in February…OMG unheard of) so the goal of the day was to be outside as much as possible.

I went for a 20 mile easy bike ride (averaged 15 mph on rolling hills) although the headwind/crosswind was insane. How is it that no matter what direction you are going, there is always, always a solid headwind in yo face. Ugh. The worst. Also, I’m a dork and forgot to take a picture of me on the bike, so here’s one after I finished with my bike tire in the background. Also also…please ignore how pale I am.

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The sunshine and warmth continued through the afternoon so we, and everyone else in Raleigh, took the dog out for a walk. We tried to wear her out (we failed) by letting her splash and play in the creek and romp with a new friend.  Here’s the creek before Indy got all up in it!

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So pretty 🙂

What adventures did you go on this weekend?

 

 

It’s Finally Friday

/ Amanda / Leave a comment

Hi friends and happy Friday! How has your week been? It’s been a little random over here (aka why posting has been random).

We had to prepare a working demo for a last min presentation on Wednesday, so Tuesday turned into a 14 hr work day. But … it was worth it because the demo worked! It was pretty awesome, not gonna lie.

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This is what it looked like after everything was assembled and hooked up. I can tell you that it uses TEGs (thermoelectric generators) to produce electrical power from body heat, but that’s about it (confidentiality stuff).

Even though I left work at 10pm, I was pretty pumped and motivated so I headed over to the gym for a short treadmill run. Ran about 2.5 miles in 21 min with a couple of sprints thrown in there at the end for a good sweaty end to the day!

Yesterday we got in another Blue Apron! (Note: we don’t receive any compensation for this, we just get really excited about food)

wpid-20150205_152018.jpgLook at all the food!! We’ll keep you updated on how this week’s recipes taste 🙂

This morning we took it easy, no thanks to a certain dog-who-shall-not-be-named who was ruthless in her quest for morning cuddles and pets. She has mastered those super sad puppy eyes that say “love me”….gets me every time!

I decided to whip up a bowl up unphotogenic oatmeal (added in some almond butter, chocolate whey protein powder, and a few semi-sweet chocolate chips) before heading into work for more testing and more fabrication.

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What are your plans for Friday night?

– today is First Friday in Raleigh so we may hit up some fun bars or something 🙂

Wicked and Wild

/ Amanda / Leave a comment

Hi everyone! Hope you all have had a lovely day!

Yesterday was a typical day in the life of a grad student. Bat shit crazy. Sometimes the crazy is a good thing and you leave the day feeling super accomplished. Other days….notsomuch. This was luckily one of those in between crazy days, where it starts off great and then unravels into total chaos.

Highlights of the work day:

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Cookie at the weekly seminar! It was delish 😀

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The 3D printer is up and running! As a side note, I need to figure out how to set the LEDs in the thing to change colors so then it’ll be like a disco when I print things.

We also had a great lunch with leftovers from our great dinner last night (another Blue Apron, but hey it’s planned and easy so why not). I’d tell you what it’s called but I can’t spell it without the recipe card right next to me…. O.o oops. But it had chicken and coconut milk and spices and veggies and rice and it was awesome.

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Downside of the work day: (That there are no pictures of because why would you take a picture of that!?)

The director for the ERCs (engineering research center) nationwide was stopping by for a visit. Cool right?! Except for that, like things always go, he was running 30 min late……then 1 hr late…….then 1.5 hrs late. GAH! Majorly. Annoying. Made worse by some blatant sexism but that’s a story for another time.

Because we were running super late….our date night plans had to be slightly adjusted. Originally we were gonna dress nicely, go get dinner, and then go to our show. Instead, we were swinging through Cookout drive through and eating in the car as we were trying to make up time so we weren’t late for……

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WICKED!!

We got there with just enough time to jog walk in and grab some wine before getting to our seats.

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And. It. Was. Incredible.

We got a chance to walk around Durham for a bit before heading back home and crashing.

What is your favorite date night activity?

 

 

 

 

Winter is NOT coming

/ thievinsteven / Leave a comment

Last night we made another Blue Apron meal. For those who don’t know, Blue Apron is a pretty awesome food delivery service. They deliver recipes with all the correct quantities of ingredients (like a single stalk of celery or a little cup of bagoong) you need in a refrigerated box to your door.

20150119_175008We get 3 meals at a time and they’re supposed to serve two but we almost always have leftovers. The recipes are typically atypical and feature interesting ingredients and cultural influences. Last night we made a Mexican style casserole with beef, quinoa, veggies, cilantro and a few other things. It wasn’t our favorite so far but it wasn’t bad.

20150119_183917After dinner I spent a few hours buried in C code for a class I’m taking and then took a Dr. Who break. I needed the break after bashing my head against the monitor for hours. My coding skills are pretty rusty but I managed to get some peripherals for the microcontroller configured before stumbling to bed and rudely removing Indy from my her spot on the bed.

Today it was 67 degrees! I don’t think winter is coming no matter what the poor mostly dead Stark family says oops, spoiler ;)hmm, now I want GoT to come back… and House of Cards, yay TV!

Amanda and I decided to cancel our TRX class in the basement dungeon of the old NCSU gym and leave work early to take advantage of the sun and the warmth. We wanted to run but decided that we should take it easy on our injuries since we ran yesterday. We did take Indy for a great walk though and she had an awesome time jumping in the creek and getting very stinky. 20150120_164840She would disappear from time to time over the bank of the creek but would always come bounding back soon.

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Spot the Indy!

Tonight, more Blue Apron, yay! More Dr. Who, yay! and more coding, blerrg.