The Loneliest Number

Well, we successfully launched Matt this morning, after waking up at the excruciating hour of THREE A.M. in order to get in a taxi at four, for a flight time of seven. He should hopefully be touching down in Salt Lake City just before noon Eastern Time (though he won't, of course, be on Eastern Time). As a result, a cup of coffee and a few stray tears later, I'm at school a good hour and a half early, trying to use the extra time for something more productive than surfing the Internet and feeling a little sorry for myself.

You can see how well that's going.

But, a quick update before I force myself to get down to business. Yesterday we went out to Reston and toured two apartments and picked up information for two others. They were all very nice, and all bigger AND less expensive than what we're currently living in. The big question mark is whether I'll be able to get a job out there, which is the thing that would most tip the scales in favor of moving out there. If we trade an hour-plus commute on Matt's part for an hour-plus commute on my part (with the added consideration that my job starts at 7 to his 9), we may not have gained a whole lot. But, if we were both working there, it would simplify things considerably. So I'm hoping to hear from the hospital soon and we'll take it from there. We did really enjoy walking around town (and marveled over the giant FREE parking garage in the Town Center), and gave into the impulse to go out for a farewell dinner.

Speaking of food (and when are we not?), here's a stray recipe I meant to post last week. It's vegetarian chili that's sort of a culmination of the recipes that sounded best to me, combined with what we had in the house. We thought it turned out wonderfully, not to toot our own horns or anything.

Chili
2 cups water
28 oz crushed tomatoes
1 onion, diced
1 tsp minced garlic
1 stalk celery, chopped
3 tsp cumin
3 T chili powder
2 cans beans (I drained but didn't rinse them. I used a can of kidney and one of navy, because that's what we had, but you could use pinto or black or whatever)
2 cups of corn (I used frozen)

Combine everything but the corn. Simmer on medium heat for about an hour. Add the corn about 10-15 minutes before serving.

Cheap, easy, healthy good. It doesn't get any better than that. Unless you top it with crackers, sour cream, chopped onions, and cheddar, like we did; and make it with this corn bread, which is, as the recipes says, VERY moist, and almost cakelike.