Author: thegraduatewife

Shuga' Mommas

Shuga’ Mommas: Peanut Butter Cookies

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So…cooking isn’t exactly my strong point.

With an incredible mom who caters on the side, a chef sister-n-law who makes everything taste delicious, my best friend Alicia who can bake up a storm and quite a few friends here in Oxford with a knack for presentation…you’d think I would have gotten more into it.  The tricky part for me is that I absolutely love to host people.  I love having people over or gathering people together in our tiny flat.  This is especially important during this season as we all try to foster community among other graduate wives or among our husband’s departments, etc.  The recipe to a good evening of fellowship almost always involves something yummy thrown into the mix.

I’m thankfully not a terrible cook and am overall usually pleased with what comes out of our wacky and unpredictable little British oven.  However, baking isn’t always that easy and when I came across this super simple recipe, I was intrigued.  I tried it out and brought the cookies to a committee meeting the other night.  Two people commented that they were the best peanut butter cookies they had ever eaten.  Really?  Maybe it was late and they were just being nice, but I sure was grateful.

I found the recipe in the book 4 Ingredients.  Apparently, it was a big hit in Australia and the UK and I picked it up at The Works for a few pounds.  It is really great!  If you are a graduate wife with a budget and a time crunch, I’d recommend it.  The below recipe would also be perfect for little ones to help with since it is so simple.  Enjoy!

PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES

{Makes around 20. Gluten free and glorious! (as the book says) }

  • I cup (260g) crunchy peanut butter
  • 1 cup (220g) brown sugar
  • 1 tsp. cinnamon
  • 1 egg

Pre-heat oven to 180 C.

Mix all ingredients in a bowl.

Spoon small tablespoon sized balls onto lined baking sheets.

Slightly flatten with a fork – crisscross style.

Bake for 8 mins. or until a thin crust appears on cookie.

Celebrate! · Children

Celebrate. II

thegraduatewife2 Comments

Heeding Mandy’s call to celebrate…I want to celebrate today because my daughter knows my name.  She calls me ‘mumma’, with the sweetest little voice and the slightest hint of a British accent (well almost).   She has been saying it for a while, like when I pick her up from the nursery at church or when she wanders into the kitchen and finds me cooking.  She definitely can recognize me, but it wasn’t until just last week that it was like she really got it.

She looked up at me, touched my cheek with her soft hand and said ‘mumma’.  She smiled from ear to ear and seemed so pleased with herself.  All day she kept saying it again and again and I felt my heart melt when she said ‘mumma’ and ‘dade’ repeatedly as we were both getting her ready for bed.

It is definitely the little things.  Celebrating the moments that make up our busy lives… the moments that bring us to life in the process.  This is such a wonderful challenge on this graduate wife journey.  Many times we get caught up in the big picture (where are we moving, where will we get a job, how can I support my husband during this hard time, etc.) and we lose sight of the beauty in the every day.

So, here’s to celebrating your identity and someone knowing, trusting and delighting in your name.

-M.C.

What are you celebrating today?

Friday Funnies

Wednesday Wind-up

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To all our graduate wives –

If you find yourself currently in any of the following situations:

1. Moving to another city, state or country to begin a degree

2. Involved in the job hunting season, knowing you’ll face loads of rejection

3. Watching a husband struggle through exams/turning in a dissertation

4. Using humor (and chocolate) as a way to deal with life

Then this video is for you! At some point, we do all have to laugh at ourselves, and this journey we’re on…..enjoy!

Beauty and the Budget · Children

Party for Pennies: A 1st birthday party

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Written by Vanessa – a current graduate wife

Hosting parties can be a very expensive and time-consuming task. As a young mom and graduate wife, you might not have the finances and energy to decorate, cook, and clean up for special occasions.  You might convince yourself that someday, when you graduate from your role now, you will host elaborate parties and gather to celebrate the ones you love.

 I have learned from my time as a graduate wife (4 years and counting!) that now is that time to make those memories, and you don’t have to spend a fortune to do it.

1.  Discovering Your Theme

In my home, we recently celebrated my daughter’s first birthday.  Making it to a year with an infant, now toddler, is an incredible milestone!  I began brainstorming themes months ahead.  I ended up choosing a “garden party” theme, mostly because we live in England and it would be a sweet way to remember where she spent the first year of her life.  Also, we live in a flat that is surrounded by a garden (convenience-check! free- check!).

The best resource for finding a theme is thinking about what you and your child enjoy.  Do you enjoy animals at the zoo together?  Do a circus theme.  Do you enjoy reading a particular book before bed? Do a Dr. Seuss theme.  Do you and your child enjoy a particular activity? Do a sports theme.  Obviously, the options are limitless. I encourage you to take a look at your daily life and find your inspiration!


2.  Researching Your Theme

Google is incredibly useful for this next step (or BING, whatever your flavor), but organizing inspiration can be messy.  I recommend registering with a site such as Delicious or Digg.  Once you have a theme, you can begin searching particular keywords.  I often veer over to the ‘image’ search results.  Go ahead, give it a try: choose one keyword for a theme that you have in mind and see what kind of inspiration you come up with!

When I search “garden party”, I see a lot of different elements: bunting (triangular garlands made of fabric or paper), flowers, tea style foods, etc.  This is where I begin to hone my theme into a workable plan.  I find photos that I like and bookmark them.  When using Delicious or Digg, be as descriptive as possible when saving bookmarks to save on time and confusion later (who knows, you might find inspiration for another party such as baby showers!).  Use helpful keywords: ‘child’s name’ first birthday, pink, purple, flowers, food type, etc.  Additionally, there are hundreds of sites on the Internet that are devoted to party planning.  Take advantage of the themes and ideas on these sites.  Some of my favorite sites include marthastewart.com and hostessblog.com

Bookmark everything that inspires you- whether it is a photo, tutorial, or free printable.


3.  Choosing the Elements of Your Theme

Hopefully you have found a lot of helpful design elements and inspiration during your web search.  In this step, you will begin to choose the elements that you want to use for your party.

To save money on decor, you can use a helpful DIY tutorial on the Internet.  This step will be the most time intensive.  You will want to give yourself a month or two to complete these crafts and design elements.

Schedule your décor DIY’s during the month or two before the party and make achievable goals.  Write down which days you will designate for each task. For example, I would give myself 3 evenings to accomplish one task (bonus- this gives your dear hubby a chance to catch up on some much needed research!).  I found it helpful to be in the same room as him, listing to NPR or music, while I did my crafts. It felt like we were spending time together, but still accomplishing our goals.

To give you some inspiration, here are a few examples of some of the DIY projects that I did for the ‘garden party’ theme (that are interchangeable for any party!):

Cupcake Rack– composed of two plates and a tin can wrapped in a rectangular piece of scrapbook paper

Cupcake Wrappers- made with a rectangular piece of scrapbook paper

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Printable Bunting– labeled with ‘Happy Birthday’ (there will be a free downloadable template at the end of this post!)..

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Cake Bunting- small triangles strung on wooden dowels

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Sandwich Flags (found here)

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Menu Labels (found here) by adding text in photoshop, but you could easily just write in it.

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Have fun with this process, but don’t allow it to overwhelm you.  Remember, keep things simple and make achievable goals.

4. Watching Your Theme in Action

The big day has come!  Make a schedule for the days leading up to the party- for example, which food to prepare ahead of time, when to setup, who can help, etc. I purposely designated preparation and setup during my daughter’s nap times so that my hands were free to work.  I didn’t have an overwhelming amount of food prep, but I did prepare most of it during the first nap (except for the cupcakes- which I prepared the night before and iced in the morning).

I also planned a few simple activities for our guest.  We had crochet available (very English!) and kites for the children to fly.  Another suggestion would be a craft for the children to do.

Find some friends who can help you with tasks during the party. For example, ask that friend with that amazing camera to take pictures of the guests and details.  Maybe someone can film your child taking her first bites of sugar coated icing and cake.

Don’t worry about a flawless presentation, but greet and enjoy your guests!  And if something about your food or décor goes awry, let it go.  Your child won’t even notice (and I bet your guests won’t either).

Freebie:  Downloadable Bunting Template

 

On your graduate wife journey, have you found any other tips for creating parties or hosting events for pennies? 

Inside Scoop

The Inside Scoop

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Have you ever found yourself asking one of these questions??

One of the most difficult things about being on the graduate wife journey is the moving process.  It’s not easy navigating in a new place, trying to find a grocery store, a place to worship, or a park for the kids to play in. Even though a new adventure can be exciting, we know how frustrating and challenging it is to start over.

It is one of our goals on this blog to alleviate some of that frustration. So, welcome to The Inside Scoop!

Under the Resource tab, you’ll find a section called “Inside Scoop.” Once you click there you will find options to view info pages on different universities towns.  We only have two submissions up and running so far, so take a look.

Now, this is where we need YOUR help!

Wouldn’t it be amazing to have information on all the schools of our readers, from all over the world?  Wouldn’t you have simply loved having something like this on your move to…England, Indiana, California or Germany? Would you be willing to partner with us to provide information, so we can create a pdf for the school you are attending?  If so, please follow the Oxford template and email us at: thegraduatewife@gmail.com . It can be a little information, or a lot, but our plan is to keep updating these as information is supplied to us.  Don’t let the size of the two submissions already posted intimidate you…if you can only provide a few basic points, that is fine!

As we think back to the times we’ve moved to a new city (and country!) where we didn’t know a soul, we can only imagine how a resource like this would have impacted us. And, as we’ve written before, the Graduate Wife blog belongs to all of us, and any assistance could be extraordinarily beneficial to those coming behind us. Your journey will impact theirs!

With gratitude,

-Mandy & M.C.

Marriage · Sharing 'Worlds'

Sharing Worlds

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I studied interior design and art in undergrad.  My husband is pursing his D.Phil. in the philosophy of physics.  I like jam…good homemade jam that my lovely friend Kat makes at the beginning of summer and then gives to me all year long.  My husband likes peanut butter.  It is his staple food and he literally eats it on toast every single morning of his life.  He communicates through writing, being incredibly friendly with bullet points and annotations.  I‘d much rather show you a painting or play you a song to communicate something and I don’t even punctuate when I write.  We are opposite.  We are incredibly opposite, yet incredibly attracted to and curious about each other.

When we were dating long distance before we got engaged, I gained a new level of appreciation for the magic of Wikipedia.  Late at night as I sat curled up on the phone chatting with him, I was frequently online trying to figure out what on earth ‘quantum mechanics’ is, but better yet, all the philosophical implications that come with it.  It was a trying time in our relationship.  Many times I confessed to him that I thought I might not be the right person for him to marry since…..well, since I couldn’t help edit his papers because there were more equations in them than words.  I worried that we were just too different.  Thankfully, by the grace of God and a wise roommate, I was able to look past these fears and insecurities and began to see the beauty that is the diversity of gifts / strengths / and interests in marriage.

We’ve come a long way.  Almost every single night over dinner I hear about Einstein and Lorentz’s theories of relativity and what the true definition of a scientific explanation is.  I listen as my husband explains the quirky guy in his physics lecture or how well done the Powerpoint presentation was (since he knows my love for good design).  Because honestly if he didn’t, we’d be on different pages.  Not just different pages, different chapters.  It’s an effort.  I lose focus and start daydreaming about another cool image design for this blog and then I have to ask him to backtrack and share again.  He gets distracted when I share about my newest passion for the arts or tell him about the lecture on architecture that I just attended.  We know we are different.  As different as peanut butter and jelly…but how great we are when we share our worlds together.  What a good combination we are when we actively pursue unity and strive to share our differing worlds with the other.  I’ve seen far too many well-respected and admired marriages fall away, because ‘worlds’ weren’t shared.  One spouse had work or a dream that took so much of them that there was little energy left to share with the other about it or invite them into it.  One spouse dedicated themselves to their kids and then when they were all grown up and gone, there was such a massive gap between relating and sharing worlds with the other that they almost didn’t make it.

We aren’t perfect at this.  Heck, we’ve only been married three years, but I’m thankful we are trying.  On this graduate wife journey you almost have to.  To actively engage and share in your spouse’s world as best as you can.  So I need to mention one more thing:  backing up to the nightly dinner conversations about my husband’s day.  Before he shares his day, his reading, his world with me…he asks about mine.  He asks about how it was today with our 16 month old.  What did she learn, what did she do, how was her nap.  He asks how my time alone was, what did I get to read (if I found time), what was going on in my head and heart, what the status of the few part-time projects are that I am working on.  After all of that, then he begins to share.

It makes all the difference to me that he consciously reminds himself every day on the way home to ask about my day first, to validate my work as a wife, mother, and artist.  He knows that deep down it’s hard for me at times to be at home while he is studying, pursing his dreams.  He knows that sometimes I get cranky and sad and have pity parties because I feel like we are doing all of this for him and that my dreams are on the back-burner.  It would be incredibly hard for me to jump into, share, or even honestly care about his ‘world’ if he didn’t equally care about mine.

I know this isn’t always the case and we, like many, have learned the hard way, through tears and confusing discussions and misinterpreted emotions. I think in the end it was actually my idea that he asks about my day first and thankfully he took it to heart. We’ve learned that although we are incredibly different people, we are so much more beautiful people when we are unified together, more beautiful than we could ever be alone.  I just want to encourage you on this journey through graduate school, however distant at times you might feel from your spouse’s work, engage them.  Share your day with them and ask for them to share with you.  It’s challenging at times, but ever so enriching and fruitful.

-M.C.

In your journey, how have you and your spouse tried to “share your worlds”?

{disclaimer: So, I know peanut butter and jelly aren’t opposites per say…but I really liked the imagery and decided to go with it.}

Motherhood · Roles · Sacrifice

Taking Time for YOU

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Written by Bria – a current graduate wife

Time…there’s that word I know, and dread, so well! Do you find yourself asking, “How will I have the time today to nurture my child, talk to my husband, keep in touch with all my family and friends that live so far away, pray, exercise, cook/eat healthy, read, shop, clean, do laundry, make my house look and feel cozy and inviting, do things that I enjoy (hobbies that refresh me) or even take a shower?”  Whew! Sometimes I can hardly find the time to just sit and breathe, let alone try to find the balance to living a healthy lifestyle.  However, I am passionate about it and am striving to reach it each day. I have recently rediscovered the beauty and importance of “taking time for you” and want to share some of my thoughts with other graduate wives out there.

Have you ever felt like you were in a constant race and could never reach the finish line? I have recently been feeling this way and realized I needed to figure out how to get some much-needed time for me.  I am a stay at home mom and love it so much, however my little guy is a very rambunctious, extremely active, never stop…BOY!  I have realized the importance of finding a nanny/babysitter and taking advantage of any opportunity I can to get away for a few hours each week on my own.  As I first started doing this, thoughts of guilt and selfishness ran through my head because my son is/was incredibly attached to me. It took a while, but the time apart each week is really best for both of us.  It refreshes me and it teaches him to be independent.

I used to have this “control freak-I can do it all” attitude, but I’ve realized how unhealthy that is for my family and me.  I have to be honest and admit that I can’t do it all.  I’ve been able to monitor my own emotions and well- being and take a break every once and awhile.  I don’t have to be super mom and wife! Once a week, or whenever you can, I encourage you to get totally alone to exercise, shop, cook, paint, read or whatever will rejuvenate and refresh you.

Even without kids, if you are working full-time while supporting your husband in grad school, I know personally how incredibly taxing and exhausting this can be. I brought in the income for three years, commuted in good old southern California traffic, and encouraged and supported my husband emotionally through it all.  Even though I know time together is sometimes tight when you are working and your husband is up late studying, I encourage you to still try to carve out some time for yourself each week.  The benefits from nurturing yourself will far exceed the few hours spent apart from your spouse.  It really is almost impossible to be an encourager if you yourself are not feeling peaceful and encouraged.

Whether it means getting a babysitter or missing out on ‘evening time’ with your husband once in a while, taking “time for you” is crucial to the graduate wife journey.  I am by no means an expert, just another wife on this extraordinary journey and I’d love to hear more of what has worked for you.  I look forward to more posts in the future on the ever-challenging topic of living a healthy lifestyle in the shoes of a graduate wife.

Have you found it difficult to find time for you?  If you have found time to do this, has it greatly impacted your marriage, role of supporter, motherhood?  What rejuvenates you and how do you spend your time alone?


Celebrate! · Community · Family · Inspiration

Celebrate.

thegraduatewife5 Comments

I recently finished reading Cold Tangerines by Shauna Niequist, a collection of short essays on celebrating the small things in life. I can honestly say that celebrating small things isn’t something that I do naturally, but I now believe it is a discipline that needs to be incorporated into my daily life.  One of the ways I plan to celebrate is to keep a notebook with two things from that day that can be celebrated. I’m still not sure how I will incorporate celebrating into the rest of my life, and I know it will be a work in progress, but I am resolved to this: life is short enough, but even shorter when we don’t take (or make) the time to celebrate.

The graduate wife journey is often fraught with worry, shattered dreams, and crushed expectations.  The darkness crowds out the light, the bad outweighs the good.  Those feelings often define our journey.  What would it look like if we took the time to celebrate even the smallest of things?  Would it bring us joy amidst the pain?  This question has plagued me for the past month!

Because of my reflections on this issue and a few discussions with thoughtful friends, we’ve decided to start a ‘Celebrations’ section on this blog. We want to hear from YOU. What are you doing to celebrate in your life? It literally can be anything – a new baby, a husband passing an exam, a good day at work, getting a job.  Whatever you decide to share with us, we will post it.  Let us celebrate with you!

I am selfishly writing this post, celebrating a BIG event that took place in our lives earlier this month. My husband graduated with his PhD. (Can I get an AMEN?) We celebrated. We’re still celebrating. I think I will be celebrating for awhile. This 7 year chapter in my personal graduate wife journey is over, and I’m turning the page, greeting the future with courage and a hope of things anew.

So, I ask again. What are you doing to celebrate in your graduate wife life?

Mandy


Shuga' Mommas

Shuga’ Mommas: Chicken Noodle Soup

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The Graduate Wife is delighted to announce a new series featuring budget & time friendly recipes for you and your family!  We hope these posts bring many a happy belly.  If you would ever enjoy submitting just send us an email!

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Written by Tori – a current graduate wife

As a trained chef, mom “on-the-way”, and the wife of a graduate student, I feel I have a great responsibility to feed myself and my husband delicious, healthy meals, and spend as little money as possible on groceries!  I love to use coupons and get freebies whenever possible, but depending on where you live, I realize that isn’t always easy.  I find myself in a huge internal debate every time I stand in the meat section, wondering if I should buy the organic chicken (yes, I should), or buy the chicken that’s on sale- I mean, I have spent hours matching up coupons with store sales, haven’t I? I can’t spend $12 on a few chicken breasts and ruin all my hard work, right? (I haven’t come up with a good answer yet).

Sometimes when I leave the store and my master coupon scheme hasn’t worked as well as I had planned, I feel like crying.  Is that normal?  Either way, I feel like I am not even capable of doing my job well (don’t even get me started on what happens when I “overcook” dinner!).

I like to imagine that I am not the only one that feels this way about shopping and cooking.  Because of that, I am sharing a delicious, simple, and budget friendly Chicken Noodle Soup recipe.  Chicken Noodle Soup isn’t the most glamorous or exciting meal, but it is such a comfort food: perfect for all you graduate wives far from home.

This recipe and the prices are not precise, as I don’t write them down.  Keep in mind that the amounts are estimates, and I was cooking for 2 only.

Here’s what you need:

  • Chicken: I pulled two breasts right out of the freezer – – $2 (you caught me- it’s obviously not organic)
  • 4-5 cups of Chicken Broth or Stock – – $ Free! (See below*)
  • Noodles of your choice: ½ a box – – $1 (Can be free, easily, if you have a sale and a coupon!)
  • 1 large carrot, thinly sliced
  • ½ of a yellow onion, diced
  • 1 large clove of garlic
  • 1 tablespoon of olive oil
  • Salt, pepper

Total: less than $5


Step 1:  Place the whole chicken breasts in a pot of water and boil for 15 minutes or until cooked (no need to thaw).  Remove from the water, and chop or shred with a knife and fork. Set aside.

Step 2:  Boil the noodles in a fresh pot of water until almost done- it’s good to leave them a bit firm and let them finish cooking in the soup!

Step 3: Heat your chicken stock in a pot on medium heat; to a simmer (either store bought or homemade*)

Step 4:  Dice the onion, carrot, (a stalk of diced celery if you have it- I was all out) and garlic.  Heat olive oil in a pan over medium heat, and add the onions and carrot and a good sprinkling of salt and pepper.  Sautee the vegetables until tender, and then add the garlic (always add the garlic toward the end of cooking, as it burns easily)

Step 5:  Add all ingredients together in the pot of chicken stock, let simmer for 5 to 10 minutes, and voila!

~If you have a can of peas or corn, toss them in at the end!

Serve with toast or crackers

*When I buy chicken, I often buy bone-in chicken breasts.  They are always cheaper than boneless/skinless breasts, and I use the bones to make homemade stock.

When you get home with the chicken, slice the meat off of the bone, and add the bones to a pot of water, just deep enough to cover.  If you have a carrot, a stalk of celery, half of an onion, and a bay leaf, toss them in, too.  No need to chop anything.  Cover this pretty mixture with a lid, and let it gently simmer on low-medium heat for a few hours.  The longer it simmers, the richer it will taste- but be careful not to let it boil dry!  This should be a gentle process. 

I store the broth in plastic containers in the freezer and pop them out when I’m ready to cook!

Beauty and the Budget

Beauty and the Budget: Project Plates

thegraduatewife5 Comments

How many of you have moved into a rented space during your graduate school journey and instantly found yourself a bit depressed by the stark white walls around you?  How many of you have drooled over Pottery Barn catalogue wall displays and then ended up in tears when you saw the price tags? OK, that is a bit extreme, but if you have come close, know that you are not alone!  Continuing on through the dining room/living room, our next beauty on a budget project involves an easy solution to instant wall decor.

I don’t know about you, but I really enjoy vintage plates and saucers.  There is so much charm and beauty to be found in old chipped pieces of porcelain.   To quickly fix our white wall dilemma, I started searching for some flea market finds that would do the trick.  I found three of the plates above at the Gloucester Green market in Oxford and they were £2 each.  I found the fourth plate (bottom one) at a local charity shop for only 99p.  Finding fun vintage dinner ware is almost always easy, as it will be at pretty much every yard sale / charity shop / flea market that you find, and it is also always incredibly cheap.  Usually there will only be one or two of the set and thus it sells for pennies.  You have to embrace the theme “One man’s junk is another man’s treasure.”  If you haven’t done that before, let yourself be creative and go for it!  Don’t try too hard at visualizing the plate on the wall and don’t let yourself put too much thought into it.  If you like a pattern or a color, just grab it and build the others to match the same color family.  It doesn’t have to be perfect and it doesn’t have to match exactly, just keep the same theme or pattern or color family going on.  The key is finding pieces you like and that would work well together. I’d say start with 4 in a hanging and if you find more plates to add later, then go for it.

The next few steps are incredibly easy.

  1. Buy some plate hangers that fit the plate sizes.  They usually sell in small, medium and large.  If you are hanging a platter, you can buy a little disc that sticks to the back of the platter and has a small ring to hang from, called an invisible disc adhesive plate hanger.  (UK-Boswells-£1.19 each/ Ebay UK)  (US-any large craft store, Wal-Mart, Home Depot, etc.)
  2. Slip the hanger around the plate.
  3. Arranging the plates can seem daunting, but don’t let it stress you.  Just start with the largest plate and place the others around it.  The spacing doesn’t have to be perfect, just try to keep around 3” between each plate to be most pleasing to the eyes.  Try placing them on the floor first to arrange them and then move to the wall. (You can take Martha’s suggestion and cut out paper to mimic the plate and then tape it on the wall first to get a better idea of your layout.)
  4. Plates are nice to be viewed at eye level, so keep that in mind when hanging.  I needed to fill a full wall in our dining nook so I opted to hang them a bit higher than eye level when seated.   I hope to add some more plates to the collection soon, so I left room to travel down the wall.
  5. Hang and viola!  You have beautiful wall decor and no empty pocketbook.

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Here are some favorites I found online that might inspire you as you are working on your plate arrangement.

Stay tuned as we will feature guest posts with several more DIY wall decor ideas for cheap.  And for all of you who aren’t allowed to hang with nails or do anything else to puncture the walls in your rented spaces, don’t worry, we’ve got some ideas for you coming up too!