Christmas baking for my colleagues

First I got organized:

Then I got busy:

Biscotti

Peanut butter cups (1st half of batch)

Raspberry bar cookies

Peppermint meringues

At some point I went out and bought maraschino cherries, only to come home and find I didn't need them:

My cabinet shelf isn't really this bowed. It's the angle I was holding the camera. I hope.

Then I got ambitious:

I call these negative chocolate chip cookies: white chips in chocolate dough.

Then I got tired, and didn't make cookies out of the dough in the picture above.  I abandoned my original plan, which was to give two types of cookie to each person based on what I'd learned of their preferences over the past few years.  Instead, I decided to give everyone some of each.

And tomorrow I get to play Santa.  Provided I don't trip on my way to the bus, land on my packages, and create 6 containers of tasty crumbs.

No tree this year

And this cartoon should explain why:



I think I need to wait until the Gray Fuzzy One is just a little bit older than 1 and 1/2 before I attempt a Christmas tree.

Christmas season, Delilah, and Sophie

Last year, Delilah's failing health made it really hard to get into the Christmas spirit, or stay there very long when I did get there.

An example: all throughout Christmas Day, I kept forgetting to open the contents of my stocking (Yes.  At forty(mumble) I still get a stocking at Christmas. What?  Don't you?).  After dinner, I went to the room the cat and I were sleeping in so that I could fuss over her a bit, and to get her to maybe eat some canned salmon I'd bought for her.  She ate a little, then went back under the futon to lay on the heating vent.  I went out into the kitchen to put the plate in the sink and bumped into my mom.

"You never opened this," she said, holding up my bulging stocking.

I burst into tears, said something like "I can't do this anymore!" and fled back to the bedroom.  That was it, I was done.  No more Christmas, please.

She and my sister followed me, let me sob it out, fussed over Delilah some (she came out to see what all the noise was about, I think, and to see who had come to visit) and eventually did get me to open my stocking.

I never got any cookies baked for the same reason.  The thought would cross my mind to do it, then the cat would come into the room with her poor little face, hop up into my lap, and I'd decide to just stay put.  One time she climbed up my chest and stretched out, chin on my shoulder, purring in my ear.  I sat contorted for her maximum comfort for over an hour, tears streaming down my face, thinking this is probably the last time we'll do this.  I was right.

 It took a lot of effort to do what I considered the bare minimum.  I'm surprised people got presents at all, the way I was feeling.

This year is better.  I'm glad Sophie's here, because otherwise I'd be doing a lot of moping and remembering last year--more than what I'm doing right now, that is.  Sophie's interested in all the the goings-on.  She inspects the results of every shopping trip, and I fully expect her to supervise present-wrapping when I start that.

Just as soon as I post this I'll start making cookies.  A lot of these first batches are getting wrapped up and given away.  The raspberry bar cookie from 2 years ago is making an appearance. So is a peppermint meringue cookie that someone I work with really, really likes.  I'm going to make a peanut butter cup cookie that uses itty bitty muffin tins.  I'm going to try biscotti too, and that means the very first thing I have to do is toast almonds.  Well.  The very first thing I have to do is look up how to toast almonds, because they don't give instructions in the recipe.  Google, here I come.

If I don't run out of steam, I'll be trying a molasses cookie recipe that I found through the Pioneer Woman's Cookie Week.  As soon as I check for my cookie cutters, that is.  I think I have Christmas ones.  I used to.  Maybe.  I know I gave some cookie cutters away, but I don't think it was all of them.  Ah, well.  I can always use the mouth of a glass, right?  I'm also making something called chocolate-covered cherry cookies, but not today; I forgot to buy the cherries. 

After I finish making the ones I'm giving as gifts, I'll go make a second set to take to my sister's.  There will be more raspberry bars (last time I brought them Ditter told me they tasted like an Entenmann's raspberry danish.  For those not in the know, that is high praise indeed), those chocolate cherry things, and the molasses cookies (by then I will have either found or bought new cutters).

Wish me luck!  Some of these I've never tried before.  I'll photograph the results.

Edited to add:  Didn't have to go as far as the Internet to find out how to toast almonds. There are instructions on the package.  Yay!

Missed me by *that* much

Every year my old place of employment (which I've affectionately nicknamed "Hell") invites my fellow escapee and me to their holiday luncheon.  Every year I react like someone left a dead fish on my desk.

I've often said (and I may have said so here already, but I'm too lazy to go check) that I can map the decline and fall of the morale in my old department based on the holiday celebrations.

We used to have a party in someone's house.  We'd get all dressed up for it.  There'd be food--potluck, but being a college town, it was funky potluck.  Mexican hot chocolate, olivada and crusty French bread, curried chick peas, things like that.  There would be music--Jimmy would bring his keyboard, Max his guitar, and those of us who could would sing along with whatever they played.  People's kids would run around and play together.  There was a gag gift exchange.

Then one year the gift exchange was dropped, as it was deemed "silly."  The next year the instruments stayed home.  The one after that instead of an evening in someone's home it was lunch out somewhere one day during the work week.  Then a few years later it was a potluck in the staff room.  Then it was cookies by the coffee pot.  Then it was bagels at the staff meeting, and bring your own coffee.

Since the department split into two, the one group has revived the go-out-to-lunch thing. The other, the one I worked for until I moved to where I am now, holds a luncheon in their staff room.  It's semi-potluck, meaning they all cook but guests from outside the department don't.  They invite a lot of people, and most of them come.  This group does know how to throw a party, I'll say that for them.   If I had never worked there I might actually want to go.   As it is, I notice things that make me uncomfortable: 

• The people they invite are generally people who can do things for them: deans, associate deans, department heads, people in other departments with whom who they think they have "special relationships." 
• The conversation always wends its way around to work somehow.  They always have an agenda, an angle, are looking for information and a way to push what they want forward.  
• They may be friendly and chatty with their guests, but they don't have much to say to each other.  If you see them all together and they don't know you're there, they all sit silently munching, their eyes on their plates or the floor.

This year I have a prior commitment so I won't be able to attend.  I did a little dance of joy when I saw that on my calendar.  Otherwise, even though I really don't want to I'd have to go.  Unless I suddenly [cough, cough] got sick [feels forehead] right before the party [ohh, my throat's so scratchy!] and had to go home.

Threepeat!

Whoo! Made it to the finish line! The posts got a little thin there towards the end, and I apologize for that. Some days the brain just cramps up, you know? But I did it! And now I'm going to go back to blogging haphazardly, but I will try to post at least three times a week. Let's see how long that lasts.

I can't imagine attempting National Novel Writing Month. I think there's an actual word count involved with that. No, thank-you. Well, maybe if I ever get serious about writing a novel, I might try it. Emphasis on might.

And now, back to work. I'm currently haunting the area where my part-timers pick up their work because I need to talk to one of them about something. As I type, I'm keeping an ear out for him.

Oop! There he is. Bye!

The news from my end of the swamp

The good news: I bought three Christmas gifts today at the mall.
The bad news: That's not even a drop in the bucket.
The sad news: By two in the afternoon I was back in PJs and on the couch.
The meh news: I go back to work tomorrow.
The welcome news: NaBloPoMo is over tomorrow. I'm getting sick of the sound of my own voice.

And that's about it from over here. How are you?

Post-Thanksgiving Pre-Christmas recharge

I've been sitting around with my brain off all weekend. Just chilling on the sofa with the cat and my knitting, watching movies and TV shows I've DVR'd and haven't been able to watch yet. So far I've watched: 2 episodes of Medium, Coco Before Chanel, Love's Labours Lost, a couple of weeks' worth of In Treatment, and Moonlight Mile. In an hour or so I'm going to do something I rarely do anymore--I'm going to watch Boardwalk Empire at its actual air time.

I took the day off tomorrow. I'm using it to start Christmas shopping. I have no ideas at the moment. I'm hoping something will leap out at me when I'm at the mall and declare itself for someone on my list. I'm also hoping the piped-in Christmas music doesn't drive me batty by noon.

I don't have a snapshot for today because I haven't so much as looked out the door since my parents drove away Friday morning. Not to mention that I'm not quite sure what I did with my camera. Can't find anything on the hard drive that looks good either.

Recipe reviews

I made that Bob Andy Pie I mentioned a few days ago. After everyone called or texted in to say they made it home OK I sat down and had a slice. Boy is it good. It's a custard pie with a very thin layer of cinnamon on top and another on the bottom. I couldn't see how the cinnamon stayed on the bottom, considering that it floats so well, but I think I just now figured it out--you brush the crust with egg whites. The cinnamon probably sticks to that when the custard gets poured into the shell.

The three recipes I introduced for Thanksgiving were all greeted with general success. Mom and my sister really liked the corn with sage. After Mom took a bite, she told me that she'd been a little worried about the amount of sage in it, because sage can be so strong. You don't add that until the very end, though, so I guess the affect is minimal (or do I mean "effect?" I can't decide). She copied down the recipe before she left yesterday. Here it is, along with a few comments:

Sweet Corn with Sage

3 T butter or margarine
1 medium onion, finely chopped (1/2 c.)
2 bags (12 oz each) frozen corn
1/4 c. half-and-half
2 T chopped fresh sage leaves
3/4 tsp salt [I used kosher salt]
1/4 tsp coarsely ground black pepper

In a 10-inch skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Cook onion and corn 10-12 minutes, stirring frequently, until onion is tender. [I wound up turning the heat up to medium high after melting the butter because it was taking forever for the corn to thaw out. I'd suggest thawing the corn ahead of time, and then maybe cooking the onion first before adding in the corn.]

Stir in remaining ingredients; reduce heat to low. Simmer uncovered 3 to 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until flavors are blended. [Turn the heat down before adding the 1/2-and-1/2, or you'll have to add more]

I think this recipe's a keeper. And I thank my sister for finely chopping the onion. I don't chop things fine, and I said so. She heard me from the other room and offered to do it for me. I watched her, so I think I know how to do it now.

Pie, anyone?

Apparently I fed my family so well yesterday that no one had room for dessert. They all wanted to go to a local waffle house for breakfast this morning, so my suggestion of pie for breakfast got rejected. I tried to get my Mom to take home the pumpkin pie, but she didn't think it would travel well.

So now I'm sitting here in houseful of food, two pies calling my name, and no one else to feed them to. Dear me. Someone's gonna be a whole lot fatter come Monday.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am whipped. Combination of work, wine, L-tryptophan, and allergies. I'll write more tomorrow. I hope everyone is having/has had a great day.

Extra post--the ranting edition

I am getting really mad at the radio right now. As I was drinking my coffee and trying to organize the day, John & Yoko's "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" came on the radio. It didn't register for a moment, and then...what? Christmas music? It's not December! We haven't even gotten to Thanksgiving yet! Dammit, marketers, quit rushing Christmas!

And then I calmed down. This station is on a satellite feed until 6 am. Maybe once the DJs come on we'll get sensible music.

Nope. Ten minutes ago they played some schmaltzy pop-duet version of "Silver Bells." That's it. I'm going to iTunes, where I can control the play list.

Look, I get that the economy stinks, and that retailers are running in place waiting for Black Friday to get here to save them. I have to say, though, that the more they ram this "Christmas is coming! Buy! Buy! BUY!" crap down my throat, the more I want to give everyone homemade cookies, handmade soap and scarves I knit myself. Part of it is the mulishness that is me. I find that even if I'm half inclined to do something, if someone tries to push me into doing it I will balk just to prove I won't be pushed. This got me teased a lot in high school. I didn't dress "cool." I got teased for it. So I went out my way to not dress "cool." Screw them, I thought. Same with music. I liked classical music. In middle school someone found out about it, and passed the word around. I then refused to listen to anything but WFLN (which was Philly's classical station at the time) or WXPN (for The Thistle and Shamrock, or for their in-house folk program called The Unicorn).

But another part of it is that I'm really tired of all the tinsel and the sparkle and the plastic and the piped-in music. "Victorian" Christmas may be more picturesque, but I'm sick of that as well. That's just commercialism from 200 years ago. It looks more dignified because it's older, that's all.

I used to think of Halloween as the last firewall between Christmas and the rest of the calendar, but that's not true any more either. It's starting to bleed through. This year I saw a lot of Halloween and Christmas displays side by side.

Maybe I'm just grumpy because I'm tired. I don't know. I do know that I'm not ready for a month of Christmas carols, and now they're starting early! I want to smack someone.

I guess I'll go scrub the tub. I'm in a bad mood anyway.

Thanksgiving Eve

It's 5 am. I have a lot to do today. Sophie, for reasons known only to herself, is tearing around like a mad thing.

I'm going to spend 15 minutes with my nose in my coffee cup and then it's back to putting the finish touches on the house. My parents will call right before they leave home, at which point I will keep one eye on the parking lot, ready to chase off anyone who tries using my parking space. It's not likely to happen. The lot (the whole town, really) is pretty empty since the kids have a week's vacation around Thanksgiving. When I was a student (back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth), they only gave us Thursday and Friday.

The cat's last dose of eye medicine is this morning, and a good thing too. I think she's getting pretty tired of this.

All right. Breakfast time. Enjoy your day, folks!

Busy

The plan today: get some coffee in me, medicate the cat, then finish this house. Not much to blog about at the moment.

Here's another picture I pulled off my hard drive from 'way back:

Background: I was at a crafting day thing in a friend's basement, which she had made over as her workshop (jealous!). A bunch of other people were over as well, some that I'd never met before. One of the women made miniatures--for dollhouses, I think.

Aren't they amazing? I took a close-up of the cutting board to emphasize how very small these things are. That olive jar was pretty neat, too. I cannot for the life of me remember their creator's name. Maybe the Chief Loon knows--she was there too, and I think she knows these folks better than I do.

All right, that's enough fun. Time to go squirt ointment at the cat. Whee.

Countdown begins

It's Thanksgiving week! That means I'm furiously cleaning and stressing about my house in preparation for the feast on Turkey Day. The parents arrive on Tuesday evening, Wednesday is for shopping for the stuff I need to get and any prep work that needs doing. Ditter arrives Wednesday evening. And then it's Thanksgiving Day.

I think I'm ready. Sort of. Maybe. Well, no. I forgot to ask my Mom what time to expect them tomorrow. Same with my sister. Also, I need to rent a carpet cleaner. Though I may wimp out and use Resolve or something. The downstairs is still a bit untidy, same with my bedroom and I just now remembered I need to do sheets and towels. I think next year I'm going to ask Mom & Dad to come on Wednesday.

Actually, between that last paragraph and this one, I did call my Mom and ask them to come Wednesday. I think I can handle the shopping and prep work by myself this year. There are only four of us this time around so I don't feel quite as liable to burst into tears or flames at the thought of pulling this off. Turns out Wednesday would suit them better anyway. They can get a good night's sleep and leave in the morning instead of leaving after work and driving in the dark when they're tired. Good idea, me!

Now I need to give myself a stern talking to about not relaxing because I just got a little more time before company shows up. Must keep going at this pace (or a little faster) if I am to get done what I intend to. I really wish I could work at this pace all the time, but apparently I need the panic of a looming deadline to get the lead outta my keister. Sigh.

Well! Back to work! Fridge to clean! Junk to stash! Laundry to do!

Snapshot Sunday #3

I went out really early this morning to get things at the grocery store. I wasn't thinking about the blog so I forgot to bring the camera. So instead I dug through the huge file of pictures I have on my hard drive to see if there's anything there worth showing.

Okay, here we go. I managed to grow tomatoes this year. I didn't get many of them, and that's partly my fault. I was weeding at one point this past spring, stepped back, lost my balance and fell splat! Right on the tomato. That set back growing time, though the plant did bounce back. Just in case I'd killed it I went out and bought another tomato plant, a Roma tomato (which is what I thought the first one had been, but it turned out it wasn't). A good thing too, since the first plant developed blossom end rot. Again. That's the same thing that happened the last time I tried to grow tomatoes.

The Roma was okay, though. I got some tomatoes off of that one, but there was some animal in the area that beat me to most of them. Here's the first one I managed to get to before whatever that critter was:



The same weekend Mom taught me how to make jelly, we picked elderberries from the bushes down the road. Then she taught me to make a pie. Now that I've made a pie from fruit I picked myself, I think I'm going to stick to making them from fruit I pick out myself. Note to self: elderberries are a pain in the tuckus to stem.



Here's another picture of Sophie. She likes sleeping on towels. She also really, really likes my furry red bathrobe. It's sort of become her blankie now. Yes. She is that spoiled.



And that's about it for now. Time to go check on the tomatoes. I froze a whole bunch of CSA tomatoes this past summer, and now I'm thawing them out to make soup of them. They're really easy to skin once they're frozen. Now I need to seed them.

Menu for Dad

My Dad just got all of his teeth removed in anticipation of getting dentures. The dentist removed them one-quarter at a time. He said if Dad wanted them all out at once he'd have to go to an oral surgeon. This probably has something to do with Dad being on blood-thinners. The last quarter just got pulled earlier this week, I think.

This presents an additional challenge for Thanksgiving this year. I'm trying to avoid serving chewy foods or anything with sharp pointy bits (the sweet potatoes have chopped pecans in them. I think instead of putting them on top of the casserole I'll put a little bowl of nuts on the table). And I think instead of the apple or cranberry thing I was going to do, I'm going to try this pie from Three Many Cooks (and I thank the Pioneer Woman that link. She's doing Pie Week this week, and she mentioned them). It's a cinnamon-flavored custard pie. No sharp or chewy things there.

I called Mom tonight to see what she's been feeding him, and to see if my ideas were right: I have oatmeal to serve for breakfasts, and I'm going to buy fruit and yogurt for smoothies for him. Dinner on Wednesday will probably be spaghetti. I definitely need to make that tomato soup. I think I'll do that tomorrow.

One for the wall

I found a photo hanging out on my hard drive that I really like. I took on campus a few years ago:



It's cropped from a larger picture. I like this one because it looks I got a lot closer to the rabbit than I really did. Pretty good, I think. Then I ran it through the watercolor filter on Adobe Elements:



Suddenly I want to take it to Kinko's and have them print it on watercolor paper, like I had them do for the picture of Pip that I then framed and gave to my Dad for his birthday. I know exactly where I want this to go, too. I'm pretty sure my bedroom wall color is in there among all those shades of green, and my walls are still bare. I think a big framed bunny will do quite nicely.

I don't have time for this

One of my part-timers took off on Tuesday because he was sick. He came in yesterday, and when I asked him if he was better he croaked, "Not much," as he grabbed his cart and headed for the stacks.

Well, apparently that brief contact was enough to make me come down with a sore throat and stuffy ears, dangnabbit. I cannot get sick. I don't have time. Argh!

Maybe if I stay home and take care of it instead of ignoring how I feel and going to work I can nip this right in the bud.

T minus one week and counting

By this time next week I should be in my kitchen, unloading perishables into the fridge and prepping for The Big Day. I am so not ready. Also? Even though I really have enough on the menu, I sorta kinda want to make this as well as a pumpkin pie. I must be nuts. But it looks really, really good. Doesn't it? It'd have to be an "as well as" pie because my dad's blood thinner reacts badly to cranberries, and if I just did this one he'd have no dessert choices. Or maybe I could do this one, and no one would be excluded. I can always do the cranberry one later. I should stop piddling around and get stuff done, is what I should do. Tonight's mission: find the kitchen table under all the junk. And clean the fridge. And maybe the freezer.

Brought down by a sleeve??

If you're not a knitter you might want to skip this post. It's full of jargon which I may or may not explain. Instead, why don't you go look at this for a while? His stuff is pretty cool.

The sleeve of this gansey is giving me more trouble than the whole rest of the sweater combined did. I have unknitted, recounted, reknitted, recounted, sworn, and unknitted again so many times I'm afraid my yarn's gonna break. I unknit rather than rip out (called "frogging" by those who use the lingo--for "rippit, rippit, rippit"--adorable, no?) because I can't guarantee finding all the stitches I need to put back on my needles when I get it down to the point where I want to start over.

It shows in the picture and the drawing that the pattern on the sleeve mimics the one on the body, and that it stops a few inches before the end. I'm supposed to go back to stockinette stitch for a while before I end with some ribbing at the wrist. She never says this in the instructions. If I follow the instructions the way they're written, I'd have pattern all the way to the ribbing. Since she doesn't say how many to make, I don't really trust the line drawing (it's written for all sizes), and the photo doesn't show the sleeve very well, I have arbitrarily come up with the number 10 for chevrons on the sleeve.

Also? When I finally decrease the stitches enough that I have as many as she wants me to before I change to smaller needles (she says to decrease 2 stitches every 5 rounds for the size I'm making), I have 1 3/4 more inches of sleeve than I should. I'm torn about how to fix this. I could either go back to the tenth chevron and decrease more often while doing the stockinette stitch or I could take it all the way back to the end of the underarm gusset and decrease 2 stitches every 4 rows, the way she instructs for the smallest size. I think I should probably do the latter. It would create a gentler line than the former, which might have this funky falling-off-too-quick look to it. But it means taking out an awful lot of what I've been doing for the past week and a half.

I realize that for a lot of you this all blahblahblah yarnspeke and I apologize for that. I'm thinking with my fingers, here, trying to set out in print what my options are for what to do next. Whatever I choose, sleeve number 2 should be a lot easier. I hope.

Oh, hey! For Marnilla, who wanted the pattern I'm using--I found out that for $5.50, Interweave press will let you download the Muted Musician Gansey pattern from their website. Click right here if you're interested. And good luck with the blasted sleeves!

Edited to add: I got tired of unknitting, so I'm only taking it back to the tenth chevron and then decreasing faster. I'll see how that looks before I decide to go aaaaaalllll the way back to the end of the gusset. That was a lot of work I don't really want to redo if I can avoid it.