break's over

whew.

spring semester starts today! i have logged in to my college algebra class, signed and emailed the class contract, read the syllabus, completed the vocab/concept quiz that had to be done before i could access the homework (17 problems, due saturday), and formulated a general battle plan. discussion boards/journal entries (even/odd weeks) due thursdays. homework due saturdays. quizzes/tests due sundays. we appear to be going more in-depth with the stuff i learned last semester, and i'm already finding this textbook to be more user-friendly than the last one. this, combined with being allowed the use of a graphing calculator (to be purchased after work today), has relieved the initial running-in-circles panic i felt this morning.

chemistry class starts tomorrow, and my backpack is prepped and ready to go.

christmas was wonderful! E got me professional baking sheets and a nutribullet, which have already seen extensive use. i also got the soap that sailed first class on the Titanic (nice!!), and the book that i asked for - Women's History for Beginners, written by Dr. Bonnie Morris, PhD, whom i know and love from Fest as Dr. Bon. squeeeeeee!!! oh, and that mystery package WAS IN FACT BACON! DOUBLE SQUEEEEEE!

E loooooooved the Death Star waffle maker i got for her, and we tried it out (with some of the bacon) on the first day of the new year.

ah, the new year. in the last 12 days, i have:

- learned to make pretzels, pain au chocolat, and roast leg of lamb
- completed (and sold) a pair of mittens
- made more progress on the giant granny square blanket than in the last six months combined
- started a new goalie-specific workout program
- used my nutribullet at least every two days (and love it so much that i might actually sell the juicer)
- hung out with two Fest friends
- actually taken a bath in E's bathtub for the first time in 3 years (we kept forgetting to buy a drain plug)
- re-organized the kitchen cabinets (with E)
- made significant headway in actually doing some cleaning every day. dishes and bed-making, at the bare minimum.

goals for this year include:

- save money for school, an eventual new vehicle, and our wedding
- pay off credit card #1
- finish the giant granny square blanket
- attend the Ohio Lesbian Festival
- learn to knit socks
- learn to make donuts
- learn to sew
- continue to get straight As
- get the bathroom painted
- take tap dance lessons with Mom
- get the tattoo i've been planning since Fest ended
- officially move in with E

hello, 2016. you're off to a pretty good start.

four days

like any other sensible human being this time of year, i am subsisting almost entirely on cookies and cookie-like substances, with occasional actual-food (uhh...mostly tacos, pizza, and fried chicken) thrown in.

i did make raspberry and blackberry thumbprint cookies on saturday, and they turned out incredibly well, considering i was hangry and opened a Guinness after dropping the butter on the (freshly cleaned) counter:

 on sunday, E made chocolate peanut butter no-bake cookies, and i got busy wrapping All The Things:

i'm crazy about that Santa wrapping paper. so crazy that i bought three rolls of it last year. the red! the blue! the vintage-y-ness!

also on sunday, i participated in Family Cookie Fun:

it was great! we had Christmas music on, and there were several bursts of three-part harmony. Little V had a marvelous time, and i snapped what is now one of my top favorite pictures of Mom:

she mixed a bunch of sprinkles on a plate, frosted the cookie, then dunked it face-down. she called it her "instant-decoration" tree. and she thought i was just taking a picture of the cookie, so she didn't try to pose. i'm sneaky like that!

today, i don't have clients til 5, and i've been a busy little dragon. did some dishes, paid the cable bill, ran a load of laundry (must remember to make more laundry detergent tomorrow), put up my gingerbread village:

(this one's my favorite)

worked on a mitten (trust me, it's a mitten.):

and made the dough for the molasses cookies i'm taking to the office party tomorrow afternoon.

double the recipe, i said. it will be fun, i said:

that was with two more cups of flour left to work in UNTIL NO STREAKS OF FLOUR REMAINED. i took a deep breath, reminded myself that i am a professional (no really, i used to do this for a living), abandoned the wooden spoon, washed my hands, and dove in. fold and smoosh, fold and smoosh, fold and smoosh. gently, so as not to overwork the flour. making sure to scoop from the bottom so everything got incorporated. it's delicious, and is doing its thing in the fridge.

still to come: a trip to Greenfield Village with E's family on wednesday, present-wrapping and cleaning and french toast casserole assembling and midnight church service with Mom on thursday, and then NO MORE SLEEPS YAAAAAY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

stuff and things. and things. and stuff.

- i woke up yesterday with a very tight and sore upper back, and it's still bothering me today. it's not keeping me from doing things, but it's bad enough that i'm going in to work early so i can get adjusted (which i meant to do on wednesday, and put off. BAD IDEA.).

- it's been cloudy for days here. not rainy, unlike Portland, which is on its 18th consecutive day of rain (a record, even for them). it's making for some very mellow lighting:

- E and i did the Shopping Extravaganza yesterday, and had a lot of fun! traffic was very manageable, and the lines weren't bad at all, even at Toys R Us. we left the house at noon, had cheeseburgers for lunch, Buddy's Pizza for an early dinner, and were home to walk the dog by 7:30. Quite literally, the only thing i have left to pick up is some dry sausage for my brother.

- speaking of sausage, Mom texted me to say that a box marked "perishable" had been delivered, and was now on the back porch. i asked from whom, and she sent me a picture of the shipping label, which originated from a smoked meats company in Wisconsin. i haven't been by to get the box yet, and i still don't know who sent it, but i may be the lucky recipient of bacon-by-mail for the second time in my life.

- i still have a few cards to write and send.

- i did indeed get straight As this semester, which brought my cumulative GPA up to a 2.56! (long story involving calling off a wedding and moving across the country twice in a 3-month period. don't ask.)

- the forecast for the weekend: cloudy, with a 100% chance of cookies. i'll be making thumbprint and molasses cookies on saturday, and E wants to make chocolate no-bakes and peanut butter blossoms on sunday. we also have the option on sunday to decorate ugly sweater cookies with my mom, sister, and Little V who, it turns out, likes to decorate cookies but doesn't really care for eating them. or chocolate, or cake, or milkshakes, or any candy other than suckers and lollipops. this kid has no sweet tooth AT ALL. K told me that the first time she gave Little V chocolate milk (out of desperation, because the pizza place only had chocolate milk, not plain, and the kid was about to melt down), she took one swig and declared, "This milk is BROKEN!"

- i'm having a little trouble really getting into the Christmas spirit this year. i mean, i'm thoroughly enjoying the lights, the music, all the preparations like usual, but...i feel a little flat. maybe it's the unseasonably warm weather/lack of snow. more probably, maybe it's the fever-pitch of hatred and violence that is all over the airwaves. so much death and destruction, and all in the name of a God who i'll bet has quite an afterlife surprise in store for those who disseminate hate and think they're doing His work.

off to shower, then off to the post office and work! more later!

half-day

on sunday, E had a glorious day of doing absolutely nothing except eating and hanging out on the couch watching NCIS (okay, and doing some laundry), and she expressed the heartfelt wish that I, too, would have a whole day to do fuck-all sometime soon. what i'm getting instead are several days where i get to pretend that i'm back at Fest, taking my allowed half-day off. and today is one of those days!

i slept in a little, aided and abetted by the animals. they've gotten very good at strategic snuggling. effectively, they have learned how to pin me under the blankets and go limp, so that i have either to wiggle my way out at the top of the bed (because God forbid i disturb a sleeping animal) or accept my fate and go back to sleep.

i got one round of dishes done (it's been a little busy here, and things have piled up), signed and addressed a few Christmas cards, wrapped some presents bound for Oregon, made and wrapped some babysitting vouchers for K and J (and by "made", i mean i cut sheets of cardstock into thirds and wrote BABYSITTING in sharpie on each one), folded laundry, cleaned the kitchen, hung out with E when she came home for lunch, and ate approximately ten vanilla bean sugar cookies from this recipe (minus the almond extract, and minus the frosting). I'm watching Little V tonight, and decided that slice-and-bake cookies (plus a bottle of sprinkles) would be a nice low-mess activity. the recipe calls for dividing the dough in half, so i baked half as a test-run:

they're not the most photogenic cookies in the world, but they're delicious, and that's way more important! also, there are sprinkles all over my kitchen now, because they roll right off of the cookies unless you press them down a little. so much for low-mess. hope my sister has rimmed cookie sheets.

one semester of school is finished! they haven't posted grades yet, but unless i'm very much mistaken, i earned a 4.0 this semester. and i'm all registered for next semester, too: Chemistry 105 and College Algebra, here i come! one of the girls in my Biology class will be in my Chemistry class, and we *may* have jumped up and down a little while squealing, "lab partners!!!1!.

you know what's amazing? being able to rent textbooks. seriously. if i were to buy all of my books from the school bookstore, it would run me $530. but renting the two textbooks and buying the lab manual and answer key will only cost $246! THAT i can handle!

what else? mom, K, and i took Little V to see Rudolph: The Musical, and she completely fan-girled OUT, except when Bumble was on stage. scared her out of her mind, poor kid! she was shaking and crying so hard at one point that the six-year-old boy in front of us turned around to reassure her that it was just a giant puppet.

E and i are both off on thursday, and we're going to finish up our Christmas shopping. it's rare that we get to do that together, and we're excited! she has to get...well...pretty much everything, i think, and i just have a few more things to buy. a memory stick for her mom, puzzles for Little E, sausage and cheese for my brother, a card for Little V. a couple more ornaments...a couple more giftcards...not bad for starting later than usual!

there's nothing like taking the dog for a walk on a cold night, then putting on soft, warm pajamas and eating ham and bean soup.

i'm a huge fan of all things cozy. fluffy socks, tea with lemon and honey (and sometimes whiskey), NCIS marathons on the couch with my love and our animals. things i can eat from a bowl (i LOVE bowls). crock pots, and the tasty things that come out of them. hot coffee in my favorite mug. crawling into bed, early, with a good book and the cat on my chest. warm laundry. clean sheets. Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra on the radio (er...Pandora station). thunderstorms in the night. hot showers. wrapping Christmas presents. a quiet house. cake. smashed-up baked potatoes with butter, salt, and bacon (eaten from a bowl, obvs). yarn. making things with yarn. belly-laughing. belly-laughing with E.

i'm not a huge fan of waking up with a scratchy throat. or math tests. especially math tests that have to be taken after waking up with a scratchy throat.

last night, i had the whole day planned. wake up, coffee and breakfast (healthy, high-fiber, no-sugar-added cereal...with marshmallows, because i'm a grown-up and i said so, that's why), start laundry, take math test (which is a "once you open the link, you're committed for the next four hours" thing), make more laundry detergent, clean the kitchen and bathroom, do more laundry, finish the little warm hat for the fetal pig i'll be dissecting on Tuesday.

it's been two hours, and i've only gotten through coffee and breakfast. and E will be home for lunch soon, so there's no point opening the test yet.

ok. new plan: start laundry. make laundry soap. do the dishes and sweep the kitchen. have lunch with E. take a long, hot shower. put on pajamas, robe, and fluffy socks. make tea with lemon, honey, and whiskey. take math test. crawl into bed with yarn and the cat.

coziest sick-and-have-to-take-a-test day ever.

last night

before:

during:  (Dallas gets canned pumpkin pretty often as a treat, and he was absolutely ENTRANCED. also, i can't believe it took us thirty-odd years to figure out that cut-open trash bags are the ideal under-pumpkin barrier.)

Ta-Daaaaaaaa!!!

(no filter of any kind!)

 i am going to marry this womon SO hard.

the traditional morning-after breakfast!

it rained for the third year in a row. i made homemade macaroni and cheese with smoked sausage. we had lots of trick-or-treaters, and watched Army of Darkness and Ash vs The Evil Dead. Dallas spent a couple of hours making whiny tortured dog noises from his crate, despite consuming three hot dogs in bits and pieces. Houdini lived up to her name and made a break for it, returning with a tail full of pickers. we ate too much candy. we slept in. we ate more candy. we had oatmeal pancakes and bacon for brunch. hope your Halloween was happy, too!!

freeeeeeee

the stars aligned, and gifted me the magical combination of a Monday with no clients til 5, and a Tuesday with no class or lab (college inservice day) and no clients til 4!

TWO. MOSTLY-OFF. DAYS.

even better: my math professor doesn't post our weekly assignments til sometime on Tuesday afternoon/evening, which usually frustrates me, but today just gives me even more of an excuse to play.

not that things aren't getting done; i have a load of laundry going (the dryer got fixed yesterday!), and a little later i'll do the usual dishes/counters/stove/floor cleanup in the kitchen. but let me tell you, being curled up on the couch in my new robe, with a craft project and my coffee...mmmmm.

yep, those are cereal marshmallows. we found a source that sells 1-pound bags of them for $3.99 (nuts.com)!!!! i ordered a bag for my sister for Christmas, but...well...i mean, i'm not going to gift substandard marshmallows. so we ordered a bag for us, too, and they are exactly how marshmallows should be.

oh!!! and the new robe!! YOU GUYS, THIS ROBE!!!!!!

it's like a hoodie and a robe hooked up and had a baby, and the result is the softest, warmest, most delightful...it's....like wearing premium butter. i was never a robe person, and now i know it's only because the perfect robe did not exist until now. i'm sad to take it off at night, and happy to put it back on in the morning. last night, i slept in it.

Houdini loves it, too. it's a cat magnet!

in non-robe-related news, on Saturday, E and i dressed up as Rosie the Riveter and helped set a new Guinness World Record for the most Rosies (2096!!!!) in one place:

(excuse my finger. jeez.)

it was so much fun! there were 43 original Rosies, each wearing a rose made out of the bandana fabric, and the rest of us came in all sizes, shapes, and ages (even babies!). to make the record count, we had to stand together for 5 minutes, and we passed the time by singing the national anthem, God Bless America, Amazing Grace, and America the Beautiful.

stay tuned for pumpkin-carving, Halloween-y-ness! Have a great week!