In Theory

I should be posting my list of cooking challenges, how awesome my job hunt is going, and how productive I am being. Instead I am watching old Doctor Who (as in, Eccleston-era, not OLD Doctor Who) and sniffling  a lot while feeling very congested/sorry for myself. I hope this goes away soon. Matt's has lasted for almost a week and he had a good three-day head start on me. Can anyone recommend good time-wasters from Netflix streaming? Hey, how about a pretty picture?

I am going to miss my blue walls. Also, I would like a lime green lounge-y chair for Christmas please, Santa.

Opinions? Also, Gloating.

So I succumbed to Cyber Monday. Endless.com had a deal where if you spend over $100, you get $30 off. So if I buy two pairs of shoes (like I usually do, assuming there is NO WAY both of them will actually fit) they are $54 each, instead of the normal-sale $72 or the full-price $90. And I have been hunting for a pair of dressy flats for pretty much all of 2010. Also, free shipping AND returns (crucial for how many shoes I return). Then I can return the pair that doesn't fit (there's always at least one) and still enjoy my discount, ha!

So these are the front-runners. I am pretty pleased with them. They are not 100% comfy but about 85% and that is good for me as Clarks usually take a little breaking in. They also are awesomely gunmetal gray with STUDS and a tiny (a.k.a. comfortable) wedge heel. How could I not love them?

This was very cheering after wasting most of my day at the Nevada Job Connect office. They seem to be catering to people who have no idea how to use a computer or write a resume. I feel like I should be able to find a job without the help of anyone there. Yeesh. It seems weird to be talking about this and shopping in the same post. But that's also why I can't buy shoes unless they're at least 40% off. It's weird how I can justify spending money sometimes even though I haven't had a job in a month. But I am working on it. And I have been hunting for shoes like these for at least a year now. Also, I am attempting not to purchase clothing until I have employment to justify it. I can get through holiday parties etc. on the wardrobe I have. But not the shoes.

Weekend Update

I hope everyone had a happy T-Day (or a nice weekend, Canadians). This was one of the nicer Thanksgivings in recent memory, we drove down to my aunt's house in Winters (outside of Sacramento) bearing pies and apple butter (Xmas presents for people we won't see later). I helped with potato mashing and Matt led a family jam. Winters relatives have a musical bent so there are generally percussion items for small people to bang on. And guitars and pianos for big people to bang on. My mom's sisters are nice and mellow and only one of my sisters was there (we are less mellow and there are a million nieces and nephews) so it was a refreshingly peaceful day.

The potatoes were a mix of generic yellow (yukon gold?) and purple potatoes so they came out a delicious shade of lavender. The apple pie was declared by the five-year-old to be the best pie he had ever had. So overall a success. That night we crashed in Davis and went back for breakfast the next day. And can I say, baking leftover mashed potatoes with cheese on top until they get crispy edges has to be one of the better uses of leftovers in our family.

Then we trucked back to Reno and sat around on the internet looking for jobs. The rest of the weekend mostly involved being cold and going to other people's houses to eat their leftover turkey soup. Now I am sad that I don't have my own leftovers. I might just have to pick up some purple potatoes. Also my whole family is excited for me to move into my grandmother's house. All I have to do is communicate that I am not attached to any of the big dark old paintings even though they are of family. And that I could really use some of the furniture. I am also back to collecting inspiration photos.


Unlike my (cozy, brightly colored) house, the new place has wood floors and white walls (gasp!) and white curtains. So we will see what we can do to make it feel like home.

Thanks

I am thankful for all my loving crazy family and friends, and for the new adventure to come! Hope all my readers/crazy friends are having a happy T-Day full of love and good food. 

Drop in the Bucket.

In between applying for jobs I am starting to attempt to clean out the house. I just got rid of a lounge chair/ottoman thing via Craigslist and it took so long. Curse you, winter storms. I need to have a garage sale here! Can it please not be 35 degrees out this weekend? Talk about bad timing to start getting ready to move.

I want to take about half this stuff with me. Matt wants to store way too much of it for just-in-case purposes, which might kill me (esp. in the cases of a lot of the random crap we've NEVER used). But at the very least it is not getting trucked to California. And he knows that. So it's a start. And he knows we are not paying to store anything. And his dad (of the 5 acres of sagebrush with plenty of spare room...) knows that too.

I figure, if we really need it we can come get it out of "storage" or replace it via Craigslist because the Bay Area CL is so much better than the Reno one. And I am realizing how many people I have missed that I will be able to see again down there. Not the least of which is my grandmother, but also my parents and sister and Reno peeps who have moved down there and LG peeps who have never left. So I am getting excited!

Tomorrow we go talk turkey with my dad, see what kind of shape the stuff in the house is and what of it we can still use. Also, eat real turkey. I am bringing a pair of pumpkin pies and an apple pie with obligatory homemade crumble crust. Pumpkin pies are done, pain-in-the-butt pie is all that's left to do other than pack the car and get a haircut. Matt has been taking videos of me with his new phone and other than generally objecting to their existence, they showed me that I really need a haircut. So I guess their existence isn't completely offensive, just mostly.

Also, does anyone know how to put pictures in Blogger now? I have some home inspiration photos I really like and it wants me to put them in Picasa so I can upload them. It seems silly to not be able to upload directly from My Pictures any more. And posts with no pictures are exponentially less fun :(

Wow.

We just called my parents and asked them if we could move into my grandmother's house. They offered in the past but now it's serious. Also it is a lot smaller so we are really going to have to do some cleaning out now. We will store some stuff with Matt's parents unless we can get somebody we like as a renter and then we might be able to rent this place partially furnished. But we are still moving somewhere smaller and even though the job market is WAY better I still don't have a job.

SCARY.

Canning Success. I Guess.

A big chunk of Christmas is now taken care of. The second batch of apple/pear butter was much more successful. However, I am unable to keep my stove at a low enough simmer so I have to turn it off and give it an extra stir periodically so it doesn't bubble to enthusiastically. This would be fine if it didn't have a tendency to blorp a lot and make a big mess. And spit scalding brown liquid IN MY EYE. It's gonna be a cranky Christmas, I can just feel it.

From somebody much more organized. I got about a dozen jars of this size as I made two separate batches that were both small enough to do in my Dutch oven. They will probably just get a nice ribbon and a little label pasted on and be good to gift.

However, peppermint bark is thankfully pretty much idiotproof. I will post a recipe as soon as I make a batch and remember all the things I always mean to write down. I am so lazy I tend to gift this in a ziploc bag with ribbon tied around it. But I assume everyone else eats it as fast as we do so I figure it's not a big deal.