yoga, books, movies, tv and WAY too many crime procedurals – not necesarily in that order
Yeah, yeah, I know there are people who think “Happy Holidays” is designed to “Take Christ out of Christmas.” To those people I say: think about how many holidays are celebrated in December. Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Christmas, New Year, Solstice. There’s more than one holiday. Hence happy HOLIDAYS. So suck it. Also, please do not get me started on the Xmas debate. See Snopes or Wikipedia and KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT before you start bitching about that X.
On a different note, I’ve been WICKED busy at the new part time job. While I’m enjoying it, it’s been a while since I’ve worked 60 hours a week. As a result, not all the holiday baking is done yet. I haven’t had a day off (no work at all) since two weeks ago Wednesday. Luckily I’m off Christmas Day (both jobs) and we’ve been invited to share Christmas Eve with some friends in town. If I have my way, part of Christmas Day will involve Avatar and possibly Sherlock Holmes. We’ll see.
The mountains continue to be the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen – reinforced daily on my drive to work. It’s hard to believe I’ve been out here for a full year now. While it’s been a big change from Saginaw, the change has been entirely for the better. The town is lovely, if quirky, and the weather can’t be beat. I’ve enjoyed the change of pace from living in the city and the views from anywhere in town can’t be beat. Becoming a Colorado resident was a great way to start the last year.
This year, back in retail for the holidays, I’m surprised to find that customers have been generally happy and cheerful – no crankiness presented as yet. Since we’re getting down to crunch time, I hope the trend continues.
I hope EVERYONE has a safe and wonderful holiday season!
Which for me just means my other job. I’m actually doing double duty tomorrow: 9-1 shift down the mountain, back to Pb to work 3-11(ish). In additional awesome work news, I won’t have a day off work until Christmas which means hella bonus cash for the holidays. With any luck we can buy our new front door before the new year!
Tonight’s dinner-cooking was inspired by my email inbox again. I did a variation on Meatloaf Wellington – made my usual meatloaf (1.5-2.0 lb ground beef, 1 pkg French onion soup mix, 2-3 T of A1, 1 egg, breadcrumbs) and after I cooked it for about 45 minutes, I drained the fat. Then I took a package of crescent rolls and unrolled them, layering them over the top (and slightly overhanging the sides) of the meatloaf and cooked another 15 minutes. It was FANTASTIC and will definitely be added to the regular line up. I didn’t make a gravy and, because I knew I’d be using the crescent rolls, I baked it in a small round casserole dish and angled the beef in away from the sides. It worked really well.
The other day I got an email about a southwest chicken bake using green chilis and tortillas. I sauteed diced chicken with the two shallots leftover from Thanksgiving and 1/4 of a red onion, salt, pepper and some cumin. I took 5 small cans of diced green chilis and put them in a bowl with 1 small jar of salsa, 1 can of kidney beans and about 1/2 c of chopped frozen spinach. Just before combining with the chili mixture, I added the remainder of a package of frozen corn. Stir everything together and then I put a tortilla on the bottom of a round casserole dish, filled it with the chicken mix, topped it with cheddar cheese, then continued layering. I topped it with a tortilla and cheddar cheese. Bake for 1 hour at 350. It made enough that I have dinner for tomorrow and leftovers for the weekend, plus a casserole that I put into the freezer for baking later.
Considering I won’t be home from 8am until almost midnight tomorrow, I’m feeling pretty good about my advanced prep skillz. Now I just have to clean the kitchen before I leave for work in the morning.
The old hard drive remains impervious to my efforts to access files. I’m searching for things which will let me at them but in the meantime the only thing I’m really MISSING is my holiday card list from last year. Damn and blast. I was quite proud of myself for having done that, too. This year I’ll upload it to Google docs and save myself this sort of aggravation in the future.
TV this week has been awesome. The Glee midseason finale was about as close to perfect as you get on television, plus a fantastic closing number. Criminal Minds cranked it up a notch by forcing a leadership decision. Also, the killers who want to pretend to date their victims still creep me out the most. The Mentalist was great tonight and it was nice to see the chemistry returning to normal. The odd insertion of a new Red John team didn’t really ever fit right for me but Jane is funny enough that I didn’t care.
I’m still plugging through East of Eden, though I’ve been distracted by work lately and not making as much progress. I’ll take it to job 1 tomorrow and get some pages in while it’s slow in the afternoon.
Mom is headed to Mexico this weekend. I hope she has a great trip – she deserves it. My next (last?) holiday task is to bundle up cookies and mail them out.
I’m feeling pretty good about Thanksgiving cooking!
Both pumpkin tortes are done (one for us, one for the club), the cranberry sauce is finished, and my apple pie is smelling delicious in the oven.
All that remains is, in a few hours, to brine the turkey and tear up bread for stuffing. That and clean the house. Heh. I’ve actually kept on top of the dishes as I was cooking so there hasn’t been TOO much damage done.
This year I’m thankful for good friends over long distances, new friends we enjoy sharing our home with, our family, our health and our jobs. Moving all this way could have been terribly lonely and, while it’s been lonely at times, we’ve got great folks who make up our ‘extended’ family – some of whom we’ve never even met. My life would be a very different thing were it not for the internet. I’m thankful for those who’ve chosen to share their pocket of it with me.
