Thank
It’s ‘Murican Thanksgiving today! So in honor of that, here’s a list of things I am currently thankful for.
- I am thankful for my husband. Nate is an incredibly understanding, patient, kind, intelligent man, and I’m so fortunate to have met him and to have him love me as much as I love him. I truly believe that he is my soulmate.
- I am thankful for my mom. I don’t think there’s a way I could properly convey how much she’s done for me and how appreciative I am of everything she’s done and the fact that she lets me be who I am.
- I am thankful for my dad. We have a weird relationship (though I think my dad has a weird relationship with everyone, haha), but it works for us. He’s always done a lot for me, especially monetarily. For example, I wouldn’t be debt-free after 10 years of post-secondary school if it wasn’t for his help paying for my first undergrad run and letting me live in his basement when I went back and got my math degree.
- I am thankful for my kitties. Both Jazzy, who I see every day, and Annabelle, who I haven’t seen in quite some time, are incredibly important to me. They both needed just some love and attention in order to become wonderful little kitties.
- I am thankful for my job. It is the best job that I could possibly ever ask for, and the only way it could be better is if I knew it would be what I was doing for the rest of my life. Teaching stats really is my dream job, and I’m very fortunate to be able to do what I want for my job rather than be miserable (or at least less than happy) in a job that I don’t really have a passion for.
- I am thankful for my physical health. I very rarely get sick, I’m resistant to injuries, and I am physically capable of doing pretty much anything I need to do.
- I am thankful for the fact that my current circumstances allow me to walk as much as they do. This kind of goes along with the point about being physically healthy and the point about having the job that I have. I wouldn’t be able to do nearly as much walking if I wasn’t physically healthy, and I wouldn’t be able to do nearly as much walking if I had a regular 9-to-5 job.
- I am thankful for technology. Even (and maybe especially) the “smaller” technology, like calculators and watches. We’re surrounded by this stuff and use it constantly; it’s really easy to take it for granted.
- Finally, I am thankful for this blog. I might berate it and fail to update it regularly, but it’s a record of my past and thus is incredibly important to me. I’m glad it exists.
Thanks
It’s Canadian Thanksgiving today! Nate and I (and his parents and brother) went down to his grandma’s house to have dinner with her and some other members of the family. Nate and I played catch with a pinecone for like two hours while we were there, ‘cause we’re adults.
It was fun. Nate’s family is cool.
Thanksgiving!
You know what I’m thankful for?
My freaking awesome mother.
I know a fair number of my friends have bad relationships with their moms, but I seriously can’t imagine having a better relationship with my mom.
Heck, I can’t imagine having a better mom.
So mom, I know you read these (whenever I get around to posting them, haha) and I just want you to know how much I love you and appreciate you and appreciate all the stuff you’ve done for me over the past 25 years. I’m so glad we’re as close as we are and I’m so glad we “get” each other.
I love you, mom! <3
Thanksgiving!
Happy Thanksgiving peoplez! My mom and I spent the morning driving all around, then I worked on Newton vs. Leibniz while helping her chef, then we had mashed potatoes and broccoli and it was awesome.
This year I am thankful for:
- My mom, of course. I’m really glad I got to spend a few days with her over break.
- The opportunity to further my education. I missed school SO. MUCH. Now that I’m back, I’m not sure if I’ll ever leave.
- My freaking awesome badass job. I love teaching statistics. It doesn’t feel like work AT ALL.
There are a lot of little things, too, but those are the main ones.
Enjoy today, y’all!
Haha, oh yeah, I forgot what today was…
Hahaha, oh my god.
So I didn’t die in the snow this morning (it took an hour and a half to get to campus due to three separate bus breakdowns)! And I now present you with an alphabetical list of things I am thankful for, because alphabetical lists rock and I’m putting off going back outside to get home.
Annabelle. I love my cat!
Broccoli. Broccoli is perhaps the greatest food ever.
Creativity. I don’t think I’m all that creative, but it’s fun to pretend and gives me an excuse to draw.
Dad. I miss him up here more than I thought I would.
Existentialism. Sometimes the only outlook on life that works.
Fantasies. Crawling into the alternate worlds that exist in my head keeps me (relatively) sane.
Good music. This has been an excellent year for music made for zoning out.
Hope. Without it, why bother?
Immune system. I have the immune system of a God. For that I am highly thankful, especially in such a big city when I’m exposed to dozens of people a day in enclosed areas (buses).
Joking. Laugh or die.
Kitchen. My new mode of creative expression, apparently, is cooking. Which is funny, ‘cause I can’t taste half the crap I make.
Leibniz. Oh, you know it.
Mom. YAY!
NaNoWriMo. A chance to write without abandon.
Obsessions. Statisics! Philosophy of science! Getting irrationally excited about little things that make my soul tingle! WOO!
Philosophy. I honestly don’t know how I had gotten through life without this before, when I thought it was all dumb.
Quirky life events. Creepy coincidences: keeping life interesting since 1988.
Readers. To those of you (two of you, maybe?) who read this regularly and to the random people who stop by—I appreciate your reading my ramblings!
School. As conflicted as I am right now regarding it, it’s still school, and I’m still me.
Transportation. Thank the transportation gods for the Vancouver bus system (and the UPass. Thank you thank you thank you, UPass).
Unusual friends. I’m talking to you, Moscow people. Like, all of you.
Vaio. Trusted friend and companion since 2006 (Vaio I and Vaio II have the same soul).
Web access. I love the internet. I want to study the internet. Trend analysis + memes = ideal way to have fun.
Xeno-experiences. As in foreign experiences. Vancouver is SO not Moscow in a lot of ways, which is nice. And I like sushi now.
Yesterday. The past, even the sucktastic parts, is very, very important to me, and I’m thankful for almost every experience I’ve had.
Zealousness. It’s important to me to have unabashed passion for at least one thing in life. The fact that I’m still zealous about stats/philosophy/Leibniz gives me hope.
WOO THAT’S ALL!
Happy Thanksgiving, US friends!
Today’s song: Perfect Girl by the Ultrasonics
Life lessons and AWESOME COOKIES
It’s Canadian Thanksgiving today. NO CAMPUS FOR ME!
Anyway, today’s life lessons are as follows:
1. I should not be allowed around cornmeal.
2. I should not be allowed to “experiment.” My kitchen now looks like the Pillsbury Doughboy used it as a toilet.
Today’s AWESOME COOKIES are as follows:
I had a bunch of random ingredients left over from various cooking endeavors, so I decided what I could to with them all. These cookies are the result. I must say, they’re a lot better than I expected them to be. I shall take them to the office tomorrow and distribute them freely, I think.
I call them chocolate crunch cornbread cookies and they look like this:
What you will need:
Cookie base
- ½ cup butter (one stick)
- ½ cup sugar
- ¼ tsp. salt
- 2 egg yolks
- ½ cup cornmeal
- 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
Chocolate stuff
- ¼ cup cashews
- ¼ cup Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal
- 2 packets of chocolate Pocky (about 15 sticks)
- 4 tbsp. peanut butter (chunky or smooth, your choice)
Note: the base was adapted from this site. I don’t like lemon or cranberries, hence why they’re absent from my ingredient list, plus I don’t think the chocolate would taste good with the cranberries, but what do I know?
OKAY, steps!
1. Soften butter and mix with sugar. Stir in the salt and egg yolks and beat until just mixed. Add the cornmeal and flour and mix until everything’s pretty evenly amalgamated. It should still be a bit crumbly.
2. Dump the mixture onto a cutting board (or whatever you’ve got) and get yourself some cling film. Roll the dough out gently (it’ll crumble fairly easily) into a tube shape until it’s smooth and delightfully phallic. Wrap it in the cling film and twist the edges like you’re making a giant sausage. You want the dough nice and compact so you can cut it up later.
3. Put the giant penis rolled dough in the freezer for about 45 minutes. While it’s chilling out, you can make the chocolate stuff! Combine the cashews, cereal, and Pocky (break the pocky in half first, it’s easier that way) in a sealable baggie.
4. Now just beat the hell out of it. I used my “grad school is destroying my soul” frustration augmented with the back of a spoon. Try to get the nuts totally pulverized, but if you want a few larger chunks of Pocky and cereal, that’s cool. I realized after I was done with this whole endeavor that grinding these ingredients into a coarse powder would probably work best, but I have no such apparatus for accomplishing that (and I’m too lazy to beat a baggie with a spoon for an extended period of time), so I just left it kinda chunky.
5. Dump the contents of the baggie into a bowl and add the peanut butter. Microwave for about 40 seconds and stir. This’ll melt the peanut butter so it’s manageable as well as the chocolate on the Pocky. You should get something gross-looking like this:
6. After the 45 minutes are up, take your dough out of the freezer and get slicin’! I cut mine into ½ inch slices, and that seemed to work fine. Now’s a good time to preheat your oven to 350° F.
7. Spread the chocolate concoction liberally onto the tops of the cookie slices. It should hold together fairly well, so don’t worry too much about getting it everywhere. However, if you went the “I don’t have a food chopper” route, make sure you don’t have any sharp Pocky sticks poking out. ‘Cause they hurt like hell.
8. Place the cookies on an ungreased pan and cook for 15 minutes.
Yay! Now you have tasties. These taste a lot better than they look, trust me. I got about 20 or so cookies out of this recipe. Enjoy!
Today’s song: My Philosophy by Holiday Parade
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