Christmas Baking, Day 1

My mom commissioned me to do some baking for her this past weekend, so she’ll have gifts to give out at her Christmas party on Wednesday.

If you’ll forgive the potato-quality photo (and the fact that I haven’t carefully arranged these to be prettier, since I didn’t want to mark up the chocolate), I present 85 Oreo truffles for your viewing pleasure.

After the photo was taken, I tried one (since I had changed the recipe a bit to fit what I had on-hand). Of course, the little one, who has seen these in the fridge and asked, "Chocolate? Chocolate?" each time, spotted what I was up to and made sure to swing by with her usual, "Bite? Bite?" request. About the only time I manage to have a whole meal to myself is at work or when she’s in bed. At least it means she’s trying new things (and no, not just chocolate).

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Christmas and so on

So, I can’t believe it myself, but I’m going to shoot myself in the foot by immortalizing it here — I am done with my Christmas shopping, and I have finished all of the gifts I was making.

I can’t believe it either. I am the queen of procrastination (see my blogs?), I am the matriarch of the unfinished project (ask the DH, our house is a monument to half-finished knitting and cross stitch projects and even clay figures), and I am usually going until the last minute.

Sure, I could continue baking cookies, and I might, but really, seven different kinds of cookies and one tray of no-fail fudge is good.

I would say I could make more handmade gifts, but there aren’t really any more to do. Except for one gag gift for my sister, that’s the last item I have. I do have to do the finishing work on the ones I have finished, but those are easy enough to take care of.

And yes, I have to wrap everything. But I don’t want to wrap and put things under the tree too soon, because I fear the kid might decide to start opening presents. And seeing presents under the tree for the next two weeks might be unfair to her. This is the kid who, until a few weeks ago, kept asking if we were going to “more more trick or treat?”. Now she only asks every few days.

Day 1: Introductions

Some quotes from Bill Watterson

– It’s surprising how hard we’ll work when the work is done just for ourselves.

– You may be surprised to find how quickly daily routine and the demands of “just getting by absorb your waking hours. You may be surprised matters of habit rather than thought and inquiry. You may be surprised to find how quickly you start to see your life in terms of other people’s expectations rather than issues. You may be surprised to find out how quickly reading a good book sounds like a luxury.

– At school, new ideas are thrust at you every day. Out in the world, you’ll have to find the inner motivation to search for new ideas on your own.

Source: http://web.mit.edu/jmorzins/www/C-H-speech.html (errors reproduced above were found in the source text)

Trying something not-so-new

So lately I’ve been feeling the creative bug something fierce. My last few posts here, I’ve learned that what I was once warned about has in fact happened; I’ve lost my ability to write creatively, and even worse, I seem to have lost the ability to write in my own voice. Years of writing ‘creatively’ for the feds has borked me over, and that’s depressing.

A friend of mine has taken it upon himself to push me to write regularly, and wants to see a schedule for that. I appreciate the push, but I also know my tendency to take on too much at once and then get upset with myself with I don’t have the time or energy to devote to any given interest. Right now, I’m training for a race at the end of September, and that’s taking up a decent amount of my free time, so I’m trying not to beat myself up too much over the lack of progress on the creative fronts.

That said, I feel I have things to say, so it’s my intention that I’ll make the effort to put those words to paper or screen, as it may be. Right now, a lot of my non-creative, non-work focus is on my kid, so I suspect that what will be easier for now will be to become a (yack) mommy blogger.

Of course, I deliberately started up a different site for those posts back when she was born, so this one will be kept for whatever other random content I feel like posting. Maybe eventually a voice or focus will come out, or maybe I’ll end up retiring this blog for awhile because of its lack of focus. Blogging has changed significantly since I first started, and I’m fearful that I’ve missed the boat — or am trying to jump on it after it’s already passed. And if Canada Fitness Tests taught me anything as a kid, I’m not a good jumper.

But we’ll see, and if nothing else, after September 29th, I should have some more free time — and hopefully some exciting race results to share.

 

Some delightful treats from work

Please forgive the potato photos – I was trying to snap in a hurry:

Friday Confession

When a woman tells me she’s not a feminist, I lose respect for her.

Not really music to one’s ears

Trying to describe dubstep – as someone not very versed in the genre – is rather embarrassing.

“It kinda goes ‘wub wub wub scree scree scree’?”

Take me seriously after that, please.

But at least it’s energizing on the days I just want to nap, and will serve as good run timing music.

On another note, I recently watched the entire run of The Glades, and as much as I love how gaga Jim is over Callie and the way they develop and treat their relationship, the car commercials in the show are an embarrassment to screenwriting and advertising alike.

They are so very out of place, and they even get lampshaded in one episode. Given how poorly they’re put in I almost wonder if that’s a deliberate move on the part of the writers and producers, but I’m sure we could never be so lucky.

And producers of Bones, don’t think we don’t notice you doing it too.

Just this

You’re welcome

Friday Confession

My dad wears a signet ring on his right hand ring finger. As a kid, like you do, I used to try to tug it off. And just like putting someone else’s glasses on properly, it’s pretty hard to take someone else’s ring off, so I was never able to. Whenever I would try to remove it and fail, my dad used to say that he had a pin that went through his finger and was connected to the ring, and so it couldn’t be removed.

I wasted way too much brain power when I was younger trying to figure out how that was possible.