Baked Things

Thing 2 and I made sugar cookies yesterday while T1 was having a playdate.

I remember when I was a kid, how much I enjoyed decorating them. T2's have lots of sprinkles. :-)


And I brought a bunch of things home from ceramics class on Wednesday. Some I can't show you because they are destined to be gifts (but I'm really pleased with how they turned out). But I can show a few:

The thing with holes is just a little candle holder I made. It's certainly nothing special, but I do really like the glaze, which turned out a lovely coppery-brick color. And the mermaid is by request, for T2. T1 already has one. I'd made T2 a different one, but it fell apart in the kiln, so this is actually my 3rd mermaid. I also made T1 a monkey, but it cracked into pieces, too. So I've made her another, but it's not glazed yet. I'm better at mermaids than monkeys.

I also like the glaze on this piece, which was my first attempt at a lidded jar. The glaze is kind of irridescent green and purple.

Stone Soup Day

Here's a really cute pic of Thing 2 and her friend Tiffany at school today. Tiffany has the most adorable blonde ringlets, which T2 covets. T2's adorable, too, of course, but not her hair, which she took it upon herself to cut last Saturday morning before her parents came downstairs. Sigh. At least this time she wasn't playing outside in her pajamas.

T2's school has Stone Soup Day every year, and today was it. Each of the kids brings a particular food item (we contributed onion rolls this year), the teachers make soup and other things, and parents get to join the kids for lunch. I never get to go because T2's school is a 45 minute drive from my office, but Hubby, who works only 3 blocks from her, does get to go. So he took this pic.

And here's T2 (who, as you can see, is currently into tatts) decapitating her dessert.

Baking

It doesn't feel very fall-like today, as the temps topped out near 80. Still, Thanksgiving's drawing near, and I refused to spend the day agonizing about my department budget (although I did get an email from the Dean today indicating the cuts won't be as bad as feared). So I've spent the day making multiple batches of onion rolls, my Thanksgiving staple.

Hubby is going to take the Things to visit his family this year, leaving me to stay home with the pets (there was no room at the doggy inn for Ruthie). That's okay--I'm looking forward to a few days of rest and quiet, actually. But I will roast myself a turkey breast, because it just wouldn't be the same without turkey and cranberry sauce sandwiches on onion rolls (yes, I prefer the leftovers to the actual main meal). And I'm making extra rolls so Hubby and the Things can take some with them.

And while I had the flour and the yeast and everything out anyway, I dragged out the bread machine this afternoon and made a loaf of brioche. I'm going to make it into French Toast for dinner tonight, and won't that be yummy?

Is there any better smell in the world than baking bread?

Work woes

We're having a miserable, horrible budget emergency at work. I'm faced with a bunch of crap decisions that will make everyone angry. Blargh!

So I posted on LiveJournal an old essay I once wrote. It has nothing to do with work or budgets. So there.

Post-election

Okay, first off, I'm thankful for a few things. The damn election is over. Yay! I am, of course, pleased about Obama, and even more pleased that there are only 75 days left of President Stupidhead. I'm also happy about a couple of the ballot measures.

On the other hand, I'm deeply disappointed that Prop 8, the anti-gay marriage measure, passed. Whatever people's own views might be on the issue, why on earth should they care so much about other people's marriages? After all, I can think of lots of straight couples that I don't think should be married, but then that's really none of my frigging business. I'm also appalled at how much time, energy, and money the Yes on 8 people put into this, especially the local churches. If you think gay marriage is a bad idea, fine, but aren't there much more pressing issues? Things like poverty, abuse, war, and inequality?

I'm officially off my soapbox now on this issue.

Joys of Parenthood

So yesterday morning Hubby and I slept in a bit. Thing 1 was still at her friend's house, and all was quiet at ours. Too quiet. Hubby got up and went searching for T2 who, it turns out, was outside, still in her jammies, playing with the neighbor kid. We had a little talk about leaving the house without permission and without appropriate clothes.

Then last night around 11pm, T2, who had been fast asleep, came downstairs crying. She had chewing gum in her hair, on her arm, and on her jammies. She steadfastly denied taking any gum into her room, and insisted T1 had left it on her pillow. While I cleaned T2 up, Hubby questioned T1, who denied any involvement. We decided to leave it for the morning. I interrogated them both this morning and soon got the culprit to crack. The result? T1 will be cleaning T2's room for a while.

Monsters

The little monsters and their parents had a good Halloween yesterday. The vampiress went trick-or-treating with a friend, and then ended up spending the night at her friend's house at an impromptu slumber party. The pirate hit every house in our subdivision and filled her pumpkin literally to the brim. We went through 2 and a half Costco-sized bags of candy. Our conservative estimate is that 150 kids came to our house last night. There are a lot of kids in our neighborhood anyway, and then families import whole minivans full every year. My favorite costume was two girls dressed up as Thing 1 and Thing 2.--the Dr. Seuss versions, that it. :-)

It was rainy yesterday, but by evening there was only an occasional drizzle. And the cloud cover meant it stayed quite warm, so most of our block ended up spending the night outside in a sort of block party.

I think my favorite visitors was a group of 3 boys in their mid teens. Too old for trick-or-treating, really, but they all had on elaborate costumes and they were very polite. I gave them candy and little toys, and as they walked away, I heard one of them say happily to the others, "Dude! She gave us bouncy balls!!"