Happy New Year

December 6 was my last post? SRSLY? How sad.

My company gives us a "Week of Rest" between Christmas and New Years every year. Well, since that was a particularly well-positioned week this year, we got 2 weeks. Weeks of Rest, I've been calling it. I was barely home. I spent a week in Sacramento with the family, laughing and having a really great, relaxing time. I haven't been that relaxed back home in a long time. It was great. I just kept extending my stay, because really, what did I have to do here? Nothing, that's what.

I came home for about 36 hours to pack my things after Christmas, and then went back to see the Oregon contingent and then fly to Seattle to see my dear dear dear friend. What a great trip. Seattle is so beautiful. We went to a silly New Year's Eve party where the drink list was composed entirely of things mixed with champagne, went snowshoeing in the Cascades, played games, and just generally vegged out. It was great.

All in all, Weeks of Rest were so rejuvinating that I was downright excited to come back to work and see my peeps. I love my peeps.

Mmmm... puddingy.

I'm baking. This is why I love weekends... it's Saturday night, 9 pm; I'm sharing a very boozy hot chocolate with HD (Bailey's Irish Cream: The Reason For the Season), and I'm concocting dessert when we didn't even eat dinner (lunch at 3:00, don't worry, Dad).

Yesterday was the 2 year anniversary of HD and my first date at My Thai in San Rafael. To celebrate, I made reservations at Pesce in Russian Hill. Our seafood dinner was delicious, and for dessert we had a limoncello tiramisu and some kind of amazing apricot bread pudding. I was inspired; at any given time, we have 2-3 partial loaves of extremely stale bread in the fridge. We always have eggs and milk. So after decorating the tree, I got to work.

Step 1: Nearly sever fingers by trying to cube a 2-week-old loaf of sourdough batard from Bovine Bakery. Put cubes in casserole.

Step 2: Dice some dried apricots, sprinkle in casserole with dried cranberries and golden raisins. When HD is sufficiently engrossed in a rerun of Reno 911, sneak some Ghirardelli white chocolate chips out of the pantry and sprinkle right in there. Go ahead, he can't hear you over his disturbing laughter.

Step 3: Basically make french toast batter, but add some extra fun: a teaspoon of allspice, a teaspoon of Madagascar vanilla bean paste, some organic sugar, a quarter cup of pure maple syrup, and last but definitely not least, a tablespoon of Jack Daniel's. Mmmmmm. More booze. Definitely not driving anymore tonight.

Step 4: Combine the batter with the bread mixture, let sit in the fridge, covered, for 40 minutes. Preheat the oven to 400.

Step 5: Bake.

Treeeeeee!

After I got my hair cut today (shorter than it's ever been), HD helped me pick out a Christmas tree. I had that sucker in the tree stand and strung with lights in 10 minutes flat. I think it's a new record.

My cabin smells amazing right now. There's really nothing like the smell of a noble fir. It warms even the most grinchy of hearts.

The plan tomorrow is to put up the outdoor lights, and maybe make a wreath of some kind out of pinecones. Also, bake cookies.

2 years

You're my best friend and I hope for many more years to come.

मुझे तुमसे प्यार है.

In which I lobby for a position at Martha Stewart Omnimedia, apparently

I just want to drink coffee in my cabin all day and decorate for Christmas and knit and make cute paper ornaments and bake cookies and breads and write cards to people I haven't seen in a long time and go to Seattle and watch Meg Ryan/Tom Hanks movies and Love, Actually and string cranberries and gather pinecones from the redwood just off my brick path and make soups and I'm pretty sure this lack of punctuation looks bad for me professionally.