Random Crap in Life…

It’s snowing here!

So, I’ve been really bad. It has been a whole month since I updated my blog. My manager even asked me when I would write something new. Apparently, he’s reading it. So, I will have to say nice things about work. Actually, I have no bad things to say about work, nothing at all. I like where I work for a change! We had our office Christmas party on the 13th. It was a pot luck. I was going to make a cranberry chocolate torte. But the Christmas party was on a Thursday, and I don’t have time to bake on weekdays; so, I bought a raspberry chocolate cake instead. I remember telling a couple of people in my group that I was going to buy a cake instead because I don’t have time to bake. But my manager still thought I baked the cake, so, he got a slice of the cake and told me it was really good, and it looked professional. When I told him it was store-bought, he felt gypped. Haha. Well, it was a lot funnier at the time. The Christmas party was really fun. One of our project manager brought a Karaoke to the party. At first, I thought, ‘OMG, this is going to be a torture. I don’t sing!’ We were randomly selected into groups. Each group had 4 people. Our group sang ‘My Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer’. One of our senior developers was in another group and his group sang, ‘Whip It’. His group was so into it. I have never laughed so hard in my entire life!

Nothing interesting really happened in the last month, just same old stuff… dead mice, live mice (yes, there are live ones, too), rain, work, and the commute. About the rain, there was that storm we had. I think we had 12″ of rain. We ended up with 2 feet of water in our crawlspace because someone destroyed our trench by driving their SUV over it. One of our friends parked her car behind the gym she went to, and somehow it got flooded, and her car was completely under water when she came out. The roads in various places throughout the county were also destroyed.

My commute is getting better. I will have a vanpool in the morning since there are enough of us going on the 7:05 ferry. My vanpool is almost the highlight of my day. (The best part of my day is when I actually get home ) I have intelligent and interesting people to talk with, and sometimes we play Scrabble. Although, we have to come up with a new name. It’s not going to be the ‘chick van’ anymore, but it’s still going to have some of the same people. It’s not going to be all chicks anymore.

Well, this weekend is coming to an end. We had Mike and Gina over for dinner. I made Indian food. I had our intern go grocery shopping. He got paneer and garam masala for me from the Indian grocery store he always go to. (And our other intern went home to Hawaii for the holidays. He’s going to come back with Kona coffee and Macadamia nuts for me.) I made Rogan Josh, Aloo Gobi, and Saag Paneer (my favorite!). Well, here are some pictures…although, I need to work on my photographic skills.

My four day weekend is almost over. I love four day weekends, but I do hate it, too. It makes me lazy and not wanting to go to work tomorrow.

Our Thanksgiving was great. We did a co-op with our next door neighbor, Mike and Gina. Gina made candied sweet potatoes, garlic mash potatoes, and roasted vegetables. I made Pennsylvania-Dutch stuffing and cranberry-orange relish. Drew brined the turkey the day before Thanksgiving. We roasted brined turkey before when we were living in KS, and it was so good. The turkey breast had a hint of orange from the brine. This year, we thought we’d try deep frying brined turkey. The turkey turned out good. But not as good as the roasted turkey we had that year. Drew and Becker were in charge of deep frying the turkey. While they were waiting for the turkey, Becker came in and had me make a beer batter for them because they wanted to fry some onion rings. So, we had some onion rings….and deep fried beer-battered apples. Yum…

I don’t really remember what I did Friday and Saturday. Hmmm… Well, today I baked 2 huge loaves of Potato Rosemary bread. I thought we could make turkey sandwiches with them. I haven’t made bread for a long time, a really long time. I think it’s been about 5 years. I’m glad I haven’t forgotten how to make bread, you know…like the dough should be soft and tacky, not sticky, the temperature of the dough should be around 80 degrees, and the dough should pass the windowpane test, etc. And I haven’t forgotten how to roll the dough into a boule! The bread turned out good. Although, it was supposed to be chewy, it turned out to be on the softer side. (I was supposed to use semolina flour, but I was too lazy to go to the store; so, I used regular bread flour instead.)

Why does time seem shorter when you’re a grown up? My nephew just turned 12 last week. I still remember the days when he was a baby, small enough to fall asleep in my arms. Time goes by way too fast! This four day weekend is too short! It’s now 9 pm! (did I use enough exclamation marks?)

People say that having pets is like having kids if not easier. I used to think that having pets is alot easier than having kids because you can leave your pets alone when you’re not home. Jasmine, our dog, roam free during the day, and for the cats, we have a cat door for them to go in and out during the day. There’s a downside to this. Couple of weeks ago, Jasmine felt like she needed to explore the trash can. We came home at 7pm, the trash can was tipped over and the trash was all over the kitchen floor. We now have a small trash can in the cabinet under the sink. That fixed the problem, or so I thought. Last Tuesday, we came home and found that Jasmine had ate a whole bag of cat food we keep in the kitchen cabinet. I now have to find a doggy daycare for her since it seems to me that she’s bored out of her mind during the day. Did I say ‘doggy daycare’? Yes, when we lived in KS, Jas used to go to daycare where she could run around and played with other dogs during the day. We would drop her off at 8am and picked her up around 5pm. She also got nap time from 11am-1pm when she was at the daycare.

What about the cats? Cats are easy to take care of. Yes, they are easy to take care of, but keep reading. This morning, Jasmine kept sticking her nose under the loveseat. I thought that she just wanted the cats’ toys underneath the couch. (Simon plays with his mouse toys and shoves them under the couch all the time. I always find at least one toy under the couch every week when I clean the house. I remember that when we moved out of our house in KS, we found 2 straws and 3 mouse toys underneath the washing machine and the dryer. ) So, Becker lifted the couch up for Jas to get the toy, but…it wasn’t a toy. It was a dead mouse!! Geesh!! And it was big! It was about 4 inches in length from the nose, not counting the tail! And yes, I ran and stood on the dining chair until Becker took the dead mouse outside. Besides the dead mouse we found today. The cats used to bring in snakes, shrews, and smaller mice (much much smaller) before. You’d think that I get used to this by now. Well, this was my little excitement this morning. I wonder if people who have kids ever found dead creatures in their house…

Yes, Random Crap in Life… I think the title explains it all.

So, life continues after New Jersey. I’ve been back in my house in Indianola, WA since October 3rd. Becker and I drove from JFK to Indianola, WA in 42 hours! It’s 2,900 miles! It would have been quicker if we didn’t get lost in NYC trying to find our way to the Lincoln Tunnel. It was not all that bad now that I look back on it, but I don’t think I will do that again.

I started my job at UW last Monday. The commute sucks, but like anything else, I’ll get used to it. I take the bus from Indianola Clubhouse to the ferry terminal on Bainbridge Island, then another bus to UW in the morning. In the afternoon, I managed to find a vanpool that goes from UW to the ferry. I tried taking the bus back to the ferry terminal on Monday and almost couldn’t make it to the ferry because of the traffic in downtown Seattle. I’m glad that I found ‘the chick van’. That’s what the vanpool riders call themselves. Well, duh, it’s because it happens to be all women, and they all are really cool. Ok, I’m done for now. Stay tuned for more crap in my life.