Baking Bread!

The lovely Reed and I baked honey wheat oatmeal bread today. Well, she taught me, which means she did a lot of the work, but I stirred and kneaded and folded and spread the egg stuff and woo hoo. It looks delicious, and is based on this recipe from Epicurious. Pictures below (please ignore the bad quality of the pictures - I had to take my camera to the shop today and took these on my cell phone):

ball of dough before rising

ball of dough, after rising

dough in pans, before rising

dough in pans, after rising, and with egg rinse and oatmeal

bread!!!

Resolutiony Things

New Year's Eve was low-key and fun, and my wonderful friend Reed spent a few days with me, helping me run errands, unpack from the holidays, and bake bread (post to follow). We are very exciting, I promise. I'm not huge on New Year's Resolutions, but I always make them (maybe because I love making lists), so here it is for 2009. Enjoy.

1. Only buy what I need. I have been spending too much frivolous money lately, which I credit to the job at Google where I made more money than I actually needed. This resulted in $80 Old Navy shopping sprees, way too much money spent at Product Body (the magical wonderful delicious-for-your-body stuff that I will still buy, but only on occasion when I run out). Now, I was also saving around $300 a month, but just think how much more I could have saved if I didn't buy stuff that I didn't need. Also, I am going to be making significantly less money working at Pixar, and will really need to rein in my spending. I'll try to make more crock pot recipes and maybe I won't buy sun dried tomato mixed olive bruschetta every time I go to Trader Joe's. :-) (PS - I am still planning on buying a washer-dryer for my apartment...this is not a *necessity* but it is something I really really really want to have here, since there is no laundry facility in the building and the laundromat just sucks. Yes, I know plenty of people out there use the laundromat, but I am lazy and spoiled and hate it and just want to wash my clothes at my own apartment. So there.)
   
2. Make one recipe from a cookbook every month. I have a TON of cookbooks, and I don't ever use them. I tend to make my "standard" recipes, or variations thereof, and I'd like to branch out a bit and try new things. I'll start with one a month, but I'd like to expand to twice a month soon, and eventually once a week? Ooh? Fancy?
3. Eat Less, Exercise More. This is always on the resolution agenda, but I think it's a good one to keep in mind. I tell myself that having a gym closer to my apartment (Pixar has a gym) will help, and I hope it will, but I know I'll really have to make a concerted effort to do it. I heard that the Pixar University classes include a ballet class, and I hope to god it's true because I really want to take ballet again and I can't afford to sign up for classes at a studio. Either way, I need to take advantage of the gym there way more than I did at Google. No excuses!!! And as for eating less, I want to focus on smaller portions and less sweets. More whole grain and less snacking.
4. Spend time with my girlfriends. I have a few friends who have recently moved to the Bay Area, and I won't be seeing my good friends from Google every day anymore, so I want to make sure I nurture the friendships that matter to me.

And that's that!

Bad Blogger

I have been a very bad blogger lately, because I have just been in crazy holiday travel mode (spending much needed time away from the computer). Still am. But I am planning a few post-holiday posts, so don't you fret. At some point between now and Sunday, they'll be written and published. Topics include such riveting things as: holiday food, snow, and perhaps even 2009 Goals.

Until then, I hope all of you out there are having wonderful holiday seasons, and here's to safe travels and a happy new year!

Totally Looks Like...

A friend of mine emailed this to me, and some of them are pretty great. And because I am waiting on hold for an Alaska Airlines representative (flight to The Boy's parents' house was just canceled! Hooray snow!), this is about all the blogging I can do right now.

edit on 12/30/08: apparently the images didn't work, so if you want to see what I saw, go to www.totallylookslike.com.

New Job For The New Year

So, exciting news around the Kitchen Sink these days. I've withheld posting about it so far, just because, well, I don't know I guess. Since I've emailed the friends and family, and mentioned it briefly on Facebook, I guess it's about time to blog, right?

I will be leaving the Great Google as of Wednesday next week. Starting January 5th, I'll be working for Pixar...and I'm pretty damn excited. :-) Google is a great place to work and all, but I've really been missing the arts. It'll be really nice to be back working in a field I'm passionate about, and I'll be getting back about two hours a day, since my commute will now be 7-10 minutes each way (instead of 75+ minutes each way). Granted, my actual working hours will be longer (it's a 50 hour week instead of my current 43-ish hour week), but to be doing work I'll actually enjoy? And to be less than 10 minutes from home when I'm done? Awesome! (this paragraph had a lot of parentheses. sorry.)

I'll be working as a Production Coordinator, and while I'll be doing a little admin work (booking a little travel, making sure my manager gets to her meetings), I'll get to be involved in the production side of things (pinning storyboards, setting up meeting rooms). Nothing terribly glamorous, but that's the industry for ya. You have to start somewhere so you can slowly work your way up (in any business, but especially in theatre/film), and I'm really excited to be at the not-totally-bottom (hey, I'm not a PA) of the ladder. And the projects my team will be working on are things I'm totally stoked about - where I had trouble connecting with the projects my engineers at Google have been working on, I think that here, I'll be able to connect to the work much better. (this paragraph had a lot of parentheses too. sorry.)

So yeah, I have three more days left at Google, and I feel pretty ridiculous and very, very lucky. In this economic climate, with news of layoffs by the thousands from companies all over the country, I feel a little guilty and incredibly blessed to be able to choose to quit my job at one fantastic company because I have been offered a job at another fantastic company. Granted, I work hard, and I plan hard. Even if it's only hypothetical, I think about the future. So it's not like this fell into my lap or anything, but still. I feel just freaking lucky to be going to a new and awesome job right now, that's all.

So that's my news for now...time to get ready for the my Google team holiday party! One last hurrah! :-)

More to come...


PS - putting in your two weeks' notice is kind of scary in the Real World.

Too Many Shoes!

I came home from work today to find this mess in my closet:

Note the bent bottom part just above the UGG boots. That, and the side parallel to it, was just totally bowed out. Not sure how to proceed, and not wanting to just put all the shoes back on (since the weight of the top levels would just make the bottom levels bow out again and it would just fall over again), I devised a little system to temporarily hold it all in place.

The temporary system involves a belt and a curtain rod. And that's about it. Hopefully it lasts for a few days...or more...but I'm thinking I'll have to get a new shoe rack at some point. Hey, this one lasted over a year, and it was just a cheap one (like $30) from Bed, Bath and Beyond.

The shoe rack, picture taken in the mirror. Yes, I have a lot of shoes. Note how it is standing upright, except you can still kinda see the 3rd level from the bottom bowing out again. Bowing in? Whatever, it's still kinda bent.

The view from the side. Same view-ish from the first picture, but it looks a lot neater.

Anyway...do any of you out there have any advice for longer-term shoe storage? Any shoe racks you particularly love? This is the space I have. This is the amount of shoes I have. I have gotten rid of 4 pairs already, and I'm not totally sure how many more I'll get rid of at this point..maybe one or two more, but it's still up in the air. That is, I'm still not sure if I can do it. :-)

Celestial Smile

I missed seeing this in the sky, but you can read about it here.

Cozy...

I'm feeling a bit under the weather this evening, so I thought it would be a good night for a bowl of soup and a little apartment decorating. It's just about that time when I should remove the pumpkins and ghosts from the string of white lights in my window, and get out the December decorations. Have I mentioned that I love having my own apartment?

Soup: tomato/red bell pepper, with goat cheese and sun dried tomato bruschetta and fresh basil from my window box garden. And Saltine crackers. Mmmm. Metropolitan Museum of Art Advent Calendar from last year (we, erm, forgot to use it last year).

Candles I bought last year. Should I light the tree-shaped one? I feel like I shouldn't...but that's what candles are for, right? You can't really tell, but all of these candles are covered in glitter. Yep.

I intertwined my blue twinkly lights with a really pretty white garland thing I bought last year on sale and draped it along the top of my hutch. It took about 25 minutes, maybe more, to figure it out. Longer than it should have. Worth it.

Not taken tonight, but this is how I feel. Cozy.

Gas and Flowers

I was driving around town the other day, and saw some shocking gas situations. There is a gas station up the street from me that has been boarded up for a few months, and it looked like this:
Note that the price of gas is/was $3.91 a gallon. Also note that this gas station is the "cheap" gas station, where it is typically ten cents per gallon cheaper than any other station.

I turned my head and looked across the street at the Chevron station. This is the "expensive" gas station, where you can typically expect to spend about the same as you would at most stations, but like I said, at least ten cents per gallon more than the "cheap" station. On this day, a few weeks ago, it looked like this:

$1.89 per gallon. Wowzers! Now, I know we have been conditioned to believe that $1.89/gallon is a hugely good deal, and I see the proof of this in the fact that gas was almost $4/gallon just a few months ago (pre-election...hmmm). I've been told that gas prices always drop right before and after an election, and I'm just hoping they don't go back up again. Maybe they'll even go down? Eh? Eh?


While you ponder that, peruse some pictures of flowers that I took at my parents' house over Thanksgiving. Pretty! TwistNHook would be proud.

Planty Plant Plant

So the plant is ever-growing...that little bit that I had referred to as a "sprout" that had previously been a "nubbin" is now it's own full-blown...leaflet? Branch? What are the technical names for these sorts of things? See pictures below.

the leaflet grows!

the full body shot...I think it's almost time for a new pot.

surprise! a new nubbin!

It's Almost Turkey Time...

I'm about to head home to LA LA Land for a few days to eat delicious food and plant myself on the couch. Thanksgiving is one of those holidays that is wonderful because the main purpose is to eat and sit around. Glorious. Ok, you're also supposed to give thanks (which I will be doing don't you worry). Trust me, lately I've been thinking that even though there has been a lot of emotional, stressful, life crap piling up this year, I have it pretty good. There are many, many things I have to be thankful for, and I'll probably write a nice little list and post it up here this weekend. But the thing I love about this holiday is the coziness of just curling up on the couch, watching movies (my parents just bought WALL*E and I cannot wait to watch it again!) and eating comfort food (including my aunt's cranberry pear crumble, which I end up making three or four times at least this time of year), and visiting with family.

I'm getting ready to leave for the airport, and I did something totally uncharacteristic: I emptied my dish drainer and did ALL of the dishes that were in my sink (both sides of the sink were, um, totally full). I pushed away my lazy instincts and just did it. And now I feel good. Even though there are roughly four loads of laundry to do when I get back, my sink is empty and my dishes are clean. And now I feel ok about leaving my little apartment for four whole days. :-)

not my kitchen sink, but it's pretty

also not my sink, but I saw this and had to post it for you, Emily. Like?

Hotmail. We're Through.

So here's the story: I opened a hotmail account my freshman year of college. I started phasing it out in February of this year, in favor of my new gmail account. I checked the hotmail account every few months or so, just to make sure there were no stray emails from people who hadn't gotten the message about the new email address. In that hotmail account, I had several old emails saved...sentimental notes, journal entries for classes, etc. Things I planned to someday either email to myself at my new address or copy into Word documents and save for posterity. I signed into my hotmail account to do this last night, only to discover that ALL OF MY EMAILS WERE GONE. ALL OF THEM. Every. Single. One.

I emailed customer support who informed me that, oh yeah, by the way, hotmail is now "windows live" or some crap, and if you don't log in every 60 days, your email gets deleted. WHAT?!?! Nobody ever informed me of this change. Nobody ever told me this. Suddenly, all of my email is just gone??? And apparently, according to a second customer service person, it is irrevocably so. Once email is deleted from your account, it is also deleted from their servers in order to make things run faster. WHAT?!?!? Makes me really appreciate gmail, running on Google's servers that somehow never run out of space. Makes me really pissed off that I never copied all of those old letters and college journal entries into documents.

I am closing my hotmail account for good. I don't understand how they can just delete your messages without warning, and then erase them immediately from their servers. What if someone goes out of town for 2 months and doesn't check email? Everything is just gone? Forever? They should at least wait a year or something before PERMANENTLY deleting everything.

I am so irritated right now, I know I am typing like a crazy person with all caps and !?!?!? and all that, but I don't care. UGH.

On the one hand, it's my own damn fault for not backing up sooner. On the other hand, what are they thinking, deleting MY emails so that the server will run faster for everyone else? I am trying to be zen about it, and tell myself that they're just emails, that they're not a big deal. But there was some seriously sentimental stuff in there...and from now on I am just going to create hard copies of EVERYTHING that is important to me. Guess you can't rely on technology.

Ugly Betty: Cardigan Sweater!

I just watched an episode of Ugly Betty, a show I sometimes watch bits and pieces of while waiting for my regular Thursday night shows to start. I like America Ferrera, and I like the tongue-in-cheek soap opera-ness of the show (which is based on a Colombian telenovela). And I like Betty's ridiculous outfits sometimes.

Tonight, at the end of the episode, she was wearing an awesome cardigan. It was brownish/olive greenish with roses on it. One of those sweaters that's kind of ugly paired with a ridiculous outfit, but I think would be totally awesome with jeans and ballet flats and a neutral t-shirt. Aka: I'm really into cardigans with jeans, ballet flats and t-shirts, and I really want it.

I tried to find it online, or at least take a screenshot while watching it online, but the full episode from tonight isn't up yet. Boo. If I can find it, I'll post it. And if you know what I'm talking about or where to find it, let me know.

Yum.


PS - Has Mark been getting more and more sensitive over the last season or something? In this episode, he was totally humanized - he had a whole backstory revealed about how he has worked so hard to be here, studied in Milan, etc. What's that about? Oh well. I don't really care. Or do I? No.

Plant Update!

Another weekly update about my little plant. The little nubbin that was growing when I last emailed is now quite a sprout! It's cute, I think. And when I wrote last week, that tall plant sticking up was just a little guy itself! Very exciting. I like how the plant just keeps on growing, especially when I see little buds appear and then turn into...actual plant-looking leaf-branch-things. Boy, am I articulate this evening or what?




Also, as promised, here is the "full body" shot of the plant. You can see it is now quite large, compared to what it looked like in July (see pictures in this blog post for both the plant in July, and the plant over the last 2 weeks). It's grown so much just over the last few months...you can imagine how tiny it was when I bought it, which I think was in January?

Pretty soon, I'm going to have to re-plant it into a larger pot!

Bruschetta-ish

I made this a few nights ago on a whim, and it was quite tasty! I wasn't all that hungry, and was a great little mini-dinner snack.

Ingredients:

• baguette that is a few days old
• olive oil
• basil, cut into little strips (I use the "burrito" method)
• Trader Joe's sun dried tomato bruschetta
• grated parmesan cheese (mine was not fresh, which would have been better)

All I did was slice the bread into thin slices, drizzle a little olive oil on top (which I probably could have done better...I didn't actually drizzle. I used a paper towel to "pat it on" which didn't work all that well actually), plop on some of the bruschetta, sprinkle with cheese and basil, and bake at 350 degrees for about 10 min or so. They came out crispy and delicious! Mmmmm! These would make really yummy appetizers if cut into smaller pieces, and I think goat cheese would have been good too - though maybe a little overpowering. The bruschetta has olives in it as well and is pretty fierce on its own. Also, next time I might save some basil to put on at the end so it's fresh and not crispy from the oven. It was a cool texture all crispy-like, but it didn't really taste like anything anymore.

close-up before baking


after baking

Stew, Stew, Marvelous Stew

The Boy got it in his head last night that he wanted to make the stew that his mom and grandma used to make. So we whipped up* a batch of stew, complete with Spätzle (or Spatzen), which we made by hand thankyouverymuch!

It was quite delicious - we've eaten it the last two nights, and there's enough for another meal still! Go us!

Stew Ingredients:
diced tomatoes
turnip
yellow onion
carrots
beef
caraway seeds
bay leaf
salt, pepper, water

*by "whipped up," I mean "spent two hours cooking after spending an hour at both Trader Joe's and Safeway looking for all the ingredients."

stew, night one: spatzen stew

stew, night two: addition of baguette

Chocolate Chip Granola Bars

And yet another blast from the past snack foods...Chewy Chocolate Chip Granola Bars. Remembered I had one of these at my desk, and it was pretty darn exciting.

The Boy is making fun of me right now for writing about this, but come on. They're delicious. I remember eating these as a kid, packing them in my lunch box.

Probably not great to eat every day as a "grown up" or whatever, but it's pretty great to eat once in a while.

Keebler Bug Bites Graham Crackers

In this post-Mother's Cookies-world, one tries to find cookie substitutes that are as satisfying and delicious as those iced and sprinkled pieces of cookie magic. One fails, of course. But one tries.

Today I have discovered a cookie, nay cracker, that while it does not fill the void completely, does a hell of a job in the satisfaction department.

Presenting: Kellog's Keebler Grahams Crackers Bug Bites. Ignore the weird name that has too many plural words and taste one of these suckers. So delicious. Just the right amount of graham and cinnamon, a solid crunch, and a pleasing glosssy finish to the adorable little ladybugs, butterflies and dragonflies. Apparently there are also caterpillars, but alas, my snack-sized bag did not contain any.

Try them today. I'm guessing they're good for the kiddies too.

Wordle. Word.

So, I learned about this new thing called Wordle. Actually, it might not be new. I don't actually know. Whatever, the point is that it is cool. You enter text or the URL of website and it crawls it and makes a nifty word-image-thing where the most frequently used words are bigger and the less-used are smaller...I'm sure you've seen things like this before. Lots of people use them for the labels on their blogs (instead of a boring list like I have).

Anyway, here's the one I made for my blog, just to test it out. It's pretty neat...you can change the colors and fonts and layout and all that jazz. Nice way to waste time.
It's interesting (to me anyway) to see what words I use a lot. You'd think I write about little gardens. Just a little basil to the right. Maybe I do.

And just for funsies...here's one I just threw together from Perez Hilton. Ha.

Bad Day

I had a bad day today, of which I will not go into detail, because it is 10:14pm and the day is almost over.

I will say this though: I have a wonderful boyfriend who brought me flowers, and we ate pasta and ice cream, and are now watching a hilarious episode of South Park, and I am feeling a bit better now.

The End.

LA and Tying the Knot

I was in LA this weekend, and saw this lovely sunset from my high school campus (was there to see my lil sis in Noises Off).


And then I went to Phoenix, where I witnessed the wedding of two good friends from college: my roommate of two years and the friend who set us up.




And somehow, I accidentally tied this knot in my camera cord. Kristen, can you tell me what kind of knot this is?


Happy Tuesday, everyone!

Green-Ish Thumb

I am not great at keeping plants alive. My herb garden is mostly dying because I still haven't re-potted the plants...but let's be honest, the main draw to having the garden was to have a place right outside my kitchen window where I could easily reach the basil plant...not to grow a garden. Yes, I had grand ideas and visions of myself becoming a great little gardener, but in my heart of hearts, I always knew that really...I just wanted to be able to reach out my kitchen window to grab fresh basil. And since Trader Joe's sells big basil plants for about 3 bucks, I haven't minded having to replace my plant every few months or so. Anyway, the basil is doing ok, and some day, I swear I will re-plant them IN the actual window box. Maybe.

However, I have somehow managed to keep my odd little IKEA plant alive. I don't even know what kind of plant it is - how the heck is it such a little trooper??? I basically water it when it looks dry, every few days or so, and sometimes the water runs right through and sits in the little drainage dish. Then I just let it soak up/evaporate. Sometimes it just soaks right in perfectly. I have no idea what I'm doing with this plant, I swear to god. But somehow, it perseveres. It has gone from a tiny little thing to a bigger little thing...and I've decided to document its growth right here, with a new label I'm calling "greenish thumb." So enjoy!

This is what it looked like in July.

This is what it looked like on Tuesday, November 4. Election night.

This is what it looks like tonight, November 11. Yeah, that sprouting guy is the tiny bud from last week! And note the tiny new bud already growing! This plant is amazing!

Next week, I'll take a full-body shot so you can see how much it's grown... :-) Maybe I'll update on a weekly basis, but probably I'll just update when I feel like it.

Ok, So...Redacted.

Remember just last week, when I was all "woe is me, holiday commercials are all over my TV and I just don't know how to handle it all!" and basically whining like a wimpy little baby?

Yeah, I am totally redacting that whine-fest. I am SO ready for Christmas and Chanukkah I can't even tell you. I am excited for Thanksgiving, too, but I'm almost feeling ready to compost those pumpkins and hang up the twinkly lights (or just remove the pumpkin and ghost light covers so I don't actually have to unplug and re-hang and all that jazz). Maybe it's because I (um, cough cough, embarrassing embarrassing) still have my rotting jack o lanterns on the front porch. Maybe it's because this morning, it was cold enough to wear a scarf. Maybe I'm just feelin' the holiday cheer, and maybe I'll redact THIS tomorrow, but right now...dang. Bring on those holidays!

Jingle Bells?

Is it just me, or did TV EXPLODE with holiday-themed commercials immediately following the election last night?

I mean, Costco and Walgreens and such have started having a trickle of holiday decor lately (which, small tangent, I swear happens earlier and earlier now, I mean, honestly! Didn't we used to wait until after Halloween at least? One holiday at a time!!!), but it seems like the networks held off because of the election, and now there's an onslaught of holiday advertising hitting the airwaves.

Am I nuts, or is this a Real Live Phenomenon?


politics later...damn prop 8.

Map Gadget

I'm embedding this gadget, with live updating results right here on my blog, for anyone who wants to stay updated but wants to avoid the major news sites. You can get it for yourself or get more information here.

Tavi!

I don't know who this girl is, but she's awesome. Found her through Emily's Shared Items, and am loving her. What a smart kid. Check out the video below, and her blog too if you like.


Untitled from Tavi G on Vimeo.

Election Day!!!

Well, folks, this is it. It is already a ridiculously historic election, and results haven't even come in yet. Well, except for that awesome little (tiny!) town in North East New Hampshire called Dixville Notch - that is all about Obama! The first Democratic landslide since the 1960's! Change We Need!

I don't want to jinx it, but it's looking good so far for the big O. I'm going to be on pins and needles, anxious all day until we know for sure...which honestly, probably won't be until tomorrow morning. I hope it's such an overwhelming landslide that we know for certain tonight though!!! I can't wait anymore!

Observations so far...and it's only 8:00am:

• Polls in Berkeley opened at 7am. At 7:45am we drove past a building that I didn't even know was a polling place, and the line had already stretched out the door and wrapped around the block! My mom called from the Elementary School in Topanga Canyon, CA where she teaches, and said this is the first time EVER that there has been a line at the school's polling station, and she's worked there for 16 years! It's exciting to me that people are SO motivated, SO excited to get out there and vote, that even in hippie towns like Berkeley and Topanga Canyon - even in an obviously blue California - people are making their voices heard. There has, in the past, been an attitude of "my vote doesn't matter; California is going to vote Democrat anyway," but not this year!!!
• Obama's volunteers are STILL getting out the vote! The Boy and I were making calls until 9pm last night, first to our Dems in swing states (Colorado last night, having called Florida on Sunday) and then to local volunteers to recruit people to make calls all day today from the Mega Phone Bank in Oakland. And even by 9pm last night, there were around 50 people at the HQ, and more across the street at the Prop FF office who was letting us use their space. Not once have I been there and seen it even close to empty. On Sunday afternoon, I drove by the HQ (don't worry, I phone banked all morning!), and not only was it PACKED with people inside, but folks were spilling out onto the sidewalk, sitting on the ground and making calls. Same goes for the FF office AND the Inner City Services office down the street. It's been unbelievable so far to be a part of this campaign, and I can only imagine what it must be like to be able to devote all of your time to it (like my friend Miranda, who has been working in Ohio for the last few months)!
• People are PUMPED! Even people who have never voted before, even those in their 70's and 80's (and older!) are voting this time around. There's just this universal sense that this is a uniquely important time in our lives and it's time to step up and exercise our right to vote!

I may not have time to blog throughout the day, but you can bet that I will be sharing things that I'm reading - with commentary! So exciting, I know!


So to everyone out there who's listening: stay tuned, hang in there, and make a last effort to reach out to voters in those battleground states! You can call from home, from the office, from the park - all you need is a phone! Just pick a state and start calling!

Andy and Scott's Halloween Special!!!

I know I shared this already, but I'm not sure how many of you read both...and I really really wanted to share this with you all.

My friends Scott and Andy...it's pretty hilarious, I must say.