holiday cheer

So, I took a little nap this afternoon since my boss gave us a half day off today.  When I woke up, for some reason I was singing a christmas carol.  I guess I've still got a little holiday cheer laying around :)

Seems like a good time to share some of our holiday fun with you. Just in time to take the ornaments off the tree.

 

 This was what christmas looked like at our house...ornaments and lights on our Norfolk Island Pine, a wreath above the fireplace, stockings hung on the fireplace, and presents around the tree.  David hung our christmas lights on the rain gutters of the house and we had pretty red bows on the stair railings outside.  Of course, since the roof needs to be replaced, those lights may stay on the gutters until next summer when we can replace the roof, to minimize damage each time we go up there.  Yes, we'll be THOSE people. :)

 

 I just love the beautiful colors in these jams, jellies, marmalades, and sauces from Will and Sandy.  Can't wait to try one! 

Funny story about these.  When we got them in the mail, we set them around our tree like the other gifts, not knowing what they were.  One day when I was home working, I heard a loud "thud" over by the tree.  By the time I got up to see what it was, I saw that Sam had one of these wrapped presents in his mouth, and was headed to his bed to dig in.  So, for the rest of the holiday, we had to keep those wrapped presents up high out of Sammy's reach. :)

 We did our normal shellfish (king crab legs this time) and twice baked potato dinner this year, but we did it on christmas eve instead of christmas.  On Christmas evening, then, we ate cheese and crackers, and these yummy little appetizers that I made.  They are called Polenta Cakes with Tomato Jam and Goat cheese.  Pretty easy to make--hardest part was waiting for them to get a little brown/crispy in the frying pan.  David found the recipe on the Seattle Times and brought it to my attention.  Glad he did.  They were delicious!

And finally, a photo of us.  We had a groupon/living social coupon for a fancy french restaurant, and I decided that December 23rd would be a great night to go out to a nice dinner.  So, this is us, dressed up before our dinner date at Le Gourmand in Ballard.

It has been a great holiday.  I'm looking forward to my day off tomorrow, and a fun New Year.

baker, baker, bake me a cake

Wowzers!  I am on a roll, baking up a storm!

Today is Kim's birthday.  Happy Birthday Kim!  We are going out tonight to meet them for dinner. So, I asked her husband if I could make her birthday cake.  I generally find baking fun and I wanted to make a special cake for her birthday. 

I found this double chocolate layer cake recipe from Smitten Kitchen, a cooking blog I sometimes read. This is a "from scratch" cake, for sure.  I followed her directions, mostly. It is a moist chocolate cake with raspberry filling and a chocolate ganache frosting. I decided to bake my cakes in three 9" cake pans (because that is what I have) instead of the two 10- by 2-inch pans she suggests.

 Here we have all 3 layers with raspberry filling gushing out of the sides.  I probably went a little heavy on the raspberry.  I guess we'll find out when we cut into it tonight.

 I did the script on the top and the frosting around the edges.  You can see the edge frosting in the photos below.  David was the master of the little confectionery pearls.  He did such a good job. He also helped out during the making of the cake, saving the day a couple of times.

A little detail shot of the bottom edge of the cake.

Here is the masterpiece in all its glory!  

Happy Birthday Kim!

bread: conquered (for now)

For many years I have been afraid of using yeast in baking.  After making my mom's famous pumpkin biscuits one year and having them turn out like hockey pucks, I pretty much swore off any use of yeast in baking.  Then about one year ago, Emily shared with me her pizza dough recipe using quick rise yeast.  Well, she more than just shared it with me, she walked me through making it.  I got to feel the water to see what temperature she used and everything.  Since that time, I've made her pizza dough recipe a couple of times-always to good end.  Slowly, ever so slowly, has the idea been growing in my mind that perhaps I could try to bake bread with yeast.  Quick breads (like zucchini and banana) don't count since they don't use yeast.  REAL bread.  Whole Wheat Bread.

And so, in true lizzylife fashion, I attempted, struggled (with uncertainty), and conquered the whole wheat bread...documenting the stages of the process along the way.

 Here we have the dough before I let it rise.  I have a wonderful feature on my oven called "proof".  It keeps it at the perfect temperature for the bread to rise.  I kneaded the bread for about 10 minutes.  My wrists hurt by the time I was done!

Here is the dough after doubling in half.  I poked a couple holes into it to make sure the indentations stayed....I couldn't help making it into a smiley face:)

Oh--I made the recipe exactly as written. But I took one reviewers advice when they suggested putting the bread into 2 loaf pans instead of the 3 it calls for.  

I punched it down and then put it into 2 loaf pans to rise again.  I think this is a part I will have to do better on next time.  I had some odd indentations on the bottom of  bread, which I guess means that I didn't pinch it together well enough or maybe missed doing something.

Here are the loaves cooling after about 30 minutes of cooking.  Everything I had read said not to overcook the bread, and to test to make sure it was done by tapping on it to see if it sounds hollow.  If you hear a thud, it isn't done yet.  So- about 3 times during the last 5 minutes of cooking, I took the bread out to tap it, not sure if what I was hearing was a thud or hollowness.  I had to call David over and see what he thought.  We weren't really sure, but thought they sounded hollow with a hint of "thud".   So I took them out. 

I am sad this picture isn't more clear--I didn't take more than one, but you get the idea.  The density is really good inside-not too dense, and very holey.

We are planning to make some grilled cheese sandwiches with it tonight.  Yum! 

One wheat bread down, a million yeast adventures in my future :)  I am looking forward to it.


For those of you who might want to try baking bread, the recipe I used is on AllRecipes.com called "Simple Whole Wheat Bread" by Nita Crabb.  It is rated with 5 stars.  Lots of the reviews say it is a very forgiving bread recipe and a great one to start with for newbies.  Give it a try and let me know how it goes!

white elephants

Today I participated in my second and hopefully last white elephant party of the year. I went to the first one on Sunday and walked away with a Snuggie.

 Mine is the same color blue as in the photo above from the official snuggie website.  Bright!  Haven't worn it yet...

Then today at the second party, I walked away with some homemade cucumber infused gin, some "Passover sticker fun on a roll" and some "I'm trying to be like Jesus" stickers.  I can think of at least one but possibly two little boys down in Portland who might enjoy the Passover stickers...not sure what I'll do with the Jesus stickers.  I may start putting them on the mail I send to you all!

Overall, I feel pretty lucky with my two gifts..it could have been much worse!  Like the piece of pottery that one of my colleagues got stuck with:

whiplash

I had a bit of whiplash today--not the kind where you actually hurt your neck/head--the kind where you find yourself feeling pretty good only to get knocked back down.

I was on a phone call today with two people with whom I am going to co-authoring a chapter of a book.  One of the women was someone who actually asked me for a copy of my dissertation back in June or July. I was shocked back then when she asked me for a copy.  I was even more shocked when today on the phone she told me, "I'm going to make you famous".  I was like, "huh?"  "What do you mean you are going to make me famous?"  She says, "I am citing all kinds of stuff from your dissertation in this article I am writing right now."  Then the other person on the phone call said, "wow, that makes me really want to read your dissertation!"  That was a definite win.

The part about getting knocked down is not really something I want to go into detail about here.  Suffice it to say that something else happened to make me feel inadequate professionally.

So, it has been a whiplash day.  Grilled cheese and tomato soup made it a little bit better, as did a hug from David, and a dessert of peppermint bark.  I just need a good laugh to pull me out of it completely :)

thanksgiving and seattle snow day

I hope everyone had a wonderful thanksgiving.  David and I were lucky to be able to spend it in Portland with my brother in law's family.  We did not want to fly anywhere and were trying to keep costs down, so it was nice to be able to drive down to Portland for the holiday.  We had a great time, ate some great food, and just enjoyed the company.

Prior to Thanksgiving, Seattle had another freak snow storm that shut down the city for 2.5 days with just 3 inches of snow (but plenty of ice) on our hilly streets. I personally don't mind that snow shuts our city down.  I think it is a good reminder that we all should slow down once in a while and take a break.

David took some video of the snow with our camera and then edited it with IMovie.  I wanted to share it here on the blog, because even though he posted it on Facebook, I know not everyone who reads the blog is friends with both me and David on Facebook. Make sure your volume is on because the song he picked is just perfect for the video.

woo-hoo! almost to goal!

I'm so happy!  The top (yellow?) line  is my weight when I started and the line in the middle (blue?) is my current goal weight. The jagged line is my weight over time...I'm three-quarters of the way to my goal!  It kind of makes me want to set a new goal after I reach this goal. :)  Just wanted to share the happy news!

As for what I've been doing to lose the weight...pretty much just eating better.  Keeping track-religiously-of what I've been eating.  I use fatsecret.com to track my food, exercise, progress toward goals etc.  the chart above came from their website.  On the website I told it my current weight, my goal weight and it calculated about how many calories per day I needed to eat (or less) in order to lose about a pound a week.  It makes it so easy to see progress, it is great.

learning new things

I just got back from the annual conference of the American Evaluation Association (AEA).  It was in San Antonio--a great city!  I got to see my step-sister, Stephanie while I was there, which was great.  She took me to a really tasty restaurant on the Riverwalk called Boudro's.  Yum!

But, on to the topic at hand. I leave some conferences feeling like I heard all the same things I heard last year--those are the conferences that just feel draining to me.  But this conference is not one of those kinds.  The AEA conference is one that I leave feeling extremely energized, with tons of new ideas.  There were so many sessions I wanted to attend, and so many that I couldn't attend because of the overlapping times.  The sessions that were most interesting to me this year were ones focused on data visualization, graphic design, and using technology to improve evaluation.

The data visualization folks mentioned the standard Edward Tufte books (which I own thanks to Will Litzler), but they also mentioned a new name I had not heard before: Stephen Few.  I'm going to have to check his books out- maybe see if my local library carries any of them.  Another presenter, Stephanie Evergreen, suggested Ellen Lupton's website (and book?) called Thinking with Type.  She also recommended "Design Elements" by Timothy Samara. 

I was thinking- maybe I have a second calling in Graphic Design?  Not that I am good at it--but I find it so interesting. I hardly have time to keep up with the literature in my own field, so I don't know how I am going to find time to check out all this graphic design stuff.  But, I like learning new things and I really do believe that good design impacts learning and usage of things like the evaluation reports I write.  So, I want to do a better job of communicating my data and my stories to my clients.  

Here is an example of a "Bullet graph". I am not sure if I had ever seen one before, but this type of graph is able to convey a lot of information in a relatively small space.  I like it! 

jpg from community.softwarefx.com

puppy perspectives

Funny name for a post, huh?  But a cute picture, right?

While Sammy isn't a puppy anymore, there are two puppies who are now my "co-workers". My boss and one of our RA's bring their dogs to work with them everyday they are at work.  Yesterday, my boss brought in a dog trainer who spoke to the whole group of us for about an hour. 

I knew there were different perspectives on dog training since I've read a bit about it, but it was interesting to see-in action- how one philosophy put the other philosophy down.  I think there are probably many many different perspectives on puppy/dog training, but I saw a clear delineation yesterday between a "pack leader" approach and a "relationship" approach.  According to this trainer, ne'er the twain shall meet. 

I think my philosophy fits somewhere in the middle, which I found really difficult to reconcile during the training yesterday.  This trainer said to never say "no" to your dog- both literally and figuratively. If the dog is doing something you don't want it to do- just ignore it, or try to re-direct. I believe in ignoring- I think it works wonders for dog behavior.   I also try not to say "No" to my dog, but I find that "uh-uh" works pretty well.  Because I don't say it all the time, he generally seems to listen when I say it and knows that what he is doing is wrong.  It works for us.  But it is essentially saying "no". 

I have lots of other thoughts about dog training- and I'm sure others with dogs have their own philosophies of dog training. Luckily, I  think people don't have as strong opinions about dog training as they do about child discipline.  I feel like people often get told they aren't disciplining their child correctly, but you usually don't hear dog owners telling other dog owners that.  Thank goodness! 

happy halloween!

Today has been a great halloween!  We went to brunch with friends, visited other friends and their new baby, carved pumpkins, ate slow cooker stew and plenty of candy!

 Here are the pumpkins we carved!  Owners are: Liz, David, Kim and Pat (from L to R in picture above)

 Sam enjoyed staring at the flickering lights...or maybe he was just tired of chasing falling pumpkin seeds :)

The back of Kim's frat boy pumpkin had UW Huskies carved into it.  It looked great from the back (and the front)!

it is official!

My diploma finally arrived!

rainy season is officially here

This is the forecast for this week.  Looks like a good week for napping :)

I don't have any big plans for the week, so it doesn't really matter to me that it will be quite rainy.  My only problem is that this weather makes me want to hibernate a little bit.  That means layers of fleece, comfort food and blankets.  I will have to substitute some broth-based soups for the comfort food, if I still want to take off these last 6 pounds.

Even though we went to a pumpkin patch and corn maze this year, we did not buy any pumpkins there.  The pumpkins at the patch were some of the last pumpkins and many were orange and green-not quite ripe yet.  We haven't bought pumpkins from the grocery yet, either.  We can't let Halloween pass without carving at least one pumpkin!  Maybe that will be our activity for tonight.

elections

With election day coming up, I am seeing more and more ads on TV, and articles in the paper.  We've got some pretty complex initiatives that we are voting on here in Washington, and I while I've done some reading on them, I feel like I need to know more.  I feel that voting is a right, and I'm always surprised at those who don't exercise that right.  Yes, it does take a little bit of time to read up on some things, but there are always summaries and endorsements that make it a little easier. 

On another note, I can't tell whether I am coming down with a cold or whether my allergies have flared up.  Sore throat, sour stomach, runny nose, sneezing--no fun.  I actually came home from work early today, around 2, so that I could nap and hopefully let my body heal a bit.  I plan to go to bed early tonight as well.

facebook

So, for all current and potential blog readers, I created a group on Facebook so that I could post my new blog posts when I update.  This way you don't have to go to my blog to check to see if I have posted something new.  This group thing is new on Facebook, but it seems like I will be able to share my blog selectively with the people in this group, which is good.  I don't really want everyone in the world to be able to read it.

Of course, if you have no interest in my blog, please feel free to leave the group :)

so cute!

Check out this photo David found on the internet.  The dog looks just like Sam.  It is uncanny how much they resemble each other.  I'm pretty sure Sam would never let a kitten on his head like this, though :)
Photo from ihasahotdog.com

no time like the present

I don't know if my belief in this saying came from my family or where, but I truly believe in it. Maybe my sibs can weigh in on whether they feel like this was a lesson we were taught by our parents. Whenever I hear someone say, "I will do X once I get to Y" or "I will start fresh next month" it just kills me. Start fresh today. Start fresh tomorrow. Don't let one thing stop you from doing other things you want to do.

Following Nike- Just Do It!
Following Lizzy- Just Do It Now!

trying something new

These days, smart phones have so many different applications for just about anything you want to do.  One of the things I really want to do is lose 8-12 pounds.  Reading all my "Shape" and "Self" magazines reminded me that one of the best tactics to use when you want to lose weight is to keep a food diary.  Food diaries can be a pain--after you write stuff down you have to go search for the calorie count for things, or points equivalents if you are doing Weight Watchers etc. And I didn't want to pay for Weight Watchers,  So, I did a little search on my blackberry and found this app called "Calorie Counter".  It got some pretty good reviews, it was free, and so I downloaded it. (I think the Android app is also called "Calorie Counter").

Even though I have only used this app for 3 days, I am super happy with it. Not only does it have a really easy food diary, but also has an exercise log, journal, a weight tracker, community forums, information and ideas, all kinds of stuff.   The phone app can sync with the website it is associated with, called Fatsecret.  I'm not sure how I feel about the name of the website, but I really like the functionality.  So, I can log my food on my phone and it automatically shows up on the web account I just created at Fatsecret.  Or I can log on the website and it shows up on my phone.  I can't use any excuses about not having internet access or being near a computer since I can do all the logging on my phone!  And when I log all my activities (it includes calorie counts for resting, sleeping, housework, and all kinds of other things), it tells me how many calories I will have burned that day and I can compare it to how many calories I have taken in so I can make an informed decision about whether or not I should eat that third taco :)

The thing I really like is that they have the most enormous database of foods from which to choose. Just last night we had homemade tacos carnitas and we bought some tortillas that seemed like boutique-y tortillas--they weren't a brand I normally see in the store. I typed in the name on the package and up came all the nutrition information for that brand and size.  I was shocked and impressed.  It is also flexible in that it allows you to decide if you want to report the food in cups, ounces, or whatever.  Or it will tell you that a serving is 1 cup and I can say that I had .75 servings and it calculates the calories. 

Right now my account is totally private, but apparently you can chose to share your information with either a select group of "buddies" or everyone in the community.  I will never share with the entire community, but would be interested in sharing with buddies if anyone else wanted to try it. 

So- my first post in a while is a bit of a sales pitch- but I am very excited about this application and I am really hoping that it will help me lose this weight. I just didn't want this to be my little "fatsecret"  :)

almost over

The week is almost over.  I know it is Friday at 4:51 pm, but I am going to have to spend a good chunk of tomorrow on work tasks to hit a deadline.  I've been burning the candle at both ends pretty much all week- staying up late doing work and then getting up early and getting into the office before it gets busy and distracting to get work done.  It has been a long week and I can't wait until it is over and I can relax.

Jodi just shared a bunch of her wedding photos with the family and I can't wait to go through and post my favorites.  David took most of the 700 some pictures, which I guess is why I am featured in more than what I would expect for a bridesmaid :)  Don't worry- Jodi and Matt are definitely the stars of the show!

I just got a wedding invite for a friend for her wedding outside of Boston, MA.  I can't wait to go- it is in November.  I'm not especially looking forward to Boston weather in November, but I can't wait to see her get married to her lovely fiancee.

beautiful bride (and handsome groom)!

Had a great time this past weekend at Jodi's wedding in Denver.  David took about 700 photos with Jodi and Matt's new DSLR camera, so the only photos I have of the weekend, are the ones Jodi posts on FB :).  Below is the picture of the wedding party. 

We had a great time and everything was just gorgeous.  I don't know how they did it, but they pulled off an amazing wedding in just 6 months.

Congratulations, Jodi and Matt!

pulled pork

Yesterday, for 5 hours, I braised a 4 pound hunk of pork shoulder.  It turned out wonderfully, although it wasn't quite as good as the pork that David's co-worker made on the work retreat.  I'll have to do it again, and try something different next time to see if I can get that wonderfully addictive flavor that she got.  Even when I cook stuff in the crockpot it never turns out as good as this did.

So- carnitas tacos are in my future for another day or two.  I don't mind- they were yummy (especially with the cotija cheese and crema).