2013.

What a fabulous end to 2013! Beautiful winter weather. Spent the day outside frolicking in the snow... lots and lots of snow. SO MUCH SNOW.  Now off to enjoy a party!

Ken's version of frolicking.

Knitting.

We have a bit of a tradition of spending New Years at the cabin. Warm cozy visits inside, brisk cold weather outside, and a kick butt party to ring in the new year. 

I'm sitting in the back seat of my parents car. The windows are a bit too frosted to see out (not much to see anyways. Hazy grey skies... hazy white fields...) so I'm knitting. 

Pretty.

I'm not huge on New Years resolutions, but #1 on my list is to learn how to knit something other than a head band or a scarf. Since I learned this year how to knit using  circular needles, this seems like a good step in the direction of self improvement ;)

Yup... not much to see.

Newtonmas.

Well, it's Christmas! Or as I sometimes refer to it in certain circles... Newtonmas!

Isaac Newton was born Dec 25, 1642 according to the old Julian calendar. It corresponds to January 4, 1643 of the currently used Gregorian calendar, but as Newton was highly superstitious individual who looked for meaning in all sorts of numbers and learned Hebrew so he could study floor plans of temples in their original form, being born on Christmas would be significant. (Even though, as an unorthodox Christian, he believed celebrating Christ as God was idolatry... Which is neither here nor there. )

I love getting together with family and friends around the holidays. Had a great party last night at the parents with lots of family friends, and am spending tonight with  Dom's family. 

The end of school was so hectic and stressful, it's taken me this long to decompress. But there is still a lot of holiday to come!

 

Ugly Sweaters.

Not quite sure when, but somewhere along the way, ugly sweater parties became a thing. My families been pretty good about purging the genuine ugly sweaters from our lives over the years, which in hindsight is a pain, but at the time seemed like a very good idea.

I just can't seem to bring myself to spend  any reasonable amount of money on what is, underneath it all, just an ugly sweater. So when Dom said she was going to have an ugly sweater theme for her birthday, I decided to make one. 

I saw a picture of a hilarious t-shirt, that would have cost $40+ with shipping, and thought to myself... I can make that. 

The result? About $12 worth of materials and a humorous ugly sweater. 

Samosas.

Last weekend was a potato themed food club. Seemed like a good time to try something I've been wanting to do homemade for a while... vegetable samosas!

I used this recipe for dough from Williams Sonoma... and it was awesome and easy. Fries up really similar to naan. I will probably be trying it with other stuffing in the future.

For the filling, I adapted this recipe. I substituted ground ginger for crushed, because that was what I had. I also didn't have any coriander seeds. Nor do I have any idea what amchur powder is, so I left that out too.

I found it a bit lacking in taste (maybe the kind of chili I used, or my spices aren't the freshest any more) so I doubled up some of the spices (but not the turmeric. I want to have my frying pan be a color other than yellow someday soon.) and added extra peas and some corn.

Fried them up in a bit of oil... and they were really tasty! As I said, I was really impressed with the pastry. I mixed up some tandoori dip to serve them with, but they were especially good with Lindsey's tzatziki.

Wishes.

My mother is turning 60 today. I wanted to do something a little more special, so I contacted as many family and friends as I could, and asked them to send along their favorite memory of my mom. I got a great response, and the result is a very fat envelope full of little thoughts, hand written notes and pictures.

Tree.

Busy at school. Winding down (or up?) before Chistmas break. One of my extracurricular groups is having a bake sale next week. Went to a conference at the University. Annnnd set up the class Christmas tree. 

Happy with my new tree topper. Beats J Biebs by a long shot. And see that kinda blank-ish spot in the middle? That's where my cane deer used to be. Yah used to be. One of my students ATE MY CANE DEER. It has been three days since I discovered his antlers on the floor. And I am still upset. 

Stereotypical.

So, it's cold. Like, REALLY cold. 

This happens every year, and every year we complain about it loudly. Students beg for a "snow day", which we won't ever have, due to our district inclement weather policy, and then just don't show up when it gets cold. 

Like I said, this happens every year. Part of being Albertan is commenting on weather, but it always amazes me how many people don't behave according to the weather, and then complain. If you come to school in -35 in shorts, you deserve to be cold. If you walk around the university campus with your plaid flannel unbuttoned, no hat, no mitts, and the windchill is -42 (something I witnessed yesterday), the rest of us do NOT want to hear you complain. 

Inspiration.

A beacon of hope has gone out. Thank you.

Paperback.

When the weather looks like this...

 

 ...I like it when my evenings look like this.

 Tea and a book... What could be better?

Oh my gosh. I loved this book. I also cried like a baby, and felt like that meme about experiencing emotional trauma at the hands of a paperback explains my life so well right now. Or maybe this one. I bawled. A lot.

I don't want to talk much about the book, because I feel like it is intensely personal. Some people connect with it, some people feel like the dialogue of the protagonists is not age accurate... I personally wasn't bothered by the latter. Augustus' obsession with metaphorical resonance was enough for me - even though they are teenagers, his, Hazel, and Isaac's insight is that of someone far older due to the life experiences they have had that other teenagers have not.

But my favorite quote from the book comes from Van Houten, and sums up how I've been feeling lately:

Snow.

This was a coworkers car after school today (she's getting over the flu so I brushed it off for her while I was leaving). So much snow!

We've had strange weather from a balmy week last week, this huge drifting snow day,  to the crazy fog that lead to a 40+ car pile up on the highway (makes this fog look tame). 

why pictures? why must you be so blurry?

But enough of the weather.

Busy weekend, lots of birthdays to celebrate, and Christmas decor to put up. Trying out some new recipes. Nothing I'd write home about yet. Working on my tacky Christmas sweater (more on that in the future). You know. The usual.