I feel I’ve been neglecting you. Let me make it up by showing you pictures.

This year, I think I’ve finally found the secret to the lovely kind of toffee that crunches and then melts on your tongue. The light brown stuff that’s always better than the dark, semi-transparent stuff. Not that the latter is *bad*, just that the former is completely fantastic. That’s right. I’ve made whole sheets of light brown fantasticness, and here’s the proof:

Also, Matt cooked his first turkey on Thursday. He did a fantastic job with dinner in general. . . he cooked everything, with my full moral support (I was napping on the couch). From the top of the photo, that’s stuffing, green bean casserole, turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry ice (okay, I made that the night before) and, down in the corner, you can see the gravy. Matt’s gravy is to die for. Srsly.

You might be wondering how Shiloh has been doing lately. I’ve been so busy I haven’t mentioned any of her recent cuteness. She got a new beef bone for Christmas (with jerky on it!), which kept her nicely occupied while Matt and I opened our presents. She also got a candy cane-shaped squeaky toy, which she loves. Sometimes she throws it for herself and then pounces on it. I think she likes its distressed SQUEAK!! when she pounces.

We taught her right from the start not to expect to get People Food. She doesn’t get it often, pretty much just when it drops on the floor while we’re cooking, and sometimes not even then. So she doesn’t actively beg. But she is aware of the possibility of food falling, and she makes sure she’s around in case it happens. We have given her a super-dog alter-ego. Everyone watch out, because Opportunity Dog loves turkey!

Allow me to illustrate.

You see how she positions herself strategically in the place where food is most likely to fall? She wedges herself in the funniest places to ensure her availability. Also, notice her innocent expression. My appearance with the camera didn’t distract her from looking up at Matt with puppy-dog eyes. No, before I took the picture, she was just standing there looking at the drawers you see in front of her. There, just in case. That’s Opportunity Dog for you, always ready to help.

And I know I’ve been delinquent about posting pictures of the new apartment post-unpacking, and I’m afraid I’m going to continue on that front for a little while yet, but I do have two photos from right before our Christmas party last week, so you get to see the living room.

Nice, eh? We like it. Of course, before too long, the Christmas tree will be gone.

Now I have to go finishing cleaning the house and folding laundry so I can concentrate on other work tomorrow. Toodaloo!

I’m just poking my head up to assure everyone that I am still alive, just a bit overwhelmed. Last week I buried myself in wrapping, gifting, receiving, opening, and enjoying presents. Also involved there was a determined effort NOT to think about all the things I had to get done between Christmas and the New Year, and then again the things that will need to happen in the four days between the wedding (where I’ll be right after New Year’s) and residency (where I’ll have to teach, defend my thesis, participate in all the normal residency stuff, and graduate).

I actually had two different to do lists (I have no idea if I wrote about them before). One was things that needed to happen before Christmas, and the other was things I didn’t need to worry about until after Christmas. The morning of the 26th, I pulled out the second list, and immediately became depressed. There’s quite a bit to do, even if you don’t throw in the fact that I’m the one in charge of laundry (which, consequently, has not been done in a week and a half), and the apartment is a huge mess, and I really would rather just read the books I got for Christmas than deal with any of it.

Christmas was nice, by the way. Thanks for asking. I hope yours was swell.

Now I have to go ignore my work some more.

It’s time for one of my favorite blogging traditions (how lame am I? please don’t answer). The first line from the first entry of every month during 2008:

January – Well I got rather a lot of things done yesterday, but I didn’t sit down and write.
February – I just realized the Super Bowl is this weekend.
March – It’s been beautiful here all day.
April – Do you ever sit down for a day at work and wish with everything in you that you could be doing something else?
May – I’m not sure if you’ll be able to see this, because I can’t really leave my desk and I have no desire to go out and take a picture outside, but we have big fat snowflakes coming down outside, and it doesn’t look like they’re going to stop anytime soon.
June – It’s DONE! *happy novel dance*
July – I appear to not be dead yet.
August – Do you ever put something off because you think it’s going to be harder than you want to deal with right now?
September – 63% done with the general revisions/edits stuff.
October – It’s been a busy few days.
November – You don’t want to know how I’m feeling about my wisdom teeth right now.
December – I’m not even sure where to start.

Just checking in to say that the Open House and Christmas Extravaganza went off more or less without a hitch Saturday evening. We had a good time. We had too much food, but we had a good time. And we just might burn that stupid jigsaw puzzle.

I mailed Christmas gifts to my family members today, cutting it rather close, but I sucked it up and paid for second-day shipping.

I’ll be in the office tomorrow, which is the last day the campus is open until January 5th. I expect it will be quiet and relaxed, but for some reason I’m reluctant to take a book and read all day at my desk. Maybe because I read a book yesterday and another today. And I have this vague sense that I should be doing something else that is productive. Except that it’s been very nice to pretend that none of those things I need to do exist until after Christmas.

Went shopping today. I think I have pretty much everything I need for my thesis reading and teaching module.

Am I rambling? It feels like I’m rambling. Really, I just don’t have a lot of available brain power these days. Cryin’ shame, it is.

Our house is, slowly but surely, turning into the Land of Yummy Yum Yum-yums. Just yesterday I used four sticks of butter, and today I intend to use at least another four. That’s just the way we roll, yo. Tonight’s goodies: sugar cookies and chocolate chip cookies.

I dreamt last night about going to Goodwill to find huge Tupperware containers so I could store all these yummy cookies and candies in dry, airtight places. Because I’ve gotta say, despite all the kitchen stuff we have, we’re sadly lacking in the large-scale airtight storage category. You know another screw has knocked loose when you’re dreaming of finding ratty Tupperware at Goodwill.

Our car turned over 100,000 miles today. Yay! He’s a Toyota, so he’s just hit his stride. I got him almost five years and over 60,000 miles ago, and with any luck we’ll have him for another ten years or so. Kind of fun to hit this milestone, though.

I worked on the menu for our Christmas party this afternoon and now, having come back to it to make a shopping list, I think every recipe has either 8 oz. of cream cheese or at least 2 cups of sugar in it. Clearly, the food will be fantastic.

And now it’s time to make some more toffee.

For those of you who were becoming concerned about the recent toffee crisis, I am happy to report that last night’s batch looks like it will be acceptable for passing out to our friends and family. Maybe not the best I’ve ever made, but I doubt many people other than Matt and I will realize it.

And for the record, I do think the old thermometer was wonky. I picked up a new one on the way home from work yesterday and used that for the successful batch. So all is once again right with the world.

We’ll finish decorating the tree in a little bit here, but we have a Christmas party tonight at our friends’ house, so photos might not appear until tomorrow.

Matt and I got our Christmas tree last night. It’s perfect. No, not just perfect for us or for our house or anything like that. It’s perfect perfect. Okay, there are like two wonky branches that we’ve put facing the wall, but seriously. I think we might have found the Platonic ideal of “Christmas Tree” in material form. The Christmas Tree that all other Christmas trees suggest and echo in all their variety. I wish I had a picture to post, but you’ll all have to wait until after it’s fully decorated for that.

I feel the need to mention that I’m relatively new to this whole real pine tree in my house thing. I grew up in an artificial tree family – we used the same tree every year, for as long as I can remember. That’s twenty years of the same tree. Toward the end it was looking pretty sad, and I think my parents finally had to get rid of it a few years ago. I hope they got rid of it and didn’t just put it back in the attic For All Time. It was a lovely tree, and I have nothing against it or my parents for depriving me of a pine-scented Christmas childhood. That’s just the way it was.

But I have to say, I like walking into the house and inhaling that lovely smell.

Shiloh seems to think it’s entirely normal for us to bring a tree into the house for a while and stand it in the corner. All in all, she’s much more interested in the string of popcorn we started wrapping around it last night. She seems rather baffled about why the snacks aren’t being eaten, but so far she hasn’t tried to use it as her personal buffet.

And now I’ve run out of anything interesting to say, so I’ll sign off. I hope you find a tree as tree-y as ours.

This week has been a strange and frustrating mix of getting nothing done and kicking my to-do list’s tail. Maybe it’s all been kicking my to-do list’s tail and it only felt like getting nothing done. It’s hard to say.

At any rate, several more pressing issues have been dealt with and are out of the way, which is a great relief. You should not be surprised to learn that the laundry isn’t done yet, but we do have both the butter dish and the vacuum cleaner in the new apartment.

That’s got to count for something.

All those things I said we’d get done on Friday night? Yeah, not one of them actually got done. They’re all done now, but they weren’t done “on schedule”. But when am I ever right about the schedule?

The washer and dryer are now in the house and working, even though we had to go buy another power cord for the dryer. Who in the world decided that some dryers should have a three-prong plug and others should have a four-prong one, AND THEY COULD BE COMPLETELY INTERCHANGEABLE? No, really. We got the dryer into the house and realized its plug had four prongs, while the socket only had three. I set off to Home Depot to get an adapter or something, and the guy there says, “Yep, no need to do anything except detach the one you have and use this one instead,” and he handed me a $15 power cord. What in the world is that about??? Why can’t we all be friends and use the same plugs?? It’s not even like one company decided to get all uppity and pioneer their own, because they’re all totally interchangeable. They had extras of both types of plug to attach to your dryer of choice. I think it’s a conspiracy because They know we just got rid of a bunch of stuff we never use, and now They want us to restock! Also, They want our money, even if it’s $15 at a time.

Needless to say, we’re hanging onto our four-prong dryer cord just in case where ever we move next has that variety again. What is the world coming to??

At any rate, I’ve finally begun to make a small dent in the pile of laundry we’ve been amassing. More of that will come in the morning.

Pictures have been hung around the house, complete with strategic gaps to keep reminding me that I have picture frames I really need to fill and hang, and I should do that sooner rather than later. So far, it hasn’t been successful, but I’ve been thinking about following through, which is significant progress over the last year or so.

We still do not have the butter dish. (We do, however, have butter. Never fear.)

The vacuum is still at the old apartment. Our floors here are really dirty and I’m trying not to notice.

We got rid of about 100 books last week, and only acquired four in the meantime.

I need to go through about three stacks of mail.

Matt has his Hebrew final tomorrow.

I’ve ruined three batches of candy so far, one a double-batch. I think the thermometer I’ve used in the past is broken, so the first two were lightly burned and the third was undercooked because I pulled it early out of paranoia. In theory, I’ll be trying again in the morning, but I don’t know if I’ll rally that fast after three crushing defeats in such a short time. I’ve got a lot of people to make toffee for, and the last thing I need to be doing is wasting time and ingredients.

I’m really tempted to spend the morning “working” at the local coffee shop, but I have a feeling I’ll just be trying to escape the work I need to do around the house and I won’t actually get anything done there, either. We’ll see how I feel about it in the morning.

I still need to finish those quilts I was working on a few weeks ago. They’re close, but not done yet.

Packing up and then unpacking (for the third time) all the materials I gathered and saved for our wedding scrapbook has brought it to my attention that it has been three and a half years, and still there is no wedding scrapbook anywhere on the horizon. Don’t even try to tell me you’re a better procrastinator than I am. Don’t even try.

I’m wicked tired, so I’m turning in a bit earlier than usual. Ta ta!