A Holiday of Feasting

This year I chose to make things simple by staying in town for Christmas.

Now while most Jews are (according to a short audio-story by Andrew) screaming at the clock, hurling books at the wall, and breaking their TVs in impatience for this dreadful holiday to end, I decided to bake.

Things started out nicely with Conjoined Baby Jesus sugar cookies, decorated with the conjoined efforts of Lizzy, Andrew, Celia, and myself.






Then yesterday I made a delicious butternut squash with ground turkey (I still have the other half! ah, what to do with it?!)

Today I started early by making oatmeal blueberry pancakes.

Then I threw bread ingredients (cheese garlic herb) into the machine. It just now beeped. Those 3 hours really do drag on!

And then I made some soup with a lot of the F2F produce: carrot, sweet potato, ginger, and beet! I am always nervous when it comes to beets, but this is actually delicious!

And finally, a frittata, which I have never made before. Not bad!

And tomorrow I will bake an apple pie, and who knows what else!

I hope everyone is eating as well as I am, and if you aren't, come help me eat all this goddamn food!

*Edit. A continuation of this bless-ed holiday, a Snow Day has befallen the people. I indeed baked that apple pie, as well as pumpkin scones that were a failure, but then last night I made up for it with pumpkin cup pies!


What else can I bake today?!

Solstice

The Winter Solstice coincided with a lunar eclipse yesterday morning. I should have stayed up. I should have called out of work. But I didn't. I was really sad to have missed it, but a lot of good people posted photos and videos on facebook. And I knew it happened, so I suppose that was enough for me.


I've been participating in some studies for monies. The past two were mood studies, at The Monell Chemical Senses Center and Penn. Penn was much more enjoyable than the Monell, but the Monell was much more interesting, to say the least.

Also, now that the CSA is over, Lizzy, M.E., and I have been utilizing the Farm to Families program, which is a pilot program to get fresh local produce to low-income families in the Kensington area. So far its great! I pay $5 and they split the rest. I get all the meat (so far ground turkey!) and half the eggs and then we split the rest of the produce. Thursday pickups, so, tomorrow!

The other day my friend Erika calls to ask if I have time to do a quick photoshop project for her parents' company, Interprative Solutions. I had done a small photoshoot for them before, and of course I said no problem. I did it in two hours last night, so, thanks Erika, for $30!

I even finished that commission for that couple. They picked it up on Saturday. I forgot to take a good photo of it though! But they loved it and were very happy. Lots of money rolling in these days. Much different from last December.



Kayla came to visit last week. We went to the Wagner Institute of Science which was AWESOME. It's just like the Mutter museum, but its Natural Science specimens. We were there for 2.5 hours, and it was free. I love Kayla because she is so smart and wonderful!
She even made me this lamp shade because the bulb is so bright!


December is pretty cold, but my apartment is warm, and we even got a little snow.

Oh how I love the snow.




Today I cleaned out the hallway (and Ian is coming next week to get some more stuff)

I checked on the building's worm bin (I have my own in my kitchen). Its doing really well, but there were all these squash sprouts!! And because I'm me, I couldn't just break them all and shove them back down... I had to pot them. They'll probably die anyway, but I will love them until they do.
Oh the magical world of the worm bin.

Tonight? Conjoined Baby Jesus Sugar/Gingerbread Cookies! Stop on by!

Thanksgiving and a Day in NYC again

Another couple of busy weeks!

Thanksgiving was spent in Columbus Ohio this year, with Celia's parents and brother Josh, his wife Claire, her parents, and her sister. The food was delicious and Celia's friends are wonderful! What more could you want?


I flew home on Friday and was back at work Saturday. Monday was Yoga again, and then Tuesday Mom came for dinner and to gift me some things. I bought her a necklace fitting the description "funky" and she liked it! Glory be!

Wednesday morning I got up and went to NYC and met Erin there! She was in town because she participated in a fundraiser show for Hamilton Alumni. It was in the same building as the Gogosian show with John Currin. While we were in the city we managed to see the MOMA,


Double O, by Zilvinas Kempinas



Gordon Matta-Clark

Yoko Ono


the Whitney (sorry, no photos, but they did have the same Charles LeDray show I had seen at the ICA in Boston. It was lovely to see those tiny pots again!), and some galleries on West 24th st including the Gogosian Gallery there with Anselm Kiefer. Amazing.

Got back from NYC and then worked on the commission for a while, followed by Puppet Uprising's Year End Cabaret! Both Friday and Saturday nights! What an awesome couple of weeks.


But now it's cold outside. And it's just harder to feel the sun on your skin through so many layers.