A place to record the things that my brain comes up with.

13 December 2006

Gross

You may not be aware, but I recently took a lot of time off work. This time of year they always print up little slips letting you know how much vacation you have to use (or lose) and I always have way too much because work is way too important and I have stuff to do and I can't possibly take a day off . . . yeah, that's not true. But sometimes I feel that way, so I always get to December and have an impossible number of days to take off work. So last week I didn't go. At all. I actually took 6 days off in a row, which gave me a very nice 10-day weekend. Ahhh . . . what could I possibly do with that much time?

Not that much, as it turns out.

Well, not as much as I would have liked. But I did get some stuff done. I got all of our Christmas music on the computer so I have it on my iPod now - 8 hours! That's a lot of Mele Kalikimaka (two versions) and dogs barking Jingle Bells.

I also did my holiday baking. I thought to myself, why not make some cookies? Cookies are fun to make and decorate. I can make cookies for all my friends and everyone will think I'm Martha Stewart and it will be great.

Fast forward ten hours later, when I've cleaned the kitchen twice, baked 8 dozen sugar cookies and 4 dozen fudgy bon bons, made my own frosting (six colors!), and am now sitting at the table, covered in nine kinds of jimmies. I think I built up some serious forearm muscles, creaming all that shortening into all that sugar. Not to mention mixing in the six cups of flour. Hoo boy. I think I won't be baking a gross of cookies all in one shot again until I own a KitchenAid mixer.

Anyway, the cookies all tasted fabulous, even if the ones I frosted at 10:30 at night weren't quite as elaborate or pretty as the ones I frosted at 8:00. The bon bons also weren't as prolific as usual because I cut my finger on the Eagle milk can, and that made shaping the dough quite tricky, I tell you what.

Man, I wish I had a cookie right now.

I also spent a lot of my time off work . . . working. I'm lame. But it was vacation then or nothing, and I also had stuff to do . . . I went to a Project Learning Tree training at the Tracy Aviary, and then it was the National Science Teachers Association convention! Woo! Party time!

Actually, it was. I had lots of fun. Not so often do I get to do such overtly nerdy stuff these days.

I also did get a lot of Christmas shopping and wrapping done, and I'm warning you now that I went off-list for a lot of y'all. I hope you like the stuff. I think you'll like the stuff. Please like the stuff.

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