Sometimes...

You've just gotta make cookies...

I haven't made cookies in a looooooong time. I think that's mostly because I tend to eat way too many of them at one time...

This was a new recipe I just found -- it calls for browning the butter before mixing the ingredients together. You melt the butter in a skillet first, and then swirl it around in the pan (so it doesn't burn) until it turns golden and smells like caramel. The process was a bit more complicated than my usual "throw all the ingredients into a bowl" recipe, and it remains to be seen (or tasted) whether the extra effort was worth it. I mean, my own cookie recipe (which I've perfected after years of trial and error and taste-testings) is pretty darn good, so these will have to be something rather special in order for me to make them more often than my usual recipe.

At the moment, however, the last thing I want is a cookie -- we just got back from dinner at Jasper's, where they had a new molten chocolate cake on the dessert menu. It had to be sampled, of course. I believe it's a law that any new chocolate item on a restaurant menu must be consumed immediately. Hey, I don't make the rules...

Cookies will have to wait until tomorrow...

Yeah, sometimes I take pictures of myself in the bathroom mirror, too... don't we all? (Oh, no? Just me? Ah, well... I had to do SOMEthing while I was waiting for the cookies to bake... :))

Scary science...

So today was the first day of school here in Austin. I'm trying to think of a good "back to school" memory I can write about, but they seem to all be along the lines of, "it's the first day of school? Already?? Noooooooo... NOOOOOOOOOO!!" (Which, incidentally, is almost exactly what I'm thinking every Monday morning: "It's Monday morning? Already?? Nooooooooo... NOOOOOOOOO!!") Schools in the south start and end earlier than schools in the north... I'm not sure why that is, exactly. I could theorize it's because it gets so much warmer so much earlier down here, but it also STAYS warm longer... but maybe going back to school -- even in "swimming weather" -- after a nice long break isn't as difficult as trying to concentrate after being IN school for nine months, and knowing that awesome swimming weather is lurking just beyond the brick walls.

But the weather can't be the only issue -- after all, I went to high school every year until June, in a school with NO air conditioning and precious few windows. That school was such a fire hazard. Who builds a school with no windows??? Oh, there were a few panes of glass here and there -- in the cafeteria, in the library, probably in the principal's office (I wouldn't know because I was never sent there... yes, I was one of THOSE kids -- the kind who actually do everything by the rules and get as many A's as possible to ruin the curve... mwahahahaha... actually, I rather enjoyed ruining curves... Hey, it's not MY fault if no one else bothered to read the biology textbook or memorized their German vocabulary...). And there were windows in the science classrooms, but I think that was a legal issue -- you can't hole kids up in a windowless room and set 'em loose with dangerous chemicals and their toxic fumes.

And hey, that DOES remind me of a "first day of school" memory -- my first day in high school chemistry class. The teacher was talking about our once-a-week lab requirements, and giving us stern, dire warnings about playing with chemicals. She pointed to the shower (which was situated right next to the door to the classroom) and announced that if any of us ever spilled anything on ourselves, she'd shove us right into that shower, rip our clothes off, and scrub us down. Nervous giggles ensued, and our teacher assured us that she was quite serious. (The word "pervert" may have been thrown out at that point...) Honestly, as if high school isn't awkward enough without the threat of public nakedness...

She also demanded that anyone who wore contact lenses should wear their glasses on lab days, because if any of us ever got chemicals in our eyes, she would have to rip those contacts right out of our eyes. (This was when I decided to never, ever mention to the teacher that I wore contacts... I mean, the threat of being naked was bad enough... but naked AND blind?? No thank you...) Needless to say, chemistry lab was basically a terrifying experience every week... NO ONE handled those chemicals as carefully as I did... and yet I STILL left every lab feeling as if I MUST have spilled something somewhere. I'd spend my entire history class (my class after chemistry) waiting for signs of an accidental flesh-eating chemical spill... or I'd wonder if I was feeling slightly nauseous because I inhaled dangerous fumes, or simply because I was worrying about inhaling dangerous fumes? I seem to have survived completely intact, so apparently all those fears were unfounded... I think there's a fine line between convincing your students they need to be cautious, and just downright freaking them out. My chemistry teacher jumped right over that line on day one...

But back to the school with no windows -- even though we were up in the north, it was MUCH too hot toward the end of May and early June in that stifling building with no air circulation... so allowing us to be on a "southern" schedule would've been nice. (And installing an A/C over the summer would've been a really nice touch, too... I wonder if that school has A/C yet??) My point is, I have no idea why schools in the south start and end earlier than schools in the north.

But thank goodness I don't have to go BACK to one... :)

Randomy randomness...

Okay, I have to put up SOMEthing else on this page, because I'm sure no one appreciates coming to my blog and immediately seeing a giant spider. I don't even appreciate that, and I'm the one who put it there... :)

So how about some random thoughts?? Yay!

Riff is driving us insane. That cat is crazy. I'm assuming it's because he's still in "kitten" stage, but lately he has taken to running around our bedroom and bathroom at night when we're trying to sleep, knocking over toothpaste tubes and shampoo bottles and bars of soap and whatever else he can get his paws on in the bathroom. And then, once he settles down, he curls up on my pillow and sleeps for a while (which means less and less room for me as he gets bigger and bigger -- he used to occupy one tiny corner... now he takes up half the pillow...). But then, usually sometime between 4:30 and 5:00, he wakes up and decides it's time to play again -- but, being slightly groggy I suppose, he decides to go after whatever is closest to him. And that would happen to be my head. He pounces on top of my head, grabs my hair, and pulls it with his teeth. If I'm lucky, he doesn't dig his claws into my scalp when I reach up to grab him and toss him to the end of the bed. (This, of course, serves only to assure him that I DO, in fact, want to play, and he runs right back up to my head and pounces again...)

I'm getting a little tired of the bizarre Chinese comments that keep popping up under my posts. I suppose they're some kind of automatically generated spam, which has somehow found a way to get past the word verification feature for comments. (Rick has actually managed to translate them a couple times using an online language translation site, and they always say things like, "beauty lies in sunshine happiness of mountain shadow for wise man.")

Only one more day until the weekend!! Wait, let me say that the way it sounds in my head: ONLY ONE MORE DAY UNTIL THE WEEKEND!!!! WEEEEEEEEEEEKEEEEEEEEEND!!!!!

My legs and back are a little sore from yesterday's P90X workout. I'm doing pretty well with it, although I have, on occasion, skipped a workout here or there (it's really hard to maintain hour-long workouts six days a week... I can usually manage at least five, but sometimes I just need a rest day, you know?). I also refuse to do the yoga DVD, because I've decided that I really hate yoga. I know some people LOVE it, but I just can't get into it. I don't feel like I'm DOING much when I'm attempting to maintain some awkward pose... I just feel like a silly person trying to maintain an awkward pose. For me, a workout has to FEEL like a workout -- how am I supposed to pound out all my stress and aggression in "tree pose," while calmly breathing in and out through my nose?? So on yoga days, I just do a few miles on the treadmill instead... And I'm excited, because yesterday, I got as close as I've ever gotten in my life to doing an actual pull-up. I'm still not quite there yet, but I'm no longer assuming it's an impossible task. It just MIGHT be possible, after all...

Have I mentioned the cool new movie theater that opened up a few miles from here? It costs $22 for a movie... yes, it's a lot of money for a movie. BUT, every theater is assigned seating, there isn't a bad seat in the entire place, AND the seats themselves are huge, cushy, and recline like first class airline seats. They even have blankets in case you get cold. They also serve REAL food and drinks -- you can get everything from pizza and blue cheese potato chips to farfalle pasta and steak... plus desserts, coffee, martinis, you name it. (Ironically, I'm not sure they actually serve popcorn...) If you need anything during the movie, you just push a button and someone comes to take your order. It's like my new favorite movie theater. I'm not sure I can ever go back to a regular, wait-in-long-lines, end-up-craning-your-neck-in-the-front-row, walk-on-sticky-floors, popcorn-and-milk-duds theater. (Although I do like popcorn and milk duds... :))

Well, that's about all I can manage to find wandering around in my brain right now... hope everyone is having a good week -- everyone say it with me now: WEEEEEEEEKEEEEEEND!!!! 

Ew, aw and yum...

The ew:

This guy was hanging out next to the back porch... he was huge... bigger than this picture can convey... like as big as my hand. Or a small SUV... Feel free to shudder and bang your computer screen with a shoe. (What's weird is that I can only make out six legs... where are his other two legs?? Actually, I'm not THAT curious... if he promises to go away and never come back, I won't ask questions about missing appendages...)

And after seeing that, I had to come back inside and surround myself with cute cats... I mean, really, that's the best way to recover from such an assault on the eyeballs. Balance out the "eeeeewwww" with the "aawww":

Ha! I made my own lolcat picture... I am easily amused... :) This is actually what Riff does when you shine a laser pointer onto the wall -- he tries to climb the wall. I'm pretty impressed with how high he can get, considering it's not possible to literally climb a wall (well, save for our arachnid-type visitors, who obviously think they're really super special and want to show off their abilities on the back porch...)

And finally, the yum:

Summer squash and corn chowder, courtesy of Cooking Light magazine. (I didn't have any green onion like in the picture in the magazine, so I just used some white onion -- it tasted great, but was slightly less photogenic...). This stuff was so good!! What's funny is that a few years ago, neither Rick nor I would've been interested in anything with the word "squash" in it... but over the last few years, I've tried to add a bit more variety to my fruits/veggies repertoire, and surprise surprise -- squash is actually extremely versatile. And since it has such a mild flavor, you can add it to just about everything and it tastes good. I will definitely be making this recipe again...

I'll also definitely be making rum-spiked grilled pineapple with vanilla ice cream again, which is another Cooking Light recipe that I tried for dessert last night. YUUUUUUUM!! It was so good, I think even my alcohol-hating mom would love it (I couldn't taste the rum at all... :)).

And now I'm off to savor the last hours of the weekend...

A little tour...

Two days down, three to go (until the weekend!!). Yep, as usual, I am quite looking forward to a weekend of sleeping in and trying to play catch-up with some of my magazines (I must have eight Fitness and Shape magazines on my coffee table... I really have to work my way through those...).

But in the meantime, I thought I'd give you all a little tour of where I spend my time when I'm NOT sleeping or trying to fit in some reading time. I can't take credit for this idea, by the way -- that goes to my friend George over at Cedar's Mountain, who has, in the past, posted pictorial tours of his neighborhood and workplace. I always thought that was a cool idea, but I kept forgetting to bring a camera to work with me. Well, I finally remembered, so now you can awe at the splendor that is my office... enjoy!

Actually, let's start on highway 360, which I think is one of the prettiest highways in Austin -- this is where our "hill country" designation really starts to become apparent. Much of Austin is rather flat, but certain parts of the city, like 360, have these great rolling hills -- this makes 360 a very popular road for hard core cyclists (think Lance Armstrong). Seriously, the people who bike on 360 are insane... Fortunately, I just have to work in an office building on 360 and I get to leave my bike at home.

UNfortunately, however, I really didn't get any good shots of the highway, as I never seemed to encounter a red light (sure, the ONE day I bring a camera, every light is green -- that never happens), so I hastily snapped a picture while I was driving:

I also hastily snapped a picture of the 360 bridge as I was crossing:

Um, I think I'll call this one "Rear View Mirror and Toll Tag with Slight Suggestion of Bridge." (I wish I could've gotten a better picture of the bridge -- it's a cool bridge...)

And right after the bridge, I end up here:

And here is my first view when I arrive -- the parking garage. (Yes, I get to work early, hence the lack of cars -- but that means I pretty much get my pick of spaces...)

The long climb up the slightly blurry stairs (okay, the climb isn't THAT long... just four floors from the garage... and the stairs aren't blurry in person...)

And here it is -- my own little space for a third of the day. This is my new office -- in the old one, the desk was facing the door, but in this office, the cords on the computer wouldn't quite reach far enough for me to position my desk that way. And I HATE sitting with my back to the door, so I decided to improvise, and voila -- desk on the diagonal. I kinda like it, actually. When I'm sitting at the desk, I sort of feel cocooned into the corner between the desk and the shelves behind me...

Remember when I was talking about all the binders I had to move? Well, here are a few...

And a few more...

And some empty binders... (Why do I have so many binders in my office???)

The most important part of my day...

What I wish I was doing at 7 in the morning...

The two books I refer to most frequently (for some reason I decided to go all film noir with this one and take it in black and white)...

And, I have to show you the amazing view outside my door, because it is just so awe-inspiring:

Wow. There are no words.


So that's about it -- I hope everyone is having a good week! :)

Random thoughts!

As is often the case nowadays, I feel compelled to post something to my blog, yet my remaining, functioning brain cells are ill equipped for anything other than random thoughts. To that end -- random thoughts!!!

We were planning to stay home tonight and eat good things like veggies and fruit, and then my parents conspired against us and invited us to Freddy's... I did, however, have a veggie BURGER -- does that count? (Don't worry about the frozen custard... we'll just pretend like that never happened...)

Our five-month old kitten, Riff, figured out earlier tonight how to jump from the end table next to the couch onto the kitchen counter. Up until now I've been able to keep him off the counter, mainly because he's been too small to jump that far... but now I'll have to deal with brushing him away every ten seconds when I'm trying to make dinner. I'm not a fan of cat hair in my food...

My department at work played musical offices on Friday -- we all moved into new offices, which involved lots of packing, furniture location confusion, and disconnection/reconnection of computers. I learned that my office is the home to an inordinate amount of binders filled with years-old documents, which not only took up far too much room in the packing crates, but also take up most of the cabinet space in my new office...

There seems to be some kind of allergen floating around in the air in Austin... I've been waking up with an itchy throat, which is really annoying. Even Rick has been having sneezing problems, and he's hardly ever allergic to anything... (That reminds me, I really should take some Benadryl before bed...)

I can't believe it's August already... how did THAT happen??

Okay, I need to go shine the laser pointer on the floor so Riff will chase it for a while and hopefully tire himself out before I try to sleep... Otherwise, he'll no doubt wake me up at 3 in the morning by running around in circles on the bed... 

Good night!! :)