Happy New Year!

Home made pot pies:

A few views of the first real snow of the season:

A very regal dog has agreed to pose for us:

Things I've been meaning to post about:

Ordering glasses online:
I did it. I looked at a bunch of different sites, and I ended up buying mine at Zenni Optical. They were about $35 inc shipping, high index lenses, and anti-glare coating. My goals were: cheap, and try someplace that does tinting so that N could order cheap prescription sunglasses once he gets his prescription updated. Eye Buy Direct had the nicest site, but charged more for the high index lenses, and don't do tinting in all frames, just sunglasses in a few high price frames. Googles4u got pricey fast in my prescription.
At first I thought I would buy some cute frames and maybe like them enough to wear them more than just when my contacts are out at night. But it turns out that I am not daring (these look nearly identical to my last pair, except for the way they fit my head far better) and I hate wearing glasses. But since the eye doctor demands that I take out my contacts every night now, it was good to get a spare pair.

Thanksgiving:

Mostly I want to fill you in on the culinary success stories.

I made homemade cranberry dressing, with orange juice and orange zest. It was YUMMY.

and N came up with the thoroughly brilliant idea of molding it in the skull cake pan! Despite it taking up a ridiculous amount of fridge space, it was still fun to scoop out some jawbone to garnish the turkey with.

I made acceptable dinner rolls for the first time ever: Parker House Rolls from Baking Illustrated. They are ridiculously buttery, which is fine for a special occasion. I'm not sure I'm shaping them right, but I end up with little folded buns that make great tiny sandwiches with leftover turkey and some dijon. mmmm. But still on the lookout for a good "everyday" dinner roll recipe.

I also tried a new variant on Hypocrite Pie, Sour Cream Apple Pie from the Modern Baker. Malgieri's version has a much better custard - it really holds together while still being chockful of apples. Unfortunately, his crumb topping is kind of bland and there's way too much of it. Next time, I'll try halving the topping.

That about catches us up. The dogs say Merry Christmas!

Fall is for changes. And Skull cakes.

Skull cake! I am now plotting excuses to make skull cakes for every occasion. Hogwatch, Easter Crime, Pirate birthday parties (I'll be pro-pirate for skull cakes!) I just love my skull cake pan. This is yellow cake with the simple glaze I used for coffee cake. It's two pieces, one that is sort of neck + back of head and one that's the face. So it sits up and looks at you. We glued them together with strawberry jam that didn't set all the way for extra gore.

The linden tree in the front yard changed color in the last few days. All over the neighborhood, the leaves are coming down so fast you can hear them, so today was the day to get all the fall color photos.
(unknown decorative bush. it's twin on the other side of the deck appears to be dead - didn't change color.)
(the remaining apricot tree. It was about twice this big, but half of it fell over and died. We still got enough apricots for jam this year.)

News! I have a new job. It is awesome. I'm a Data Consultant at SimpleGeo. Right now that means that I'm building ways to clean up our geo data sources, which uses programming and statistics and text mining and other things that I wanted an excuse to learn more about. I cleaned out a ton of links that I had favorited in Twitter because they looked interesting - all of them are relevant to my new job. Still part-time while I wrap up this thesis (swear I'm making progress) but planning for it to become full-time after that.
N also has a new job. He's still a controller, but now he has a much better commute, and works for a larger company - a wholesale plant nursery.

Obligatory photo of adorable dog:
Vlad manages to look mopey despite having the comfy chair and all the toys. Takes some doing.

random update

Well, the big "news": I'm not going to graduate this semester. Presumably, I'll graduate next semester, but really who knows? It's research. I'm definitely making progress, and I'm happy with how it's coming together and my level of understanding. And I'll graduate when it's done.

It took me six years to get my undergraduate degree. It is astonishing to me now that I thought I could get a PhD. in less. :)

I do wish I hadn't expended all that time and energy on job hunting. But oh well. There are worse mistakes to make.

Our living room is back together. It's fantastic and gorgeous. See floor and rug and bookshelves and couch back in place.
This wall used to be grimy white wood paneling, and the old shelves against it were falling-apart particle board. We do need to figure out where to buy more of the little plastic swivels that hold the glass into these.
Dogs are still cute.

Perfect Pantry Coffee Cake

Goal: coffee cake with a decadent amount of streusel, made only of things I always have on hand.



Recipe:

Streusel (from Bon Appétit's Streusel Coffee Cake )
1/4 c (1/2 stick) butter, softened
1/2 c brown sugar
1/2 c rolled oats
2 tsp cinnamon

Cake (from Challenge Dairy's Streusel Topped Apple Bread )
1/2 c (1 stick) butter, softened
1 c sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 c buttermilk
2 c flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
(if using unsalted butter, 1/2 tsp salt)

Glaze (inspired by Alton Brown's Doughnut Glaze )
1/2 c powdered sugar
1 Tbsp dry milk
1/4 tsp vanilla
just enough water to make pourable

Stir together the streusel ingredients and set aside.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9x9 pan with aluminum foil and spray with baking spray.

Cream the sugar and butter until light and fluffy, add the eggs one at a time. Stir in the buttermilk and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients and stir until just smooth.

Spread batter into prepared pan, top with streusel. Bake for 40 minutes. (Or until the center stops jiggling.)

While the cake is cooling, whisk together the glaze, adding water gradually until you have something that is just barely a liquid. Once the cake is nearly cool, pour liberally over the entire cake, it should soak in.

It's good to have our whole house again.

The living room floor is finished, and enough baseboards are in that we put everything back in the room that belongs there. It's great to be able to use it normally again, as well as see ALL our books and dvds. And I hooked up my Super Nintendo.

We survived having both the annual judo picnic and the annual math bbq on the same day. Brought Snickerdoodle Blondies and buttermilk pie respectively. Sadly, the blondies were experimental and I don't think they make the cut. Too dry. They're great dunked in coffee or tea, but standing alone too dry for me.

A very agile squirrel left this on our (upper floor) windowsill. I wish I could have seen him maneuvering to get up there with it. The apples are almost ripe, so I guess summer must be almost over..

Home Improvements

Engineered red oak. Cheaper than any of the laminate we liked, maybe a little lighter in color than we were thinking, but looks great in place. We did all the easy parts. Now there's the edge where we have to cut boards lengthwise and the hallway. SO MUCH NICER THAN CARPET.

Vlad likes it. Vlad is also safely off all of his meds - got the bloodwork back this week and he's looking very healthy. Even starting to lose some weight by ineffectively chasing rabbits around the yard. (We have a ton of rabbits this year!)

Gustav also likes the floor.

Yes, this blog is almost entirely an excuse for me to post pictures of my dogs.

We also replaced 5 windows with modern double glazed ones. Including the ones in the bathrooms. I'm so excited about having insulation between me and the outdoors when I shower.

I went to a big statistics conference and gave a talk. I have some ideas for how to have a better time next time I go to a big conference. Luckily it's one where hundreds and hundreds of people give talks, so there were about 5 people in my audience who weren't also speaking that session. It was still pretty scary.

Today I fought in a non-novice division of a judo tournament. Well, 3 non-novice divisions, and the novice division. 8 total fights, won 3. But two where in one division, so I took first in that one. Great fun, no injuries, way less freaked out about fighting black belts in the future.