About the absence...

I have decided I am quite possibly the WORST blogger of all time. Why? I think of at least three new blog posts a week, but never get around to posting them. Then, when I have time, I start to think about ALL THE STINKING POSTS I will have to catch up on to get "back on track." So I get lazy about it all over again. And again and again, and well you get it.

So, to give you all a flying whiz-by bang-up debriefing on what we have been up to the past month, I should probably start now. Sorry about the lack of pictures...the computers in our house are all semi-functional right now, and won't recognize the camera. Dang.

As many of you know, we spent Christmas alone together here in Lowell. It was very low-key, but nice because it was our first Christmas together. I made Kringla, a holiday tradition in my family, as well as this cute Christmas party mix, just for funzies. We bought a fake tree on sale at Target, and decided it was probably for the best, because we had to put it away every night, otherwise Meeko would climb to the top, knocking the tree over and breaking many of our cheapy ornaments on the way. We had exactly one kind of wrapping paper, two "real" ornaments, and no stockings. In lieu of a Christmas ham, we ate steak. But we had each other, and so it was perfect and awesome and wonderful. Hopefully, next year we'll be with family in Arizona.

JJ had a week off after Christmas, and we had the genius idea to go to NYC after Christmas but before New Year's, but alas, we couldn't find a cheap hotel to stay in. So we spent our week wandering around Lowell, trying new restaurants, and playing board games together. New Yea'rs Eve rolled around and we did the stay-at-home bit again, and I made my mom's famous turkey taquitos (and jello shots!). We had a Harry Potter marathon. We drank tea and coffee every night and enjoyed each other's company.

So no...our holiday season wasn't crazy or exciting or full of people, but it was nice just the same. We started making time to have hot drinks together every night, and I think it's a part of every day that I look forward to the most.

Thanksgiving Meal!

Only a week late...but here is our update on how our Thanksgiving meal turned out!

We woke up Thanksgiving morning and were both pleasantly surprised that the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade didn't start until 9 am...back in Arizona, it always started at 7 am because of the time difference, and honestly, who wants to wake up that early on the holiday? EWWWW. So we watched the parade in its entirety before we started cooking....oh, the joy that is only serving two people on Thanksgiving! No schedule to follow!

Anyway, first I baked the blueberry pie. In my whole life, I've only ever baked one kind of pie, and that it my grandmother's famous (well, famous to me, anyway) summer season strawberry jello pie. And that's easy. So needless to say, I was nervous to tackle my first ever blueberry pie! Luckily, it turned out pretty good.

Not confident enough to try the fancy lattice-work top...so I opted for a crumble topping with rolled oats, brown sugar, flour and cinnamon instead. Yuuuuuum.

After the pie was done, it was time to get those chickens in the oven! I've never made Cornish game hens before, and I have to say, I'm more than a little grossed out by raw chicken that is still chicken-shaped. Give me boneless, skinless chicken breasts any day and I'll handle those babies without flinching! There was some confusion about whether there were giblets or not in the hens, and so I spent a good five minutes "making sure" they weren't still frozen to the insides or something. All the while, JJ is of course, making lewd jokes and taking pictures. And then he tells me that there are no giblets and shows me the package. Um, thanks!

You can't see my "eww" face right now....how am  I ever going to tackle a real turkey?

Finally got the chickens prepped and stuffed with wild rice...ready to go into the oven!

Now we had only a couple of hours before feasting time...and with no other really complicated dishes (just crescent rolls, frozen green beans, mashed potatoes and canned cranberry jelly), we had some time to spare! So what to do we do? Harass the cat, of course. (And you thought you were going to read a no kitty-pic post!)

Hehehehe.

Anyway, after waiting patiently and whipping together those few last minute items, it was time to admire our beautiful feast and then eat!

Our finished chickens....yummmmmmy!

Our completed feast....so much food leftover! Didn't cook again until the following Monday =)

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and are now ramping up for Christmas! We decided to put the turkey taquito tradition on hold...because after all, we did have enough food after Thursday to last us a whole week, and I hate throwing perfectly good food away. So I think we are going to turn it into a New Year's tradition instead =D

And and update on the job thing...so my phone interview went really, really well. They invited me in for an in-person interview this past Wednesday. However, I got an email a few days before saying that one aspect of the clinical trial was found to be ineffective, and the whole project was put on hold and they couldn't hire anybody. WHAT A BUMMER! However, yesterday I got an email from another person at the same place (Fenway Health) asking if I was still interested in the position, but for a different clinical trial. UM, YES. So good news: I have another phone interview on Monday with two different project managers. Hopefully at least one of them likes me enough to bring me in for a real interview! Cross your fingers, folks!

Holiday inspiration

Last night, I had nightmares about our Thanksgiving dinner. Sure, sure, it's just the two of us, so if I mess it up, we can just laugh it off later as our first Thanksgiving disaster. Right after we're done being sad that I screwed up Thanksgiving though, which is a very big deal to both of us.

So all night, I tossed and turned, dreaming about blueberry pie that tasted too cinnamon-y, or the chicken being raw in the middle (remember we are having Cornish game hens), or not cleaning out the chicken right (never done it before) or the potatoes being to lumpy. UGH. It was terrible.

And then JJ found me this video, which I think might be helpful to all you other stressed out turkey-makers this year:

"Here's how you make your turkey taste good...gravy, cranberry, and Pinot Noir. Why do you think they put cranberry on turkey? To make it taste good! It doesn't taste good by itself."

After watching that, I'm good. Another rum and coke (we forgot to buy wine), I'm having fun, it's THANKSGIVING, and we are content.

Missing all of our Arizona family, love goes out to you all. Stop stressing!

More updates later on how our meal turned out =D

Thanksgiving plans

Okay, okay--I know. I'm REALLY bad at updating the blog, after I made so many promises that I would! Silly me.

The holiday season is fast approaching and JJ and I are stuck with the realization that we will be nearly 3,000 miles from home for Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. Even though this is really difficult to come to terms with, we are trying to look on the bright side. This Thanksgiving, we may not be spending time in Sierra Vista or Phoenix with family, but you can bet your booty that I'm still going to cook a turkey (even if it's just for two of us)! And I most certainly am going to partake in one of my family's most time-honored traditions: turkey taquitos!

Ever since I was little, my mom has always used the leftover turkey not to make soup or casserole or hot turkey sandwiches...no. Instead, she has always ground it all up and spent the entire day after Thanksgiving making the most deliciously mouth-watering homemade turkey taquitos and chile rellenos ever. A long time ago, this "second day feast" used to be shared with just my immediate family and my aunt and uncle's family who live in Sierra Vista, but as the years have gone on, Thanksgiving Friday has become arguably a bigger deal in my family than even Thanksgiving itself. When my cousins and I were in high school, it was likely that many of our hungry friends would make the trip down to southern Arizona to partake in the Mexican feast...and for good reason! People literally fight over those taquitos...they are that delicious.

Well, this year I'm going to try to bring a little bit of home to Massachusetts. After years of helping in the construction of those delicious and awesomely messy taquitos, I'm going to try to make them all by my lonesome. Well....maybe I'll let JJ be my sioux-chef. =D

In other news, JJ and I finally have a couch! After nearly 2 months of sitting on the floor, we feel like grown-ups with our own living room set! Never mind that our mattress is still on the floor and our "dining room table" is a card table...little steps people! Little steps!