Monthly Archives: December 2009

Food & drinks

Mmm, food!

Speaking of holidays and cooking resolutions, I have yet to post what I’ve cooked!

I recently got a Healsio microwave steam oven, and I have to say that I have been very pleased with how it’s working.  I’ll try to do a writeup about it later, but for now I just wanted to put up some images of my holiday cooking.

On the days leading up to Christmas, I’ve made both chocolate chip and molasses cookies, a whole roast chicken, stuffing, and corn bread.  (I also made tons of mashed potatoes as well as gravy but not using the oven)

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On the table we have stuffing in a pan, the roast chicken, clam chowder in a crock pot (though the clam chowder was from a can – I just added raw shrimp), roast potatoes and carrots, corn bread, and molasses cookies! 

More images below, though none are of very good quality – this  represents a full day of cooking and I was pretty wiped out by the time everything was done.

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I actually cooked way too much for just 3 people (myself, S, and her sister), so next time I’ll have to remember to cut down a little!

Thoughts

Happy Holidays

Well,  it’s rapidly approaching the end of 2009 and boy has this year gone by fast.  I think I’ve mentioned it before, but I think life started accelerating once I hit 19 – since then, each year has gone by faster than the last.

2009 has certainly had its challenges, particularly in the workplace after a good  friend and mentor was let go.  Since this is a publicly accessible site, I won’t go into any details, but things were fairly stressful at work for a good few months.

There were also frustrations/uncertainties of a more personal nature, but… sufficed to say that I’m still sorting through those.

In the long run though, 2009 was a year of growth in many ways.  Not that one doesn’t try to progress in some way in any given year, but this year I finally moved to a place of my own.  It’s not the biggest place in the world, nor in the trendiest part of town, and doesn’t have anything especially unique – but it’s my place, the first time I’ve ever been completely on my own… and I’m loving it!

I’m happy to say that I’ve also cleared through most of my (modest) goals for this year as well:

  • Move to my own place – done!
  • Save money so I’m not living paycheck to paycheck – done!
  • Get a driver’s license – done!
  • Exercise – done!
  • Start cooking more – done!

I didn’t get to accomplishing ALL the goals I had, namely:

  • Get an IT certification
  • Improve my Japanese (I think I’ve actually gotten worse)
  • Buy fewer books (But the I’ve bought a Kindle so maybe that balances things out? 😉

I’ll create a new list of “resolutions” after the New Year rolls around, but so far 2009 has been, despite its challenges, a pretty good year.  Let’s see if I can keep up the momentum and do even better in 2010!

Tweaks & Tech

Spam!

Holy smokes, I just noticed that the spam count has skyrocketed – over 600+ spam comments caught this month alone!  It would appear that spammers don’t take holiday breaks – December 25-26 (depending on which timezone you happen to be in) has Akismet catching well over 100 spam comments.  Spammers need to get a life, seriously.

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Humor

I’m surfing le “toile d’araignée mondiale”!

I can’t believe it’s already been a month since my last post… I think this is the longest I’ve gone without writing anything.

Not much to report on my end, though since I’ve been on early shift for the last few weeks, I’ve been pretty tired – it’s just not that much fun to wake up at 0530.  At least the holidays are coming up!  The office closes from the 31st to January 3rd, and we’re back to work on the 4th.  Not a very lengthy holiday, but it will be nice to have even those 4 days off.

M’brain is a little fuzzy from sleepiness so I think I’ll end this here, but before I go, here’s a link to an article that had me laughing out loud (especially funny for those who speak/read French, but that’s not a prereq)

The French Get Lost in the Clouds Over a New Term in the Internet Age

Podcasting = “diffusion pour baladeur”?

Snowboarding = “saut acrobatique sur tremplin de neige”???

But my favorite was probably “toile d’araignée mondiale” (World wide web)

Make sure you read the side blurbs too! 🙂