Behold, I am become a shredder of worlds

Yesterday and today I have been SHREDDING at work. After months of organizing this paperwork, and scanning every freaking page, I now get to DESTROY it. It's surprisingly satisfying. I have filled up four giant bags with my conshreddi.

It was 12 degrees F this morning when I woke up. Finally, we are getting some seasonally appropriate weather!

What a difference a day - and a haircut makes. Check out these handsome babies. That's Mocha on the left, and Frank the Tank on the right.

There is a time for every season under heaven

I started this blog years ago, because my friend Toni told me that she liked how I wrote my emails, and she wanted me to start a blog. Every time we talked, she said, "You should write a blog! I would read your blog!"

So, one day I looked into it, and started this. There's never been any point to it, I write about books, or movies, and my dogs, and things that I think a lot about. Sometimes I tell stories or relate how flabbergasting I find the news (I find the news VERY flabbergasting!).

Toni used to comment and we'd talk about what I wrote on my blog and what she wrote on her blog.

But since she died, I have mostly let this go by the wayside. It feels like A LOT of effort to keep a blog that nobody reads. If I was writing a diary, I could write completely personally, and that would be one thing. If I had a readership, and commenters, it would feel like more of a conversation, and I find that compelling and interesting. But sending my semi-public thoughts out into the ether to sit unread is pitiful and sad. It makes me sad.

So I will probably just continue this as a "now and again" thing as I have been for the last two years. So, until later!

I'm edging into dangerous territory.

It was a divine weekend. I baked and baked and enjoyed The Messiah at our church.

And...yesterday it was back to the salt mine. I am about done with this job. It's boring. I've spent all my work time since May working on a stupid project organizing thousands of paper files, sorting, completing, and alphabetizing. Then I started scanning. I've scanned and scanned and scanned until the world looks level, my brain melted and ran out my ears, and I feel nothing but loathing every time I pull up to the building.

My hope is that I will be finished the scanning part of my job before I leave for Christmas. After that I have no idea what my Corporate Overlords will find for me to do. I just hope LIKE FUCK it does not involve scanning. If it does, I feel I have some choices. One is pulling off all my clothes and running naked and screaming from the building, convincing them that I'm too unstable to continue working for them. I've thought about it, oh yes I have.

Tomorrow is shopping day. I have to get the Christmas presents for...everyone. This is one of those tasks that is up to me, and tomorrow is my chosen day. I know what I want to get for everyone, I just hope tracking it down, killing it, and strapping it to the top of the SUV isn't too difficult.

If it was up to me, I would not exchange gifts with my adult family members. Alas, it is not up to me, so Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, Off To The Mall I Go.

Cookies coming out my ears

It was a busy and rewarding weekend.

Friday night I baked cookies with my Best Baking Friend. We made a bunch of Russian teacakes, or Mexican wedding cookies, or whatever you call them. Basically they are delicious balls of butter, sugar, and flour, rolled in more sugar.

Saturday we baked sugar cookies again. Rolling, decorating, baking. Rolling, decorating, baking. Sugar cookies are delicious and very popular...and a lot of work!

After a certain amount of time, we decided if we rolled out one more tray of trees and holly leaves, someone was going to get hurt, we moved on to cranberry-pistachio cookies. We got 12 rolls of those sliced and baked in about 2 hours, so that was super satisfying.

The Handel Choir of Baltimore performed The Messiah today. They used traditional musical instruments, like harpsichord, violincello, and these wacky looking old-style trumpets. It was a beautiful performance with talented soloists.

Then back home to make sausage balls and binge-watch Grimm. It is a humble life, but it is mine.

Sweet and savory

I went over to Best Baking Friend's yesterday afternoon and made two batches of sugar cookie dough. Then I hung around and helped cut out and decorate five trays of cookies. We made reindeer, holly leaves, and pine trees. Then I had to leave. It reminded me how easy it is to make the dough we made, which is from THE cookie Bible, the King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion Cookbook. BFF has everything in his kitchen set up for mass production of cookies. In the next three weeks he will make about 10 different types of cookies, which he packs in tins and gifts to his friends. Before it's over he will have made hundred (maybe even thousands) of individual cookies. I am proud that I am completely Certified to help in all aspects of cookie baking!

I am making cookies later this week.

Today, instead of the sweet stuff, Thomas and I mixed up a bunch of cheese pastry dough, wrapped it around olives, and froze the resulting cheese olives. Later in the season, when I need something to take to a holiday party, I have them all frozen and ready to pop in the oven. I use a recipe from The Joy of Cooking. I think it is a good recipe, more flavorful than a lot of others I have found on the interwebz.

I also have the ingredients for sausage balls. I'm going to try to knock those out some day this week and will also freeze them. Getting that chest freezer for the basement has changed my food life. I can make things ahead of time and just bake later.

The sausage balls I make are so easy and delicious. I use this recipe with Bisquick. Don't mock, food snobs, Bisquick is just the flour and rising ingredients. The important thing about making good sausage balls is that you have to use some hot and spicy sausage. If you and your family enjoy spicy flavors/foods, use all spicy sausage. If, like me, you like a little zip, but not too much, use 1 lb. of regular sausage and 1 lb. of hot/spicy sausage. Don't wuss out and go with all regular sausage, they will be too bland. Trust me on this, you need some spice for flavor. If you are me, you will also add a few dashes of Texas Pete's hot sauce (or Tabasco), just to make things even better.



For holidays, we usually have these at least once as a snack/appetizer, and usually once for breakfast. Make ahead and freeze, then bake until golden brown and sizzly. So delicious. Nothing says loving like sausage balls fresh from the oven!