Cupcakes

I got a chance to practice my cake decorating this week on some chocolate cupcakes.  I made purple and blue/green frosting, put them in the same bag, and tried all different tips. 

 

I paint

... by number.  This guy took me well over a year.  I honestly don't remember when I started it.  I'm working on finding a frame and a spot for it, since all of our walls are already covered in art made by real artists.

Each paint has a number on it and the cardboard came white with tons of areas with numbers on it.  I also had to mix paints to get some mixed shades.  Pretty easy!

Cakes

I am dying to try out a few of these mouth-watering recipes and fun decorating ideas I found on Pinterest.  I might have to whip one of these up for my birthday treat next week! 

Cute cupcake decorating idea.  Source.

Chocolate Mouse cake!  Yes please!  Source,

Red Velvet?  Sure!  Source.

Red velvet CHEESECAKE?  OKAY!  Source

And maybe some strawberry champagne to top it off.  Source.

I'm thinking birthday plans will include Nepalese food, desserts, fun drinks, good friends, maybe some snow shoeing, and maybe even a hair cut and a trip to the spa.  I'll make it a weekend-long celebration!    

Fun Photos with the New Camera

Christmas was the perfect time to invest in a new toy, a DSLR camera!  With the help of a photographer friend, I finally decided on the Sony A55 and thus far, I am extremely pleased!  Once I figured out how to set it on automatic+ and which lens to use for what, I just can't seem to take a bad picture.  I know I have a lot to learn and some experience to gain, but I am convinced that this new toy will be perfect for a new photography hobby for both of us as well as improved food pictures for my blog.  The camera also has an awesome panoramic feature and it takes movies.  Here's a few from playing around just the last few days.

Dave took this one from our backyard where he ran into a very famous meteorologist who just happens to be our neighbor while he's on sabbatical this year.  Should I have him autograph my books?

Dave's again-- a female Flicker.  Her boyfriend came by later and we got some great pics of him eating our suet.

Just after Wednesday's snowstorm, the sun came out right before it set.  This is taken from our backyard.  I almost missed the photo op because my battery was charging inside and I went out with an empty camera.  I got back just in time.

National Center for Atmospheric Research plus the Flatirons in the distance on our hike.

Dave's shot, a little tree-framing.

We had a little fun with Lightroom, removing a blemish, then playing with the different effects.

Devil's Thumb-- one of many. 

Heading home.  We saw more dogs than people on this hike.  None of them were on a leash even though it is required by law.  Most strange dogs hate Dave for some reason and one of these days he's going to come home with a bite out of him, I swear!

Looking southeast off the ridge.

Peppermint tea, my favorite!  Grandma got me these cute measuring spoons last year.

Enchilada night!

Christmas decorations I made last year from a terracotta pot, burlap, gold spray paint, and pine cones from Dave's Grand-dad's old land, and a wooden star.

We still had two pumpkins left to make into puree.  This one was a long island cheese pumpkin.  (Dave's photo)

Check out my cute new apron, a xmas gift from some of my favorite people!  How thoughtful!  It is reversible and on the other side are cupcakes!!!!!

Okay, who wants some pumpkin puree?  I ended up with about a gallon and I still have some left from the last batch!

Books and their movies

This week I watched the movies of three books I read this last year:  The Help, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and Water for Elephants.  Here are my reviews without any spoilers.

The Help was a fabulous book.  In fact, I stayed up until 2:30 in the morning on a school night when I finished it.  I just couldn't put it down!  The movie was also great, but the motivation behind many things wasn't entirely explained in the movie.  I recommend the book first, then the movie.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was a really hard book to get into because the story is so complex and there are just so many characters.  I got through 2.5 of the 3 books before giving up on them.  It seemed like a lot of back story for a few insanely huge action points in the plot.  I watched the Swedish movies and they weren't bad.  Now we have the American version of the first book in theaters now.  My cousin and I read the books together and we thought it would be fun to catch this movie in the theater last week.  The movie was really great with one huge problem:  I'm not sure I'd understand the movie without having read the book, in fact one of the main conclusions in the movie was completely anti-climactic and we had no idea what had happened.  There is one other warning on this book/movie, the whole thing is about rape.  Keep this in consideration before choosing your movie-going partner!

Water for Elephants was a really short book.  I read the whole thing in a week on my brand new Kindle Touch.  The book was great!  The movie was similar to The Help in that the motivation for things was not explained in the movie.  I'm not sure seeing the movie without having read the book would be that great of an experience.  I think this movie gets the lowest ratings of the three from me.

On an unrelated note, I also watched Remember Me and Friends with Benefits, both of which were worth seeing.

What do you think?   Any book/movie combos that you particularly liked?

2012 Resolutions

My new years resolution is to be young.  I turn 30 this year and I'm hoping to make the change-over to my 30's feeling young and acting in ways that are mature, but fun.  It's a year to say "yes" to fun things, plan adventures, work hard, and play harder.  It's a year to take care of myself, be active on a regular basis, and refine my gluten free diet to look good and feel good.  It's a year to live it up and do the things I've always wanted to do, make big plans, and enjoy life.  I can't imagine a time when I'll have any less responsibilities financially or care-taking-wise.  Why not take advantage? 

Here's to a fabulous trip around the sun! 

What have you resolved to do this year? 

29th birthday in 2011, which means 30 is a month away!

Winter Solstice

Today is the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year.  Our route around the sun will bring longer days from now until June, each day with more sunlight.  The new year is filled with possibilities!  As I write this, a huge Colorado snow storm is dropping an inch an hour outside my window, covering my blue and green Christmas lights. This month has just flown by.  Here's why. 

The first week of December I spent frantically preparing the last lectures and reviews for my last week of class.  I was going to miss eight classes the next week for a conference, so I had to arrange subs and things for the students to do while I was gone.  Dave handed in his dissertation on Wednesday under the wire, which actually was a surprise for me, I didn't realize he was going to make the deadline and thought May might end up being his graduation date.  I was so proud of him, we took a night off to celebrate.  He has been working day and night for weeks on his research, and is still working on it!  He has another big deadline at the end of the month.

Friday night it snowed and Dave and I went for a walk in the snow and went to sleep.  I got a call from a good friend in the middle of the night that he had slipped and hit his head and needed someone to come get him after he got stitches and make sure he was okay during the night in case he had a concussion.  Poor guy!  I went and picked him up during one of the most beautiful snow storms ever.  He was completely fine.  In the morning Dave dropped me off at the park and ride and drove our friend home.  I flew to San Francisco with a 90 minute delay from the snow and long line for de-icing.

Sunday I had an 8:00-6:00 meeting before Dave joined me in San Francisco for a week of conference with 21,000 scientists.  My poster was right away at 8:00 on Monday.  The rest of the week was just insanity of 15-minute talks all day long from 8-6 with a lunch break plus 2,000 posters each day that one could walk through.  Each night we had dinner with friends and got in late only to do the same thing the next day.  I still had to check email, prep slides for subs, and participate in committee meetings from afar.  On Wednesday I got extremely sick with a cold that is still bothering me today.  One of my best friends in the world's dad passed away and I felt just awful for not being able to be there for her.  Ugh, the world lost an amazing man.  Thursday night we went out for Burmese food and then to the Cal Academy's Night Life where we spent a lot of time in their rain forest display.   Dave's poster was on Friday and he was a big hit.  Saturday we flew back, but on separate flights.  I was miserably sick, but still had to grade papers and write two of my final exams.  

Friday, late afternoon, we took a break and walked to the Ferry building around sunset.

I needed a walking break.  My cold was killing me!

I found a very large Christmas tree. 

This tea and gluten free coffee cake prepped me for my flight home.  I need to get my hands on more of this revolution tea!

Final exam week was beyond busy.  My grading pile just never went down because I kept getting more things to grade!  Thursday I had a chance to catch up at school.  Then Dave's parents and grandma came to stay with us Thursday for a few days to celebrate Dave's PhD graduation.  (How sweet are they to fly out for it?)  We don't have a spare room, but sleeping arrangements worked out just fine in the end.  We really enjoyed commencement on Friday where Dave's Aunt and Cousin came to join us as well.  Saturday we drove up to Estes Park for a little touristing.  The change in elevation just about made my head explode because my cold had moved to my sinuses.  Even my teeth were aching!  I finally adjusted and we enjoyed our day in Estes, then Lyons.  Sunday afternoon everyone flew out during the Packer game (first loss!).

Dave's PhD garb.  He got some extra flare for being a legacy student, in that his dad and aunt also attended his college.

A cold snap kept the snow around all month.  It made for a beautiful scene on commencement day.

By Monday night I had finally finished grading and prepping for a day-long committee meeting on Tuesday.  I woke up extremely sick and after five hours of voting on curriculum, I got to go to the doctor and get some antibiotics.  Today Dave and I went to breakfast then packed him up for two weeks in New Jersey.  I wished him a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and shed a tear as the bus pulled away.  I hate spending the holidays away from him, but we just haven't figured out how to make it work with our families 1,000 miles apart (and OUR home another 1,000 miles away).  I came home and packed for my flight tomorrow.  Dave called from the airport, his flight had a two hour delay, but he was able to get on another flight that hadn't left yet after a three hour delay.  Of course his suitcase didn't make it on the plane with him, so we'll see how that goes.  The one time he checks a free bag he switches flights!  He's in the air now.  Here in Colorado, we're supposed to get 10 inches of snow before morning.  My flight is at 3:00, but I'm sure it will be delayed.  I'm not going to imagine what I'll do if it is canceled.

Five years ago, in 2006, we had a two-footer just days before Christmas.  All of our flights were canceled and I spent a ton of money to get home in the middle of the night Christmas Eve morning.  I was one of the lucky ones.  I had a friend trying to get to MN and he tipped me off to a new flight that they had just put on the books.  Some people didn't make it out.

Here's one of the videos I took when I finally got to the airport to check in for my rescheduled flight a few days after I was supposed to fly back in 2006.

I'm sure Thursday will be stressful, but once I make it to Wisconsin, I've got 10 days of relaxation planned.  I crave sleep and I can't wait to be able to sleep in, work out, eat good food, and just catch my breath after this crazy month.  Of course I'm also excited to see my parents and brother, grandma, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends!  We all know that there is no such thing as a 10 day vacation with me, I plan on working on next semester's classes in between holidays.  There's no place like home for the holidays!  Let's hope I get there.

I hope all of you have a very Merry Christmas and a happy Winter Solstice!

Looking back on 2011

I love making collages of pictures that remind me of all of the neat stuff I did in a year.  I've made one of these collages for Dave and I the last two years of things we did together in 2010 and then 2011.  Of course we do lots of things without each other as well,  but I think this is a cute way to remember the fun we had together this year. 

2011

(top left) We took a trip to Beaver Creek ski resort for a fun weekend and skied in the coldest weather I've ever experienced. 
(second from top, left) We went on the ATOC retreat to the YMCA cabins outside Estes Park and hiked with department friends.  Dave is pointing to my favorite clouds, lenticulars.
(second from bottom, left) Dave surprised me on my 29th birthday with new trekking poles and a day of snowshoeing he had planned for us at East Portal.  It was snowing so hard, and so beautifully, we barely made it back in time for birthday dinner at Pasta Jay's with friends. 
(bottom left) We climbed to the Royal Arch in Chautauqua in Boulder with friends visiting for a Phish concert. 
(Top middle) We took a few friends to the Vagabond Ranch for a weekend of backpacking, snow shoeing, skiing, sledding, and hot-tubbing.
(Middle) We went to Utah and drove to the San Rafael Swell where we hiked down several canyons.
(Middle second from bottom) While in Utah we went to Goblin Valley.
(Bottom) At home, Dave's PhD graduation, long shadows in the Utah desert
(Top, second from right) We went to Boston for Polar AMS conference and toured the entire city, including the Cheers bar. 
(going down)We camped on the Poudre.
We brewed lots of beer.
(Top right) We backpacked Needles in Utah. 
(going down on the right) We fished South Boulder Creek (and many, many more).
We went over Cottonwood pass in between camping nights on either side of the pass and visited the hot springs.
We visited Wisconsin for Dave's Grandma's 85th birthday party. 

Unfortunately, we don't have pictures from every excursion.  We just got back from San Francisco a week ago and managed to not take any pics together!  This Thursday, Dave's parents, grandma, and aunt and cousin all came for Dave's PhD graduation.  What a fun celebration!  Now we've got a good two days together before we fly to our respective home states for Christmas and New Years.  It has been a crazy month and I've had a cold for most of it. 

Here's the 2010 collage I made for us.  I can't remember if I posted it here or not!

2010

I'm going to go left top to bottom to right, top to bottom:
We stayed with friends in a yurt in the Never Summer Mountains.  We backpacked with friends near the rainbow lakes just days before the Fourmile canyon fire.  We spent a weekend in Rocky Mountain National park with friends and dragged them on a rainy 10 mile hike to Granite Falls.  (top) We hiked in our "backyard" during one of many snow storms.  We went to NYC's Central Park after a trip to the Jersey Shore with Dave's family.  We went to Island in the Sky in Utah.  (Top) I hiked my first 14er and made it to the top of Gray's Peak!  We cut down our first Christmas tree together in Wyoming with Dave's aunt and cousin.  It was at least 11 feet tall!  Dave's Grand-dad passed away and we hosted his family for the funeral, so we took a trip up to Porter Ranch Rd, where he used to live, and walked around with the family.  (top) We hiked up to one of the glaciers that feeds our water supply.  We hiked Lathrop Trail in Island in the Sky.  We saw a moose in Rocky Mountain National Park. 

Time to finish grading! 

My Favorite Things

Christmas shopping is just around the corner, Oprah is off the air and Ellen has her 12 days of Christmas, but I have my favorite things, too.  (Although, I'm not going to buy them and give them away to you.)  Here are a few of my favorite things.  As you can see, I have very affordable taste and maybe you'll get some fun gift ideas.

1.  REI down booties.  During a hut trip, I drooled over my friends' pairs of these.  I got my own last year!  (Actually, I think I got them for my mom and she didn't want them.)  There are two places on my body that, if cold, make my entire body cold.  One is my lower back, the other is my feet/ankles.  These puppies keep me toasty around our house, where we like to keep the electric bill low by setting our thermostats low.  (The sale below lasts until the 28th, I believe.)

2.  A silpat.  This baby fits on a cookie sheet and allows you to not grease your pan, and not even wash your pan, just rinse off your silpat when you're done.  Besides cookies, it's great for making candy on it, rolling out pie crusts, and I just used it to cook pumpkin seeds on.  Martha Stewart has this as a part of her collection at Macy's for $25. 

3.  Instant Netflix.
I don't even know how DVR works or if people still have Tivo's, but I just wait for interesting TV shows to come out on Netflix, then stream them to my TV via our PS3.  It's also good for watching movies, but not always new releases.  For that, you might want the DVD by mail deal. For a gift idea, you can give someone a few months of Netflix.

4.  Bananagrams.  It's like scrabble, but easy.  This portable game goes with me on every trip, backpacking, camping, or flying home.  If you're into board games, a few of my favorites are Carcassonne, Pandemic, Settlers of Catan for two, Power Grid, Agricola, and Thurn and Taxis.  I think playing board games is a great way to stay sharp. 

 

 5.  The Help.  I'm reading this now and it's a great book! I could see any woman enjoying reading this on their winter break.

6.  Good boots.  My dad bought me some good boots a few years ago and I use these for snow shoeing and playing in the snow and walking to work.  Dave's favorite boots are on sale at REI right now.  They are super comfortable!  I tried them on!

7.  Bittman's How to Cook Everything.  This is my cooking bible.

What are a few of your favorite things? 

Pumpkin Puree and Gluten Free Thanksgiving Plans

Since I last posted, Dave had a successful PhD defense, and is now Dr. Dave!  We also took a trip to Wisconsin and got to see lots of Dave's and my family.  It was a lot of fun!

Believe it or not, a month after the first frost, our CSA is still delivering weekly boxes of amazing veggies.  In the last month we've gotten lots of squash and pumpkins.  This weekend, the start of fall "break," I had a chance to catch up on five loads of laundry, cleaned my house, and decided I'd better start taking care of these pumpkins.  We have three huge ones, one small one, and Dave already used a different one to make a pumpkin stout that will premier on Turkey Day.

 

The pumpkin stout went CRAZY and Dave had to improvise with an external air lock.  Don't mind the orange wall and the red chair.  (Yes, we have a room that is orange, and we put a red chair in it, it kind of looks like a throne.  Hey, we rent!)

Two of the pumpkins are "Cinderella" pumpkins, which are really "Rouge vif d'etampfs," which you can read about here.  One pumpkin was green, one is a deep orange.  We got the green one first, and we had another small pie pumpkin that was old, so it was time to bake these things in round one.  It took Dave's muscles and a huge butcher knife to cut the big guy open.  His meaty part was so thick!  This was definitely not a carving pumpkin!  We filled three pans with massive pieces of pumpkin.

I spooned out the baked pumpkin and pureed it in my kitchen aid food processor.  Don't be fooled, that jar is twice as big as a regular canning jar and holds 8, yes 8 cups of puree. 

I decided I could use 8 cups of pumpkin puree, but the other 8 would have to be frozen, so I made 1-cup bags and threw them in the freezer.  My kitchen is the smallest kitchen known to man.  You'd be surprised how often I use the stove top as a counter top.  The huge seeds that came from this monster are drying there on the left.  I might plant a few of these next year. 

 I think this is a good time to remind you that this was from one cinderella pumpkin and one small pie pumpkin.  I still have another, larger cinderella pumpkin, and one giant "New York Cheese" pumpkin left!  So, if you're one of my Boulder friends, and you're in need of some puree, please stop over! 

What's a girl going to do with all of this pumpkin puree?  My good friend already claimed pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving (she also belongs to a CSA and has the same problem).  It was time to get creative.  I made pumpkin fudge, and due to a massive failure of an ingredient substitute (canola buttery spread instead of butter-- hey, we were out!), I now have a huge amount of really thick candy-like jelly that might have to become a topping of some sort.  Try it yourself, the recipe is here.

Luckily, I've had a few other great suggestions.  I just bought some gluten free gingersnaps to try pumpkin cheesecake squares.  Best of all, though, one of my friends that dates all the way back to grade school loves loves loves pumpkin everything!  She just blogged about Pumpkin Risotto.  I whipped some up tonight and ate the whole thing (well, I cut the recipe down to 1 serving).  Savory pumpkin puree might be the way to go.  This was like thanksgiving in my mouth and I am so thankful that Alisa shared this recipe with the world.  Try it!   

Pumpkin Risotto.

Lastly, Thanksgiving is just around the corner.  Due to my gluten-free-ness, I am making a few extra dishes to make sure I can get all of my favorites on Thanksgiving Day.  Some I'll bring to share, others I'll just bring enough for me (stuffing, dessert).  I'm making

• whipped cream cheese mashed potatoes and gluten free gravy (found some new gravy packets at Sprouts that are great!)
• green bean casserole (click on this for my gluten free recipe)
• stuffing-- just enough for me and leftovers (click on this for my gluten free recipe)-- I just made my croutons for this recipe tonight!
• Dave is making candied yams with gluten free flour and corn starch and  marshmallows, yum!
• We're also bringing Dave's pumpkin stout and some of my home made mead (honey wine) 

I hope you all have a happy Thanksgiving!