Catching Up

Today I get MLK day off for school. So this morning I woke up, exercised, made scrambled eggs and fried potatoes for breakfast and settled on the couch to watch Ellen, but what do I see but the inauguration on tv! Boo! I probably should watch as I often don't know what is going on with our country. But my brain is so busy all the time with nursing and work, I just want to watch Ellen sneak up on people and laugh.

So I will go in to work for a few hours, and then study for a few hours instead.

I do miss blogging. Not that anything super substantial has happened in the last couple weeks, but I did finally upload my pictures.

My friend Cristy from work and I went up and stayed with her parents and went snowboarding. I didn't go at all last year, and it was really fun. I've been so thankful lately to work with people that I like. Cristy is the only one actually close to my age, but I really do like everyone. Cristy even came to church with me yesterday.

Me and Becks are still buddies.

I made more delicious granola.

I had a cold and got an A on my first exam.

(why oh why do I bother with you eggplant!?! look at it uselessly shriveled up and stuck to the pan, grrr)

I roasted veggies for my book club dinner: salad with homemade croutons, roasted veggie sandwiches, pumpkin lentil soup and brownies, mmmm.

Delicious pumpkin pie smoothie.

Stuffed pepper with roasted potatoes.

Jill had got me season tickets to the theatre for my birthday, so this last weekend we went to our second play. This one was a romantic comedy so we were like 'ug' but it was more comedy than romantic and a fun night.

And yesterday I tried out my new Christmas present (a generous present from my brother and sister-in-law who read the frequent complaining on this blog about my lack of a food processor- thanks guys!):

A few months ago I made this vegan dish that was kinda good, but so time consuming I will never make it again, and therefore I had all these brazil nuts left over.

Toasting the brazil nuts

Chopping them up

It definitely is more chopper than processor, but it did the job.

The final product after adding some sea salt, a little vanilla, cinnamon and maple syrup. Pretty tasty. Tastes more like almond butter v peanut butter. Brazil nuts are an excellent source of selenium, altho you shouldn't get too much selenium or that could be bad.

Side note: who knew that maple syrup could grow mold?? I guess I saw later the bottle said refrigerate. I was complaining to Jill about it this morning was saying I hate to throw it away since a bottle is like $7. I was thinking I could use a syringe to suck the mold off the top. She said something like 'sometimes I don't understand how some things don't bother you at all, and they totally disgust me.' Haha, it is gross I guess. Surely those spores have already permeated the rest of the bottle. oh well.

I made another batch of Red River muffins for my school snacks. I actually had a friend going to Canada yesterday and I almost asked her to get me another box, but I'm not quite done with my current supply, and I remember that the pantry moths completely took it over when we had that huge moth problem. Do not want that again!

And finally I made chocolate chip cookies. I was having such a hard time staying awake through my diabetes chapter, and I thought nothing like a good sugar spike to help me get through it. I always get so excited to make cookies, but every time it's like:

MEH

Tasty, yet so ugly, I don't understand

I will not be winning any cookie awards anytime soon.

And that's when I've been up to! Now off to work.