Christmas!

I don't have much to say. So instead, I'll just post some pictures of the gingerbread house I made this year. And just so you know, I'm not completely delusional; I realize it looks extremely homemade (the missing m&m on the roof doesn't help; yes, Amanda, I'm still giving you the evil eye), but I'm proud of it anyway. I plan on breaking it down either Christmas day or the day after and going to town on those m&m's. I'm also throwing in one or two random pictures I took of the mountains in October.

I feel like I've been complaining in some of my recent blogs, and I don't mean to. Life is good. And, since it is the season, I've decided to start a list of things that I'm thankful for. Here goes:

I've had more opportunity than I ever imagined I would to travel and get familiar with places other than Utah. London, DC, Virginia, Michigan, Germany, Italy, Vienna, New York, Boston, most of the western US, and other places. In each place, I've met lots of good people, made great friends, found good food, tried new cultures, and learned new things. I honestly feel like I have lots of homes around the world now.

I've had amazing jobs. Working at the Fed was a dream. It was so fun to see Alan Greenspan on a regular basis, and to have my morning meetings with some serious big wigs. And I learned a ton there. It's fun now to be able to read in the paper or watch on the news about what's going on at the Fed, with interest rates and FOMC meetings and such, and to know exactly who's behind it and what they're doing and what they're looking at to reach their decisions.
And then Chrysler. Another dream. I've loved Jeep Cherokees since they first came out. It was the third car I ever loved (after Mustangs and Miatas). My first assignment at Chrysler was on the Jeep team. I was working with the actual engineers who designed the Cherokee. And my specific assignment was on the Grand Cherokee. How great to go to work and spend my day looking at spreadsheets and charts, and then to go out and about and see people driving the car that those numbers all belong to!

I have great friends. My Michigan friends really are family to me. 1700 miles from home, I never had to worry about being alone on a holiday. I was always welcome to join my friends' families, or we would have our own holiday just among us friends. I loved our Sunday dinners and weekend outings and theme parties. And, even though sometimes they were frustrating to plan, I loved taking trips with my friends. They felt like family vacations. It's wonderful knowing that however good or bad life gets, I have people who want to hear about it and who will let me come over to talk or go for a walk or go to dinner to celebrate or commiserate with me.

I've never really had to worry about finances. Somehow, even in college, I was always comfortable. And now, with almost a year of unemployment under my belt, my parents are good enough to let me stay with them to stay solvent.

I have good health. I think I would go mad if I couldn't go to the gym and get a good workout every day, or go for a long walk and enjoy the sunshine. And I'm also grateful that I enjoy healthy food. It'd be really hard to stay healthy if I didn't like apples and cabbage and whole grains as much as I do. I'd be eating even more peanut butter and chocolate than I do now!

It's been a while since I've posted anything, and that's because I have nothing to post. I really think about it every day and wonder what I can write about. I'm still wondering, so this might not be much of a post. Here's a list of things I've decided I don't like:

Mowing the lawn in strong wind when most of what's being mowed is dry leaves and dirt, so all the little bits of nature get blown into my eyes.
The tv remote at the gym missing a battery so I have to watch a) CNN with b) no sound.
Not knowing when I get in the shower if the big brown splotch on the tile is dirt or a hairy spider until it starts moving (I can't tell without my contacts).

Luckily, there are plenty of things I do like:
Mowing the lawn in a t-shirt in November.
Lots of tvs at the gym so I can watch the news, a cooking show, and a sitcom all at the same time.
Jonagold apples. They're the best this season.
Peanut butter on toasted banana bread.
A hot car (temperature- and style-wise).

Radio Head

I had a friend in college who had a theory that we all have radio antennas in our heads. I think he may be on to something. Very often, I'll be thinking of a song, then turn on the radio and that song is playing. Or I'll be listening to one station and get the feeling that a certain song will be on another station, so I'll change it, and that song is on! The other day I was doing dishes or something and I thought, "Hmm...I should turn on the radio." I turned it to a station I don't normally listen to, and one of my favorite songs, which I've only heard once before on the radio, was playing. Coincidence? I don't think so. I think my radio head was working its magic.

Bwah Ha Ha!

Last night my sister's family came over for dinner. My little three-year-old neice volunteered to say the prayer. She was saying all the standard kid prayer type stuff: "thank you for the food, thank you for the good day", etc., and then she pulled a new one out. She said, "please bless that Carolyn won't...be so...scary." Then she went right on with more standard kid stuff. There were muffled snickers coming from all around the dining room. At the end of the prayer, we all just busted up laughing. I didn't know I was scary. I play with my neices. They laugh. I thought I was a good aunt. I guess I have some work to do. Anyway, after that her big brother named me Aunt Scarolyn, and it stuck for the rest of the night. Great.

List

I'm not a vegan, and with the way I love yogurt, ice cream, cheese, pork roast, omellettes, ham sandwiches, etc., I'll never be a vegan. But I found a list of 100 foods every vegan should try at least once, and I figured it would make for an easy post. I've eaten about half the list. Not bad. I've never heard of many things on the list, so if you think I should have italicized them and I didn't, I'm sorry. Don't judge me.

The instructions I found on the website where I got the list are as follows (feel free to participate):
1. Copy the list into your blog.
2. Bold all the items you have eaten.
3. Italicize any items you would never consider eating.

1. Molasses
2. Cactus
3. Scrambled tofu
4. Grilled portabella caps
5. Fresh ground horseradish
6. Sweet potato biscuits
7. Arepa
8. Vegan cole slaw
9. Ginger carrot soup
10. Fiddlehead ferns
11. Roasted elephant garlic
12. Umeboshi
13. Almond butter toast
14. Aloe vera
15. H&H bagel from NYC
16. Slow roasted butternut squash
17. White truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Freshly ground wasabi
20. Coconut milk ice cream (not store bought)
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Orchard fresh pressed apple cider
23. Organic California mango
24. Quinoa
25. Papaya Smoothie
26. Raw habanero pepper
27. Goji berry tea
28. Fennel
29. Vegan chocolate chip cookie
30. Radishes and vegan buttery spread
31. Starfruit
32. Oven fresh sourdough bread
33. Sangria made with premium fruit and juices (this might be an alcoholic thing. Don't worry- I had the non-alcoholic version)
34. Saurkraut
35. Acai smoothie
36. Blue foot mushrooms
37. Vegan cupcakes from Babycakes in NYC
38. Sweet potatoes and tempeh combo
39. Falafel
40. Spelt crust pizza
41. Salt and pepper oyster mushrooms
42. Jicama slaw
43. Pumpkin edamame ginger dumplings
44. Hemp milk
45. Rose champagne
46. Fuyu
47. Raw avacado coconut soup
48. Tofu pesto sandwich
49. Apple-lemon-ginger-cayenne fresh-pressed juice
50. Grilled seitan
51. Prickly pear
52. Fresh-pressed almond milk
53. Concord grapes off the vine
54. Ramps
55. Coconut water fresh from a young coconut
56. Organic arugula
57. Vidalia onion
58. Sampler of organic produce from Diamond Organics
59. Honeycrisp apple
60. Poi
61. Vegan campfire-toasted smores
62. Grape seed oil
63. Farm fresh-picked peach
64. Freshly made pita bread with freshly made hummus
65. Chestnut snack packs
66. Fresh guava
67. Mint chocolate chip oatmeal cookies
68. Raw mallomar from One Lucky Duck in NYC
69. Fried plantains
70. Mache
71. Golden beets
72. Barrel-fresh pickles
73. Liquid smoke
74. Meyer lemon
75. Veggie paella
76. Vegan lasagna
77. Kombucha
78. Homemade soy milk
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Lychee bellini
81. Tempeh bacon
82. Sprouted grain bread
83. Lemon pepper tempeh
84. Vanilla bean
85. Watercress
86. Carrot you pulled out of the ground yourself
87. Vegan in-season fruit pie
88. Flowers
89. Corn chowder
90. High quality vegan raw chocolate
91. Yellow fuzz-free kiwi
92. White flesh grapefruit
93. Harissa
94. Coconut oil
95. Jackfruit
96. Homemade risotto
97. Spirulina
98. Seedless 'pixie' tangerine
99. Gourmet sorbet, not store-bought
100. Fresh plucked English peas

The last week or so

Okay, since I'm now in Utah and most of my family already knows everything that's happening with me, I'll be blogging for my Michigan (and other states) friends' benefits. Yes, benefits. I expect you all to be greatly enriched by reading what I have to say. I'm just going to post pictures mostly on this post. I'll try to say something about them.

1. My favorite picture from the family olympics. We all got a donut on a paper towell and had to eat it without using our hands. Good way to keep the kids occupied.

2 and 3. Windmills in Wyoming. We drove past A LOT of windmill farms. I guess it makes sense- Wyoming is always windy and there's not much else to look at, so why not build windmills?

4. Oh, I guess this one is for my non-Michigan readers. This is the hamburger cake I made for linger longer last month. The theme was criss-cross (or Rue Paul, depending on who you ask). Real food looked like dessert and dessert looked like real food.

Well, don't you all feel greatly enriched now? If not, I have one last story. Last night I went hiking with my mom, brother, and sister-in-law. We saw a moose on the drive up to the trail, another along the side of the trail, and then a bunch of bats on the trail. They kept swooping at me! It was gross and freaky! My brother tried to make me feel better by saying they were probably just Edward Cullen and his family, but I don't like Edward Cullen, so that didn't help.