The big news

We're moving to Texas.  Still with the same company, transferring to Fort Worth.  I'm really excited - new things to see and do in a large city (restaurants! museums/culture/parks right in town! the ocean only 4 hours away!), hopefully better work hours for both of us with the same days off to do things together, and warmer temperatures (gardening year round! We better find a house with a garden, is what I'm saying).  I'm also sad though, to move far away from family and Canada and our awesome neighbours.  So hopefully it works out okay.

Jay is excited for his new position, it's pretty much exactly what he wants to do.  I'm going to be doing something pretty similar to what I am now, but with more focus and less running-around-like-a-headless-chicken.  That in itself is enough to make me super excited.

In other news, in time for the holidays, here's a recipe for homemade nog.  If you're like me and want some egg nog once in a while but not enough to buy a carton, even besides which the bought stuff is usually kind of slimy, then this is quick and easy and can be made any time of year.  I got it from my Splenda cookbook but use sugar since I got rid of the Splenda I had (mmm chemicals).  I use jumbo eggs and just fill up my 1.5 or 2 cup mug with milk instead of measuring out one cup.

Egg Nog for One
1 large egg
1 cup milk
2 Tablespoons Splenda Granular OR 3 packets Splenda OR 2 teaspoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon vanilla

Beat egg in mug.  Add all except vanilla and mix thoroughly.  Heat in microwave in 1 minute increments, stirring in between, until hot but not boiling.  Add vanilla.

And then I went to Teddy Roosevelt park - twice

So the exciting thing to do when my family came down, first my parents and then my older brother's family, was to go to Theodore Roosevelt park, northern unit.  When my parents came down, it hadn't snowed yet and the colours in the rocks were gorgeous.  The light wasn't great, it was a cold gloomy day, but we had a good drive.

We saw bighorn sheeps (why yes, that is the plural):

and the scenery was very majestic:

Then I came with my brother's family, and it had snowed a bit, and all they wanted to do was climb on the scenery.  It was a lot of fun.

And the deck

So Jay, who is awesome, finished the deck while I was up in Canada a while back:

Another thing I've been meaning to put in here is the awesomeness of dried mushrooms.  A couple of the blogs I follow have talked about dried shiitakes, so I went online to look for some (the joys of living in a small city in the northern states is that you can't get anything but the very ordinary through local shops).  But all I could find was dried porcinis, so that's what I got.  And they smell amazing.  I made some glorified Mr. Noodle soup (rather, Asian style soup that you add a pack of cheap noodles to) and it was delicious.  But then I added some to rice when it was cooking and was underwhelmed.  Not really any flavour added.  So I'll save them for soup and stuff.  Or just for sniffing, because when I open the bag it smells like drooling.  The rather amusing part is that on the bag of mushrooms it has a quality rating system.  I got Grade A, which I thought was good, but is evidently only one step up from kibble.  Hooray!  I feel classy.

The other thing I've been wanting to put here for posterity is this homemade deodorant I've been using for the past few months.  By the way, Mom, you're supposed to rub it in like a lotion.  I rub it around on two fingertips for a bit first to get the coconut oil warmed up.  It's worked not too bad so far.  I haven't worn it in hot summer weather, but for fall/winter it's been working quite well so far.  The recipe says to optionally add a few drops of essential oils, but I don't generally like powerful perfumey scents, so I added almond flavouring.  It's an oil.  Right?  Yeah, I'm only a little strange.  And tasty!