We're not in Carolina anymore

My parents had a huge blizzard the week before we arrived in Rochester. Upon our arrival, however, the thermometer read 50 and it poured rain for 2 straight days. No snow, much slush. This morning though, we woke up to a real Rochester snowstorm. This is a far cry from Carolina, but this is what winter is supposed to be like.

Joyeux Noel!

All is calm, All is bright. Merry Christmas!

Sticky Buns

The loaves had been rising for 2 hours and threatened to spill over the top of their greased pans, looking for all purposes like mushrooms ready to topple over on teeny tiny stems. We kept joking about how we were going to walk in the house and have to push our way through a ginormous cloud of dough, as one could imagine seeing on a cartoon. Finally, after rising all day, I declared them poofy enough to convert to sticky buns.


I sprinkled the bottom of the pan with walnuts and raisins and Matt happily set to work tearing into the dough and covering the pan with golf ball size pieces. I got to work creating the goop that pores over the dough and settles into the crevices, turning the entire pan into a sticky delightful mess. I melted the butter, stirred in the pudding mix, and dashed in some cinnamon. I peered into my mother-in-law's cabinets, looking for brown sugar. I had brought some of the less obvious ingredients - the vanilla pudding, the walnuts pre-chopped and ready to go, but had naively assumed there would be brown sugar in just about stocked pantry. I should have known: this is the kitchen famous for scotch kissies, the delectable dessert treat that requires an entire box of brown sugar.

She was out. The dough torn, the butter melted, I started to panic. Here I had built up the anticipation of my mom's famous sticky buns ALL day long, hoping to share this tradition with my new family, and in the moment of truth, I had failed to provide an essential ingredient.

I started racking my brain for substitutions. Matt's Nanta, supervising the process, started peering into cupboards. She pulled out a box of granulated sugar and a bottle of Eggo syrup and placed them in front of me. "Here. Mix these." Nanta, who is famous for making her own ketchup once in a pitch, is always to be trusted when it comes to substitutions.

Into the melted butter mixture went this concoction. The color was off and the smell distinctly maple, but the texture was right. I crossed my fingers and drenched the sticky buns with the goop, and put it back in the fridge to rise overnight. In the morning, the aroma of pancakes filled the kitchen while the buns baked. When the timer went off, I pulled them out with hopeful anticipation. The first bite secured my success - despite the slight hint of maple, which turned out to be not a bad addition, they were every bit as delicious as the sticky buns I had consumed every Christmas morning for the last 25 years. My family-in-law's praise was abundant, and the tradition from one family was successfully incorporated into another family.

Callings

For the last 2 hours, Matt has been poring over two drawings of a bed he is going to make with his Pa this winter. Rulers and mechanical pencils have been dexterously alternated from hand to hand, and the pile of eraser crumbs covers our coffee table like a first grader was taking a spelling test. His drawings are so precise, so meticulous I am starting to wonder if his true calling was perhaps furniture design instead of medicine.

He calls me over to stand next to the measuring tape to see how high the bed is going to be. Holding the measuring tape up to my hip, he palpates the top where the tape hits to use as a comparison to our current bed.

"Perfect. Right at the greater trochanter."

Nope. Medicine, it is.

Working At Home Diaries

9:30 - woke up. wrote down my dream. turned on coffee machine.
9:45 - began reading food logs.
10:45 - remembered coffee, poured cup, returned to food logs.
12:30 - "i think i've been reading for like an hour..." Er, um. Well, I'm almost done.
1:15 - switch to data entry.
1:45 - website locks me out. back to reading.
2:30 - "Are you still reading?" he calls from the next room. 3 more.
2:45 - emerge. stretch legs. heat chili.
2:50 - watch football and eat chili. work 3 soduku puzzles.
3:00 - work thru "pile." this includes bills, things to be scanned, thank you note to write, coupons to use or recycle.
3:30 - blog. email. other creative writing measures. all the while listening to artists i like on youtube. more frustrating than pandora since i have to restart, but at liberty to choose songs.
4:30 - dismantle holiday decor. sad.
5:30 - return to interwebs while hub is engrossed in football. read others' blogs. more emails. memotome updates. to do list for tomorrow
6:30 - sushi with hubby.
7:15 - fro yo with hubby
8:00 - denim shopping online with hubby.
9:00 - cleaning out email inbox. uploading photos. listening to youtube. why does interwebbing wile away my time so well?
10:00 - bed. read. sleep.

Dirty Santa, Deflated Santa

Last night we went to Matt's Aunt Paige's house for the beginning of our Christmas festivities. The feast was amazing as usual - Paige cooks like she is an understudy of Paula, Giada and Ina. After stuffing ourselves silly (apparently just continuing the trend), we retreated to the living room for a round of Dirty Santa. Each "participant" in the game brings a gift-wrapped package of something from their home that they no longer desire. Perhaps it's the one thing that's been sitting your "regift" basket for years, or the smelly lotion set that just isn't your flavor (could it be the glitter?) or maybe even that Spin Shade you were just given the day before and had no idea what to do with it. (I'm just sayin'....) Everyone draws numbers, and the lowest number picks a gift. Up the number count you go, selecting gifts that draw reactions from uproarious laughter (leopard print hat) to genuine delight (Santa Claus wine coozie?) to curiousity (Spin Shade, again.) After the last person picks, back down the numbers you go - you have the option to keep your gift or steal another person's gift. This was a relatively tame group, as far as the pilfering goes. A pair of snowflake dish towels went through 3 grabs, and I caused a little family tift by stealing a set of word puzzle and sodoku books from my SIL, but most of the grabs were fairly benign. That is to say, no one dared claim the grape-smelling teddy bear from the six year old!

Today, despite their being 4 days left until Christmas, Matt and I took down our holiday decor. Last year the lights twinkled on our tree from October until almost February. It is quite sad and anticlimatic to see the bare mantel and empty front porch now. My Christmas spirit feels as deflated as our blow-up Santa, stuffed in his tupperware bin back up in the attic! We are going to be in and out over our Christmas vacation, and I was dreading taking down the decor and tree without his help in January (when interview season kicks in again.) But, in a few days, we'll be home with family and my mom's collection of snowmen (in the hundreds, I daresay) will more than make up for the fact that Santa won't find our stockings hung by the chimney with care. In the meantime, maybe I can convince Matt to mute the Panthers game and put the Holly station on the XM, instead. Or... not.

Tis the season to be eating... fa la lala ...oooof.

I feel like I have been eating non-stop for 4 days. (A stunning declaration when you consider I've been teaching "Holiday Eating" for the last 2 weeks to 180 frantic, panicked, weight loss participants.) It kicked off with the chowder followed by Christmas Cookies on Saturday - I've never been much for moderation when it comes to iced sugar cookies. Sunday followed it up with the sampling of low-calorie buckeyes I was making, and a late dinner at Putter's.

Monday was our departmental Christmas party at Riverburch. Due to the lay out of the party - food due North, wine and beer at East & West, and my hesitancy to navigate north and risk enforced mingling with medical campus staff I didn't know ("oh! have you met so & so?") I held camp near the wine bar with the rest of the research staff. Staff and faculty mix like oil and water at these events, so my antisocial behavior, while not entirely appropriate, is not unusual for our department. One brave staffer parted the seas and grabbed me a plate of shrimp cocktail, fortunately preventing the wine + empty stomach = no driving home.

Tuesday was our staff luncheon at Village Tavern, capped off by a monthly dinner date with my friend Suzanne at Hutch & Harris. This was my first visit to H&H, but I could no more fit an entree into my belly than could one person squeeze onto a 5 pm metrocar headed to Ballston. So I had a soup and salad, and lovingly packed up an bowl of She-Crab Soup to take home to the hubby. (I failed to look at the serving however, until I arrived home and we noted that a "to go" bowl serving is approximately 2 tablespoons. Thanks, H&H.) PS, Tuesday night is free taco night if you ordered a $5 margarita. What what! I already had my wine order in before I found that out, but note to you, savvy Winston-Salem diner, for future reference.

Wednesday reached an all-time high in the calorie consumption with our participant potluck party. I love watching the different dishes stroll through the door. My "weight loss" participants show up for the first hour, laden with fruit salads, shrimp cocktail and veggie trays. The next hour brings "weight loss + exercise" participants who tend to be a little more liberal, with baked chicken entrees, some low calorie desserts, chips + salsa, soups, roasted veggie dishes and other delectable but healthy treats. The final hour is dedicated to "exercise only" - a group to whom no nutritional information has been given - and this is when the fried chicken, ham biscuits, green bean casserole and coconut cake that covered dish parties in the South are known for all make their appearance. As they arrived, my "combo" folks were packing up and I watched the panic cross their face as they saw many of their former temptations arrive on the buffet.

One of my participants pulled me aside, her voice dripping with concern. "Who brought the Krispy Kremes?" she practically hissed. "An exercise only person," I told her as I patted her arm consolingly. "You should probably go - it's only going to get worse from here," I recommended, as I spied the unmistakable yellow and red of a Bojangles box approaching from the parking lot.

All of our participants loved playing Monica's new toy - the wii Fit. However, it was a little awkward when the wii Fit age proclaimed many of them to be 12-15 years older than their actual age or loudly pronounced "You are OBESE" as the little Mii man blew up to twice his size. Errrm.... well..... *shrugs*

One of our greatest success stories, a woman has maintained a 40 pound lost stepped on the wii to test her fit age. A combination of BMI, posture, balance and agility determines your fitness age. Her elation when the wii declared her THIRTY years younger than her actual age? Unmeasurable. Her celebration was just another reminder of why I love my job.

And today, the final day before our 2 week Christmas vacation, is another reason I love my job. Remember how the day before vacation in school was always a waste of a day? You might watch a video, maybe do a worksheet, and then trade presents with friends and dutifully turn in your present (that your mom picked out - a candle, a bar of soap, a gift card to barnes & nobles) to teacher. That is what my last day of work before a holiday tends to be like.

I had 2 phone call coaching sessions this morning, and in about fifteen minutes I'll head over to our center to mingle with exercising participants. I'll work maybe a half day, I won't teach anything, and I'll give out lots of hugs and reminders to eat healthy and weigh thyself over the holiday. Then around 1:15, as the last of my participants head out the door, I'll briefly consider going into the office to do some data entry before convicning myself that "nah. I'll do some over the break."

Then I'll come home, to my already-vacationing hubby, and our 2-week, much-awaited, it's finally here Christmas Vacation will begin. Merry Christmas!