Makes 12 dozen cookies. (Yes, you read that right. 144 cookies.)

Dec 13, 2007

Softer, cake-like sugar cookies

Ingredients

• 6 eggs
• 2 cups oil
• 2 ¼ cups sugar
• 2 tbsp vanilla
• 6 cups flour
• 2 tbsp Baking powder
• 1 ½ tsp salt

Directions

1. Mix together ingredients
2. Chill dough for 1 hour
3. Drop by spoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet
4. Flatten the top with a glass greased with butter that has then been dipped in color sugar (or just sprinkle the tops with colored sugar and skip the "flatten" bit)
5. Bake at 400 degrees for 8 – 10 minutes

These cookies freeze well, so if you don't give them all away (or eat them all before Christmas), you can keep enjoying these things...pretty much as long as your willpower holds out.

Keywords: | recipes | Holidailies |
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Organization is for other people

Dec 12, 2007

My Holidailies posting has been fairly meh. I’ve got a lot of stuff going on this month, though, so I don’t forsee any shots of brilliance any time soon. (Dangit.) It seems I’m adding two items for every one that I manage to cross off my “to do” list.

I think this is the new new math. I don’t like it.

The old TV stand was picked up today, so I have my livingroom back. In other news, the new TV stand’s top is developing a split. And nothing’s even been set on it yet. I haven’t even had it for a month! This does not bode well. (And the store closed down, so I can’t return it...I’m quite sorely vexed.)

I bought a new shower curtain the other day. My old one was dark pink/purple, and this one’s an off-white. The bathroom’s a bit brighter-looking, (if a tad monochrome.) I’ve done a lot of buying this past month — moving will do that — but also, Christmas is the time of year when things are actually reasonably priced. I tend to make a list of “me” things I want to get, then wait until December to buy them. This does mean risking the mall and its attendant herds/hordes; but I save a chunk of money doing this.

I received several cookie recipes from Mom-thing, and she’s sending me some kitchen supplies. Hopefully they’ll arrive before Saturday, so I can bake. I’m planning on the soft sugar cookies (makes 6 dozen, and they freeze well, so I’ll have cookies until V-Day) and the spice cookies.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I need (okay, really really want) spiced buttered rum coffee. Now I just need to find a place around here that sells it.

Keywords: | home | Holidailies |
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...and other tales from the trenches

Dec 10, 2007

A few years ago, just as the economy was recovering from the dot-com crash, I worked for a company as a document production person. In some ways, it was below my ability level, as document production is fairly routine. In others, I was starting from ground zero: it used a software tool with which I’d previously had about four months’ worth of experience, and the job required some advanced knowledge of the tool. It wasn’t in any kind of career path I wanted to follow, it wasn’t at a company that made me think, “Wow, this will look good on my resume and teach me a lot of things.” It was just a way to get a paycheck.

I loathed this job. Not because of the duties — but because of the boss. This person was not a good boss. They had been promoted to their personal level of discomfort, and left to make their way as best they can (it was the same all the way up the line. You know that anecdote about ”turtles all the way down”? Well, this company was “lobotomized ostriches all the way up”.) It wasn’t the worst way to get a paycheck, but there wasn’t much future in it...not only did the company have a reputation for burning out its employees, but if I had gotten promoted, I wouldn’t have been any closer to anything resembling clear information.

I left that job after just over two years (I actually had an interview on my two-year anniversary). I stayed as long as I did not because I wanted a career change, nor because there were no other jobs (at about the one-year mark, things were really picking up. I probably could have found something else fairly easily.) I stayed put because of my co-workers. I’ve had jobs before where I’ve had good co-workers, competent co-workers, co-workers with whom I may grab the occasional bit of lunch. However, I hadn’t ever worked in a place where I liked and really strongly respected just about all of the others in my group. These people were not just competent, they were scathingly competent (and yes, I know that’s a weird word pairing, but work with me here. I’m still on my first coffee of the day.) Everyone in the group was busy — at times ridiculously so — but everyone in the group had time to answer questions. We shared tips and tricks for the software packages we used. What one person in the team knew, the others stood a good chance of learning. It was like working with geeks: as long as the question showed that you put some thought into it, it got answered and answered well. And did I mention “scathingly competent”? Our most productive times were when the boss was working from home, or from another location: when Boss-thing was out on vacation for two weeks, then immediately went to another continent and worked out of an office there for another two weeks, we worked more efficiently than when the boss was present.

We also got on fairly good. I’d go into work dreading the astigmatic-Janus behavior of the Boss-thing; but I’d also be looking forward to finding out how T’s kids’ latest antics, or talking with C about geeky stuff, or sharing jokes with D and V. We griped and grumbled and shared horror stories when we were working together, and passed work back and forth (as the group’s “floater”, I helped anyone that needed helping. I did a lot of copy-paste, manual data checking, minor edits, and spellchecking...but at some point, I worked with everyone in the group.) We’ve been to picnics and gatherings at each others’ places, we’ve been out to dinner as a group, we’ve had several lunches since we started trickling away. Even though one of us has moved to a noncontiguous state, we all still stay in touch. It’s pretty cool. I got my current gig because of knowing these folks, and I may pick up a contract gig through my connection with another. This is the first time in my life that I’ve actually gotten work through networking with former co-workers. I’d also happily work with any of these people again...or all of them. (Just not Boss-thing, please.) While almost all of us can think of a co-worker or five with whom we’d work again, how many times in our careers can we honestly say, “Yeah - I’d love to work with that whole team again, any time”? I learned a lot from these folks, and really enjoyed working with them.

The one thing I miss about not living where I used to live is that it’s that much harder to get together with these folks for lunch. It didn’t happen often (maybe once every two months?), but we did enjoy the chance to catch up...and reminisce about some of the horror stories from Ye Olde Hellhole. We even had plenty that didn’t involve Boss-thing (pseudo-random bit stream? clockblock? multi-warhead? dinning room? bad perm?).

Maybe when I head back there this summer I’ll see if folks are able and amenable to a lunch meeting?

Keywords: | work | Holidailies | friends |
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Step away from the frozen foods.

Dec 09, 2007

Mom-thing didn’t like to cook. Point of fact, she didn’t know how to cook when she got married. She did teach both me and my sib the basics of cooking (the basics being “meat + vegetable + breadything = balanced meal"), but beyond that, food and the preparation thereof was always something of a chore. From my end, eating was never much fun, either. Dinner interrupted my playtime, and since I never really saw Mom-thing enjoy cooking, I didn’t enjoy eating. It held as much appeal as dusting (a chore I got to learn at an early age. My strong dislike for curlicued, detailed furniture stems directly from having to dust all that crap when I was a smallhuman.) As a result, when I moved out on my own, my experience at keeping myself fed was limited to soup, fast food, or very simple things that I could microwave. I never really learned how to think about combining ingredients to achieve a particular result, or even how to make minor changes in a dish using different spices. In HTML terms, I knew how to use the most basic features of FrontPage, but anything else was far beyond my abilities. Knowing that, it’s perhaps not so surprising that I’m only now beginning to look up recipes on the internet and, occasionally, try them out.

I love salmon, so shortly after I moved in I bought a salmon fillet, found a relatively simple recipe, and tried it out. Not only did I not injure myself or burn anything, it actually turned out well. (Sadly, I cannot justify eating salmon every night...and realistically, I’d probably get sick of it fairly quickly.) I’m still eating a bit more ready-meals and nukiefood than I really should, but...baby steps.

One of my other food-cheats is to buy a rotisserie chicken, strip off all the meat, and have chicken sandwiches and salads for the next few days. I did this last week, and Fog was delighted. She stayed right by my feet, talking to me the whole time. When I say “talking”, I mean just that. She sounded like one of those cheap dolls that says “mama” whenever you turn it upside down...except that, being a cheaper model, you don’t get much in the way of accurate consonants. The second time she did this, I gave her some of the chicken skin. (In hindsight, this was a mistake, as Fog now believes that she has made progress in my training program and gets quite upset whenever my behavior regresses.)

Keywords: | Holidailies | food | family |
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