Parfait/Mini-trifle

Last night Chad and I went to Deb and Bud's house to exchange Christmas presents. We were told to bring something dessert-y so we decided to try a recipe we saw on Barefoot Contessa. She had made some pumpkin mouse parfaits around Thanksgiving time. She used ginger snap cookies in the dessert and we had found gluten-free ginger snaps at Trader Joe's a while back so we knew we could try making it for Deb. We found the recipe and as it turns out, the mousse takes more than 4 hours to set and we didn't have that kind of time, so we modified the recipe. We ended up using instant cheese cake flavored pudding, home made whipped cream (by Chad), and chopped up bananas. We layered everything (with crumbled ginger snaps) in wine glasses and then garnished the top with a slice of banana and a whole ginger snap cookie. They were really tasty. As a side note, we couldn't decide if they were parfaits or trifles. Does anyone know the difference?

(Note: This is my photo from Saturday, December 29th, 2007.)

Demolition

Chad and I drove over to Glenside the other day to get lunch and we noticed that this building was being demolished. This used to be a pizza place (called Pepperoni's Pizza). It had a fire a while back and they are just now tearing it down, I assume they plan to rebuild. Watch a video of the fire here.

(Note: This is my photo from Friday, December 28th, 2007.)

Car Stereo Installation

One of my Christmas presents was a new stereo system for my car that I got from Chad. The main features are an auxiliary input jack in the front, an iPod connector, and it plays MP3 CDs. I was getting really frustrated with my old setup because I like to listen to podcasts on my iPod on my way to work but my FM transmitter wasn't working very well and it only worked at all if I was in the car alone. Today my dad, Chad, and I installed the system in my car all by ourselves. It was a little scary taking apart the dashboard of my car but we got it done and it works beautifully! This is the second successful custom installation of a car stereo that we have performed! Anyone need one installed in their car? Haha.

Christmas Loot

So I'm sure you were wondering about what was in some of those packages from my last post. Well here is a photo of some of the items I received from Chad and my family. I was too impatient to pull everything together for the photo so this is just most of it. I really made out well this year, don't you think?!?!

(Note: This is my photo from Tuesday, December 26, 2007.)

Merry Christmas

This is a photo of most of the presents that were exchanged on Christmas day at the Joslyn household. There are actually a bunch that didn't fit in the photo, but I don't want to make you too sick to your stomach so I'm showing this picture of most of the presents. Christmas is a very happy time in my family. It was a great Christmas for me and I had a ton of fun with my family (not to mention the fact that I got everything I wanted!).

(Note: This is my photo from Monday, December 25, 2007 - Merry Christmas!)

Mini-Yamanote

I went to my parents' house for Christmas Eve (actually, I went to Chad's parents' house first, we went down on Sunday and I drove back on Monday). My dad had set up a mini train set around some artificial trees in the living room (the real tree was in the family room). The train set is from Japan and it represents real trains. I took this photo without really being able to see it because I had to reach around to shoot the front of the train but it came out pretty well anyway. This is the Yamanote-sen, which runs in a loop around the center of Tokyo. Pretty much all the big areas of "center city" Tokyo are serviced by the Yamanote-sen including Shinjuku, Shibuya, Harajuku, Tokyo, Ueno, and many others.

(Note: This is my photo from Monday, December 24, 2007 - Christmas Eve!)

Christmas Carolers

We have some really awesome neighbors. These are the new neighbors that moved in over the summer. They rang our doorbell today and then sang some Christmas carols for us. Notice that one of them is wearing shorts! Crazy!

Non-Traditional Holiday

Chad and I decided (for a variety of reasons) to open our presents last night. We also decided to wrap our presents mostly in brown paper bags and brown packing paper. We wanted the wrapping to not take too much time and we also thought it would be good to reduce our impact on the environment during this very wasteful time of year. So we used only already used materials for our gift wrapping (except for the tape, that's pretty hard to reuse, and that one blue bag you see here). I think it actually turned out pretty nicely!

(Note: This is my photo from Saturday, December 22, 2007.)

Thai Mushroom Soup

I decided that Chad and I should go out for a nice dinner on Friday since it was our last working day of the year and we had both been working really hard lately. We went to a Thai restaurant near our house that we tried for the first time about a month or so ago. This place has really great food. You're looking here at their mushroom soup. It is full of finely chopped mushrooms and has a great flavor. Their portions are generous for dinner so we had leftovers on Saturday. Yummy!

(Note: This is my photo from Friday, December 21, 2007.)

Fountain Pen

This is one of my favorite pens. It is a fountain pen that I got in Japan when I was in High School (so it's about 9 years old). I actually don't use it that often anymore but I was using it this week for a variety of tasks. The only thing I don't like about it is that I can't stick the cap on the back end when I take it off because the end comes to a narrow point.

(Note: This is my photo from Thursday, December 20, 2007.)

First (and Only?) Knitting Project

This is my first (only? last?) knitting project. I really wanted to make something for Heather this year because she is always making beautiful pottery pieces for us and I wanted to return the favor. Of course, she has a lot of experience with pottery so what do I do? Make something using a skill I don't have. Haha. But I think it turned out pretty well considering it was my first time. I only used the knit stitch so there wasn't anything fancy about it. I was just happy to finish it in time! Not sure if I'll do another one ...

(Note: This is my photo from Wednesday, December 19, 2007.)

Holiday (i.e. Christmas) Cards

Here are the Holiday cards we sent out this year. Of course, by Holiday cards I mean Christmas cards. I noticed this year how ludicrous this political correctness really is. I got an email one day saying that there was a special promotion going on where you could get a raincheck for a Wii to give as a holiday gift. Of course, you could only do it on December 21st at which point one religion's "holiday" was already over (Chanukah). It was obvious they were primarily thinking of Christmas, but they said "holidays". We are way too caught up in the whole thing, why can't we just say Christmas? Isn't it worse to say to a Jewish person "Have a nice holiday" on December 21st when their holiday is already over? And New Year isn't really a holiday so we should just say Happy New Year. Okay, I'm done with this, I just wanted to mention it because it really stuck out for me this year, although I don't know why.

(Note: This is my photo from Tuesday, December 18, 2007.)

Headphones

I was listening to music and podcasts while working on Holiday projects this week and I just had to show everyone my favorite headphones. My parents got these for me in Japan before they left many years ago. I specifically requested them because I had tried similar ones before and they are awesome. The great thing is that your entire ear fits inside the little cavity they have and then the soft foam part rests against your head. They are so comfortable because they don't push your ears down. They block out a lot of other sound and everything just sounds awesome through them. I just thought I would share this with everyone. :-D

(Note: This is my photo from Monday, December 17, 2007.)

Oh What a Day

Have you ever had one of those days where you thought you were going to get a project done pretty quickly and then it went kind of wrong and ended up taking much longer than you thought? Like maybe you were going to fix something up around the house, or maybe you were going to do a craft project for fun, and things just didn't go the way you planned? Well that's kind of what happened today, although I must say that everything pretty much worked out in the end, thanks to my parents. I can't give any more details right now other than that this is a photo of something involved.

Chinchilla

Chad and I went out and did errands yesterday from about 10 AM till 5 PM. It was pretty crazy out there. While we were out we stopped at Pet Smart to pick up some treats for the guinea pigs. They had this little chinchilla for sale and it was actually really really cute. As we were leaving we saw it sitting in this branch sleeping and I just had to snap a photo of it.

(Note: This is my photo from Saturday, December 15, 2007.)

Oh, Heather ...

Oh Heather, my life at the office would be so dull without such an ... interesting ... office mate. Haha. Heather had on this very ... lovely ... sweater on Friday. It was super soft and warm, the reasons she purchased it (not to mention the good price!), but you might say that it wasn't the most stylish piece of clothing in her wardobe.

(Note: This is my photo from Friday, December 14, 2007.)

Good Night TV

Here is a shirt that was in our christmas package from Adina and Steph. It says "Oyasumi Terebi", or "Goodnight TV". It's pretty darn cute, wouldn't you say?

(Note: This is my photo from Thursday, December 13, 2007.)

Moosewood Meal

I FINALLY got around to making a meal from the Moosewood cookbook that Heather gave me for my birthday. It was a chick pea/spinach Mediterranean dish. I actually used white beans instead of chick peas. It has a yogurt, mint, and garlic sauce on top and some saffron rice underneath. It was quite tasty. Low fat too!!

(Note: This is my photo from Wednesday, December 12, 2007.)

Watch Stopped

This is the watch that my parents gave me a few years ago. I've been wearing it every day and I just noticed about a week ago that the battery had stopped. That's a bummer because I don't really have time to get it replaced right now. But so far, I've found that it isn't bothering me that much. I'm surrounded by enough clocks that I don't have a problem finding out the time.

(Note: This is my photo from Tuesday, December 11, 2007.)

Early Christmas Gifts!

Adina is the best! She put together this awesome box of goodies for Chad and me for Christmas. There are even some gifts for two other undisclosed recipients who will hopefully be happily surprised when I pass the gifts along. I think everything in here was hand made, probably mostly from Etsy. People are so clever it makes me sick. Haha. Just kidding, but seriously, I wish I was a little more creative. I also wish I had more time to be ... Thanks Adina and Steph!

Cookie Day

Yesterday was Chad and Aunt Beth's annual cookie day. Last year's was actually this year and you can find it among my posts from February. Chad made 7 batches of cookie dough but only baked about 4 of them. I then made some gluten-free pizzelles which actually turned out surprisingly well.

(Note: This is my photo from Sunday, December 9th, 2007.)

No Christmas Tree This Year

Chad and I decided that it's way too much work to have a real christmas tree. We have to go pick it out, get it home, saw off the bottom, get it in the stand, put the lights on, put ornaments on, keep it watered every day, take ornaments and lights off, and get it out to the curb to be picked up. Yes some parts of this are somewhat fun, but you know, we're just too tired this year for some reason. So we decided to use our little fake trees and our screen of candles instead. Chad got it all set up yesterday and we have it in our normal tree location. I think it's quite nice actually. We might do some fake snow underneath or something.

(Note: This is my photo from Saturday, December 8, 2007.)

Gigantic Pen

This is just ridiculous. Steve Anderson moved to Australia this weekend and before he went he was cleaning out his office. He found this huge pen and brought it in to Heather. I'm not quite sure why, maybe because she tends to like big pens. It's about 4 times the size of her hand.

(Note: This is my photo from Friday, December 7, 2007.)

Circles in the Snow

The other day when there was snow on the ground I noticed these circles in the snow. It looked like someone intentionally made them but I couldn't figure out why. I asked Chad about it later and he said he was trying to get something gross off his shoes.

(Note: This is my photo from Thursday, December 6, 2007.)

Glasses (the other kind)

Chad and I are kind of bad about cups/glasses. We tend to let them accumulate on the second and third floors of our house. Then we collect them and take them downstairs all at once. Generally we don't have more than 3 or 4 each, but still ...

(Note: This is my photo from Wednesday, December 5, 2007.)

Glasses

I got glasses a year ago. Or was it two years ago now? I'm not sure. They are for distances because apparently I'm near-sighted, especially in my right eye. This didn't really develop until I started working on computers all day long ... hmmm ... anyway ... I usually keep my glasses in my car so that I have them for when I drive. But because my glasses are so awesome, I barely feel them on me, so sometimes I forget and I wear them inside. That sucks because I don't have a holder to put them in and also I don't want to forget them in the morning. So I put them here right by the bedroom door.

(Note: This is my photo from Tuesday, December 4, 2007.)

Massive Headache

I stayed home from work sick on Monday. I had been feeling nausea on and off for about a week. I think I was just tired and stressed and that's why it was coming and going. So by the middle of the day I was feeling a lot better, but then in the evening I got a massive headache with more nausea. I took some Advil, but it didn't really help. I was fine by the time I woke up the next morning though, so all's good.

(Note: This is my photo from Monday, December 3, 2007.)

First Snow

It snowed on Sunday morning for the first time of the season. It wasn't very much and didn't stick around long but it was fun anyway.

(Note: This is my photo from Sunday, December 2, 2007.)

Concert in a Chapel

On Saturday night Chad and I went down into Center City to see a Chris Garneau concert at the First Unitatian Church. It was held in this little chapel that only seats about 50 people comfortably. It was pretty cool.

(Note: This is my photo from Saturday, December 1, 2007.)

Kitchen Little

On Friday I had breakfast at this little restaurant in Mystic Connecticut called Kitchen Little. I had scrambled eggs with cream cheese and jumbo lump crabmeat. It was fantastic. The restaurant was a little hole-in-the-wall kind of place but the food was very good.

(Note: This is my photo for Friday, November 30th, 2007.)

My TV In Mystic

Last Thursday I went up to Mystic Connecticut for a meeting I had to go to in the area on Friday. Unfortunately I didn't get to see Mystic Pizza. But I did see something interesting and that was this TV. All the TVs in the hotel rooms I saw were this model, which is exactly the same one I have at home. I haven't ever seen this TV anywhere else so I thought it was pretty funny.

(Note: This is my photo for Thursday, November 29th, 2007.)

Bedroom Curtains

Chad and I loved our downstairs curtains so much that we got ourselves some for our bedroom. We also put some insulating foam in the crack along the wall near the floor. We're hoping this will help keep our room warmer this winter. So far it seems to be working, but of course we aren't in the coldest months yet.

(Note: This is my photo for Wednesday, November 28th, 2007.)