The Amazing Race

I got to see Princess for Christmas!!  Aside from just catching up and other awesome activities, we decided to get the ball rolling on getting ourselves into Amazing Race.  Here's what we accomplished during a portion of the time that I was lucky enough to be in her company.

Stupid human tricks

My ward's Christmas party was last night.  We got to do Sub for Santa for five families, YAY!  And we get to deliver everything and go caroling tomorrow!  

The party also doubled as a "variety" show.  Such a talented bunch I get to associate with every week.  I am so lucky.  (Don't even get me started on the Christmas program today at church.  Amazing.  That is all.  Amazing.)  Anyway, last night I couldn't help but throw in a little contribution I discovered I could do a few months ago...

I have nothing else to add.

What? Finals? Meh, I'll get to that later.

It's the middle of finals week.  What should I do?

If you said, "Don't study," I think that's a great idea!!  That's exactly what I did do today!

So here's what happened.

About a week ago, one of my classmates randomly pulls a bag of big white chocolate chips out of her bag and says, "Do you like white chocolate?"  I think my exact words were, "Is there sugar in white chocolate?  ...then YES!"  So she gave me the whole bag.

Fast forward to today.  It's day 3 of finals week and I'm done with all my finals until mid-day Saturday.  So I took the day off.  No school-related anything allowed.  I got some much-needed things done that have been neglected since August.  For example, I stacked all my books on my bookshelf.  (For those of you who don't already know, that's a big deal.)  Now they almost all fit.  See?

I also got all my winter stuff out, which I definitely already needed a few weeks ago.  

And, I made truffles.  Re-enter white chocolate.  It had been staring at me for too long.  It took me awhile, but that's okay!  I was still under my self-imposed school ban!  

They were so pretty, I took pictures.

And the taste?  Divine.  I once read a book where the author said she loved her pizza so much that she believed that it loved her back.  This is how I feel about my truffles.  It's true love.  

At Dana's request, here's the recipe:

1 cup baking chocolate or white chocolate, chopped 

2 tsp butter/margarine

1/4 cup heavy whipping cream

1 tbsp shortening

1 cup chocolate or white chocolate chips

1. Cover cookie sheet with aluminum foil.  Melt baking chocolate in heavy 2-quart saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly; remove from heat.  Stir in butter until it melts, stir in whipping cream.  Refrigerate 10-15 minutes, stirring frequently, just until thick enough to hold a shape.

2. Drop mixture by teaspoonfuls onto cookie sheet.  Shape into balls (if too sticky, refrigerate more).  Freeze 30 minutes.

3. Heat shortening and chocolate over low heat, stirring constantly, until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth; remove from heat.  Dip truffles, one at a time, into chocolate.  Place on cookie sheet.  

4. Refrigerate about 10 minutes or until coating is set.  Drizzle some with a mixture of 1/4 cup powdered sugar and 1/2 teaspoon milk (I just melted more white chocolate and some shortening in a Ziploc bag and cut off the corner).  Refrigerate just until set.  Serve at room temperature, store in airtight container.  Makes approx. 25-30 small truffles.

I think I'll take some back to school with me to share the love before this last final.  It's only fair, right?  It's like when you borrow a cup of sugar from a neighbor, and then you go and make cookies with it and give them back.  Suddenly I'm feeling very sneaky like that...like I'm the white-chocolate-to-truffles-finals-goodies bandit, bringing sugary joyness to burned-out students everywhere!!  Mwahaha!  I feel like I need an alias.  Any ideas?

U-G-L-Y! You ain't got no alibi, you ugly!

Ah, December.  A time for carols, well-wishing, finals, sledding, Buddy the Elf, Messiah sing-alongs, and ugly sweater parties.  Last night, everyone represented the spirit of December as we all tried to outdo each other in ugliness.  Throughout the evening, you'd hear people remark, "My, you're looking especially ugly tonight!"  And it was a very good thing.

I wish you could see it, but Greg (dude next to me) had flashing Christmas lights duct taped to his sweater. He was connected to the wall for lots of the night.

Not everyone had such ugliness on hand, but Jared was willing to wear a headband instead.  For a minute.

As if the party weren't already awesome enough, they had Elf playing, which is probably the best Christmas movie ever made.  Allow me to share just one of the many favorite quotes:

"So, good news - I saw a dog today.  Have you seen a dog?  You probably have."

XBOX360PS3WII

I'm always talking about out-of-school adventures, so I'll digress for a moment to let you into my campus world.  I guess it's about time, since I'm about to hit finals week and thus finish one quarter of the ride.

Fun thing about business school is that you get to pick topics for projects that are so far out there, but everyone uses business, so it still applies!  (Ironically, I used to say that about Stats...well, I still say that.  Guess I just like things that apply to everyone.)  

To give you a taste, I've been doing a whole lot of industry and competitor analysis on video game consoles. So yes, we could play Wii and call it "research."  (Other semester variations include the pursuing prospect of opening a Ritz in  South Africa and researching the economic-based history of telephony - from telegraph to cell phones to VoIP.  Isn't B-school awesome?)   Now, I feel like a fountain of console knowledge.  Want to know the history?  I'll tell you about the Brown Box.  Where'd PlayStation come from?  I know that, too.  Marketing strategies - Blue Ocean, anyone?  Competitive advantages?  Bring it on.  Maybe that doesn't strike everyone else as such a cool thing, but I guess that's why I'm here.  Here is my dynamic posse who also knows everything console.

I like learning.  My brain is having a grand time being back in academia.  

Thanksgiving Awesomeness

I was lucky enough to spend this year's Thanksgiving at home in Idaho with my parents and the VanderLouws.  If I had to pick a favorite moment, it was probably jumping on the trampoline with all the kids, especially after Maggie joined in.  Alas, I don't have a pic of that.  But I do have lots of other goodies.  As usual, I mostly just captured the kiddies.  Hope you don't mind.

If you want to see the vid of Elliot's mad dancing skills, you can check it out on my family's blog here.

Dinner with the co-workers

Recently I got to meet up with many of my old co-workers for dinner. It was grand! And I got to meet lots of spouses and significant others I'd only heard about before, and I got to catch up with everyone and just enjoy being around them again.

I realized that, of the 8 original Census workers there, only 2 are still manning their original posts in Services.

I also realized something that I think I already knew: I really miss my co-workers.  

Think about it - I used to spend more waking hours with this crowd than anyone else.  These guys really get me, and I'm so fond of all of them.  That was terribly difficult to walk away from, even for something as alluring as getting my MBA.  

Sometimes I get nostalgic, thinking about the lunchtime jogs and workouts, the vacuum breaks, commiserating when we had to work overtime, rearranging/kidnapping my supervisor's beanie baby toys, the parties that always inevitably had that expensive cake that tastes like chemicals, trips to J-ville, and even cranking out top diffs and referrals (which is odd).  Hopefully we can get together again soon.  I sure do like all those guys.