Merry Christmas!

It's the morning of Christmas Eve, and I wanted to send a little note to wish you all a Merry Christmas!

I've been MIA the last couple of weeks, since I've been working at closing out my time at PubCo. I didn't have a ton of work to do - mostly some research projects - but my brain had officially checked out by the time I registered for classes. It started to feel real - that I would be leaving, and that I would be starting on this new career path...and I just wanted to get started! So I said my goodbyes and my "let's have lunch" promises to people I wanted to keep in touch with, and that was it!

I only cried a little on my last day, and it was for the people I would miss seeing every day. And since my last day, I've been a little more emotional than usual, because my grandmother passed away. She was an amazing, strong Christian woman who took care of her family and was madly in love with my grandfather (who passed away a couple of years ago). She had Alzheimer's and we were expecting that things would get progressively worse, but it was still sad when we heard the news. But our joy is that she's hanging out with her husband in heaven!

So it's been a mixed bag this year for me for Christmas. It's been hard getting into the spirit of things with everything else going on, but there are little moments that are helping a lot. I taught a cooking class last week that ended with Christmas cookie decorating and it was silly and fun and I laughed until I cried. We put up our Christmas tree (which we named Bjorn), and it is completely lopsided. It rained for 5 days straight and even though I was absolutely sick of it by the end of it, I loved seeing my friends' pictures of the rainbow that happened on the last day of rain - everyone was so overjoyed that the sun had come out!

And this little thing - the lemons on my dwarf lemon tree decided to finally ripen this week. They'd been hanging out for a couple of months, waiting for just the right time, and they're finally ready. So I made a lemon glaze for some Christmas cookies and will be making lemon-walnut biscotti for New Year's. It's funny to me that when I'm supposed to be making spice cake and gingerbread (neither of which I'm a huge fan of), I've got these bright yellow orbs to cheer me up instead.


Next week, look out for a recipe for a new pasta sauce I've developed - it's perfect for a cold night in when you don't want to work too hard. For now, I'm off to finish my Christmas baking (Mexican Wedding Cakes and a Caramelized Apple Pie), and I wish you a very Merry Christmas!

I'm In!

After a night of very little sleep and a morning of refreshing the page every 15 seconds or so, I was finally able to register for classes a week ago! I got everything I need for my first semester which I'm thrilled about, even if it means that I have to take a 7am lab since all the other sections were full. My class list is as follows:

Sanitation
Intro to the Food Profession
Culinary Fundamentals (lecture and lab)
Basics of Baking Lab
Basics of Pantry Lab

And then I have to do 27 hours of catering every semester to get that practical experience I need.

For the next 8 days, I'm still at PubCo, trying to finalize some projects and leave on good terms. I'm planning another cooking class for the evening of my last day and have three new interested people to add to the mailing list. Between December 18 and January 24 (when classes start) I'll be doing some projects around the house that I've been needing time to do, buying my uniforms, knives, and textbooks, practicing recipes, and getting mentally prepared for this major life shift. It will be really strange to not come into the office every day, but so wonderful as well!