I set up the home gym in my new house today. It’s actually out in the workshop, but one man’s shop is another woman’s gym. I was avoiding it because I knew hanging the mirrors was going to be a pain in the ass. But it’s finally done and now I have no excuse not to work out.

I know it will never happen, but the idea of throwing 126 traitorous Republicans from the House makes me hot.

I always go for the snowballs first thing. Between the powdered sugar mess and the expense of walnuts I’ve never really made them. Similarly the stained glass ones... they’re a pain but I love to see them.

Unsurprising because most people are boring, but c’mon, chocolate chips are every day cookies.   Holiday cookies should be special, which is why snowballs and elaborately decorated sugar cookies always come to mind first for me.  

Someone from Boston being racist is not news.

If I have to go back to work, I want to know my coworkers are safe to be around.

If I have to go back to work, I want to know if my coworkers are safe to be around. 

I like them. The smoked ones are particularly good to make dip with:

There is no reason whatsoever for it to be this way.

I just finished a hiring panel and the cover letters made me want to stab myself in the face. You’d be surprised how hard the relevant job examples apparently are to get right. We were hiring a field research scientist and someone pretty fresh out of school wrote that she got best poster. Cool, but it would have been…

Sometimes I do spend too much on food orders. Just this pandemic I spent $100 on Cole’s trout products, because tinned fish is a great pandemic food.  I just bought a 6 pack of cans of Bruce’s yams from Amazon because they don’t sell them here. 

I can’t get the fast cook down.  It comes out fine if the wok is not screaming hot and you just cook it longer, as long as you have patience...

Hoisin is to sweet for me, but I agree it needs oyster and sesame oil.  Usually I sneak fish sauce in there too...

The house I just bought has a man cave in the form of an electric shop.  It’s now a she shed by virtue of the total lack of men in my household.  It’s not really going to fit the mold though - I am turning into my home gym.

You have a whole world open to you know!  Look at IP cakes and other desserts.

I don’t believe this is a thing real people do?  Like I’ve done one kit as part of some forced activity, maybe church.  I don’t know others who do this.  Willing to be proven wrong though. 

For real... but IDK if it’s a keepsake I would want.  I know I don’t want any of the awful 2020 Christmas ornaments I’ve seen that feature masks or toilet paper or other nonsense. 

LOL my friend took her 4 year old to meet Santa and he’s behind plexiglass and wearing a mask printed to look like smiling Santa face. They sat on stairs below him, in front of the plexiglass. Her and her husbands glasses are fogged from removing their masks immediately before the picture.

After college I worked as a fishery observer in Alaska. It was a weird, isolating gig and it was even more isolating being an observer, because the fishermen all had each other and we were there to keep them on the straight and narrow.

If you don’t have a sous vide set up, brisket also comes out great after about 90 minutes in the Instant Pot.