Commentariat of the mundane: a photo dump!

"Gee, I love going back and forth between the frozen windy weather outside and overly heated indoors during the winter!" -- nobody with extremely sensitive skin and eczema ever

Here, I took a selfie:

Who needs face skin, anyway?

Sometimes, I look in the mirror to check on the whole face situation when I have these extreme dry skin spells and it looks like a patch of my skin has dried donut glaze on it. Which, considering I scarfed down a half dozen glazed donut holes in my car this morning after I parked because I had two minutes before my 8am appointment, is actually entirely possible. 

Anyway, not much terribly exciting news on the front line, or even the back line. I achieved decent office time dissertation progress last week, which is what I am going to assume caused the acute right wrist pain that I am currently suffering from. You know what are daily actions that you totally take for granted until you decide to develop a mystery wrist injury on your dominant hand? Opening doors, turning the steering wheel, and...um...cleaning yourself after a visit to the Little Disgruntled Doctoral Student's Room. Anyway. Dissertating is a dangerous business, especially when trying to do it while working an office job! I'll probably have to start using one of those ergonomic mouse/keyboard wrist cushion things that old people or nerds use.

In any case, lots of mundane things have happened in the last couple of weeks. I took pictures (doy):

I caught Tre being a psychopath. (When is he not being a psychopath?)

A couple of weeks ago, I had this overwhelming urge to clean out and organize our master bathroom closet. In the process of moving hither and thither over the course of the past decade, I had just been storing all my random toiletries and girl things in raggedy cardboard boxes and plastic baskets. There was no rhyme or reason to anything, and I couldn't take the foreboding whispers coming from beyond the mirrored glass doors anymore. So, one evening, Professor Schmoobles went out to watch a sportsball event or something with a friend, and my evening was set.

First thing, I went out in my awesome house sweats and a parka (I looked awesome) and purchased a couple sets of these amazing little stackable caboodley things. ("caboodley things"?) Then, I attacked each horrific cardboard box, dumped out the contents, took stock of the items, ruthlessly threw out anything that was not deemed worthy (A shampoo bottle from three states ago that only had an inch of product left filled? What the hell, Acadaemia Nut.), and organized the rest by size and category.

Also, self-realization moment: For someone who wears as little makeup as I do (see: freakishly sensitive skin), I own a sh**ton of makeup. I mean. Look at all these lip glosses. Do I need to go to therapy about this? Is there an underlying psychological issue that I need to confront and heal from? Is it because I was deprived for years and years of wearing adorable lip products as a clarinetist and now I am subconsciously making up for it? Or do I just really love lip glosses that much? Well, whatever the psychosis case, my little pretties have a new and beautifully organized home. You're safe now, lipglosses. I also have nailpolishes and perfume samples in this set of CABOODLEY THINGS.

And look at this thing of beauty. I cannot be the only one here who gleefully hoards stolen complementary hotel room bath products, right? My favorite is when you can use it as a little trip down memory lane for past adventures. For example, the round soaps on the bottom left corner are from the Red Coconut Hotel on the island of Boracay, Philippines, where we went almost three years ago for my brother and sister-in-law's beautiful wedding! Long story short, I'll probably never use those soaps or their corresponding lotions because I am a sentimental little weirdo, but there are plenty of other ones I can use when I feel like tapping into my hotel thief stash. And travel lotions are awesome to keep in your purse, work desk, car, hoarded up inside your upstairs bathroom, etc.

Look at this. Layers of irresistible organized deliciousness. 

And look at this, my crowning achievement of the evening. Well worth the four hours I invested. Not going to lie, for the next week, I would go into the bathroom just so I could open up the closet doors and marvel silently at my finished product. It's the little things in life, you know?

Mmm...orgasmization.

Hm, okay, what else? Oh, here's a minor kitchen pro tip: Instead of keeping your butter all cold and hard in a log, go ahead and pre-slice them into convenient little pillows and keep them in a container. It's such a small thing, but, I don't know, whenever I have to melt some for a little saute action and just easily plop one or two (or three) of these bad boys into the pan, I give myself a little mental high five. And it's one less knife you have to wash everytime you cook (the real reason).

Speaking of butter, once you start cooking eggs with butter on a cast iron pan, you'll NEVER do it any other way again.

Alright. Other pictures. Clearing up more room in my phone.

Yes, Master Yoda.

It's become something of a tradition (two times makes a tradition, right?) for us to have some students over on New Year's Day to cook out and revel in each other's good spirits. FALSE. It's a reason for Professor Schmoobles to bask in a roomful of adoring band underlings so they can talk AT NO END about football and band. And then more band. And then some more football. And then band band band. The menu for January 1, 2016 was:

Honeygold ham, a present from Professor Schmooblebottoms's dad.

Here it is all glazed and warmed and sexified. Such flesh, so porky. 

All the meats and cheeses and triangle and rectangle shaped carbohydrates.

One of the students brought over buffalo chicken macaroni and cheese. It was delicious and magnificent, and I would have eaten the whole thing if I wasn't being so good about keeping the poisonous dairy at bay.

Here's Trazy Train trying to treat himself to some of my Bloody Mary. He's only fourteen in cat years, so he's not of age yet. Sorry, Tre.

Obligatory Tre and BB shot.

And then after the holidays ended, it was back to work. Here is the mysterious Spanish noblewoman with impressive RBF (Renaissance B*tch Face) that judges me at my desk every moment that I am not working on the dissertation.

And then this one time, Bossman came in bearing gifts. Specifically, a box of expensive but delicious donuts.

Is that a glazed donut, or my unfortunate winter skin face? 

And then I got the brilliant idea of wearing a blanket scarf to work so that I could cuddle under it when sitting at a desk for hours and not moving around, slowing my blood circulation and making me freezing cold. Silly fashion trend for the win!

On a quest to be a blanket burrito 24/7.

Hey. Have you ever made Thomas Keller's tomato bacon stew? If not, what the eff? Go do it right now. It is incredibly delicious, surprisingly easy (for a Thomas Keller--of French Laundry fame--recipe), and so versatile. Like, you're technically supposed to serve it over asparagus. But you can totally use it as a marinara substitute. Or thin it out for a gourmet tomato soup. Or just eat it by the spoonful as is. Whatever.

It is also a great go-to recipe for when you buy three trays of tomatoes at Costco because you have a momentary blackout and think that you're actually going to fix batches of homemade sundried tomatoes as Christmas presents for your family. But instead, the tomatoes end up sitting on your kitchen counter for weeks, even into January, and then ten seconds before they're about to go past "deliciously ripe" and into "gross rotten" stage, you finally cook them.

Finished product. Ugh. I want more now.

Here it is being used on top of a baguette with cheese and a fried egg. Noms.

Oh! Here's an exciting recent development in the Gradual Adultation of Acadaemia Nut and Professor Schmoobs. We have gotten into the habit of actually bringing in food from home as our work lunch. Can you imagine? (...that it took us until we are into our mid--NOT LATE--thirties to get into this habit??) Number One: it totally justifies and enables my habit of cooking dinners that are always way too large for two humans to eat. Maybe it's growing up in a family of six that makes me completely unable to register what a "Dinner for Two" looks like. Anyway, no worries, because Number Two: we are saving money and eating healthier! Go us. Go adult us.

This was the remainder of that tomato bacon stew that I used as a sauce with some chicken and kale. Served on a bed of couscous. Oh my God, someday I will write a ridiculous post about couscous, because, uh, how awesome is this stuff? I mean, I'm still Asian, so rice will always be my favorite fluffy side carb. But couscous is SO EASY AND FAST. Anyway, that's for another post.

And then we finally had the Big Snow Storm® that we had all been awaiting for months. Yeah, Snow Day! You would think that, as a tropical blooded and West Coast raised cold hater, I would hate snow. But guys. It makes everything so pretty. Look:

AND LOOK:

AND LOOOOOK:

And what else is one to do on a Snow Day morning but make a breakfast galette?

When I had the idea to make a breakfast galette this morning, I was like {happy face emoji}.

But then I realized seven minutes into parbaking the crust that I had forgotten to fold over the edges and I was all {sad face emoji}.

So I pulled it out of the oven and tried to fold it anyway and I was like {frustrated face poop skull emoji}.

But I went ahead and finished it anyway and it was still delicious so then I was like {happy tongue out emoji}.

Like your body, our backyard is a wonderland. A winter wonderland.

So pretty. This was the final death knell for our winter garden, however. Oh well. Spring is but around the corner. And I can grow the hell out of some tomatoes. 

"Until next time!" - BB, probably