Done!

Well this is a first. I've completely finished all of my coursework, and it's not due for another three days. (Not that I'll turn it in before the day it's due, but still...) I'm done. And I'm in a bit of shock. This doesn't usually happen to me. I never (ever) turn anything in late, but I'm hardly ever early. Definitely not this early. 

Plus, classes don't start back up again for me until the end of the month. So I've got like three weeks of no responsibilities to fill. The only problem is that my flatmates won't be done for another week or two.

So I don't really know what to do with myself.

Guess, for now, I'll catch up on some highlights...

(Men v. Tech)

(Women v. Iowa State)

But then, who knows?

Suggestions welcome. Encouraged, even :)
 

Till...when?

Here, cash registers are called "tills." But since I'm not used to that, I found this sign pretty funny:

...till when, exactly?

Clearly I'm easily amused. 

  

Oh Fair New Mexico.

Today is the 100th birthday of my lovely home state. So, in its honor, a little "You know you're from New Mexico if..."

Let's see if you hail from the Land of Enchantment:

You buy salsa by the gallon.

Your favorite restaurant has a chile list instead of a wine list. 

You can correctly pronounce Tesuque, Cerrillos, Pojoaque and Cuyumungue.

You have been told by at least one out-of-state vendor that they are going to charge you extra for "international" shipping.

You expect to pay more if your house is made of mud.

You can order your Big Mac with green chile.

Your Christmas decorations include a bunch of sand, candles and 200 paper bags.

You see nothing odd when, in the conversations of the people in line around you at the grocery store, every other word of each sentence alternates between Spanish and English. 

You have license plates on your walls, but not on your car. 

A package of white flour tortillas is a given. You don't need to write it on your shopping list.

Most restaurants you go to begin with "El" or "Los". 

Your other vehicle is also a pick-up truck.

You know your answer when the waitress asks, "Red or green?" and sometimes you may even want "Christmas."

You hated Texans until the Californians moved in.

You are still using the paper license tag that came with your car five years ago.

You have an extra freezer just for green chile.

You think a red light is merely a suggestion.

You believe that using a turn signal is a sign of weakness.

You don't make eye contact with other drivers because you can't tell how well armed they are just by looking.

You think six tons of crushed rock makes a beautiful front lawn.

You have used aluminum foil and duct tape to repair your air conditioner.

You can't control your car on wet pavement.

You wish you had invested in the orange barrel business.

You just got your fifth DWI and got elected to the state legislature in the same week.

Your swamp cooler got knocked off your roof by a dust devil.

You can actually hear the Taos hum.

You know Vegas is a town in the northeastern part of the state.

You are afraid to drive through Mora and Espanola.

You iron your jeans to "dress up".

You don't see anything wrong with drive-up window liquor sales.

Two of your cousins are in Santa Fe, one in the legislature and the other in the state pen.

You know the punch line to at least one Espanola joke.

Your car is missing a fender or bumper.

You have driven to an Indian Casino at 3am because you were hungry.

You're relieved when the pavement ends because the dirt road has fewer pot-holes.

You associate bridges with mud, not water.

You know you will run into at least 3 cousins whenever you shop at Wal-Mart, Sam's or Home Depot.

Tumbleweeds and various cacti in your yard are not weeds. They are your lawn.

If you travel anywhere, no matter if just to run to the gas station, you must bring along a bottle of water and some moisturizer.

Trailers are not referred to as trailers. They are houses. Double-wide trailers are "real" houses.

At any gathering, regardless of size, green chile stew, tortillas, and huge mounds of shredded cheese are mandatory.

Prosperity can be readily determined by the number of horses you own.

A tarantula on your porch is ordinary. A scorpion in your tub is ordinary. A poisonous centipede on your ceiling? Ordinary. A black widow crawling across your bed is terribly, terribly common. A rattlesnake is an occasional hiking hazard. No need to freak out.

Happy birthday, New Mexico. We love, we love you so. 

 

Wednesday randoms.

I can't believe it's been a week and a half since Christmas! Where does the time go? It's also been a while since I've done any randoms, but I'm still feeling sentimental about the new year. So today's will be photos.

Eleven lovely moments from 2011, in no particular order:

I like my whole life. My whole life is great.

(Yeah, yeah, yeah.)

Happy 2012! 

Homemade peppermint Oreos.

When I was home for Christmas, my mom got these peppermint Oreos. They were wonderful. I brought some back to London with me, and once I unpacked, they lasted about an hour. Maybe even less.

No, I didn't eat them all by myself, thank you very much.

But Lisa wanted to try to make some. So we did. And you know what? They turned out pretty tasty.

(Recipe makes way more than shown. We'd eaten a few...)

Here's the recipe:

Homemade Peppermint Oreos
(adapted from Joy the Baker and Smitten Kitchen)
 

Cookies: Ingredients

3/4 cup sugar

1 1/2 cup plus 3 tbsp flour

3/4 cup plus 1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp salt

15 tbsp unsalted butter (at room temp. and cut into small pieces)

Directions 
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175ish C). Line baking sheets with parchment paper. 

Combine sugar, flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. Add the butter a few pieces at a time, mixing with your hands (this could probably done less messily with a food processor, but I don't have one, so...) The mixture will start out very dry. Keep working with it. Once the dough starts to come together and the butter is well incorporated, separate into two blocks. (No need to chill!)

Roll the dough out, one block at a time, between two pieces of parchment paper. You want it pretty thin -- maybe like 1/8 inch? I don't know. I'm not a math person. Slightly thinner than an Oreo, since they'll puff up just a bit. 

Use a cookie cutter (or glass or lid) to cut rounds 1 1/2 to 2 inches in diameter. You can reform and roll out the scraps, but I wouldn't do it more than once -- it gets too soft to work with.  

Then place about an inch apart on the prepared baking sheets and bake for 10-12 minutes. Remove and allow to cool on the sheets for another few minutes before transferring to a rack to cool completely.

Filling: Ingredients

1/4 cup (about 55 grams) room-temperature, unsalted butter
1/4 cup vegetable shortening
2 cups powdered (icing) sugar
  1/2 tsp vanilla extract 
peppermint extract, to taste (I used about 1/2 tsp) 

Directions

Place butter and shortening in a large bowl, and at low speed, gradually beat in the powdered sugar* and vanilla. Add peppermint. Taste to make sure it's right (a little goes a loooong way). Then turn the mixer on high and beat for 2 to 3 minutes until filling is light and fluffy. Taste it a few more times. You know, to make sure it's edible. Oh, and we added a little red food coloring to make them a pretty soft pink color.

Spread filling between two cookies. Make sure it's a generous amount, because Doublestuffs are the best, and everybody knows it. 

Enjoy! 

*Tip for making icing: The powdered sugar will try to go everywhere. If you slowly mix it in with a spoon a bit before turning on the mixer, you'll have less of mess. Sure, you'll still have this fine coat of white dust all over everything, but it won't be the sugary blizzard it would otherwise have been.

  

  

Cabin fever.

We usually keep our doors open in our flat. But not right now. There's too much work to do. We've all got deadlines to meet the next few weeks. So every door stayed shut all day, as we attempted to keep focused on our essays without succumbing to cabin fever and going completely insane. It was really quiet around here.

But then I heard voices in the kitchen and couldn't take it anymore.

Once I left my room, there was no turning back. I didn't get a single thing done after 6pm today. My flatmates made sure of it. We just laughed and ate chocolate and watched Tangled.

And it was so worth it.
  

Happy New Year!

We got to the London Eye about 8 hours early so we could get a good view of the fireworks. And it worked! There was only one person between me and the rail along the Thames, and we were directly across from the Eye. I can't even begin to describe how amazing it was. They flashed a countdown of the final minute up on a building right next to the Eye, and the whole crowd was going crazy. Then the fireworks started. With every chime from Big Ben, they lit up the sky. The show kicked off with the announcement of London getting the 2012 Olympics, and from then on, all the fireworks were perfectly synched with music. They went on for almost 12 minutes and took up the entire sky. I felt like a little kid the whole time, and by the end of it all, my face hurt from smiling.

Here's the BBC video of the whole show:

They were predicting a quarter of a million people there, and I'll bet they were right. Trafalgar Square was jam-packed afterward. But we navigated our way back home like champs. I was so proud. Plus, the transport was free after midnight. What a win.

So if last night is at all indicative of what 2012 will be like, I can't even wait.

“May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.” -Neil Gaiman

Wishing you a blessed new year from London.