Today I drove a car for the first time since I graduated from Mudd, and it went just fine. I was a little nervous, and I'd been putting it off, but I need a way to get to my new job! So now I know I can get to my job without Patrick chauffeuring me everyday. I also need to do a practice bike ride there, but I probably won't start riding my bike to work until the days get longer, since I don't want to ride in the dark and cold.

We made our rib roast for dinner tonight. We roasted some vegetables along with it, and I made stuffing in muffin form, a la Rachael Ray (who is overly perky, but still has good ideas).

More pictures:

» The roast and vegetables, featuring our Santoku!
» Stuffing muffins

We used this recipe for the roast, and the crust was tasty. The roast turned out well, but Patrick wants to try some crazy approach involving searing next time. That's cool with me :) The vegetables got a little overcooked and dry, sadly, because the roast didn't give off as much juice as a roast chicken does. So next time I'd baste them with chicken or beef broth, and probably not put them under the roast, since it might have made the roast cook unevenly. The stuffing was yummy, and I liked the crispiness and modularity of the muffins. It was a little dry though (since it was intended to be stuffed into a bird, rather than cooked alone), so I might add a little chicken broth to that too. All in all, it was a good meal. I wish we had some pie to top it off!

Today Patrick and I went to my grandma's house for lunch. My mom is still there (she's returning to Colorado tomorrow, probably), and various members of our extended family showed up. I hadn't seen some of them since I was 16. Everybody grows up so quickly, me included I guess. It was fun spending time with family--they're a good bunch of people, and I'm glad I'm related to them.

I want to go home to Colorado for Christmas, but I'm not sure if we will yet. At most, we'd only get two full days there, and I don't know if that's worth all the traveling and stuff. But I'd really like to go back and see everybody and relax a little. And maybe see a little snow.

Tomorrow night we're going to try making a rib roast. I have no idea if it'll work, but it's worth a try. And I'll get to use my digital temperature probe!

Happy Thanksgiving! Patrick's making sweet potatoes right now (we decided to go with Zeke's recipe), and then we'll head off to his family's house. We had gingerbread waffles this morning (leftover from the last time we had them, and kept in the freezer until now), so I'm not too hungry just yet, but I'm sure that'll change :)

Before I forget, I wanted to say that I absolutely love my Lunapads! They're comfy and pretty and not gross (not to me at least). They suit my needs really well, and I'm glad I bought them. Here's my original entry about buying them, if you want more info.

I got a job! Yeah, I already have 2 jobs right now, but I'm dealing with that. The new job is at a biotech startup nearby (no specifics--I'm going to try and keep my personal and professional lives separate from now on, despite having blabbed about grad school the whole time I was there). I applied for the job a few months ago, before getting my retail job. I went in for a few interviews, and they offered me a job this morning! Starting in two weeks, I'll be a research associate, full-time. I'm excited! I think I'll enjoy this research, because it's useful, and I'll actually have a life outside of the lab, unlike at MIT.

The only downside is that I have to leave my retail job prematurely (I was supposed to be there through Christmas). Actually, I'm not leaving altogether--I'm planning on still working weekends until Christmas is over, since weekends are when they need me most. I wish I didn't have to leave them in the lurch like this, but the research job is too good to pass up. I left my retail boss a note about the new job this afternoon (I'd meant to tell her face-to-face, but we were busy the whole day), and I'm bracing myself for her to be really mad at me tomorrow when she reads it. But who knows--maybe she'll be cool with it. I hope so...I don't want her to be mad or stressed out!

Last night, we made our first sweet potato recipe (we're trying out a few recipes prior to Thanksgiving). Strangely enough, the sweet potatoes we got at Safeway are yellow instead of orange, and they taste a little different than normal sweet potatoes. Maybe when we buy our Thanksgiving tubers, we'll go for yams instead, just to be safe. I need to read up on the differences between the two.

I asked Patrick to put a complete monolayer of marshmallows on top, but he didn't want to. Hmph! We used the recipe that Zeke left in the comments to my sweet potato entry way back when. I think we used a little too much orange juice, but the general effect was good. It's a definite contender. Next up is a recipe for carmelized sweet potatoes.

This morning, I made Gingerbread Waffles for breakfast. They turned out well, although neither of us was blown away by them. But they did taste like gingerbread.

Stay safe, okay? Too many bad things have been happening to people I know lately.