Pre-Thanksgiving Post

I do not have much to report here this week.

This weekend, Chris and I went to his parent's to put up their Christmas tree, do some decorating, and some holiday baking.  We played pool for a bit, drove all the way home to bring back the correct type of walnuts (I wasn't aware there was a wrong type of walnut), and went out to dinner.  I like going out to dinner with the in-laws.  It's usually at a really nice place and we eat and have some wine and usually have a very serious conversation about whatever, which ultimately boils down to a hilarious relaxed conversation, but always only after we've paid the bill.  I don't understand why his parents suddenly get hilarious at the end of a meal, and we start having a good time, then it's time to go home.  Very odd.

I'm doing really good on the calorie counting this week.  I'm down a whole 3 pounds in one week.  Not too bad if I do say so myself.  The goal is around 2 pounds per week or at least 5 pounds a month, which would put me at 50 pounds lost by the time our wedding rolls around in one year.  That leaves me with eating about 1500 calories a day, which is really not very much.  Granted, we were eating a ridiculous amount of calories before, but I'm in a bit of a cranky-hungry mood this week.  I'm thinking it will start to get better and pass altogether once I get my body used to it.  Also, I'm planning on joining a gym after Thanksgiving, so if I do any exercising I can up my calorie intake a bit that day and still reach my weight goal for the week.  I started this journey at 220 pounds.  I'm at 214 right now, and hopefully will continue to drop steadily from now on. 

Elise and Jason are coming for Thanksgiving!  I am so very excited to do all of our holiday baking.  I have so much fun when my sister comes to visit and we have a lot of wine and dance around the kitchen.  Our baking list for Thanksgiving is as follows:

• Apple Pie
• Pumpkin Pie
• Pecan-Caramel Cheesecake
• Chocolate Mousse Cake
• Cinnabons for Friday morning breakfast

It should be majorly delicious.  Jason is planning on moving in with us when his lease is up at the end of the year, so we will be planning a trip down to Virginia to help him get his stuff and put most of it in storage.

I'm really feeling the Christmas spirit and have started listening to Christmas music already.  I know it's early, but I was in the mood. I'm dragging Chris with me to Target later so we can buy a tree and put up the ornaments that I brought from home. 

I checked out one of the local Roman Catholic churches on Sunday.  I need to become a parishioner somewhere around here so we would be eligible to sign up for our pre-cana or pre-marriage classes that are required for us to get married at my church back home.  It was epic and modern and so strange.  Much different from things at St. Raymond's.  There was preachy music played by a guy that sounded like John Denver, 2 jumbo trons and video cameras everywhere showing slide shows of the readings and whoever was talking at the time, inspirational videos shown before mass and as part of the homily.  There's a cafe that looks like a Starbucks in the lobby and a lounge with a fireplace, and they had so much staff.  There was a person like every 10 feet with a little ID badge on.   There was a street entrance that looked like the big stone facade thing of a country club.  You could tell that they had a lot of money to blow on updating and maintaining the place.  I e-mailed the info address to find out about becoming a parishioner and they said they already responded to me.  They have a program set up for you to hear about the church and have dinner before filling out your registration.  Seriously, it's intense.  I'm going to take Elise with me to mass on Sunday for moral support while I sign up for the program thingy.  It should be pretty interesting. 

Can it be Wednesday yet?  I miss my sister.

Julibean <3

Sick in Maryland

After my stunning digestive pyrotechnics on the Meadowbrook, I was still not feeling very well at all. I should really learn to just stay home one extra day before venturing back into my daily routine. I always push myself a little too hard and end up sick for twice as long because I didn't take the time to heal properly. Anyway...

We spent the next two days making apple pies and fruit tarts. They were delicious and looked absolutely amazing.

I really enjoyed making the fruit tart.  I like the very meticulous and creative projects the best.  Also I just like using knives.  For some reason I really enjoy the manual labor parts of baking.  Whenever we have something annoying to do I like to ask Brooke things like "can I chop the nuts?" or "I want to grate the carrots!"  I guess I'm just weird like that.

I was still feeling really shitty but I hadn't seen Chris for a few weeks so I was determined to make it down there somehow.  I contemplated taking the bus, but trekking into the city with my bags is pretty exhausting and I tend to get sick from all the random people and germs, so I was really not feeling like adding to my sickness.  Fortunately, Casey needed to go down to Maryland to visit her Uncle and cousins, so she offered to travel with me and drive my car down so I could rest.  In return I gave her family 3/4 of my cheesecake (I let Chris eat the rest).  Chef Katie was nice enough to bake and un-mold the cheesecake that I had made before I left for Seattle so I was able to get it out of the freezer and bring it home.  I got rave reviews from K's family about the cheesecake.  Apparently it was better than Junior's bakery cheesecake, which means a lot if you're from Brooklyn!

Casey dropped me off at Chris' parents where we would be spending the weekend dog-sitting for Abby while his parents were away in Phoenix for the week.  I lent her my car for the rest of the weekend since hers had recently been totaled in that stupid car accident.  I felt like such crap that I basically moped around in sweatpants for the majority of the weekend whining about how much my throat and stomach hurt.

Andy and Becky came up for dinner and a movie Friday night.  We had some pizza and watched The Proposal, which was surprisingly amusing, and then went to bed.  They left early in the morning because Andy had to be back in D.C. for a robotics competition.  Saturday I was determined to try one of the recipes that I had missed while I was absent.  I didn't want to get too far behind so I decided to make eclairs which included three elements that I had missed that week; pate a choux, pastry cream, and ganache. 

Even though I had asked Brook and Chef Katie about the recipes, copied Brooke's notes and basically made her act the process out for me like charades, I still could not manage to get it right.  I attempted pastry cream 3 times before I decided to call it quits for the day.  I felt so terrible that I was not concentrating at all.  I called the emergency number for my doctor's office and left a message.  I really needed to know if there was anything I could take for my upset stomach because all of the drugs I had picked up at the pharmacy told me not to mix with antibiotics.  Thankfully, my doctor got back to me and wrote me a new prescription for a different antibiotic which he called into the local CVS.  At this point all I was thinking about was how long I could stay on my feet before I needed to lie down.  So instead of baking anymore we went downstairs and watched Crank.

Chris' parents got home and we went out to dinner at Red Lobster.  I had never been to a Red Lobster and honestly, now having been there once, I think I'm all set for the rest of my life.  Granted, I was ridiculously sick and weak and feverish, but the food really sucked, and the waitstaff was not that great.  On the way to dinner we realized that the local CVS that was located in Sketchville, MD had closed early.  So I had to wait another day to get new drugs.

Casey showed up at Chris' on Sunday morning after breakfast while I was completing my eclairs.  I had finally gotten the stupid pastry cream right (apparently I had it right all along but I kept thinking there was something wrong with it.  Go figure.) and was filling my eclairs.  Since K is an amazing sisterfriend, she went to the sketch CVS and picked up my drugs while I finished the eclairs (which were delicious).  I packed up my stuff and the three of us had lunch before Casey and I left for home.

More to come... Julibean <3

Strep Throat

So our last day in Seattle we went to the park and took a bunch of pictures with Dan's new badass camera.  We basically just ran around posing and jumping in midair and such.  It was a beautiful day, clear blue sky, great temperature.  These are the days that make me want to move to the west coast.  Well maybe some day, but certainly not now. 

Later we packed up our stuff into Dan's car and then met his friends at a hibachi restaurant.  I've been to plenty of hibachi places, and I pretty much always love them, but the performance tends to always be the same.  However, the guy at this place was the best hibachi chef I'd ever seen.  He did awesome unexpected tricks, and was so nice, personable, and funny.  I would definitely go back there again.  Pretty much everyone in the restaurant was laughing and having a great time, the atmosphere was amazing. 

This couple that we had dinner with is actually getting married shortly, and Dan, our very own internet minister will be marrying them.  Trust me, I had the, "Dan should marry Chris and I" argument with my mom plenty of times and I'm just not even going to bother going there again.  It was pretty pointless.  It's a Catholic wedding for us!

We had a pretty terrible flight back.  Elise felt awful at dinner, and whatever she got slowly spread to me throughout the flight so by the time we got back to JFK we were both miserable.  I called in sick to school because I could not even keep myself sitting upright I was in so much pain and discomfort.  Turns out we both had strep throat and Dan got bronchitis.  What a lovely trip to Seattle it was!

Elise and I had crazy high fevers and went to the doctor.  Elise's throat was so sore that her tonsils were literally swollen and bleeding and she had to be prescribed pain medication.  I was told to stay home an extra day from school until I was on antibiotics for 48 hours.  I ended up missing Creme Anglase, Pastry Cream, Pate a Choux, Meringue, Chocolate Mousse, Eclairs, Ganache, and Paris Breast so I had a lot of catching up to do when I got back to school.

Unfortunately, whatever antibiotic that the doctor put me on did more harm than good.  Apparently when I was a baby augmentin made me very sick, but my mom failed to mention this to me, so I didn't know to avoid it.  I was incredibly sick to my stomach, could barely eat anything, had to use the bathroom a lot, and was consequently very dehydrated, still had a sore throat, and was light headed and dizzy from not eating.

I stuck it out in class anyway, after telling Brooke that I felt terrible and asking her to do anything that involved walking over to the hot ovens or stove tops.  I was really pathetic.  We prepped flaky pie dough and apple filling for a pie we were going to make the next day.  I made it through the day and then really started to feel sick as we were leaving.  In true Julie style, I managed to throw up out the driver's side door of my mother's car on the shoulder of the Meadowbrook Parkway after quickly drifting across three lanes with my mouth clenched shut.  Not one of my finest moments.  Needless to say I think I went home and went to sleep.  I don't even remember.  All I know is that those antibiotics were really not working for me, and my throat still hurt like a mofo.