Christmas Baking (and the past month and a half)
I don't think I've posted since I got back to Marquette. Things are going relatively well, although I still haven't found a new job. I'm still working on my "normal" grad school applications, but I have applied and been accepted at NMU (the local university) to take classes as a "non-degree seeking graduate student". My parents have decreed that if I can't find a job, I at least have to be taking some classes. I have been looking for a job but there just aren't any around. I've submitted 25 applications (the majority of which were for food service and retail) and I haven't even gotten a call back yet, let alone an interview. But even without a job I've been keeping pretty busy. I've been doing some babysitting and I've been doing some substituting for one of the music groups at church (last sunday was stressful because I was called late Saturday night to sub Sunday morning on a piece I'd never played before). I have also been doing a fair amount of baking and today I started on the Christmas baking, which was a complete fiasco. I made our traditional steamed pudding (I sold two of them at a church auction for x-mas delivery earlier this fall). It is supposed to be steamed in a coffee can in a pot of boiling water. My mom decided that since I was doing two I should steam them at the same time. Which is a good idea until you realize that two large coffee cans won't fit in the pot. So she brings me two small coffee cans and insists that the pudding will fit. So being a good child (and really just not wanting to waste any time arguing) I put the pudding in the small coffee cans. BIG MISTAKE! After about 45 minutes there was a popping sound and then some splashes. The puddings had risen past the rim of the coffee cans and had fallen over into the boiling water. It was not a pretty sight and it was less pretty cleaning up.