santa baby
everyone knows that i'm pretty much starbucks's bitch. i mean, i USED to have a starbucks barista coffee maker (it finally broke after 4 faithful years and hundreds of pots of yummy hot coffee), but i still buy my ground coffee beans from them along with numerous mugs (both ceramic and travel) and other coffee-making paraphernalia. not to mention all the coffee drinks i've bought there over the years. the one thing that i love during the christmas season at starbucks, aside from the peppermint mochas, are the christmas compilations. i know that all the songs are the same and once you've heard "winter wonderland" once, what's the excitement of having 5 different versions? well, i'm weird and i enjoy all the different variations of jingle bells (my favorite being diana krall) or winter wonderland (fave being aretha franklin). i've succeeded in persuading my mom to buy "by golly get jolly" a couple of years ago, i had to re-buy vince guaraldi's "it's christmas time, charlie brown" after my first copy was stolen my freshman year in college, and this year was no different. the christmas compilation this year is "santa baby". all the usual christmas songs are on there, but what really made me buy it was eartha kitt singing "santa baby". i had no idea she was a cabaret singer. all i knew her from was the batman tv series with adam west and then lending her voice to izma, from the emperor's new groove. her voice is perfect for this song. it's sultry and sweet and she adds the right personality to the lyrics... "santa baby, just slip a sable under the tree, for me. been an awful good girl, santa baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight." it's such a great song.
i was baking again last night. that makes it sound like it's some sort of ailment that i'm suffering, or something that i regret doing but can't help myself from doing all the time. well, it was neither. i just wanted to get my baking over and done with. i completed the two ball cookies, both rum and snow. the great thing about the rum balls is that no baking is required. you just need to let them mature for a couple of days. plus, the ingredients are incredibly easy: powdered sugar, rum, nilla wafers, walnuts, and corn syrup. you just mix everything together and form into balls. roll them in a little extra powdered sugar and you're done! i don't want to test them until the weekend, giving them a good 2 full days to marinate. believe me, when you come across the last one of the season, it's pretty damn potent! the snow balls had me worried. i told my mom i'd help her out by making these. she emphasized the importance of making sure the pecans were VERY finely chopped. i'm not sure if i added too much or just not chop them enough, but there were a LOT of nuts in that batter. it made rolling them into balls very difficult because they kept falling apart. i was worried as they baked, they would just fall apart in the oven and i'd be left with a butt-load of cookie crumbs. luckily enough, they baked just fine and we only lost one to breakage, which we dutifully ate this morning. they came out great: buttery and crumbly. there are a lot of nuts in them, but they add this really nice nutty sweetness to the balls (hehehe, my infantile humor cracks me up!). so, after all of that, i'm finally done with my baking. while the snowballs were in the oven, i went through my biscotti. i was sadly disappointed in how they turned out. granted, i haven't actually TRIED them yet, but they LOOK disappointing. 2 of the loaves didn't cook all the way through and when i baked them through the second time, they were a little on the soft and crumbly side, rather than being crisp and crunchy. they also didn't look attractive. since i'm bringing some of these with me to my cookie exchange on sunday, i want to bring cookies that not only look nice, but also taste good. so, i went through and put all the ugly and broken ones in a ziplock back and left the nice ones in the tupperware container. i still got tons of biscotti, so i'm not worried about the amount. maybe i'll share some of my more challenged cookies with my mom when i drop off her mixer. :)
christmas shopping is almost done. i've purposely left some gifts to the last minute, due to the lack of funds to buy them all at once. all the gifts cards i'm buying are being left for next thursday or friday to purchase. the last ACTUAL gift i have left to buy is my mom's gift. she's fallen in love with these country casserole dishes from crate and barrel. she put them on her list of must-haves for her birthday and they're still there for christmas. marshall and i are both buying her one and what's nice is that they're on the not-so-expensive side. the largest one is still less than $30. so, after tonight, i just need to get on my wrapping. monday night i stole away after work to cost plus world market for wrapping materials and basket supplies for marshall's mom's gift. ALL of their christmas stuff is 50% off right now, it's a lucky thing i have very little money or else i would've bought everything! instead, i contained myself and got 4 rolls of wrapping paper, some gift bags, and tissue paper. the only gift that has been wrapped is marshall's gift to me, which is sitting all by its lonesome under our tree. i'm really debating whether or not to wrap gifts tonight or play WoW. :P
speaking of which, i'm in a bit of a quandary. i've decided that when the expansion comes out, i'm going to be rolling a blood elf warlock (marshall's rolling a blood elf shadow-spec'd priest). i'm debating whether or not to work on introducing myself to the warlock play style now, or just wait until i roll my BE. i have a lvl 6 human warlock who's been sitting on a lone pvp server that i rarely visit. my first reaction was that being a warlock is damn expensive! not only do you train in your own spells, but you've also got to buy the spells for your pet. i'm so used to just buying my low-level spells at a few copper each, but the spells for the pets are multiple silver each. at lvl 6, i have like no money. it wasn't until marshall enlightened me recently, that i realized warlocks don't HAVE to use their pets. hmm..interesting. another reason i'm debating is because my main, goldie, is just starting on her artisan leatherworking quests in order to move onto tribal leatherworking. the first set of quests were easy, aside from one little thing - turtle scales. those things are a bitch to farm. sadly, i bought the ONLY stack of 20 on the AH and still had to farm for 20 more. i've used them all and now i need another 48 for the next armor sets for the quest. *sigh* i just wish turtles would just drop them more, but when not every turtle drops them and when they DO drop they're only 1 at a time...that's a fuck-ton of turtles. so, do i want to continue trying to get my leatherworking stuff or learn playing a warlock in preparation for the expansion? oh yeah, i also have a rogue that i like playing, too. too many choices!!!
OH! has anyone seen this yet? it's just fantastic! i think it's a must-see for "scrubs" lovers.
i was baking again last night. that makes it sound like it's some sort of ailment that i'm suffering, or something that i regret doing but can't help myself from doing all the time. well, it was neither. i just wanted to get my baking over and done with. i completed the two ball cookies, both rum and snow. the great thing about the rum balls is that no baking is required. you just need to let them mature for a couple of days. plus, the ingredients are incredibly easy: powdered sugar, rum, nilla wafers, walnuts, and corn syrup. you just mix everything together and form into balls. roll them in a little extra powdered sugar and you're done! i don't want to test them until the weekend, giving them a good 2 full days to marinate. believe me, when you come across the last one of the season, it's pretty damn potent! the snow balls had me worried. i told my mom i'd help her out by making these. she emphasized the importance of making sure the pecans were VERY finely chopped. i'm not sure if i added too much or just not chop them enough, but there were a LOT of nuts in that batter. it made rolling them into balls very difficult because they kept falling apart. i was worried as they baked, they would just fall apart in the oven and i'd be left with a butt-load of cookie crumbs. luckily enough, they baked just fine and we only lost one to breakage, which we dutifully ate this morning. they came out great: buttery and crumbly. there are a lot of nuts in them, but they add this really nice nutty sweetness to the balls (hehehe, my infantile humor cracks me up!). so, after all of that, i'm finally done with my baking. while the snowballs were in the oven, i went through my biscotti. i was sadly disappointed in how they turned out. granted, i haven't actually TRIED them yet, but they LOOK disappointing. 2 of the loaves didn't cook all the way through and when i baked them through the second time, they were a little on the soft and crumbly side, rather than being crisp and crunchy. they also didn't look attractive. since i'm bringing some of these with me to my cookie exchange on sunday, i want to bring cookies that not only look nice, but also taste good. so, i went through and put all the ugly and broken ones in a ziplock back and left the nice ones in the tupperware container. i still got tons of biscotti, so i'm not worried about the amount. maybe i'll share some of my more challenged cookies with my mom when i drop off her mixer. :)
christmas shopping is almost done. i've purposely left some gifts to the last minute, due to the lack of funds to buy them all at once. all the gifts cards i'm buying are being left for next thursday or friday to purchase. the last ACTUAL gift i have left to buy is my mom's gift. she's fallen in love with these country casserole dishes from crate and barrel. she put them on her list of must-haves for her birthday and they're still there for christmas. marshall and i are both buying her one and what's nice is that they're on the not-so-expensive side. the largest one is still less than $30. so, after tonight, i just need to get on my wrapping. monday night i stole away after work to cost plus world market for wrapping materials and basket supplies for marshall's mom's gift. ALL of their christmas stuff is 50% off right now, it's a lucky thing i have very little money or else i would've bought everything! instead, i contained myself and got 4 rolls of wrapping paper, some gift bags, and tissue paper. the only gift that has been wrapped is marshall's gift to me, which is sitting all by its lonesome under our tree. i'm really debating whether or not to wrap gifts tonight or play WoW. :P
speaking of which, i'm in a bit of a quandary. i've decided that when the expansion comes out, i'm going to be rolling a blood elf warlock (marshall's rolling a blood elf shadow-spec'd priest). i'm debating whether or not to work on introducing myself to the warlock play style now, or just wait until i roll my BE. i have a lvl 6 human warlock who's been sitting on a lone pvp server that i rarely visit. my first reaction was that being a warlock is damn expensive! not only do you train in your own spells, but you've also got to buy the spells for your pet. i'm so used to just buying my low-level spells at a few copper each, but the spells for the pets are multiple silver each. at lvl 6, i have like no money. it wasn't until marshall enlightened me recently, that i realized warlocks don't HAVE to use their pets. hmm..interesting. another reason i'm debating is because my main, goldie, is just starting on her artisan leatherworking quests in order to move onto tribal leatherworking. the first set of quests were easy, aside from one little thing - turtle scales. those things are a bitch to farm. sadly, i bought the ONLY stack of 20 on the AH and still had to farm for 20 more. i've used them all and now i need another 48 for the next armor sets for the quest. *sigh* i just wish turtles would just drop them more, but when not every turtle drops them and when they DO drop they're only 1 at a time...that's a fuck-ton of turtles. so, do i want to continue trying to get my leatherworking stuff or learn playing a warlock in preparation for the expansion? oh yeah, i also have a rogue that i like playing, too. too many choices!!!
OH! has anyone seen this yet? it's just fantastic! i think it's a must-see for "scrubs" lovers.