One month and counting

I have been unemployed for over a month now. I am really getting anxious about finding a new job. I have made several charity blankets and am almost at the end of my rope...no pun intended. I took a trash bag full of blankets to a local charity last week. I am working on another one right now. This one is a round blanket. I have seen several patterns for round blankets and wondered why one would want a round one. It just seems that it wouldn't cover the body well. Anyway, I wanted to give it a try, nothing wrong with learning a new pattern. I had an interview today for a job at the University. I had another interview last week for a different job at the University. Lord knows I have applied for almost every job they have open. Surely something will pan out...right???!!!???

On a positive note, Christmas shopping is almost finished. We managed in record time this year. We started actually purchasing gifts last week and have 2 more small gifts to buy. We also managed to buy while sticking to a budget. We should do it this way every year!! I didn't get to do my usual "home/handmade gifts" this year. I didn't really have the time/money/desire to think about that kind of gift anyway. Maybe next year. I thought about compiling recpies for a cookbook as the homemade gift. When I started looking at publishing, I realized that I should have started a few months ago. I think I am going to do that for next years X-mas. I sent out a mass email entitled "call for recipes" to all my friends and family and have the highest of hopes that they will reply with their family favorite recipes to add. I am pondering the title for the cookbook now. It wouldn't be anything super fancy, just a collection of recipes from people I love. :)

Exploding Pyrex

Since I have been sick, the types of food I am able to eat numbers about 12. I cannot eat anything with a real texture. It bothers my throat and sends me into one of my coughing fits. I have been on a soup/pudding/jello diet since Tuesday. I bought a few acorn squash the other day and decided that would be something that I would be able to tolerate. I decided to prepare them like my mother always did. Baked in the oven, halved with a spoonful brown sugar and a pat of butter in the cored out center. I lovingly prepared the little squash and even made them a little nest of aluminum foil to prevent them from rolling around in the baking dish. They had been in the oven about 20 minutes and I went to check their progress. The oven door was open and I pulled out the rack just a bit so I could see them better. At that point, SH decided to step outside and opened the back door. Our back door is about 10 feet directly behind our oven. I don't remember what the exact temperature was outside, but it was COLD. A few seconds after he opened the door, the pyrex dish shattered. Glass went everywhere. I think I screamed since I was standing about a foot away from the oven. I was standing there dumbfounded. I thought Pyrex was some kind of superhuman material. Then I realized that this was the second piece of Pyrex broken in our house in less than 2 months. The first was a measuring cup that I broke while putting away dishes. Standing there with scalding hot glass fragments melting into the floor, I was at a complete loss. Where on earth do we start this daunting clean-up? SH decided to first be sure the glass didn't stick to the floor and did a preliminary sweep. We waited for the glass and the oven to cool before we started the main clean up. This of course happened at dinnertime and neither of us could use the oven for food prep. SH took out the oven drawer and took it outside to clean up this am. I just now finished cleaning up the interior of the oven. I am still a bit scared to use it for fear of microscopic glass particles getting into my foods. I decided to check the internet to see if this is a regular occurrence. Apparently it is and it mainly happens with the size dish I was using!!! 13x9!! Those of you with older Pyrex dishes, be careful!! I found out that over time, the Pyrex develops tiny cracks and if it experiences an extreme temperature change, it could shatter.