Things I (and sometimes we) Have Made

I have been home for the past couple of weeks. We have been creating all kinds of crazy things. This post is a show and tell of sorts.

Kindle!

Derek bought me a Kindle as an early birthday present. Well friends, I know my birthday is not until July. I am going to be traveling constantly for the next month and change (I mean it, 5 weeks and 4 states) and he feels bad for me. This way I will need to carry one slender electronic device and the stacks of books can stay at home where they are more comfortable. It also means I will not have to purchase books from Walmart (or "the great satan") when I run out on the road. Small towns of America do not have real bookstores and the Walmart book section sucks.

So I promptly made my self a Kindle case from scrap fabric I had laying around. I know, I know, I am a cross between Martha Stewart and MacGyver. The prettiness and cheapness make me incredibly happy.

Sausage

The teasers do not lie, we bought ourselves a meat grinder and sausage stuffer. Then we made green chile sausage. We got our pig from our favorite local farm, then we ground it up, and stuffed it. Unfortunately, I only have a few pictures. True to stereotype sausage making is messy and not really conducive to camera holding. It is also a surprisingly phallic process. I am not sure what I imagined ground pork being shoved into casing to look like, but the reality was even funnier that what you could imagine.

It also took us about four hours to complete our task. Not something I would recommend starting at 6:00 pm on a Tuesday night. Expecting to have sausage for dinner was a poor poor idea (I would like to thank Carrburritos for preventing sausage mutiny or extreme hunger).

Cake

It was my wonderful friend Cheryl's birthday and I made her a cake. The cake was relatively unremarkable except I decorated it. Now when you look at the pictures remember, I have never done anything like this with frosting and I am incredibly proud of my work, then you can laugh. It looks pretty funny, but I am damn proud. Uhhh, I am also sorry the colors are so awful here. It was dark that night and we have yellow walls, which makes everything white look yellow night...

Damn proud.

Derek went ABD

Derek went ABD two weeks ago. We have been celebrating ever since. Now, for those unfamiliar with graduate student lexicon that stands for "all but dissertation". This is an important rite of passage in a doctoral students life. It means he has passed his comprehensive exams, defended his dissertation prospectus, and finished his coursework (technically he has a few papers to write, but who fails that?). Life is good.