Yosemite HD from Project Yosemite on Vimeo.

For those of you spending your day in a cubicle hunched over your keyboard staring at a computer screen (me), this timelapse video of Yosemite is worth the 4 minutes.  The stars. The fog. Half Dome. Awesome.

For a little piece on how they did this, go here.

It is January 17.  2 days ago there was snow and ice covering the ground.  Today there is a tornado warning.  And it’s 54 degrees.

Below is a video I took from our lunch table, where we were sitting when the storm rolled in (which sucked, because we had to walk back to the office.)  The owner came around and told all of us that if things got worse, we going to have to move to the corridor in the middle of the building.

It doesn’t look that bad on the video through the window, but the winds were up at 50 mph and those chairs sitting on the sidewalk in the bottom right hand corner would have been flying if they weren’t chained down (I actually am posting this more so I can see if it works, this is the first home video I’ve embedded in a post WHAT UP).

In Louisville an EF1 touched down and destroyed some property.  And because I’m from southern California and am terrified of any weather more severe than heavy rain, of course I immediately started reading up on the Fujita scale, CAPE values, the biggest tornados and tornado outbreaks (including the Super Outbreak last spring), tornado myths, and watching tornado videos on You Tube.  This usually doesn’t start until March.

But by mid afternoon:

La la.  NBD.  Just another mid-January day.

There is no such things as bad weather.  Just soft people.

~Bill Bowerman 

To start off, I need to mention our Xmas present this year from my parents:

I know.  It’s ridiculous and beautiful.

The day it arrived Paul decided he wanted to use it to make cinnamon buns RIGHT AWAY.  He found a recipe out of the Kitchen Aide instructional book and got to work.

This first attempt wasn’t documented, but that’s probably not a bad thing.  We used the recipe for sweet dough in the KA book for the dough, which turned out fine, but the final product was…not fine. The rolls unraveled, all the cinnamon and sugar in the middle fell out…wasn’t pretty.

Attempt #2.   This time Paul chose the cinnamon bun recipe from All Recipes.  Instructions on the recipe for how to make the dough was “throw the ingredients into a bread maker”, which we don’t have.  So Paul kind of winged it, using a modified version of instructions on how to make bread from the Book while sticking with the ingredients on the internet (yes, this attempt was doomed from the start.)  Anyway, the dough didn’t rise as much as usual, but the buns still looked promising enough going into the oven.

Before:

After:

Little, hard, and turd-like.  They shrank in the oven.  What a sad excuse for a cinnamon roll.

Paul took this all very personally, and by the third attempt was on the warpath.  (Keep in mind that it takes a few hours each time you make the dough, because you have to let it sit and rise and yadda yadda a few times in addition to all the prep and baking.)  So I thought I’d do him a favor and brought in the pinch hitter: Pioneer Woman.  Because everyone knows Pioneer Woman doesn’t mess around.

Attempt #3.  We cut this recipe in half, since PW’s recipe made 7 pans of rolls, which we didn’t need.

Made the dough (this time with baking soda…interesting.)   Set it aside to rise (which it did).  Rolled it out (this time using the tequila bottle instead of wine…better shape…we need to invest in a rolling pin) and could tell right away that the dough was a completely different consistency.  Good sign.  Covered it in (lots of) melted butter, sugar, and cinnamon, and rolled it up:

Buttery sugargoo gooed out everywhere.  Then sliced them up an put them on a sheet:

Let em rise one more time for about 30 minutes, then threw them in the oven.  15 minutes later:

BOOM.  Whatever step we missed in attempt #2 was overcome this round.  These things are HUGE.  Since we didn’t have any maple syrup for PW’s recipe, we whipped up one of the first “cinnamon bun icing” recipes we found online.

The icing turned out a little fluffier than expected (it’s more of a cream cheese frosting recipe, less of a glaze.)   But oh my god.  The final product is DE-LI-CIOUS.  Super doughy (we probably could have stood to leave the buns in the oven a little bit longer, I have a feeling the bigger buns might be a little uncooked in the middle) but with all that butter and sugar who cares.  Doughy deliciousness.

…which means I have to get them out of the house STAT.  Time to start pushing baked goods on my coworkers.

LESSONS:  nailing the dough is the key to good buns;  throwing some melted butter in the middle along with the sugar and cinnamon (which many recipes don’t call for) helps hold the rolls together (even without the frosting); be liberal in your use of cinnamon and sugar (and butter); I love Pioneer Woman.

Now, on to meringue.

This front yard Santa pretty much captures the spirit of the past week.  I’m in hermit mode.  Be back in full force soon.

When we were in SF, one of the stipulations for moving to Kentucky was that we would get a pig.  I don’t know why.  But we talked about our pig a lot and even gave it a name (Bikini). Unfortunately, things didn’t pan out, and because we are renting and have no plans to move, Bikini is now, for all intents and purposes, out of the picture.

Last spring Paul got really amped about an alternative:

And though it took a while to come to fruition, over the holiday break Paul decided to use his brother’s master architecture skills and build a coop.  He’s convinced we can train the dog not to chase or eat the chickens.

So here it is: the Chicken Coop.

We used Spike’s old dog house (which he went inside exactly once) as a separated area inside for them to have their nests for laying.   Complete with easy-access hatch to remove the eggs.

To be completely honest, Paul’s outfit aside, I was really impressed.  It’s like a chicken mansion.  I’m not sure the chickens will understand what they’re supposed to do where, but Paul did the research and is pretty confident.  So I guess we’ll find out.

Next up: the chickens.  Probably in the spring.

And now, for the second and final installment of the streak report.  Not a lot of running and minimal biking (because I was in California and did not have a bike with me.)  At least I got to do a lot of this in the sun.

Continued from Part I…

Day 13: 1hr 15 min of TRX with sprints in between each circuit

Day 14: 5.3 mile run alone with my music, shins and knee reeeeally got to me

Day 15: 26 mile bike ride (1 hr 30 min).  Also the day I decided to take the next week+ off until my leg stopped hurting.

Day 16 : First day in CA.  3200 swim OUTSIIIIDE!

Day 17 (Christmas): everything was closed.  Did a 5ish mile walk with Paul and Dad in the hot hot sun (I broke a sweat, counting it).

Day 18: 4.something mile hike in the mountains of SB with some old friends (we walked uphill, also counting it)

Day 19: 4000 swim (1hr 15 min, main set: broken mile)

Day 20: 3500 swim (1hr 15 min, long course masters practice in SB)

Day 21: 2500 swim (1 hr, long and easy, hypoxic pull)

Day 22: 3000 swim (1hr 15 min, threw some fast 100s in there)

Day 23: Nothing.  Spent the day recovering from a migraine on the flight home.  Then baked bread.

Day 24 (but actually day 25 bc I started on day 0): (NEW YEARS DAY!) 1hr 30 min ride on the trainer.  Felt like death.

The end.  How anticlimactic.  It wasn’t a complete fail, I only did nothing on 2 of the 25 days, but also not a complete success.  I’m still not running, going to try to start again this weekend.  Fingers crossed….

As much as I enjoyed the trip to California, it is always nice to come home. Unfortunately, that also meant 18 degree weather and short, dark days.

Yup, that’s pretty much all anybody wants to do.

Paul spent the break snowboarding up in the Canadian wilderness with his friend Ollie (like really, in the middle of nowhere) where he and his brother hunt their own meat and build their own shelter and stuff like that.  He brought this book back with him:

Big eye roll.  We live in a neighborhood, not in the wilderness or on a farm in the country (despite what our Christmas card suggests…that picture was taken in our backyard.)   We don’t own a large plot of farming land or cattle.  We are not survivalists.  This book does not apply to us.

But after a day of being home of doing absolutely nothing productive, I decided to crawl out from under my comforter on the couch and see what was in the book anyway.

Last week I helped (watched) Chrissy make some bomb bread in her apartment in SF.  Inspired, I found a bread recipe (there are many) in the book and decided to give it a try.

Boom.  Different recipe than Chrissy’s, totally different type of bread, but still good.  Plus baking it warms the house up and makes it smell yeastily delicious, which is especially wonderful on dark wintery days.

And that book?  I was wrong.  It’s awesome.  It has everything–cooking, gardening, raising animals, making clothes, making preserves (Paul is stoked about that), how to skin a rabbit, home repairs, herbal remedies, diarrhea relief for your dog (seriously)…watch out.

The past week, in a nutshell:

xmas in santa barbara (and an xmas dinner in seal beach)

hiking in the mountains

old friends

at old hangouts

a little swimming in the sun

in totally amazing weather

then i headed thata way

to sf

where i spent a lot of time walking

over hills, through familiar neighborhoods

avoiding death monsters

hanging out with super awesome peeps, making great food

and eating (and drinking) it

enjoyed some local music

and local art

culminating in a bridal shower for alix

where my more artistic counterparts took over the job of making the rehearsal bouquet (because I was ruining it) while i went and drank champagne and ate about 30 shrimp before hopping on a red-eye back to kentucky

so long, california. until next time.

happy 2012