Under the Mistletoe

Like just about everyone, I love when the calendar clicks over to December 1 and it is officially time to start listening to Christmas music.  There are so many wonderful songs that have come to make up that genre over the years and so many takes on each that it is impossible to zero in on a total favorite.  This year I thought I'd share an album that my sister recommended to me and which I have been happily bopping my head to through this holiday season: The Good Lovelies' Christmas album Under the Mistletoe.

I love the mix of songs on this album as well as their fun, swingy take on the Christmas classics, including a few less common ones like Mele Kalikimaka, which is one that I often forget about but always love when I hear it.  There are also a couple of original songs that fit the album quite nicely.  I definitely encourage you to give it a spin on Spotify! I know it will not disappoint.

In other Christmas news, I am sad to report that our little rosemary Christmas tree did not survive our trip to California.  We returned to find a sad shrively little brown plant in its place, which broke my heart a little. However, as the saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention and I quickly devised a replacement that I know can survive minimal watering and thus the Christmas Jade plant was born:

Not bad right?  I still want a real, full-sized tree next year but I am very happy with our little non-traditional one at the moment.  I hope your trees have fared better and that you enjoy some great holiday tunes down the stretch here...6 days until Christmas!

Notes from Northern California

My has it been a busy month, and not just for the typical December reasons!  Can you believe that Christmas is only a week away? I have many updates to share but I'll start with our quick trip out to California at the end of last week.  It was short but totally wonderful.

Leo was very helpful packing me up

My interview at Berkeley was on Friday morning so we flew out early Thursday to get ourselves situated and on schedule. We got in early in the afternoon, picked up our rental car, made the mandatory stop at In-N-Out Burger and then headed to Greg's aunt and uncle's house.  We spent the late afternoon and evening catching up with the family, which was the perfect way to unwind before my big morning.

Mmmmm

The day of my interview we got up very early, which is luckily really easy coming from East to West, got all polished up and headed into the city.  Greg's company has an office in downtown San Francisco, so I dropped him off there for the day before heading over the Bay Bridge to Berkeley.  I arrived more than 2 hours before my interview and found a killer parking space a block away from the Haas School, which kind of felt like destiny in that moment.  After triumphantly parallel parking, I popped down to a little coffee shop right by campus that Greg's dad, who got his master's at Berkeley, had recommended to finish up my interview prep.  It was a gray, drizzly day but sitting on Caffe Strada's heated, covered patio alternating between people watching and preparations was exactly what I needed to calm my nerves before heading to my interview.

California golden bears outside the Haas School of Business

As far as the interview itself, I think it actually went really well.  I connected with my interviewer right away, so any remaining nerves quickly subsided.  Her questions also allowed me to talk about exactly what I wanted to talk about, which is a somewhat rare thing in an interview from my experience.  It is always hard to know exactly where you stand, but I left feeling good and more excited than ever about the idea of going to school there.  Based on a few of my interviewer's recommendations, I spent the next few hours bopping around Berkeley.  I walked through the beautiful center of campus and then headed down Telegraph Ave, which is filled with shops and restaurants and was having a Christmas street fair the day I was there.  That is where I discovered the little beauty pictured below. I kept seeing people walk by with ice cream sandwiches and knew I must have one.  A couple blocks later I found the source: C.R.E.A.M. You get to pick your own cookies (which come out of a warm oven) and flavor of ice cream and it is total bliss.  I went with snickerdoodles and salted caramel ice cream and I'm kind of still thinking about it...

Helloooo there!

A few hours of shopping later, I drove back across the bridge to grab Greg from work and head to dinner.  One of his coworkers recommended Salt House and we were lucky to score two seats at the cozy little bar. The drinks and food were creative and delicious and the atmosphere was bustling and festive - in other words, the perfect place for a low-key Friday date.  It was so fun to share updates from both our days in a brand new city and imagine what it might be like if that dream became a reality.  February 1st can't come soon enough!

Isn't it a lovely little glowing space?

The rest of the weekend was very low key compared with Friday's adventures and consisted primarily of relaxed drinks and quality time with Greg's extended family.  We returned very late on Sunday night to an enthusiastic greeting from Mr. Leonidas and got ready to start the last full business week of 2012.

One final bit of news to close out this post - I got accepted to the University of Maryland's Smith School of Business yesterday so one way or another, this girl is getting an MBA! Fingers are still crossed on Berkeley and UT Austin, but I breathed an enormous sigh of relief when I opened that email yesterday morning.   I hope all your weeks are off to great start as well!

Christmas Tea and Cookies

Just a quick little post about two things we have been enjoying around our apartment this season. One of them is the tea pictured below: Tazo Sweet Cinnamon Spice.  We are big tea drinkers, at least a cup a piece a night and sometimes more, and this tea is perfect for this time of year.  Warmly spicy and slightly sweet, it is a great cup to wind down with at the end of the day.

Cinnamon and star anise - perfectly festive, right?

One other little tidbit I felt I must share is this box of holiday edition Trader Joe's Joe-Joe sandwich cookies, or as they are duly called: The Astounding Multi-Flavor Joe-Joe's.  Indeed they are astounding and dangerously delicious.  The flavors, clockwise from the left are chocolate peppermint, white chocolate ginger, chocolate peanut butter, and double chocolate.  I don't think  I can buy another box because I cannot be trusted around them as I'm a bit of a cookie monster, but if you have access to a Trader Joe's you definitely should - they are not to be missed.

Seriously amazing

Anyone else have seasonal discoveries to share?   I cannot believe it is already December 11th...I feel like the season is just flying by!

Weekend of Parties

The weekend totally delivered and was so packed that I barely took any pictures.  Greg's work party on Friday was blast, and also a bit of a blur. It was really fun to meet the people he's been working with over the last few months and I'm just so happy to see what an amazing company he works for.

On Saturday we went out to his parents' for the Army Navy game, which was wonderful even though Army lost in heart breaking fashion.  This party has become one of my new favorite holiday traditions over the last few years. There are always such interesting people to talk to, not to mention an amazing spread of food and drinks, which of course never hurts.

The best part of Saturday was giving Greg's dad an early Christmas present - an amazingly beautiful needlepoint belt with West Point symbols, his initials and his company number, which was designed and hand-crafted by my incredibly talented sister.  You unfortunately can't appreciate the details here but as you can see, he really liked it:

As I've gotten older, I really do enjoy giving gifts as much or more than receiving them.  There is nothing like giving someone the perfect thing and seeing their joy as they open it.  Definitely keeping that in mind as I sprint to the finish with the rest of my Christmas shopping this week!

Happy Monday everyone!

Festive Friday

Hello and Happy Friday!  I apologize for the major gap in posting this week...it has been a roller coaster (mostly in a good way).  I turned in my third application on Monday night and exhaled a huge sigh of relief.  The next potential application isn't due until January 15th and if I get some good news at the end of this month I may not even need to submit that one...fingers crossed!  The applications were definitely painful but I will admit that producing them was a valuable exercise to go through.  Writing them made me think seriously about what my goals are and how I arrived at them and I am now even more excited about the prospect of graduate school.  Nonprofit management is the plan at this point and it is still kind of crazy to me that it can become a reality through the applications now in process.

Celebratory glass of wine framed by twinkle lights on our balcony

All that positive self-discovery aside, I am more than happy to return to a normal life rhythm and to finally be able to enjoy the holiday season.  Despite a crazy work schedule with a major proposal sent out for delivery this morning, I managed to sneak in two happy hours, a long lunch with Katie and some Christmas decorating.  I'll share a bit more of that next week but for now I'm happy to have this picture of our twinkly little rosemary tree.  I really wanted to do a big tree this year, but with our trip to California and travel during the holidays I had to admit it wasn't practical.  That said, this little one is impossibly fragrant and will tide me over until I reach my parents' enormous tree at home.

Our baby tree

This weekend is full of fun, festive plans and is one I have been looking forward to for over a month.  Tonight is Greg's company Christmas party, so we are getting all spiffed up and heading out on the town.  I'm really looking forward to meeting his new coworkers and I also always enjoy the sight of my dashing man in a suit!  Tomorrow we are headed out to Greg's parents' house for their annual Army-Navy party to watch the big game.  His dad is a West Point grad and his parents have a lot of great friends from both the Army and the Navy, so it is always a really wonderful time.

I hope your weekends are similarly full of fun, seasonal happenings. Back with more on Monday!

Peppermint Patty Surprise Cookies

Before I get into a summary of the weekend and the last several days of application mayhem (the last in this wave is due at midnight tonight - woohoo!) I need to tell you about some cookies I baked this weekend for my brother's holiday housing warming party. Priorities, right?

Perfectly Christmasy - right?

I spotted this recipe nearly year ago when it was mentioned in passing during a Christmas post over on Young House Love, and it had been in my head ever since.  There was probably no need to wait so long to bake these cookies, but with all the chocolate and mint and crushed up candy canes action going on there was something so over the top holiday about them that seemed best saved for the month of December.

And oh yes, they are as wonderful as you would think they'd be and they went very, very fast at the party.  I will admit to being a bit of a cookie stalker and watching out of the corner of my eye as unsuspecting party guests bit into the cookie and found the peppermint patty tucked inside.  It never failed to garner a second look and positive reaction.

The money shot

As always, a few quick notes:

• In my sleep deprived, post-second application haze, I did not read all the way through the recipe before getting started and missed the fact that you have to refrigerate the dough for about an hour before assembling the final product.  Not a huge issue at all, except that I didn't start this little project until nearly 10:00 pm on Friday, so I thought I would point it out to spare you the same issue!
• The recipe says it produces 24 cookies but I was able to get 30 cookies out of it.  I think it depends on how you wrap the peppermint patties and while I certainly wouldn't skimp on the dough-to-patty ratio, I think you may be happy to find yourself with some extra goodness.
• The white chocolate drizzling process was less delicate than I expected it to be and was more of a gloop and smear situation.  Also, in case you find yourself thinking, "oh, I'll just add some water to that melted chocolate to thin it out," do not do it. The result is a grainy mixture that is truly disgusting.  I was lucky to have a little extra white chocolate on hand to save the day after that little mishap so all's well that ends well.

These cookies take a little bit of time to assemble but they really are easy and I know you will find them to be worth the wait.  So excited for that Christmas Cookie season is here. . .Happy December!