yummy sights, tastes, and smells

Sorry for the lack of posting frequency... things have been busy. Normal work with an overload of events, especially ones that require one or more people from my office to travel, plus normal rest of life with a toddler that is more and more determined everyday!

In addition, my coworker is leaving to return to Japan (after over a dozen years here in the states) at the end of February. I'm going to miss her a lot, not just as a coworker, but also as someone I've grown close with over my almost 8 years here. Not to mention getting to watch her son grow from a newborn to the fun, intelligent 7 year old he is now. There is a lot to do before she leaves. I spent most of this morning writing up my first ever job ad (with input from my coworker, but no edits from my boss!), which will be posted on our website and a few other places by next week... then comes the resume reviews, the interviews, etc.; and hopefully we will have someone new starting early/mid-January, so that we can get all the needed training in.

Shaping up to be a crazy few months. 

In more festive news, its beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

I tried to get one of the outside decorations too...

but 1) I forgot to turn on the Christmas lights first... duh. And 2) it was way foggy out!

Like, way foggy:

Pretty though.

Anyway, pretend the above picture looked more like this one:

Now I just have to take one of the tree... which looks extra festive with the stacks of presents waiting underneath. 


I worked from home on Wednesday this week and made one of my favorites: Cinnamon Bacon Carbonara. Mmmm...

I'd been craving it.

Here's the one problem with this recipe... 6 left over egg whites! I'm not big on egg white omelets, so I did some searching and decided on:

Pecan Meringue Cookies.

Pardon the crappy picture... I forgot to grab a shot before I packaged most of them up for Trav and my officemates.

I found the recipe HERE.

They are easy and very yummy.  I'll definitely be making them again... quite possible next week for our work Christmas party, saving a few to take to my parents and Ro's. 


So the presents are wrapped, the decorations up, the cards out... and Gwen & I had an impromptu dance party to Christmas music the other night. Ahhh, the holidays are upon us!

And on that note, back to work.