Average Jane

Author: Average Jane

  • Average Jane Finds Some Holiday Spirit

    Christmas Elf When I was growing up, I was the kid who loved Christmas. I made ornaments for the tree, insisted that we decorate with every last swag of plastic holly, and practically turned myself inside out with excitement waiting for my parents to get up on Christmas morning so we could go downstairs and see what Santa had brought.

    Even when I got older, I still loved the decorating and cookie baking. In my first horrible little apartment, I had a real tree in the living room and started my ornament collection from a store called Santa's Surplus.

    In 1998, my mother died not long before Christmas. She'd been on a steady decline from lung cancer and we knew it was coming to the extent that we hadn't even bought her any gifts. Ever since then, all the excitement I used to feel about the holidays pretty much vanished.

    Once my niece was born, and later my nephew, I regained a flicker of the old holiday spirit through their eyes, but it still wasn't the same. Some years I didn't even put up a tree or decorations at my house, and I let the annual cookie party become sporadic.

    IMGP1743 This year is different. All year long I've actually been looking forward to the holidays. I've been buying gifts and squirreling them away almost since last Christmas. I scheduled my cookie party well ahead of time and I'm expecting more than a dozen attendees. I even invited my niece and nephew to spend the night last weekend so we could decorate the tree and choose the best wreaths and garlands to put up in the living room.

    I'm looking forward to Christmas Eve with my dad and stepmother. She's cooking a Christmas goose! I've never had goose before.

    Christmas Day now has its own set of traditions at my sister's house and we'll no doubt cook an enormous meal for the extended family and any friends who would like to join us. I can hardly wait to see everyone unwrap the gifts I've been putting aside for them.

    I'm not quite sure what makes this year different. Is it the healing power of time? Is it because I'm happy in general? I'm not inclined to question too closely. I just hope it means my decade of grinchiness is finally over for good.

  • Who Reads Average Jane?

    For work, I use Quantcast and Compete.com to get ballpark estimates of the traffic that various blogs receive. Every now and then I check my own blog URL and this is what Quantcast had to say about you this time:

    This destination reaches over 1,517 monthly people, of which 1,290 (85%) are in the U.S. The destination is popular among a primarily male, middle aged following.

    I guess attending BlogHer every year hasn't affected my traffic much, huh? Although I do tend to hang out with Karl quite a bit at BlogHer. Hmmm. 

    In other news, I did get poison oak on my arm. It can take up to a week to appear…and it did. Now I have an itchy, blistery spot on the right forearm that I'll probably be enjoying well into the beginning of the year. Lucky me!

    I have the day off tomorrow and I'm planning all kinds of fun things. I have Kansas City Social Media Club breakfast in the morning, then lunch with my aunt and her cousin.

    Later in the afternoon, I'm going for a session with an image consultant whom I met at a recent tweetup. She's going to teach me to do more dramatic makeup when I'm performing with my band. (I think her intention is to get me to stop being such a little brown wren all the time, but my tomboy instincts run pretty deep.)

    Then in the evening, my niece and nephew are coming over to help me put up the Christmas tree and decorate the house. They'll be spending the night, so I imagine there may be some cookie baking involved as well. 

    So do you fit the demographic that Quantcast claims I attract? Do you have anything fun planned this weekend? I must know!

  • Another Successful Average Jane NaBloPoMo

    I did it! I proved to myself once again that no matter how much of a blog slacker I am, I can still post daily if I want to.

    I'm sure that you're all as heartily sick of my filler posts as I am (caturday, anyone?), but seeing all the new comments and interactions has spurred me to want to be more consistent with my posting again. For years I faithfully posted every weekday and it would be nice to return to some semblance of that.

    I have some ideas for most posts this week, so look for a reasonable number of blog entries in the coming days. As for today, well, I stayed up late yesterday and I really need to get some breakfast and get to work.

    Hope you had a relaxing weekend. Have a great week!

  • Average Jane’s Ridiculously Productive Day

    I am generally the world's biggest procrastinator, but something came over me yesterday that drove me to just work and work and work some more.

    The day started much like every Saturday, with me sitting at my desk in my pajamas, surfing. Then I realized that I had a vet appointment for Velvet in about 15 minutes, so I hastened downstairs, packed the cat in the carrier, put on some random clothes and made it to my appointment just in time.

    When I got home, I looked out at the beautiful morning and decided I would get outside and do a little pre-winter yard work. By the time I finally finished (with a break in the middle to go get a grilled knackwurst at my local sausage store), here's what I'd accomplished:

    • Cut down several years' worth of unsightly volunteer trees surrounding the walnut tree in my back yard. This is a task that can only be done in the fall or winter because of the massive poison oak vines that climb up the side of the tree. I used my loppers to sever the vines near their base and then I sprayed the hell out of them with Roundup. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed that I didn't touch anything poisonous.
    • Put away the lawn furniture, hammock and stand, both barbecue grills and every other random thing that was being stored outdoors for no particular reason.
    • Used the hedge trimmer to shape the yew and boxwood bushes in the front of the house.
    • Cleaned up all the trimmings and other flower bed detritus.
    • Cut down other random volunteer trees and this year's dead yucca stalks.
    • Dragged all of the brush, clippings and branches to the woods in multiple wheelbarrow loads.
    • Cleaned the outsides of all my storm windows. The fact that it turned out that most of the dirt was inside did not spur me to break out the screwdriver and take the windows down for cleaning.
    • Spackled and painted over all the holes from my failed attempts to install a toilet paper holder in our half bath. Today I'll put up the new one.
    • Pried up the grates in the driveway and shoveled out the drain with a trowel. Took all the leaves and dirt to the back yard to continue my years-long project of trying to fill a sunken spot next to the patio.
    • Used the garden hose to clean all the spiderwebs, wasp nests and other ickiness that had collected around both the front and back door.
    • Topped off the flower pot that my husband's studio clients use as an ashtray with a clean layer of sand.
    • Replaced all of the burned-out light bulbs in the garage, studio and front porch (six of them in total).
    • Did what I could to sweep out the garage. It needs to be thoroughly cleaned and hosed out, but that'll have to wait for another time.

    It was a sweaty, exhausting day and I found a leaf in my bra when I went to change my shirt, but I am so happy to have all of the work out of the way. I always hate myself when I don't do this stuff and then look out and see snow all over the hammock.

    Today my day is looking more structured. I have my shift taking care of the adoptable kitties at a local Petco store, than tacos with Mexikansan, then band practice.

    How are you finishing up your weekend?

  • Average Jane’s Caturday Feature: Trillian

    IMGP1724 We've come to the last caturday of NaBloPoMo and the final cat in our household, Trillian. We've had her for just over a year and it's hard to imagine now what our lives were like without her.

    If you're wondering why she's missing the tip of one ear, it's because she was originally a feral kitten, but a rescue group decided to adopt her out rather than returning her to the streets after she was spayed. Feral cats are routinely "ear-tipped" to indicate that they've already been spayed or neutered.

    Trillian lives in my husband's recording studio/my office because Xena was so jealous of her that we feared for her safety. She's much bigger now, but Xena is still a behemoth in comparison and it seems best to let her stay where she's comfortable and happy.

    IMGP0928 She really does love the studio. Every mixing console has a cover over it because she is way too interested in playing with the faders, particularly when they move automatically. She's not afraid of loud noises; in fact, she'll often lie on the control desk during a recording session or band practice. If she gets too intrusive, my husband will shut her in my office (where her food, water and cat box are) until he's finished working.

    The office and studio are filled with exciting cat experiences. If I'm ever wondering where Trillian is, all I have to do is insert or eject a CD into a computer or print something and she'll come running to watch.

    Trillian is not quite two years old, so she's still very playful. Her favorite toy is a black shoelace or drawstring that she found somewhere in the studio. We call it her string and she loves to bat at it or chase it and bring it back. Toy mousies are also a popular choice, but she seems to lose them often.

    She has the odd, raccoon-like habit of placing her toys in her water bowl. We've never figured out why she does this, but lately I've been rescuing her drowned string several times a week.

    IMGP1095 One of the nice things about Trillian is that she's pretty much up for anything. We took her on a road trip to Nashville last spring and I could see us traveling with her again. 

    Our only concern about having Trillian live in a separate part of the house from the other cats is that she might be lonely without another cat to play
    with. If we ever end up with another kitten, it will be to keep her company. She seems okay as long as we make a point of spending time with her as often as we can, though.

    I'd write more, but Trillian just jumped up on the desk for a cuddle and how can I deny her?

  • Average Jane’s Thanksgiving Day

    I pretty much cooked all morning and afternoon yesterday. I made dinner rolls, trifle, turkey and dressing, a variation on this butternut squash and sweet potato soup, green bean casserole (the mushroom soup kind, but with fresh, steamed green beans) and mashed potatoes and gravy, and I served jellied cranberry sauce from a can at my husband's request. 

    It was a lot of food for only five people (me and my husband, my dad and stepmother, and a guitarist buddy of ours). We'll be eating turkey for days unless I give up and freeze a lot of the leftovers, which I probably will.

    Here's the aftermath:

    Dishes 

    And that doesn't even count the two dishwasher loads.

    The soup was the only part of the meal that wasn't well-received – too much of a break from tradition, I guess. I thought it was delicious. I was proud of myself for not speaking aloud any of the obscenities that swirled around inside my head as I was finishing up the main course and listening to my dad and husband in the next room making snide comments about baby food and liquid pumpkin pie. Um, who got up early and cooked all day, you ingrates?

    Once everyone left, my husband and I watched several episodes of Glee that we hadn't gotten to over the past several weeks. Eventually we had the obligatory cold turkey sandwiches with Miracle Whip.

    How was your Thanksgiving? Or if you're outside of the U.S., how was your Thursday?

  • Happy Thanksgiving from Average Jane

    I'm sitting here stuffed with all the food I spent the day cooking, sipping a New Belgium 1554.

    I had intended to do an "I'm thankful for" post, but I can hardly think of any aspect of my life that I'm NOT deeply thankful for. Husband, family, friends, cats, work, our home, my hobbies…I'm incredibly fortunate and I am aware of that every day.

    I'd like to congratulate girlvaughn on winning the $25 SnapGifts gift card. The random number generator awarded her the prize and I've sent her a coupon code so she can choose whichever gift card she'd like.

    Enjoy the rest of your Thanksgiving! I might be sleeping in tomorrow, but you'll hear from me sometime tomorrow morning.

  • Average Jane Tries A Lifehack

    A week or so ago, A Librarian shared a Lifehacker post on Google Reader that claimed you could make cookies in 90 seconds with your waffle iron.

    She came over last night after dinner and once we'd had some wine and watched "Iron Man," it seemed like a logical next step to take some of the cookie dough I had in my freezer and see what would happen if we tried to cook it in my waffle maker.

    As you can see, they turned out pretty well:

    IMGP1728
    I have to disagree with the estimate of 90 seconds. They really took a good four or five minutes to be done enough to hold together, although that could have something to do with the fact that my waffle iron is 15 years old. The cookie texture was nice and soft with just a hint of crispiness on the edges.

    I'm sure it was psychological, but both of us thought they tasted like a weird hybrid of waffle and cookie. I used white chocolate macadamia nut dough, but there was a distinct waffle-y flavor that almost overrode the cookie flavors. Still tasty, though.

    We made a total of four and I probably could have eaten more, but decided that two was plenty.

    So if you have a tub of cookie dough from some kid's fundraiser that's languishing in your freezer, this is something fun you can do the next time you're in the mood for a cookie or two. If you decide to try it, let me know how it worked out for you.

  • Why Average Jane Is Not A Professional Baker

    Last night my friend LuAnn came over so I could help her make a successful Pumpkin Cake Roll to take to her family Thanksgiving dinner. She'd made one before, but ended up turning it into a layer cake when it cracked to pieces. Everyone loved it because it was still delicious, but she was hesitant to try it again.

    Here's the thing: this cake always cracks, at least for me.The key is to minimize the cracking and try to confine it to the part that's rolled inside and less visible.

    Here is where I wish I'd taken a bunch of photos, but I'll try to draw you some word pictures. (That sentence is way too "Simple Jack" for my liking, but it's early in the morning and I'm tired, so I'm leaving it.)

    LuAnn had carefully measured all of the cake ingredients and arrived ready to just mix everything together. It wasn't long before we had spicy, pumpkin-y cake batter.

    The cake went into the oven and it smelled wonderful. I'd greased and floured the pan within an inch of its life and when the 15 minutes were up, I went to turn it onto the powdered sugar-covered towel.

    The cake stuck to the pan. The middle of the cake separated from the edges and crashed into an untidy pile of cake pieces. Crap.

    I piled the failed cake into a bowl, figuring it would make an excellent trifle with cream cheese pudding, whipped cream and some spiced rum.

    Fortunately I had all the ingredients we needed to make another cake. This time I extra, extra greased and floured the pan. When the cake was finished baking, I took a thin spatula and carefully loosened the edges all the way around. You know, the way I should have the first time around.

    The cake came out perfectly. I rolled it in the new powdered sugar-covered towel and we let it cool while we made the filling and further killed time watching "Heroes."

    Unrolling time came and – look at my surprise face! – the cake cracked a bit. LuAnn spread the cream cheese filling and I stepped in to roll it back up. It wasn't too bad. There was only one exterior crack and it was low enough that it wasn't terribly obvious. I was happy to consider it a success.

    I decided not to make one for myself right now because we're going to have pumpkin pie with Thanksgiving dinner and that's plenty for four people. However, I am looking forward to making trifle with the disaster cake…

  • Another Dessert Recipe from Average Jane

    While we're on the subject of torte recipes, here's another one we used to have all the time when I was growing up. This one actually is a torte, in that there's a baked, cake-like component. It's really quite good.

    Walnut Torte

    6 egg whites
    1 cup sugar
    1/2 tsp. baking powder
    1 cup chopped walnuts
    2/3 cup graham cracker crumbs
    Red currant jelly
    1 pint Cool Whip or whipped cream

    Beat egg whites until stiff and gradually add sugar and baking powder. When mixture looks like meringue, fold in graham cracker crumbs and walnuts. Grease pie pan and bake in a 350 degree Fahrenheit oven for 30 minutes. The top will be somewhat cracked. Cool and spread with a layer of currant jelly, then top with Cool Whip or whipped cream.

    * * *

    When I was a kid, we had red currant jelly all the time and there was even a Smucker's variety. These days it's a little harder to come by, but I've noticed that Target carries it. I like it because it's more tart and tangy than a lot of other jellies. It makes a great PB&J, too.