Snowy Sunday

On the rare occasion that I have a weekend day off, I like to make breakfast. Sometimes I make the traditional eggs, bacon, and (fake) meat, sometimes I make French toast, others I make cheese grits with fried eggs (scrambled for Matt, as he has a pathological aversion to runny yolks. Whatevs), but mostly, I make pancakes. Pancakes are the preferred breakfast food around these parts, especially when they're served with MorningStar Farms Hot & Spicy Veggie Sausage Patties, which, I swear, taste better than their meaty counterparts.

(Side note: Neither Matt nor I is vegetarian. We like some vegetarian products and prefer tofu to chicken in our Thai food, but it's a combination of laziness and deep love of bacon, sushi, and the occasional cheeseburger that prevents either of us from making the full switch. Well, for him, anyway. I'm anemic, so an 100% vegetarian diet leads to me being sick 24/7.)

Anyway, Pancakes. I use this recipe, and it always comes out well despite the stove I have to work with, whose temperature regulation is capricious to the extreme. You'll often find me cursing at it when I'm cooking, especially when things that require even heating, like pancakes and sauces, are involved. I long for the day when I will have a grown-up kitchen that features novelties like gas burners, more than one oven, a built-in griddle, and a dishwasher that actually cleans the dishes placed therein. Yes, internet: I dream big.

Seriously, though. I'd sleep in a hammock in a yurt for the rest of my life if I could have an awesome kitchen. 

It's a lump.

Lace shawls don't look like much before they're stretched and blocked.

Pictured: 2/3 of a Haruni shawl.

This Week in Review

Here we have:

• This year's Christmas scarf for my sister.
• Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde
• The Bon Appetit Cookbook
• Yarn for a new scarf for me.

Not pictured:

• A half-drunk Newcastle
• A slightly-over-halfway-finished shawl

Grrreeeeeaaaaaat

The kittens have discovered that if they simultaneously throw themselves into the bedroom door, it will pop open. Matt says it has something to do with it being the winter, but I think his door isn't latching correctly. His solution was to stack a couple of full laundry baskets next to the door so that even if it opened, they wouldn't be able to push it far enough to where they could get in. That worked okay, but it hasn't stopped them from throwing themselves against the door (while meowing pitifully).

I'd let them in, but Cataclysm tries to nest in/nurse on/lick clean my hair (NOT OKAY, Cat, and I will not have you editorializing on the state of my hair) and Catastrophe pounces, claws outstretched, on anything that moves beneath the blankets. They are also notorious for hosting Kitty Deathmatches on top of us while we're trying to sleep, and use our bodies as strategic cover. Needless to say, when we let them in, nobody gets any sleep (except for them, of course).

On the other hand, sleep is proving elusive when we don't let them in. Argh, cats.

The Big Debate

I managed to get most of my graduate school applications knocked out. There are only a few things I still need to do:

1. Wait for my GRE writing score to arrive so I can add it to my applications.
2. Send the recommendation forms to my letter-writers. Thankfully, NC uses an electronic system.
3. Edit and type up my personal statement. 
4. Contact Scripps and Vanderbilt and have them send my transcripts to the schools I'm applying to.
5. Pay the fees and submit.

I also have to decide which programs I am going to apply to. Sort of a problem, yes? I sent my scores to the big public schools here in North Carolina, so now all I have do do is decide which schools and which specific programs I'm interested in.

My dilemma is this: I would like to get a Ph.D. in sociology. However, I would also like to be gainfully employed after I complete my graduate studies, preferably in my current location. These are two large wrinkles. I know enough about academia to know that 1) the job market in the humanities and the social sciences is pretty terrible and 2) you pretty much have to go where the work is, running the risk of teaching in BFE forever. There's also the not-small matter of spending another five to seven years as a full-time student (and part-time teacher, yeesh), along with the fact that the only doctoral program in sociology is at UNC-Chapel Hill, which is all the way across the state from where I live now. It's not very feasible, but I still really want to do it, and feel rather whiny and petulant that I can't.

I guess I should suck it up, be a grown-up, and get a practical degree (because I will have a nervous breakdown if I continue the cycle of underemployment I'm in), but I can't help but wish I could stay in school forever, instead.