Decisions, decisions...

Busy month, this August. Just got back from Seattle/Eastern Washington/Portland on Tuesday, and had a gig at RPI with Chris, Mike & Jesse on Wednesday. Now it's resting/birthday time in Ellie land.

I may have mentioned earlier that one of my reasons to check out Portland again was to further consider it for a future place to reside long term. Which brings me to my next topic - I need to find a place to move come January. In my current state of mind, I have two choices.

Portland, OR - Good - The weather is beautiful, even when rainy season is in action, everything is alive and green, and when it's not raining, it's sunny and gorgeous. My brother is there, and he could probably find me some housing connections, and since it's an actual city, finding work probably wouldn't be too difficult. Oh, and I wouldn't have to buy a car - a bike would suffice me just fine. They have a dance scene. I'd be closer to the boyfriend.

- Bad - It's really far away from home and most of my family, so it might be too far for my first move away from home. I wouldn't have a car, and even though I wouldn't "need" one, it's comforting having a car. A large portion of the dance scene is blues oriented, and I'm by no means a blues dancer.

Rochester, NY - Good - The sis is there, a large portion of my friends are there, they have a dance scene (with possible teaching opportunities), I would get to keep my four seasons, and there are plenty of people with my same views on dancing there. I don't think I would ever feel lonely. I could probably find housing pretty easy. I'd be closer to home.

- Bad - Work wouldn't be as easy to find, I'd have to buy a car, I'd be just as far away from the boyfriend. I don't know that it's far away enough from home.

There is a third option, which is to stay in Albany for longer, but that is by no means a long term solution to the dilemma. And after December, I have no real reason to stay here, other than my students at RPI, and I'm working on passing on that torch pretty soon anyway.

Big decision, but a necessary one.

Sometimes I bake when I'm not at work

Today I was bored and since I have pretty much unlimited free time with no job and still being sick, that meant doing some baking.

I wanted to do something mildly time consuming without taking up my entire day, so I decided to go with some fake out danish. I say fake out because making actual danish dough is a rather long process, so I just made a batch of sweet dough and used that in it's place. Works fine, you just don't get the flakiness that you normally would with danish dough.

Anywho, I was trying to decide what kind of danish to make and I tried to recall some of the ten thousand kinds I used to make at Bread Basket every day when I worked there. In the end I decided to whip up a batch of frangipane and put that into the dough with a sprinkle of chocolate chips. Kind of resembling a Bread Basket chocolate croissant, except I made mine into pockets instead of just folding and cutting the dough.

I have to say, I was kind of disappointed with the end result. They looked great, but most of the frangipane oozed out during the baking process, so they mostly just ended up being sweet dough pockets with a few chocolate chips. I covered them in powdered sugar after they were cool and that made them definitely more worth eating. I think if I were to make them again I might have to chill the frangipane more and seal the pockets completely as to avoid leakage. So yeah, you win some, you lose some. I actually prefer things go wrong sometimes, but maybe I'm weird like that.

I failed to get a picture after they were done, but I at least managed to snap a shot before they went in the oven.

Updates

So yes, I'm aware that I've been on a blogging hiatus for pretty much the whole summer, but if you read my last post, you'd know that I didn't have much to blog about.. until now.

This has been an eventful past few weeks. Some good, some bad, some really bad, but it's been interesting to say the least.

Firstly, my Mom was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. This was made extra weird since I have little to no relationship with my Mom, but she's been through surgery and going to start chemo soon. I've done all I can for the time being and now it's just waiting to see how things go. That was the "really bad", if you hadn't already noticed.

Second, I made a trip out to Los Angeles to see my boyfriend Greg. For those of you wondering he's a non dancer, and I met him through my future brother in law Erick when he came to visit. Yeah, that's how I found a non dancer in LA. :P Anyway, super fun trip. We didn't get to do a whole lot while I was there, but we did accomplish one of my dreams since I was five and we went to Disneyland. I'm not going to lie, it was pretty epic, and dare I say, one of the happiest places on earth. Well you know, except for the whole almost passing out thing... but minor details. Greg also got major points by cooking me steak for dinner - I really hate grilling, but I love eating grilled foods. That was a good.

And finally, things with my job at Bountiful Bread didn't work out so good, so I'm not working there anymore. There's a very long story to why that's the case, but I'll hold off on telling it. Thinking about finding another job, but for now I'm just going to rest and recover from this tonsillitis/possibly mono that I have going now, and then see how school/teaching at RPI goes. Last semester, kids. Can you handle it?! I know I can. So yeah, I guess that whole situation was considered a bad.. but also kind of a good.

Plans for the rest of August are rather undecided, actually. Since I'm not sure about having mono vs. not having mono, I need to wait and see what my doctor says and then make a final decision on my trip to Seattle/NE Washington/Portland. Also thinking about ILHC? It's kind of about a million dollars, but I can at least think about it, right? Right. And oh yeah, that little small detail called my birthday on the 30th. Keep forgetting about it, actually, will have to make some plans for that.

-E