Life is more than the Cubicle

I was trying to avoid it this year but last night, Matt and I inherited a giant pumpkin and now I have to figure out what to do with it.

The main goal is to harvest its guts to make roasted pumpkin seeds

I was thinking maybe of doing something cheeky and buying a smaller pumpkin, cracking it, making X's for eyes and having the bigger one mourning its death

Like this:



Or just buying a small pumpkin and doing this with it:


It's so cute!

I'd totally make a few of those, shellac them and bring them into work. Too bad we have ants and stuff here though.

Mm, pumpkin guts!

So tasty :)

It's October


Holy crap, it's october


Snowboarding season will soon be upon me and well, as the boyfriend can attest to, I suck hard at snowboarding

My blogreel yielded this little gem from Tim Ferriss:

If you eat sh*t 10 times in a row, do two things. First, pause after each turn, or pause after getting up, and catch your breath for 20 seconds. No rush, brah. Second, when you’re ready to punch yourself in the face, or when your legs are totally shot, put your big girl pants on, head down to the ski lodge, and grab a hot chocolate or Hot Toddy by the fire. That will calm your inner animal, make you smile, and get you psyched to tackle it again in the morning.

Can't psych myself out now, gotta put my big girl pants on

I think I may have lost my cooking mojo

Not sure when it happened, but lately, even when I read a delicious sounding recipe I immediately think, "Wow, this is going to take way too much EFFORT" and then I end up making some rice or popcorn

Last night I at least made myself roast some vegetables only because I didn't want them to get gross in my fridge

Made some rice and voila, dinner....and today's lunch.....and tonight's dinner probably

Maybe it's the weather, or maybe it's because I have felt like crap every morning (I usually wake up with pounding headaches and a phlegm-y cough)

Hopefully I get my cooking mojo back because fall is a great time to make the comfy cozy classics, veggie style! (Yes, I'm still a veggie, it isn't a fad, closer to vegan now that I've finished my eggs and cheese and just by sheer luck, have no dairy products in the house)


I didn't post a picture of this, but I ended up cooking a sugar pumpkin last week. It didn't taste like anything probably because I didn't season it well, but it was an interesting experience cooking a gourd. Unlike my spaghetti squash incident, it was a lot easier to cleaver in half too.


Oh! I did start knitting a new blanket last night. It's a cable knit throw with this really cuddly yarn. My plan is to create the blanket with one pattern from top to bottom but changing colors when the yarn runs out so hopefully it'll look more gradient in color changing than jarring, but we'll just have to see. Pictures possibly to come when I've knit more than a row...

Anyway, I should get back to work but at least I'm comforted in the fact that I have a nice knitting project waiting for me and that no one will judge my choice of dinner entrees :)

Love, the J9

Last weekend, Matt and I went to Denver for our annual journey to the Great American Beer Festival. So here is what we did in picture form!

We got to San Jose at "way too early" o'clock in the morning. Sat next to a priest on the way out there. Didn't notice his collar and both wondered why someone would be wearing that much black. (This is a funny story, just wait till the end)