I've been holed up in my apartment a lot lately, but am enjoying it after weeks of holiday travel. It is nice to curl up on a sunny couch and type-- here to my friends and flist, on some Christmas card-inspired renewed correspondances, and over on my various sites.

The last few weeks, despite the travel and not being around, have seen some nice creature comforts come into my life. I just took five minutes from my computer to toss a turkey burger into the Foreman Grill I got for signing up for a local bank account, covered it in Tonkatsu Sauce, and YUM. Last night ali_wildgoose and I installed some more shelves in the office and got some floor space back. The shelves also make the office much warmer by breaking up a big blank wall. We tossed up a few more posters and pictures we'd been meaning to hang, too.

I've been cooking and eating at home a lot more, too, and have enjoyed the pleasures of 'earning' my meal and having home-cooked food, too. Ali got a pasta-maker for Christmas and we've made some linguini. The grill has helped. There were cookies from the Cookie Collective, and the last of my CC truffles (fresh mint ganache in milk chocolate and cardamom ganache in dark chocolate) are just about gone. (Fortunately I did not eat even most of them, this time.)

Friends passed me some delightful Christmas presents that are providing good eating or will soon, too: two friends gave me the Vosges Collection Italiano, which lived up to its promise to 'deconstruct what you know about chocolate and its companions'. I have can now appreciate that not only can things like olive oil, balsamic vinegar, fennel pollen, sea salt, and taleggio cheese be put in chocolate, but sometimes they should be. tromboneborges fulfilled a wish of mine and passed me a chocolate chipper and offset spatulas for the next round of chocolate making, too. The chocolate chipper is especially timely-- after the CC truffles I let the milk chocolate cool in the double boiler and wound up with a 4" thick dome of well-tempered chocolate which will not respond well to my usual knife.

I have some slight sadness about not being out and about more. College friends are gathering in DC this weekend for birthday celebration, and Boston friends are holding about fifteen different sorts of gatherings right now. But after the last month of traveling, holidays, and hence expenses, it is nice to be home recouping financially for the new year. And I'm not merely recouping-- my local friends have certainly represented NYC properly. Friday I worked from my sister's place for the day; Friday night multitudes came over for gaming (incl. online friends akickinthehead, calloocallay, chibideath, goraina, jlh, samgrrrl, and yaytime); Saturday saw brunch with erinfinnegan, N, and epathamerkerson; and tonight I will be attempting a Bloody Kiss with the best of friends at my side.

Oh, new icon! Thanks for the link from thoroughbass. Now, back to FMA d20, from which I am determined to wring a project timeline and basic chapter pages by the end of the day.