So, 2012 has kind of been the Great Undocumented Year. But that's probably fine because on the whole 2012 was not the greatest year of all time. That's not to say that is didn't have its bright spots, but on the whole, not the greatest. Fingers crossed on 2013, though. And toes.
But I have been doing things. So, let me tell you about them.
Blackfriar's Theater
One thing that I did was drive down to Staunton, VA to attend a showing of Shakespeare's Cymbaline performed by the American Shakespeare Center at Blackfriar's theater. The theater is a replica of the indoor theater that Shakespeare staged his play on, and they try to stay true to the spirit of Shakespeare's plays by leaving the lights on the whole time and engaging the audience. This helps make the plays make a little more sense, since it turns out that there are a lot of audience asides in Shakespeare's plays. It was extremely well done and I enjoyed myself immensely.
After the play, we went to eat at this cute restaurant called the Depot where we had a lot of stinky cheeses and everything was amazingly delicious. While we were there we noticed a couple of the actors eating there as well. Turns out they noticed us as well, and when they were done they came over to chat with us. Which was exciting, because they had done a great job and gave us a chance to gush at them a little. But actually, they weren't there to chat with us. One of my friends had semi-accidentally taken a flash photo with her phone (she meant to take the photo; she didn't mean for it to be flash. She also speaks English as a second language and very young, so she didn't actually know that it was a bit of a faux pas). The actors had ACTUALLY come over to give us the "no flash photography" lecture. Seriously? Seriously! I mean, I understand the rule, but who made them the flash photo police? I think I would have been more okay with it if they hadn't come over all chummy like they just wanted to say hi to the fans. Unbelievable.
But anyway, it was fun and now I have an awesome story to recount which I can conclude with a derisive "thesbians!" and that's awesome.
African Sweet Potato and Peanut Stew
I got asked to make a meal for one of the families in our ward who had just welcomed a new addition. Cooking for strangers is always hard, since you just never know what they are going to like, and in this case, the meal had to be gluten free. So, I decided to make one of Ed's favorite recipes:
African Sweet Potato and Peanut Stew. It seems like a good choice because it was novel, had a nice spice kick without being spicy, and it also freezes well. So I made it and delivered it, and discovered there had been some kind of communications break down along the line, and someone else had already delivered dinner for the night. Oh well, though, like I said, the stew keeps well, and that would just be a few extra days of food they wouldn't have to worry about.
I didn't think much of it until the next day when I was heating up the stew for my lunch (Obviously, I made extras for myself) and discovered that a coworker/friend of mine had ALSO brought African Sweet Potato and Peanut Stew for lunch. What are the odds, right? I'm sure you can tell where this is going. They were the other family who'd brought dinner that night. And they brought the same dish as I did. Seriously, what are the odds? I don't think they were exactly the same, but still, that poor family. They are going to think that's all we know how to make around here!
Game Night(s)
I've been spending a lot of time with these people:
Doing this:
Obviously, that's a picture means "playing board games." The game pictured is actually not one we play often because it's kind of dull, but it works as an abstract representation. Anyway, games are funny because these boys are funny. So even though I'm not very good at games (I invariably come in second to last), I enjoy game nights. Yay!
Thanksgiving
I totally brought my camera to take pictures of Thanksgiving and completely failed to do so. Mine was pretty low key. I ran 5 miles in the morning to prepare for the engorgement, and then spent mid morning to afternoon crafting Thanksgiving dishes like homemade dressing from scratch (starting with cutting and drying the french bread I used), pumpkin pizzas (use savory spiced pumpkin puree as the sauce), and roasted brussels sprouts. Then I took my beautiful food creations over to a friend's house where we proceeded to eat many other crafted from scratch items, plus a beautifully roasted turkey and watch football. And then we had round two the next night because there were definitely not enough of us to eat all of the yumminess that there was.
I wish there were more to tell you, but there doesn't seem to be. I think one of my resolutions for next year might have to be "document my life better" and/or "have more of a life.
