Jennifer's 365 Project

 From late November to December 9th, the Window Wonderland art installation is going on downtown.
Basically it's an event where several stores and restaurants downtown let artists decorate their shop windows. The two above are photos of the installation at Vault of Midnight, which is a pretty awesome comic shop downtown.
Here's the photo with snow effect, because for some reason Google+ added it.

Holiday lights have been up and lit for awhile downtown, but with the weather so warm today I wandered around downtown looking at them. I'm sure it looks a lot more festive at night and with snow on the ground.

For my birthday a few months ago, my parents gave me a gift card. I finally used it on the beautiful Historia of Hyrule book. Nice color photos, all bound in a hardcover book. An excellent coffee table book for any gamer.

Too bad we don't actually have room for a coffee table...

The construction on the skywalk downtown is finished and open to the public again. I'm not keep on the new ceiling, although I will admit that it probably wont leak like the last one did.

He's warm, so I don't mind.

I think the cat had the most fun, getting into boxes and then laying under the tree, chewing on it.

Black Friday was never a thing growing up. Maybe it's because both of my parents had worked retails, or that there was never really any object that my parents wanted to fight crowds for. Whatever the reason, we never went out.

When I started to get older my dad started cooking a turkey on Black Friday. Mostly because when you travel to someone else's house, you don't really end up with leftovers. And my dad loves turkey leftovers. So having a second Thanksgiving, while it wasn't every year, started to become a thing.

Since my extended family doesn't do a large get together any more, my parents have stopped this tradition and they just cook a regular Thanksgiving meal on Thursday. And over the years I've taken a fair amount of turkey home with me, although I have on occasion actually cooked cranberries at home (because I love cranberries).

This year I decided to cook most of a thanksgiving meal at home on Black Friday. There are only two of us, so I cooked a turkey breast instead of a whole bird. I made way too much stuffing (and I didn't even add the sausage), well over a dozen dinner rolls. Plus cranberries and some vegetables.

I'll probably keep cooking a second Thanksgiving meal, trying different recipes each year.

Now to start making turkey soup, thanksgiving won tons, and all other types of leftover recipes.

We drove over to the east side of the state today to spend Thanksgiving with my parents. As usual, there was plenty of food for everyone. My dad loves turkey leftovers, so I wouldn't be surprised if they're intentionally cooking a slightly large turkey so he has delicious sandwiches for the next several days.

Anyway, we had a good time, and even got to talk to Jeff on the phone and see how his holiday was going.
Dayzee was happy most of the time, but she did get a little bummed out that more delicious table scraps didn't make their way into her food dish.

We both had a shortened day at work today, so I spent part of the afternoon tinkering with an arduino and a proximity sensor. I haven't tested it yet, but I should test the proximity sensor with the cat. The ultrasonic device I have doesn't work to well detecting his movements, no doubt because of his fur. I'm thinking this might work better.

Maybe I'll build a device that buzzes at him every time he jumps on the counter. I know he does it as soon as we leave for work, the stinker.

It's chilly outside. So I curled up with hot chocolate, a fake fire, and a cat's butt. Not a bad evening.

I will have to start remembering to bring my boots so my toes don't get so cold when I go out walking on my lunch break.

Chris really likes pecan pie, so I'm always trying to find ways to make a pecan-pie-like dessert without actually making the pie. I went a little crazy and I made three pans of pecan bars for Thanksgiving this year, although the two smaller ones on the side are really the same recipe.

On the left is a graham cracker chewy bar with a vanilla wafer base, while the one on the right is actually made with graham crackers. I made this recipe a few years ago and it does taste similar to pecan pie.

I also decided to try a new recipe (to me) called pecan pie bars.

Admittedly I made a lot of pecan-pie-like bars for four people, three of which aren't fans of pecan pie. But Chris enjoys them, so I know they'll get eaten.