Mannequins Strike Again!

This was the title to the email a friend, Lacey sent me.  I saw it and knew it would be great.  She is awesome, and sent me this photo from Ohio of a great display.

THings I love about it:

That SNUGGIE is the highlight, so important they even show you the box.

I half love and half hate the Snuggie.  Maybe if I ever had the chance to use one it would push me to make a solid opinion one way or the other.

The armless upper torso man on the floor.  Reminds me of the black knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail...Ohio State style,

Oh how I love me a creepy mannequin display!

by the way, this was Jessica, NOT Rhett, he was signed in & I was too lazy to sign out and sign myself in.

Ginger Lemon Cream Pie

I had made gingerbread cookies last week, and today there were 5 or 6 cookies left, but they were too hard to eat.  Beyond even being ginger snaps.  But I couldn't throw them away and thought they'd make a yummy crust.  I had a cheesecake recipe that used a ginger snap crust.  But then I remembered these cookies I see by the bread at Costco.  Carr's Ginger Lemon cookies.  I always want to buy them but never had, so I thought of lemon and ginger.

But I didn't want the lemon to be tangy like using real lemon juice and having any hint of sour.  I was thinking of sweet lemon flavor and thought of Erin Walker's lemon ice cream recipe.  I wanted to make a pie out of that ice cream flavor.

I think it worked out pretty good.  I felt like I was eating the Walker ice cream in pie form.

Slightly spicy ginger crust with creamy, smooth, lemon filling.

Top it with real whipped cream and it would be divine.

We only had Cool Whip.

Lemon Cream Pie with Ginger Snap Crust

CRUST:

ginger snap cookies

     (6 homemade, probably 10-12 store bought)

      enough to make 1 1/2 c. crumbs

2-3 T butter,  melted

Crush cookies into fine crumbs, or I just threw them in the food processor.

Dump your crumbs in pie tin/ plate.  Drizzle melted butter over crumbs, press in butter with fork, and form to bottom and sides of pan.

Freeze.

PIE FILLING:

1 T milk

1/3 c. cornstarch

3 egg yolks

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 c. sugar

2 1/2 c. milk

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp lemon oil OR 1 tsp lemon extract (I was out of extract, thus resorted to oil, which is mainly for candy I think, but it worked)

1 T butter

 

In medium saucepan combine the 1 T milk, cornstarch, yolks, salt, and sugar.  Whisk until it's a smooth paste.  Add the 2 1/2 c. milk.  Whisk until it's a smooth liquid.  Stirring constantly, cook on medium heat until filling thickens to pudding like consistency.  I test it by scooping a glob with the whisk, and it should somewhat stay in the whisk.  If it runs right out, keep cooking.  Basically until it's like pudding. 

 

Remove from heat. Add the vanilla, lemon and butter.  Whisk a minute or so to help it cool down.  Grab your crust and pour filling over crust.  Smooth it over and cover with plastic wrap, pushing it down right on the pie without air bubbles to prevent "pudding skin". 

That always reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where George tries to invent Pudding Skin Singles.

 

Refrigerate for a few hours to set.

Serve with whipped cream, or if you're lame like me.."whipped topping"

 

**In a hurry: Microwave in glass bowl 1 min at at time, stirring between, as it begins to thicken at all, cut cook intervals to 30 seconds so you don't make it too thick.  

What up...

We've been enjoying the Olympics every night.  We were glad that Evan guy won the gold for Men's Figure Skating, my dad can't remember his name and so we all call him "Snake Man".

We turn in our final rank list for the residency match this week.  Getting closer to knowing where we will live for the next 3 years!

We wish we knew now, mainly because depending on where we go will determine whether we will seek to purchase a house.  We have always rented, or I guess mooched as we currently are.  So we would like to take advantage of the New Home Buyer government perk...but you have to close on your house by April 30, and that would scarcely give us a month, so not very likely we'll get to use it.

February has seemed twice as long as January to me for some reason. 

Sugar Cookie

I am a sugar cookie snob.

Maybe it's because I'm not the biggest fan of frosting.  I hate it when a sugar cookie is basically a flavorless cracker for frosting. 
I want FLAVOR IN THE COOKIE!

I'm also really critical of cookie texture.  I like soft cookies.  Once again, not a cracker.  To me, a sugar cookie should be soft and chewy, if you fold it in half, it should bend then break, not snap. Melt in your mouth rather than crunch.

So if you are nodding in agreement to this point, there's a good chance you may like to try my mom's sugar cookie recipe.  I think people have varied expectations for sugar cookies, so I give you what I like out of a sugar cookie, so you can know if this cookie may be to your liking.  My mom played with different amounts of cream cheese, sour cream, and butter base to get the right balance for these cookies to have both flavor and texture.

CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE on to recipe

BIKES

Little boys need little bikes to ride around the house.

That is what my mother-in-law taught me. 

Daddy Rhett got his little three-wheeler for his 3rd birthday in the 1980s, and Grandma C got little Rhett an awesome Radio Flyer bike for Christmas this year.

He really cruises around and it's been great for cold winter days.  Also, it's light weight I have taken it places...like Tuesday night to the church when I was in charge of a young women's activity.  He cruised all around the halls and had fun, not climbing up my heels the whole time.

I should find out where my mother-in-law found it.  It's been an awesome toy.

I can't believe this kid is almost 2!

Interviews Are OVER

Colorado State Monument Park just out of Grand Junction

I'm sure you're sick of my lame teenage stories.

So here's an update on us now.

This last week we finished the last interview for residency.  Rhett is going into Family Medicine and interviewed at 11 programs.  I went to every interview. 

They were all n either Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon, so only 2 were air travel, which is why I was able to attend every one.  Also thanks to our amazing moms who are super-grandmas and watched RJ for all of them.

So now they're finished, which I am glad.  It was quite fun to have so many weekends and dinners with my husband and no kids.  But the meeting tons of new people, hospital tours, arranging babysitting, and the rest kind of got exhausting toward the end.  I am grateful Rhett arranged so I could go, and I feel like this decision is definitely a team effort, so it's been nice.

But now we have to rank them all for the approaching match.

CAREER RECAP:

Undergrad

Medical School: 4 years (he'll graduate this April)

Residency: 3 years for Family Medicine

Fellowship: 1 year

(Rhett is seriously considering rural training fellowships which are a new, growing concept in family medicine)

So for residency, you put your program rank list in, and the programs rank the students, and the computer makes the assignments.  So it is a job, but it is assigned.  Rhett didn't apply to any osteopathic (D.O) residencies, and is only ranking in the allopathic (M.D.) match.

So we will find out where we are going March 18th. 

At least we know we'll be in the west!  We both learned we detest the midwest climate and are pleased we have so many options in the western half of the U.S!

So we are excited to start residency, and not be students anymore, and actually have a paycheck!  I'm sure a kill-joy will comment and tell me residency is worse and not something to be excited for, but they can only work 80 hours a week...so let's look on the bright side Debbie Downer!

Also, some fam/ friends may be interested in our settling down plans after all of this.

So around 2014 when we hope to settle down and get into his career, you will probably find us in a rural town.  Rural being population of 5000 or less.

That's right: SMALL TOWN. 

I never thought I'd live in a tiny rural town, but it's been an interesting path to where that is our plan, and to my utter surprise, I look forward to it.

Rhett wants to be in a small town that is relatively isolated from larger health care facilities.  Out on the range cowboying it up doing full scope medicine--being the pediatrician, ER, obstetrician, internal medicine, sports medicine, some general surgery, and everything else he could do before referring patients to a larger city.  A cowboy doctor.  The other day he was talking about his dream of having his clinic attached to the hospital, and our house next door.  So he'd never have to drive anywhere.  I thought, yes, then I can just send our kids next door to the hospital when they drive me crazy and you can handle them.  Small towns don't take HIPPA seriously do they????

Today they finished their surgeries earlier, and he had time to come home for lunch before heading back to clinic (he's on an ortho rotation).  We were eating lunch and he said that he's glad he'll be practicing in a small town so he'll be at home for lunch every day. 

So it will be interesting where life takes us, these next few months, and in the years to come.

I should start beginning to pack things like Christmas decorations, winter clothes we won't wear before we move, etc. 

But I probably won't until we are closer to moving.

Me and my dad are already pouting about the thought of us moving out...which is another thing I thought I'd never be doing either.  I'll be sad to move out of my parent's house, it's actually been such a great two years for all of us. (I'm speaking for Rhett)

after the Grand Junction interview, we stopped so Rhett could change out of his suit for the 4 hour drive home.  I changed into my pajamas.  He told me my outfit wouldn't look very good for our national park pictures we were going to take on the way home.  I laughed.  He asked how long I'd had these pajama pants.  Over 10 years.  Almost vintage.  So here it is.

Not too bad.  I think this will be on our 2010 Christmas card.

I UPDATED THE POST EDITING TO THE NEWER VERSION, AND WHERE THE CRAP IS SPELL CHECK NOW BLOGGER? So sorry if I have spelling errors.