Excuses Excuses

It may seem like I have fallen off the face of the planet, but I'm alive!!  The past few months have been a little nuts.  Here's why...

List of Excuses for Not Blogging
1. Al got pneumonia before Thanksgiving.
2. We hosted Thanksgiving.
3. Al got better but then got worse...antibiotics round 2!
4. I went on a business trip to California. (It sounds fancier than it is.  To sum up...traveled for a day, spent a day in a conference room, ate a fabulous dinner, threw up fabulous dinner, and traveled for a day to get home.)
5. While on the trip, Al threw out his back so badly that the chiropractor told him to get drugs.  He almost couldn't get K out of her crib.  :(
6. I interviewed for a new job which involved me giving a 1 hour presentation on a 40 page paper on regression analysis.
7. Christmas...which involved 460 miles and 8 hours of driving with a toddler and 2 dogs.

Sooo, those are my excuses.  They aren't earth shattering.  Nobody died, but we were fairly crazy over at our house...so crazy that I didn't even ask Al about hosting our annual holiday party.  Hopefully next year we can get our turkey on with friends again.

The good great news is that I got the job!  It was crazy to prepare for such a difficult interview, and I thought that they hated me.  But this new position will give me a lot more career opportunities.  I start on Monday and am very excited.

The sad news is that I won't be able to teach econ this spring.  Although my position will be in research, it will be at UW-Madison which has a rule about not working an overload.  I will miss teaching, so anyone who wants to stop by my house on Monday nights for a free 3 hour econ lecture is welcome (crickets).

Somehow I started the tradition at my office that when someone leaves, I make them a cake.  This includes emailing The List (a list of cake, frosting, and filling options).  When I told a coworker of my departure, I said, "the good news is there will be cake."  Her response was, "yea, but it will be the last one."  Here are the cupcakes I made.  Smitten Kitchen double chocolate cake (the best chocolate cake EVER) with almond buttercream (made the buttercream for the first time last night, and my official tester (aka Al) was very impressed...and he is a tough critic).