Birthday pictures

I had planned on posting these pictures a long time ago, but this week of journal monkeying has really worn me out. Checking cites for four days in a row completely fries your brain. I had actually hoped to get some real school work done this week, but I'm lucky if I can just get through the journal work and tumble myself into bed at the end of the day.

Anyway, these are pictures that GPG took from this past Sunday, which was my birthday. We had a really nice weekend together, but of course after all this cite-checking, the weekend feels like a loooooong time ago.

Here I am opening up the first present:

It was . . .

An oven thermometer!

I had asked for an oven thermometer because I'm pretty sure that my oven doesn't heat up to the indicated temperature. I also got a regular thermometer that you stick into things to figure out their internal temperature. I hope to make more things, like roasts, chicken, and yeast breads, whose recipes originally called for temperature checks and which I therefore decided not to make due to lack of a thermometer.

GPG's sister was also very kind and sent a present, all the way from Germany:

It was a book! To help me practice my German. Very exciting, although of course it will take me an eternity to read it. It's called Der Sunshine-Chip.


And, the main present of the whole day:


A WAFFLE MAKER!

I told a law school friend of mine that GPG had given me a waffle maker for my birthday, and this friend thought that was an awfully weird gift to give. But GPG knows me well! I love waffles! And I have been eyeing various waffle makers for quite a while. So I'm very happy with the present. We plan on trying it out this weekend.

Here's a picture of all the gifts:

And, as a present to myself, I got this Asics tank top from the Fleet Feet in Houston:

You can never have too many tank tops. I already have another one of these in green, and it's great. So I decided to get another, especially since 1) it was on sale, and 2) it's already getting pretty hot here in Texas.

Lastly, I also bought some new knitting needles:


I needed size 6's for the brioche stitch hat pattern in Weekend Knitting. (I'm planning on making some matching hats for me and GPG.) The pattern only calls for a US6 circular, but I went ahead and bought the DPNs as well in order to meet the credit charge minimum requirement of the store.

That's a run-through of the birthday weekend. Journal duties call. More later!