On the daily

This week is a big one. The kids turn five - oh my. I can hardly believe it. Five is like the magic number and I really don't think I've kept up my part of the bargain. At least I was around consistently for two of those years and I'm glad that Bryan was around for most of the five. I'm still having anxiety around kindergarten and am not opposed to starting my own school with other parents, but not sure how to locate those parents.

Work is going well, have to decide if I'm going to try for a position there next year or at the SF school or if I'm going to look for something else entirely. Budget cuts and 40+ students per class is kind of freaking me out but a daily commute to SF and the unknown also brings up a lot of questions. I've been able to manage my stress around teaching which is a relief. I'm amazed at myself, and if Grizzly were around here, I'd be crawling back on my hands and knees, begging PP for my job back.

I'm enjoying the baking a lot and have managed to not freak out and eat 467428389265 creme brulées. We made that, pot de creme and creme anglais which are basically made with the same four ingredients but varying measurements. A tasty, stress-free dessert if there ever was one. Since they don't keep well after having their tops torched, I had to scrape about twenty-five ramekins of custard into the trash - sacrilege! This past weekend we went down to welcome my parents back from their vacation and I brought some re-made, much-better shortbread to them. They were also nice enough to let me use their wonderful new kitchen to bake up some creme puffs and eclairs. The pate a choux turned out much better than it did for me at the school, but my custard did not. I realized the problem was that before incorporating the whipped creme with the custard, I needed to soften it up a bit and then sacrifice a little whipped creme to "temper" it before adding the whole lot. Oh well, that just means I have to make it again. Any takers for the next batch?