Wednesday is potluck day!

Welcome to the last day of my week-long blog series of thankfulness.  This doesn't mean I'll stop being thankful, in fact, I feel like after this week I've become more able to recognize all the things that I do have to be thankful for every day, and that each day has new and different things for which I can thank God.

Before we get to that though, I want to show you guys pictures of the Christmas treats I made for my CG potluck tonight.  The first is Cheesecake-Marbled Brownies, as found on the Smitten Kitchen blog.  Seriously, if you ever need a ridiculously tasty recipe, just browse the recipe index over at Smitten Kitchen.  Her posts are so entertaining too!

My other dessert creation was Christmas Nanaimo Bars.  Don't ask me for the recipe on this one because I improvised the recipe.  The green layer has mint flavouring and the red layer is vanilla.  I put the pan in the freezer between layers to make the interface between them nice and smooth.  I'm actually quite happy with how these turned out, and love how they look.  If I had more time I'd have arranged them on a plate for a more beautiful picture, but I plan on taking the leftovers into work tomorrow for the guys at the lab to polish off, so it stays in the pan.

We had an amazing pot-luck night and every single dish was scrumptiously delicious.  Our secret santa gift exchange was uproariously hilarious, and once again the conversation managed to stray into topics of a scandalous nature, whilst people were trying to be serious and spiritual.  Seriousness is overrated anyhow.  All the gifts were so good, including mine (thanks Cam!!!  I've already got my new lamp set up and stationed by my reading chair!) and at the end of the I was sore from laughing so much.  Good times.

On the knitting front, I finally got around to taking pictures of my modified Cablerimetry headband.  The cables are all freestyle, but symmetrical.   Because symmetry is important to this little engineer.

And remember what was supposed to be a headwrap?  It's now a circular scarf.  Not sure yet what I'm going to do with it.

Today I am thankful for:
1. My friend Vahid who consistently demonstrates a high level of consideration and humility by always being quick to apologize when he realizes he was in the wrong.  He's an inspiration for me to aim for that level as well.
2.  The past few months I've had to get to know the German exchange students.  We'll miss you guys!
3.  A freaking amazing pot-luck.
4.  Joy.
5.  Two well-stocked grocery stores in very close proximity to my house.  Definitely makes it easier to do last-minute baking.