Holiday update, part 1

So I'm battling the boredom and grading things slowly. As in, I've done 13 papers out of 65. Next week is gonna hurt. But I have swum three times (ergo, three miles) since we got out. Both the husband and the kid have been sick, and I've managed to avoid it thus far. Keeping fingers crossed. Tomorrow I go to Orange for the day to see my father and go to church, and on Friday I spend Christmas Day with my bestie and her family.

Anyhoo, I have been cooking and baking a lot, and yesterday I bribed Harley to drink her TheraFlu by promising her homemade pretzels. This was stupid on many levels, including the fact that she had no appetite and that I'd never done this before. Here's the entry I wrote for my personal blog:

The first thing to know is that making pretzels from scratch is ridiculous. It takes about three hours from start to finish, and if you mess up one of the batches (as I did), you're left with approximately a dozen pretzels total. And they're gone in about 24 hours if you have three people in the house. You can do the math for your particular household, but it all adds to a whole lotta work for not a lotta profit.

The dough part is the easiest. You let it rise for a long time, punch it down, let it rise some more, and so on. Then you cut it into strips and shape them into pretzels. Bake those for four minutes at 475 degrees. I feel sure I've never baked anything at that temperature before; I may have gotten a sunburn from the radiant heat. Then you boil them for two minutes, then you dry them, then you do the eggwash and the salt, then you cook them for 20 minutes at 350, even though the recipe says 30. You still burn them. So then you lather, rinse, repeat with the other two batches and cook them for less time. Then you go to bed because you're exhausted.