Sarah Stough

Peppermint mocha + roaring fire in the wood stove + lazy cat = peak chilly Monday morning

Best AI/LLM use case I’ve experienced so far is debugging a finicky installation with C++ issues that quickly put me well out of my depth. Can confirm the software even runs. Well done. Tomorrow, science.

Marble likes to sleep on a pillow behind mine and sometimes rests her chin on my head.

Very sweet, except she’s missing one upper canine, and let me tell you, the uneven pressure from the remaining one is really not soothing to the scalp.

Little bit of a work day to tie up some ends, little bit of a gymnastics meet on the way home - not a bad start for a very bitter winter weekend

The only Christmas cookie I managed to produce this year ended up being a batch of bourbon balls, several days after Christmas, and you know they won’t be right until after New Year’s ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Two of these games in one season is kind of a big lift in the first year of a marriage.

I am once again wearing a little more powdered sugar than usual, still not mad about it 😂

Ending AGU on a peppermint bark beignet.

Work for the year is done, laissez les fêtes de Noël rouler.

Someone told me about their family tradition where they toast slices of dressing to make leftover sandwiches on turkey day 2.

I won’t get a chance to try this year, but I’d love to know how common this is and whether it’s as amazing as I imagine.

Coming home to a surprise supper off the grill is a very nice perk of having a spouse off work

Marble is now “that black cat with the big eyes,” and our sweet little old lady is very unbothered by it all, but happens to be the menace who made said child cry. By walking over to look at them with her big eyes.

So anyway, after an hour, Pepper is now known as “Pepper with the sharp teeth,” since her response to a too-excited child who had never met her was to hiss. With teeth.

(Everybody is supervised and safe, and Pepper has plenty of escape routes and access to quiet places.)

Small children are among our weekend guests. These children don’t regularly experience cats, but for reference, one met Pepper once and for quite some time thereafter referred to all cats as “Pepper.”

It’s also worth noting these cats don’t regularly experience children, either.

She is grace

It sure is Monday

This is Pepper’s first Halloween not living in a dark house on a hill in the woods, so first run-in with trick-or-treaters.

Turns out our people cat really prefer them fully grown and has spent quite a lot of her evening hiding from tiny princesses and such in the closet 😐

Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em

#RollTide ❤️ 🐘

Apple Dapple cake resting in the pan and soaking up a warm caramel sauce.

Reunion no. 2, cake no. 2.

This one is an Apple Dapple.

Fingers crossed it takes up its caramel sauce *and* comes out of the pan or yours truly will be toting in a box of grocery store cookies.

Waxahatchee playing a (sun)set in Florence, AL at ShoalsFest

Sunset looks good and sounds better in the Shoals tonight #SweetHome

Haha yes! Simply because my grandmother has heard your name, I can assure you that you’ve been considered part of this particular family for years 😂

If the cake turns out worthwhile, I’ll find a way for there to be one next time I see you!

Spiced Bundt cake with orange cream cheese icing.

One orange spiced Bundt cake bound for a family reunion.

I’m really not mad about how the icing turned out. Granted, the night is still young, but my icings usually have a way of sliding right off to be spooned back on later. Will chalk this win up to beginner’s luck with a new recipe.

Cookies for coping through furlough

Made sure to have the necessary provisions for my favorite civil servant (whose only real weakness happens to be Oreos) on this first day of lapse.

It didn’t have to be this way.

Inspiration credit: @jimmyc42.bsky.social, of course.

RAMMER JAMMER
Roll Tide Roll
❤️ 🐘

High resting football heart rate and a cozy lap cat

Marble’s trying her best to emotionally support me through this game

Lying here absolutely wired for sound at 2am, I have learned an important lesson about tea selection before bed.

My first meal back in the southeast was a Pub sub. Boar’s Head Italian on special this week, y’all. I am LIVING.

Pepper upside down in a chair, begging for second breakfast

“Is this how a chair works?” -Pepper

Pepper (not the vegetable kind) in a gardening grow bag

No fewer than 4 cat beds (2 of which are specifically hers), a cat hammock, two soft chairs, and a couch with blankets here, but this grow bag that she dragged into the corner under the side table is the coziest nap spot.

Sent with love from a dear friend (definitely not from AL) who somehow looks past the person I become on Saturdays in the fall 😅

Roll Tide, y’all

Oh, no, Squeaky!! Not there of his own free will and not afraid to go public with that information!

I won’t say Marble doesn’t have any fight left in her, but these days, it just comes out as that charming expression, some mild grousing, and gentle paw pushing if you touch her face for too long