MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"—which means, "God with us."

When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.

Matthew 1:18-25

Pumpkin Ginger Scones

Here is the recipe for the pumpkin scones my roommate made for the pumpkin week:

from the Taste of Home Magazine

Pumpkin Ginger Scones
2 c flour
7 tbsp + 1 tbsp sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp baking soda
5 tbsp cold butter, divided
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/4 c. canned pumpkin
1/4 c. sour cream

In a large bowl, combine the flour, 7 tbsp sugar, baking powder & soda, and spices. Cut in 4 tbsp butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Combine egg, pumpkin, and sour cream. Stir into dry ingred until just moistened.

Turn on a floured surface; kneed 10 times. Pat into an 8 in circle. Cut into 8 wedges. Separate wedges and place onto greased baking sheet. Melt remaining butter, brush over dough, sprinkle with sugar.

Bake at 425 F for 15-20 min or until golden brown.

Challenge of the Week:

Bake a new recipe

Baking can sometimes be a relief for stress, we have found.
This week looks to be a stressful week.
Hence our challenge.
In preparation for this week, my roommate made pumpkin scones on Saturday.

Pumpkin Biscuits

I made these earlier this week:

2 c. flour
1/2 tsp. salt
3 tsp. baking powder
3 tbsp. sugar
cinnamon, ginger, cloves, allspice to taste

1/4 c. to 1/2 c. pumpkin from a can of pumpkin
1/3 c. oil
2/3 c. milk

Preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.
Stir together all the dryish ingredients.
Add the pumpkin.
Toss in the oil and milk.
Mix the whole thing until it is a nice thick batter-type substance.
Then drop spoonfuls onto a non-greased baking sheet.
Bake for approximately 10 minutes. Sometimes 12 minutes are better. They must look cooked and be rather brownish, you know, the way baked things always look when they are baked but not burned.

Do not eat them all in one sitting.

Challenge of the Week:

Eat more pumpkin.

How do we propose to do this?

How about pumpkin chili, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin yogurt, and pumpkin with sweet potatoes?
And maybe pumpkin bars.
And there was even a recipe we found for pumpkin/corn pudding!

Learn a New Word!

I learned a new word today.
I am so excited.
Here it is:

Diffusivity: "the property of a substance indicative of the rate at which a thermal disturbance, as a rise in temperature, will be transmitted through the substance."

So basically, you have a substance of something. And then you change a thermal property like the temperature. Of course it takes time for the heat to travel through all that substance and to completely change the temperature of your substance. And the diffusivity tells one something about how fast the substance will change.

observation of the week

The road should be patched before it gets repainted. Not after. It looks messy after. Especially when some of the patches are in the line down the middle.....

I passed the exam!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!!

Leap Day

Does anyone have any sort of associations with this day?

I and my roommates all thought of "leap frog" but we thought there must be something else one could associate with today.
We brainstormed and even looked online, but everyone else thought of frogs too, it seems. It is most puzzling to be sure.

Isn't divisibility such a nice word? It has so many i's in it.

h

h is called the heat transfer coefficient. It is an interesting little thing that differs between the materials you are using. It partly depends on the velocity the substance is moving at or the air is moving towards the substance at. Also, it depends on geometry and sometimes temperature.
There is no specific way of finding the heat transfer coefficient of something. It is usually found by doing experiments. One of my roommates is working in a lab that is looking for the heat transfer coefficients of various substances. She is excited that I am learning about it.
h is used in as equation for finding the heat transfer of a convection process.

Q = hAdT

Q is usually written with a dot over it, but it is difficult to do so in a post. It is the heat transferred per time. A is the surface area of the substance that is exposed to the convection. dT is the change in temperature of the substance, from its initial temperature to its final temperature after losing or gaining heat. "Change" in something is expressed by the Greek letter delta, but there are no delta's on my keyboard, so I used a "d". It is not quite the same, but similar.

Now I must return to my studying. My exam is tomorrow, so 'tis imperative that I understand these concepts.

Shall I write a nothing post on the day of my twentieth birthday?

This is nothing.
It is not even worth the time I am spending writing it nor the time you are spending reading it.
But I am enjoying writing it anyways because writing nothing is more fun than writing something.
Especially when the something is technical or difficult or analytical and due soon.
Fortunately for me, I do not have anything of the sort due until next week.
In the meantime, I shall write nothing.

Perhaps you wish to know what I got for my birthday?
Well, probably you don't, but I'm going to tell you anyways.
I got a nice framed picture, two boxes of Thin Wheats (a cheap generic brand of crackers similar to Wheat Thins), and a small jar of cumin.

I am a Thin Wheat addict, I am sorry to say. No other cracker has just the right taste.
My roommates know this, in fact one of them shares my addiction, so they knew exactly what I would appreciate most.

The cumin was a spice that was horribly missing from our pantry. But now that has been remedied. I believe cumin is a must for any cook or pantry.

Thermal

I have the most lovely equation from my Thermal and Fluids class.

KE + PE + U = Q - W

Now perhaps you are wondering what on earth all those letters stand for?
Here are their definitions:

KE = Kinetic energy. This is the energy in something that is moving.

PE = Potential energy. This is the energy of something that has the potential to be moving.

U = Internal energy. This is the energy inside the system you have designated. It is a bunch of different things really. But I am still just learning what they all are. (which means, I don't totally understand it all myself, and I am just typing away quickly without looking up in my textbook for exact definitions)

Q = Heat transferred, I think. I can't exactly remember this one, but it does have to do with the heat that enters a system or leaves a system.

W = Work. This is work done by the system or done on the system.

I have mentioned "system" several times in my definitions. A system can be anything. Usually, we take a large complicated thing like a motor and we can call the whole thing a system, or we can break it into smaller parts and call each of those systems and so on. It depends on what you are trying to find and what choice of a system makes it easiest to find those things.