Minty Fresh

My youngest daughter, aaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrgh!

Last night, as we were putting the girls to bed, I froze in my tracks. Outside the laundry room door, ON THE CARPET, was a bright blue spot about a bazillion inches across. Well maybe it was only four inches, but it was quite large. Especially, when you realize it is Crest Gel toothpaste.

It took awhile longer, but after I had tucked Stinkles into bed, I came to understand the full extent of her sassiness.

Stinkles is a red-head and has the stereotypical attitude, temperament, and personality to go along with it. She is stubborn, prone to tantrums and can be generally mischievous. She thinks defiance is funny. Most of this can be blamed on the fact that she is three-years-old, but some of it is just Stinkles, being Stinkles. My life is going to be a living hell when she’s a teenager – I can feel it.

Anyway, Hubby got out the little carpet cleaner machine and got to work on the spot. As he worked on the spot a minty smell wafted through the air. Much better than the poop, pee or puke we normally have to clean up with the machine.

I got Stinkles to her room and into bed. That’s when I saw her “baby sisters” propped up at the end of her bed with a little plate from the play kitchen in front of them. On the plate was a mound of toothpaste. When I say mound, I mean mound – it looked like she was trying to feed them spaghetti with meatballs on top.

To further the sassiness, she had a Dixie cup of water next to each of them as well as one for herself on top of a pile of books next to her bed. We have a "children do not take food or drink out of the kitchen or dining areas" rule - NO EXCEPTIONS! At least she had the sense to put the one cup of water on a hard surface.

If it wasn’t so sweet of her to take such good care of her babies, I would still be mad at her this morning. As it was, she woke up this morning, immediately gave us a hug, and, in her little voice (she’s very soft spoken; Kate was “blessed” with my voice that carries five miles), said “I love you.”


Silver lining:
1. The toothpaste did not bleach out the carpet.

2. She can turn on the “cute” factor and melt your heart in an instant – maybe that’s not a good thing, hmmmm.

3. You gotta admire her creativity. Instead of putting an empty plate in front of them or using some piece of plastic food from the play kitchen, she found a way to give her babies something real.

Houston, We Have A Problem

We're experiencing a heat wave in St. Louis - 43 degrees on Wednesday; possible 55 degrees today! Compared to the icy wind of the last week or so, this is balmy. Everyone is breaking out their shorts and t-shirts, running up to the volleyball courts and getting out the fishing poles only to find there is still a skating rink open over the sand and ice mostly covers the lakes.

Honestly, this weather couldn't be more inconvenient for me - our deep freeze may be dying. With it warming up, I can't get a bunch of coolers & ice together so I can put it all in the garage.

After the kids are in bed, we (Hubby and I) selfish adults like to have "scoop". This is a custard cup (6 oz.) full of orange sherbet - and I mean full, as in how high can I pile the sherbet on before it falls over and makes a mess? Really, you would think we could admit to ourselves that if we wanted that much sherbet, perhaps a larger bowl would be in order. Nope, not us. As long as it's only a custard cup, we're being prudent in our calorie intake.

We usually keep this "healthy" ice cream alternative in the upstairs freezer so it is easier to scoop out; thus, easier to create skyscrapers of sherbet. However, to our dismay, on Tuesday night, a new container had to be retrieved from the deep freeze. That was a bummer because when the sherbet is rock hard, we give up on trying to scoop out a lot and only have an actual cup.

When Hubby began to dish up the sherbet with ease, my first thought was, "Why is that so easy?" A not so good feeling started to form in my stomach. I pointed this anomaly out to Hubby, we looked at each other, then immediately headed for the basement.

I opened the freezer and there was still a three inch layer crust of ice around the top edge and cold air was coming out. It was weird though because some stuff was really frozen and others were starting to melt. Granted, the melty stuff was mostly items that defrosts quickly - sherbet, frozen orange concentrate, frozen lime concentrate, frozen lemon concentrate, frozen daiquiri concentrate. We concentrate a lot.

I got an empty storage tub and started loading it up. I grabbed all the concentrate first because we use that to make our lime-berry smash & famous margaritas - can't be losin' ingredients for that! Then, I went for the Butterbraids - you can't get those just anywhere, ya know. And finally I picked up the chicken, pork steak, hamburger, fish sticks (kids - you gotta feed them), etc.

We found all kinds of stuff at the bottom of the freezer. There was at least one package of bulk chicken that had busted open and was all freezer burned. There were packages of meats and side items that said they were best if eaten by July of 1981. We found a box of long forgotten Girl Scout cookies - I didn't care what the "best if" date was, we were keeping those. Four boxes of Texas Toast garlic bread were hidden in there - four boxes!!! We even found Elvis! Kidding on that last one, but suffice it to say a freezer cleaning was a little over due.

Spacial girl (that's me - I specialize in filing nooks & crannies - could I put that on a resume, "Spacial Specialist"?) got the majority of the savable food in the upstairs freezer, sent two bags of unsavable/undesirable food to the trash can, and put the remaining savable food in Ken & Roxie's freezer. Thank goodness really good friends live right around the corner - who else can you call at 10pm with this kind of crisis? Although we took all of Roxie's ice, it was for a good cause - meatballs and pierogies are irreplaceable.

Had I still lived in Wisconsin, we could have just put everything into a snow bank outside the back door. As long as the Bumpes' dogs don't get your Christmas turkey, you're good. Honestly, I'm not sure anyone has a deep freeze up there. Why pay for something to take up space in your basement/garage, when nature provides a free one nine months out of the year?

Anyway, when Hubby asked me what we were having for dinner Wednesday night, I immediately said, "Spaghetti - we have four boxes of Texas Toast to eat."

Dinner was served with three pieces of toast per person. Just kidding, I don't want to waste yummy garlic bread! And, dang it, no meatballs - I forgot there were in Roxie's freezer.

Now, how else can we use up the Texas Toast (only 26 more slices to go)? Make dinners consisting of chili, lasagna, mastacolli, or any other Italian dish. Cut it up into little pieces & call it an "appetizer" for Bunco group? Oo, oo, we can string a piece in each window and the exterior doors to ward off vampires. I suppose the possibilities are endless.

Silver lining:

1. The appliance stores didn't have any financing deals we liked or applied to our purchase so we decided we would eat up the food we had and wait for a better deal. Another thought was to save and pay cash for a new freezer. Save? Cash? Foreign concepts for sure.

2. After not buying a freezer we realized we could try to save the freezer we have by fully defrosting it (it is more than five years old and it's never been defrosted) and then checking the freon levels. What a "duh!" moment. As in "Duh, try to fix something before you throw it away." If it works, God was definitely watching out for us on this one. If it doesn't work, God still gave us the good sense to realize a deep freeze is nice, but not a necessity.

I'm Goin' For Grass!

When my mother lived in St. Louis, she lived in a subdivision that had some pretty flat areas. My sister had just gotten K2 rollerblades and was having so much fun. I happened to find a pair of rollerblades at Gordmon’s and decided to pay the $40 for them and join her.

I started out with a wobble but soon got the hang of it. I was thinking it was going to be kind of like roller skating; where you push a few times, then you glide for a bit. It was nothing like roller skating.

I had to push the entire time – there was absolutely no gliding. Sissy kept skating ahead and then coming back for me. As it was I hated her for being a size five, but now I had to deal with my baby sister skating circles around me. By the time I got home I was super sweaty and completely exhausted. I never wanted to look at a pair of rollerblades ever again – what a stupid “sport”!

As I was relating this story to Hubby (we were dating at the time), he took a look at my rollerblades. Apparently, you get what you pay for. A $40 pair of rollerblades gets you crap wheels.

He wanted to take up rollerblading as well so we headed over to the Sports Authority. I was really only going to support him, but he convinced me to try on a pair of K2’s. He wanted me to feel the difference. They were so smooth! We ended dropping about $300.

We got back to my mom’s and immediately strapped on our new skates (and knee pads, elbow pads, and helmet). Like I said my mom’s subdivision has a lot of area that is flat – or so it appears. Until you are a novice on super smooth rollerblades, you don’t realize how “steep” a 3% grade is.

We worked our way to the back of the subdivision – pushing and gliding. This was much more fun. We turned around to come back and hit the grade. I was doing ok at first, but it was a long “hill” so I kept gaining speed. I had no confidence in my ability to turn at this speed and had no idea how to stop.

It didn’t take long to weigh my options – crash on the rough pavement or crash on someone’s lawn. Hmmmm, pavement or grass? I decided on the grass and shouted back to Hubby, “I’M GOIN’ FOR GRASS!”

There weren’t actual curbs, just a slope from the road to the lawn so I figured I would just slide up and then make myself fall. That slope definitely led me to the lawn. I hit the edge of the road and flew up in the air! Fortunately, I was still moving forward so I fell into the grass – flat on my ass!

While landing in the grass instead of the road was better, I got news for you, “Grass is not a soft landing spot!”

Silver lining:
1. I eventually got better and could manage the long path around Creve Coeur Lake with a hill that is actually steep.
2. Nothing was broken. I haven’t gone rollerblading for several years. If I went now, I’d be a bit rusty. If I took a fall like this now, I might break a hip.
3. I learned that I am no good at judging the impact of an angle in the path a moving object (that would be me).

The Head Fake

At Carnegie-Mellon University, it is somewhat of a tradition for departing professors to give their “last lecture” to a public audience. In 2007, one of their professors, Randy Pausch, was dying of pancreatic cancer and delivered a (now quite famous) last lecture – so much so that the term “last lecture” has become synonymous with his presentation that day. In case you’ve never seen it, the link is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo It’s a little over an hour in length, but it’s a very good presentation – definitely worth watching.

Anyway, one of the things he talks about is the “head fake”. Essentially, it’s the art of distraction – getting you to pay attention to one thing, while something entirely different is happening on the side, such as with an illusionist. Now that you know what the term means, you’ll understand the title a bit more. You see, we went out to dinner with my mother-in-law over the weekend, and she didn’t want to become the subject of one of my blogs. So, on Monday, I published something entirely different, knowing full well that I was going to be publishing this one later in the week. Therein lies the head fake.

My brother-in-law, Steve, and I have birthdays in January. Every year, my mother & father-in-law graciously take the adults out for a nice dinner. This year was at Kitaro, a hibachi restaurant where the chef cooks your food right in front of you.

We did not all arrive at the same time (they only seat your entire party) so there was a little time to belly up to the bar. My in-laws had already had a couple of drinks, but there was one in particular they said was really good and the bartender was just itchin’ to make it. The “Volcano” is billed as a two person drink. Thinking it was something like a fishbowl margarita, I told her I could take it on myself. She raised her eyebrows and went to make the drink.

Dude, it was sooooo cool. Obviously, she didn’t believe me when I said could drink it myself because it came with two super long straws. But the niftiest feature was the flame in the center. That’s right, the drink was on fire! I took one long sip and made the “whah” pucker face and shivered. It was pure alcohol. This must be a standard reaction because the bartender was standing by with a cup of juice. She asked if we wanted juice poured in (only an alcoholic would say no). All I could do was nod my head because my face was still contorted in the pucker.

After we were seated and ordered our drinks, my mother-in-law ordered some spring rolls as an appetizer. Apparently, there were a few too many made while they were at the bar so the bartender let them have them for free. She said they were really good and wanted us all to try them.

When the spring rolls arrived and were placed in front of her, she said, “Who ordered these?”

“You did.”

“I ordered these? Well, ok. Here, pass the plate for everyone.”

I did not want one so I didn’t even look at the plate, but apparently there was some kind of sauce.

Now, my sister-in-law has once or twice, at various meals, dirtied up the table cloth. Since then, there is always a comment telling her not to spill on the table cloth – fortunately, she is good natured enough to take a joke.

I tell you this because as the plate is being passed between my mother-in-law & sister-in-law, it got tipped and the sauce slid off. There wasn’t a table cloth so I guess my mother-in-law's plate was a good enough substitute. Needless to say, my mother-in-law needed a new plate.

During all this commotion, one of the straws from the Volcano fell to the floor. Had this been a utensil or a soda straw, we would request a new straw. But since it was going right back into the alcohol, we figured all the germs would be killed off. Besides, the five second rule was still in effect.

Our chef, Sam-I-Am (who likes green eggs & ham), was excellent! He was the most entertaining of all the chefs I could see. He was constantly clattering on the grill, flipping stuff up in the air and/or into his hat, making flames (more fire!) while cooking our food the entire time. I turned down the onion soup and grilled onions, but accepted the onion fried rice with no onions – he made it special for me.

While we were watching Sam-I-Am, I looked at Hubby and said, “He’s noisier than you.”

Hubby in turn said, “Yah. If I had a flat stove, I could do this.”

I thought, 'My ass, you could cook like this.'

Do you know how dirty my ceiling would be? Never mind the floor. We have a textured ceiling and I would never get all the eggs he flipped up in the air off it. As I think about it now, he may have been referring to the amount of noise he could make. Note to self: NEVER buy a flat stove.

At the end of Sam’s cooking show, he was tossing grilled shrimp at us. He used his spatula to flip it up and we were supposed to catch it with our mouths. He had really good aim, but none of us actually caught it with our mouths. My mother-in-law technically caught a shrimp. A hot shrimp hit my mother-in-law in the neck and bounced into her shirt so she did end up with a shrimp hickey and a little surprise for my father-in-law later.

Silver lining:
1. I am very blessed to have in-laws that I love and even like. And I think they generally like me, but after this, I might be in the dog house.
2. Dinner was fantastic, not to mention entertaining. Almost as entertaining as Thanksgiving at Hubby’s aunt & uncle’s.

My Mother-In-Law Didn't Want to be the Subject of Monday's Blog . .

. . . so I left her out of it.

Several years ago, Hubby had grilled some pork chops and was saving them for lunch during the week. My mom happened to be in town for a week and I took a week of vacation. Hubby was on call, but at home.

Mom was hungry, started looking in the refrigerator, and found the pork chops. She had hardly taken them out when Hubby practically pounced on them.

“These are for my lunch this week.”

“Well, could you share one with your mother-in-law?”

“No, I made these special for my lunch.”

Pitifully, my mom said, “All I ever wanted was a pork chop.”

Now, any time we can’t have what we want, that phase has a funny way of coming up.



Fast forward to this weekend.

On Friday night, we dropped the kids off at the “Parents Night Out Co-Op”. On the check-in table was a flyer for a great discount at the Brickhouse Bistro, we had nothing better to do, so we decided we would go there for dinner.

Hubby loves their pork chops and was salivating all the way over just thinking about it. We sat down, ordered a couple of beers and briefly looked over the menu. The biggest decision we had to make was what kind of appetizer we were going to get.

Our waitress was ready to take our order. Hubby could hardly wait and blurted out, “The pork chops, please.”

“Oooo, sorry, we’re out of pork chops.”

He was so deflated.

After the waitress left, he said, “All I ever wanted was a pork chop.”

All I have to say is “What goes around, comes around.”

Boy, am I due for a huge kick in the pants because of this blog.

Silver lining:
1. We had a nice dinner without kids constantly needing our attention or climbing all over us.
2. Fortunately, the eating experience this weekend would only get better. Saturday night, no kids (again), Kitaro’s – mmm – mmm – mmm – mmm – mmm!

I'm a Glutton for Punishment

Here I go again – thinking I’m organized enough to whip something up for an event!

A new Bunco group was starting up in New Town and in LI style, I wanted to bring something homemade.

I had just gotten a cookie press for Christmas. It’s super cool because it runs on batteries. The cookie press came with recipes for both cookies and appetizers/crackers.

I make cookies for my other Bunco group, but I didn’t want to do the same thing. So flipping through the recipes, I chose as appetizer called “Gougeres”.

That’s a fancy-schmancy way of saying Basil Cream Puffs! The recipe book even has them titled as Gougeres and in parentheses, Basil Cream Puffs. It’s like the Wilton people putting the recipe book together decided to include Gougeres, but the editor said it was too high faluntin’ when it’s really as simple as Basil Cream Puffs. I’m sure there was a huge outcry by the Julia Child Fan Club about this, and after heavy debate, a compromise was reached. The recipe would be titled “Gougeres (Basil Cream Puffs)”. There, I hope everyone is happy.

This Bunco group is on Thursdays so on Wednesday night I did the responsible thing and fetched all the dry ingredients we had in the kitchen and checked the supply of everything else. I made a tick mark by any ingredients I needed to buy at the grocery store. I wasn’t so responsible as to go out and actually buy these ingredients that same night. I was just going to do it on my way home Thursday.

The grand plan (in this order) was to:
* Bust it out of work right at five
* Stop at the IGA for ingredients
* Pick up the kids at daycare
* Get home & start the oven
* Cook up the dough, pipe the dough onto cookie sheets & throw them in the oven
* Make up the cream cheese spread
* Feed the kids PB&J
* Dig out the centers of the cream puffs & fill with cream cheese spread
* Head off to Bunco at 6:30-ish

Well, I didn’t leave work until almost 5:15. I pulled into the IGA parking lot & got out the recipe (to make sure I got all the tick marks). I needed parchment paper, cream cheese, dried chives, & goat cheese – GOAT CHEESE!?!?!?! Oh, crud! The IGA is good for staples and a decent selection of basic meats, but GOAT CHEESE??

The first three were fairly easy to find. In the cheese section of the dairy department, I found cheddar, American, mozzarella, Gouda, feta. A glimmer of hope rose up, but alas, no goat cheese.

For occasions such as this, I have the New Town Market, Marsalla’s, as a contact in my cell phone. I gave them a quick, frantic call and breathed a sigh of relief – they had goat cheese.

OK, I picked up the kids without incident (by some miracle), got the goat cheese and got straight to work as soon as I got home. The ovens were on and I started preparing the dough (which wasn’t as hard as I was lead to believe). I piped the dough onto cookie sheets, opened the oven to pop them in, but there were no racks!

Rob had cleaned the ovens a couple of nights ago and the racks were still sitting out. Fortunately, that was an easy fix.

Whew, I was in the home stretch. The rest of the process went pretty smoothly and I made it to Bunco just before seven. What an exciting (though time crunchily stressful) couple of hours!

Silver lining:
1. Thank heavens for Marsalla’s Market. They have saved me numerous times before.
2. I have a new recipe to share. Without a stressful time crunch, I would definitely make these again. http://lifemakesmelaugh.blogspot.com/2009/01/gougeres-basil-cream-puffs-herbed.html
3. At Bunco, I met some new people, got to know others better & had a grand time with my friends; new and old.

Gougeres (Basil Cream Puffs) & Herbed Cheese Spread

Basil Cream Puffs

Ingredients:
1 Cup Water
6 Tablespoons butter
¼ teaspoon salt
1 Cup all-purpose flour
4 eggs
½ cup Parmesan cheese
¼ teaspoon garlic powder
¼ teaspoon basil

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Place water, butter & salt in medium saucepan and bring to a boil.

Lower the heat and add flour all at once.

Continue to cook, stirring constantly until the mixture leaves the sides of the pan and forms a ball.

Remove from heat, but keep it in the warm pan.

Add eggs one at a time. Make sure each egg is fully blended (no slime) before adding another one.

Stir in Parmesan cheese, garlic powder & basil.

Fill a cookie press or pastry bag with the dough.

Pipe dough into a spiral on prepared cookie sheet.

Bake 15-20 minutes or until puffed and golden brown.

After the puffs have cooled a little, push the centers down with your thumb and fill with dip of your choice.

Makes about two dozen.



Herbed Cheese Spread

Ingredients:
1 (8 oz) package cream cheese, softened
1 (4 oz) package goat cheese
1 teaspoon dried chives
1 teaspoon dried parsley flakes
½ teaspoon garlic powder

Place all ingredients in a food processor (or use a hand mixer) and process until smooth.

Using either a star tip on a pastry bag or cookie press, fill Basil Cream Puffs.

Makes about 1 cup of filling.

Rhymes with sit, fit, zit . . .

Cupie is in the goofy phrase/rhyming stage.

She says things like, “Twinkle, twinkle little house” and laughs hysterically.

She also makes up words like, “Whack-corn” – what is that?????

Lately, she has really gotten the concept of rhyming too. It’s not just the repetition & parroting of Dr. Seuss type books that you see from younger children. She is taking one word & figuring out what rhymes with it – sat, cat, mat, etc.

Saturday night, while I hosted Bunco, Hubby took the girls to McDonald's for dinner & to get a movie out of the Red Box. Now, Cupie was probably babbling on rhyming or thinking up goofy stuff and Rob wasn’t really paying attention until she asked him, “We’re going to get a tit movie, right?”

I’m sure the blue hairs sitting near the Red Box about had a heart attack!

Silver lining:
1. Hubby did explain that "tit" is not a word nice girls use.
2. They did not get a tit movie.
3. McDonald's Red Box does not carry tit movies.

Male Rationalization

When my husband asks me if he can have or do somthing, he has a habit of dancing around the subject. He usually gets me to agree to whatever it is before I really know what I'm agreeing to. So when I got the following phone call, my gut started sending up warning flares, alarms started blaring in my head and I swear I heard lightening strike.

RING, RING, RING

M: Hello

R: Hey, it's me. Is your mom still going to be there tonight?

M: Yah

Warning flares started going up!

R: Well, I didn't know if she was going to your sister's

M: Why? (still very suspicious)

R: If I could get Guitar Hero World Tour for $5.65, would you let me keep it?

M: All of it? Drums & all?

I'm totally thinking he's full of sh*t! There is no way he got a $190 game for less than $100, let alone less than $10. Besides, all those blasted alarms started going off!

R: Yup, all of it

M: And it works?

R: Yes

I could hear the glee in his voice. He's worse than a kid in a candy store sometimes.

M: Well, I guess so . . .

Lightening strikes!

R: Good, because I got $200 for putting up all those shelves today so the net, including tax, is only $5.65.

M: What if I said I would rather have the 200 bucks?

R: Apparently, you didn't listen to my earlier question. I asked if I could get it for $5.65, would let me keep it? Implying that I already had it.

M: (long sigh)

R: I LOVE YOU!

Silver lining:
1. I get to go over to Roxie's more often while the boys have "band" practice. (It doesn't start until after the kids are in bed - hee, hee)
2. Hubby doesn't use the stickers that are included to "decorate" the components so the girls got two lovely sticker sheets of skulls, flames, warriors, dragons & what-not.

The only problem with this "Rock Band" is finding a lead singer. I've heard most of the neighborhood guys try their hand at karaoke - yikes! However, if Dash could get off that second shift . . .

And a Beer . . .

I don’t know how it started, but the Twelve Days of Christmas came up. Cupie could not remember how it went and wanted us all to help her remember by singing. Knowing it would take us forever to sing the song, I suggested we start at the twelfth day.

Cupie: Noooooo, start at the beginning.

Adults: On the first day of Christmas, my true love sent to me . . .

Hubby: A beer.

After an eye roll & playful scowl, I continue with, “a partridge in a pear tree.”

To satisfy the children we continued.

On the second day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, two French hens . . .

We all stopped, knowing that was wrong.

Me: Oo! Oo! It’s turtle doves!

Two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree.

On the third day of Christmas . . .

On the fourth day . . .

On the fifth day . . .

On the sixth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me

PAUSE

PAUSE MORE

Six geese a laying, five goooooold rings, four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree.

On the seventh day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, seven geese a laying, no seven swans a swimming, eight maids a milking

Hubby: You’re going backwards!!

Uh, six geese a laying

Me: And a beer!

Believe it or not, no alcohol had been consumed.


Silver lining:
1. We finally finished all twelve days.
2. We've compiled the following versions of "The 12 Days of Christmas" for your listening pleasure:
http://www.quailonline.net/12days/Bob_and_Doug_McKenzie_Twelve_Days_Of_Christmas.wma
http://www.quailonline.net/12days/Chipmunks_Twelve_Days_of_Christmas.wma
http://www.quailonline.net/12days/Natalie_Cole_Twelve_Days_Of_Christmas.wma
http://www.quailonline.net/12days/Straight_No_Chaser_Twelve_Days_of_Christmas.wma
http://www.quailonline.net/12days/Twisted_Sister_Heavy_Metal_Christmas.wma

The Family Chef

As Hubby has been busy buying ingredients & preparing for our Christmas dinner, I got to thinking about the family chef when we were growing up. As I've stated before, my mom was not one to cook so this is not about her. . .

We had the goofiest, yet remarkable, dog when I was growing up. She was a Shepherd/Samoyed mix – not too big at about 45 lbs and she had the trademark Samoyed “smile”. We named her Ayla.

She would watch us get on the bus in the morning and be waiting with a smile & tail wag when we returned in the afternoon. Her entire butt would wiggle back and forth she was wagging her tail so hard.

She was agile enough to jump over our four foot fence. Most of the time it was to get over to her buddy, Lady, next door. Lady was a beagle mix so there was no jumping for her. While the neighbors liked our dog and were glad Lady & Ayla got along instead of constantly barking at each other, the dogs would tear up the yard. We had to start keeping Ayla on a leash in the back yard.

After a bath, she would race down the stairs, into the living room, rub her head & side on the carpet, go around the coffee tables, then, back up the stairs. She would repeat this several times until she felt she was sufficiently dry.

Ayla was good at curling up next to you and resting her head on your lap when ever you were sad or not feeling well. She would use her nose to push your hand up so she could tuck her head up under your arm.

What made her so remarkable is that she could cook!

A few facts:
She had a double bowl for water & food.
The food she was raised on was dry.
There was a rug under the bowl.

When she was hungry, she would “cook” her food.
She would dip her nose in the water and slosh some over to the food. Then, she would push her nose into the food a few times to mix. Repeat this dip, slosh, mix activity about three more times. Next, she would use her nose to fold the rug up over the top of her dish.

About a ½ hour later, she would return to eat her dinner.

We tried watering it down for her – no go.
We tried giving her canned dog food – no go.

We never understood it and have never heard of another dog that did this. But it was typical of our Ayla – goofy, but remarkable. Miss her lots.

Silver lining - I have lots of good memories of childhood. All kids should have a pet of some kind.

What I Learned in Woman's Bible Study

The women’s Bible study group I belong to had taken a break when our leader started a new job. Now that she is settled in and gotten some routines back in order, we started up again on Wednesday. To introduce ourselves to new people and reacquaint ourselves with everyone, we had to share something interesting about ourselves. I learned some really interesting things in those two and a half hours.

1. One of the gals is a volunteer for crisis assistance if someone comes to the hospital and a rape was involved. I salute her for that – I didn’t know there were “regular” people to talk to should, God forbid, you need her. Her scheduled on-call time is Tuesdays from 4pm to 2am. She attends monthly meetings and many of the other volunteers have cases/stories to discuss, but she has never had any cases. So I’ve determined that if I were to take up streetwalking, the perfect time to do it is between 4pm and 2am on Tuesdays in St. Charles. You know, hard economic times lead people to do the strangest things. I’m not sure how many customers I would have – they would probably pay me to keep my clothes on.

2. Angel fish are terrible parents. I completely understand why some animals eat their young – I’m sure every human parent is aware of this, and most (except for the sickos out there) would not do so. But angel fish, oh my! Any change in their environment causes them to eat their babies. Drop food in the tank, they eat the babies. Kids run through the house, they eat the babies. A car door slams outside, they eat the babies. A train whistle blows two counties away, they eat the babies. A butterfly flaps its wings in Africa . . .

3. My husband is an ultra, over-the-top, hardcore conservative. I actually learned this outside the study group – when I got home. Our hostess at the Bible Study was displaying a card with President-elect Barak Obama on the front of it. People out there are putting Obama’s face on everything – even underwear!!! Apparently, she worked the polls on election day and it was from a friend who worked on the campaign. As our hostess’ children are conservative, I assumed she was as well. We all know the expression about assumptions – you can totally tag this one on me. After telling Rob about this card and my surprise to see it, he pointed out that she has always leaned to the liberal side of the spectrum. Then, we discussed the underwear – this is where the ultra, over-the-top, hardcore part comes in. He said he would wear them inside out and try to crap his pants. Good grief! Can you imagine crapping in your pants by accident, let alone on purpose??? GROSS!!!!!! As my mother-in-law says, “You married him. He’s your’s. I don’t want him back.” I guess I have to keep him – despite his gross-ness.


Silver lining:
1. Women’s Bible Study is back on for regular monthly meetings.
2. Even though I don’t attend church with these women, they have accepted me into their group.
3. Because our hostess reads this blog, I’m going to assume at this point that Rob is not getting a Christmas present from his best friend’s mom. I will say, despite this small character flaw :), I still love her.


PS – We all brought cookies and I need a couple of recipes if someone can get them for me – Laura’s Oreo balls & Christina’s spritz cookies. If anyone needs my chocolate cookie recipe, here it is: Buy some refrigerated cookie dough, break it apart, put on a cookie sheet & bake in the oven @ 350 degrees. Complicated, I know.

Time to Make the Cookies

During the trip to the frozen tundra at Thanksgiving, my mom gave me some cookbooks – she’s never been a cook so I’m not sure why she had them in the first place. One of them was about holiday baking and I had a couple of Christmas Cookie Exchange parties to go to and I am the self-proclaimed cookie queen so I was excited to find a new cookie recipe.

There was one in particular that intrigued me, the Molasses Spice Fizz. I like molasses cookies so I decided this was the one. The recipe said it made seven dozen and that was exactly how many I needed for one of my cookie exchanges – perfect! Last time I said that, I had a dessert disaster (see http://lifemakesmelaugh.blogspot.com/2008/11/delightful-peanut-butter-cookie-bars.html). Why would I think this was any different?

Since it had to be refrigerated for at least an hour (for ease of handling – impending disaster clue #1), I made up the dough for the first batch on Wednesday night (after Bible Study – blog coming soon) in order to make them on Thursday. The plan was to make up the dough for a second batch as soon as I got home from work so it could chill while we made cut outs from the first batch.

When I got home, I realized I had forgotten the recipe at work. Crap – If I was going to make another batch, I was going to have to go back out for that (impending disaster clue #2). I also couldn’t remember what temperature the oven was supposed to be at. Rob said he would get started with the girls. Before I left, I told him the one thing I remembered from the recipe – roll the dough out on a well floured surface. He said he would use the flour sifter to make a good coating on the counter.

I got home to him cussing because the dough was sticking to everything! His hands, the rolling pin, the cookie cutters, argh! So much for ease of handling. That was clue #3 – I now had a full blown dessert disaster. Also, when we looked in the bowl, it didn’t look like enough dough for seven dozen cookies. Was I going to have to make a total of three batches???

It was too late to turn back - the dough was made, rolled out and the cookie cutters placed. Using a spatula to move the cookies from the counter to the cookie sheet was the worst. The dough just kind of mushed up on itself. Apparently, sifting enough flour onto the counter so that you can’t see the counter was not enough. I had to scrape the whole thing off the counter & start again using a lot more flour.

I had to send the kids to bed without helping because I was getting so frustrated and I didn’t want to take it out on them. Needless to say, I was not going to put this recipe into the permanent file – I was never going to make these again! Then, I told Rob to call my sister to get my mom’s sugar cookie recipe.

Mom’s sugar cookies went much easier – I knew what to expect. Although my mom thought the recipe would only make 40 to 50 cookies, we ended up with 180! We had those made & frosted within four and a half hours. I was sooooo done with the molasses cookies, we didn’t glaze them until Saturday morning.

I’ve published both recipes in case you’re interested. WARNING - only the truly brave should try the molasses!

http://lifemakesmelaugh.blogspot.com/2008/12/ma-bergs-christmas-cookies.html

http://lifemakesmelaugh.blogspot.com/2008/12/molasses-spice-fizz-cookies.html


Silver lining:

1. We have a double oven so the baking went pretty fast.
2. In the end, (after a glaze frosting & sugar sprinkles) they were quite tasty.
3. Despite my doubts about the recipe making seven dozen, I ended up with 10 ½ dozen cookies.
4. Cookie exchanges are the bomb! Instead of only having one (or two in my case) type of cookie, I have more than a dozen different ones.

Grandmama's Christmas Cookies

Ingredients:
3 Cups Sugar
1 Cup Shortening
1 ½ Cup Buttermilk
1 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Baking Powder
3 Eggs
¾ tsp Nutmeg
7 to 8 Cups Flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Blend sugar & shortening.

Add buttermilk, baking soda, baking powder, eggs & nutmeg.

Add flour until you can roll it into a ball and it doesn’t stick to your hands.

Roll out dough to desired thickness & make shapes with cookie cutters.

Bake 10 to 15 minutes – until very slightly brown.

Place on wire rack to cool prior to frosting & sprinkling.


Ma Berg’s Christmas Cookie Frosting
Ingredients:
1 lb Powdered Sugar
¼ tsp Salt
½ Cup Shortening
1 Egg White (no yolk)
¼ Cup Water2 tsp Corn Starch

Mix all ingredients for five minutes. If too runny, thicken with powdered sugar.

Divide frosting into bowls and add food coloring for added fun!

Molasses Spice Fizz Cookies

Ingredients:
1 Cup Butter
1 ½ Cups Sifted Confectioners’ Sugar
1 Egg
2 ½ Cups All-Purpose Flour
1 tsp Baking Soda1 tsp Cream of Tartar
¼ tsp Salt
4 Tbsp Molasses
2 tsp Ground Cinnamon
½ tsp Ground Nutmeg

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In a large bowl, with electric mixer at medium speed, beat butter until fluffy. Gradually add sugar; beat until blended. Beat in egg and vanilla.

In a medium bowl, combine flour, soda, cream of tartar and salt. Gradually add flour mixture to butter mixture, beating until blended.

In a small bowl, combine molasses, cinnamon and nutmeg. Blend into dough.

Cover and refrigerate at least one hour or overnight for ease in handling.

On well-floured surface (lots of four or it will stick – trust me!), with floured rolling pin, roll dough 1/8 inch thick.

With floured cookie cutters, cut into desired shapes.

Place on ungreased cookie sheets and bake five minutes.

Cool on a wire rack prior to glazing & sprinkling.


Christmas Cookie Glaze
Ingredients:
1 lb Powdered Sugar
¼ tsp Salt
½ Cup Shortening
1 Egg White (no yolk)
¼ Cup Water
2 tsp Corn Starch

Mix all ingredients for five minutes. This should be runny – add water if necessary.

Use a BBQ brush to glaze the cookies. Sprinke pretty quick after glazing – it dries fast.

That Carpet

Cupie had colored some pictures and planned to give them to her grandparents from the Great White North.

I noticed Cupie sitting on a rug by the back door, punching holes with a pencil into red construction paper. I told her to move away from the door because Rob was going in and out quite frequently.

She says to me, “I need to do this here because I can’t get pencil on the carpet and this (pointing to the linoleum) is too hard. And I am not going to get pencil on that carpet.” I don’t know where she learned that tone; although, I have the feeling I should stay away from mirrors lest I find out.

What made getting pencil on the rug any better is beyond me.

In the end, she taped together a very lovely (but holey) “box” to put the coloring pages in.

Silver lining:
1. The rug is kind of oatmeal colored so pencil won’t show up on it anyway.
2. Bumpa & Nana loved the coloring pages when they were here this past weekend. Sorry Grandma Berg, the "box" was ruined, but the coloring page is waiting for your arrival this weekend.

Don't Eat the Flowers!

My grandma is a remarkable woman.

When she was 85, she was "Gettin' Jiggy With It" at my wedding. I love that memory.

She says things like, "Beau-ti-ful" and "Won-der-ful" while exaggerating the vowel in the first syllable.

She is now 94 and still volunteers at a center that prepares meals / helps those in need. God bless my Uncle Dan who lives with her and helps take care of her. Dan also drives her everywhere because she can't see worth a darn!

While we were up in Wisconsin, Grams joined us for a Thanksgiving feast at my dad's.

Everything was delicious - turkey, dressing, home-made gravy, lumpy non-powder potatoes, pink jello stuff, seven layer salad, the ever present green bean casserole - mmmmmmmmmm!

Dan, in all his kindness, loaded Grams plate with a little bit of everything. When he was going back for seconds of seven layer salad, my grams said, "Oh, what's that?"

He told her what it was, to which she replied, "I didn't get any of that."

He said that she had gotten a little bit of everything. I also pointed out that there was still a little on her plate, as evidenced by the peas.

She bent her head down to look and says, "Oh, I can't see what's on my plate. I've just been eating what's here. All I know is I'm not eating the flowers." She was talking about the design on plate even though they actually had leaves on them.

Gotta love her!


Silver lining:
1. Being 500 miles away, we don't get to see her very often. At 94 we are blessed to still have her here on earth and we all got a chance to see her at least one more time.
2. We made my grams' year by being there for a holiday.
3. She is still getting around by herself (except for driving) and has a sound mind - we can all hope to be doing so well when we're that age.

The Trip Up

Last week was just too busy to get a post in before we left - SORRY!

The trip up to Wisconsin was quite uneventful.

We planned on leaving at midnight Wednesday, but ended up leaving at one. That in and of itself is quite an accomplishment for us. Usually, we set a time to leave for a big trip and end up leaving town well after the set time.

Before children we would go on float trips with a big group of friends. It always involved camping for one or two nights. I am not much of an outdoor girl and would prefer to sleep in a hotel, but my Eagle Scout husband will have none of that. As an Eagle Scout (the highest Boy Scout rank), he is all about being prepared (as per the motto) and in doing everything without modern conveinences while camping. This means we do not use lighter fluid. We make a chiminy do-dad, light paper at the bottom & hope it gets the charcoal hot enough to burn. Honestly, the way he was so anal about making a fire, I'm surprised we were even allowed to use matches. I'm sure if it were totally up to him, we would rub sticks together or if it was sunny, at the very least use someone's glasses to make a flame. There were usually eight to twelve other people there so I think in a survival attempt, he gave into the matches. If he is drastically out numbered it is in his best interest to not hold up the fire for cooking - you don't want an angry mob on your hands.

Camping also means we have to sleep in a tent. For him a tent needs to have enough room to stand up, change clothes, do a jig and have a lounge separate from the sleeping quarters. We used to have the "tajma-tent". It had it's own "living room"! I think it said it slept eight, which means it only sleeps six, and there were only the two of us. For me, he gave in to an air mattress and I no longer had to gather leaves to form pillows - he let me take my own.

Because we usually ended up leaving so late, we were the last ones to the camp site and had to set up our tent in the dark (even though the sun doesn't set until almost ten o'clock). We fought about it every time because (a) I'm bad at setting up tents and (b) I'm crabby because it's late. This tent set up became a source of entertainment for our friends. The would turn their chairs toward us, pass out popcorn & wait for the show to begin.

So anyway, one hour lag was a pretty big deal! The kids slept most of the way. Cupie woke up around 5:30 or 6:00 just as it was starting getting light. She looked out the window and said, "What's all that white stuff?" It was snow!!!! It's not like she's never seen snow before, but in St. Louis, it ususally melts before the end of the day. Snow that lasts more than a day is a novelty. Welcome to the frozen tundra baby!

Silver lining - We still have children after a nine hour car ride (we're not in jail for permanently maiming them either).

Ridin' Along in My Automobile - Part 2

Please read the previous post before continuing: http://lifemakesmelaugh.blogspot.com/2008/11/riden-along-in-my-automobile.html

We worked on our “laptop on a box DVD player” the other day.

First order of business was to find a sturdy box that will fit in the back seat. Now, it’s a pretty roomy back seat, but not any box is going to do. Computer boxes were our best bet for something quite sturdy, but most of them are too big. A computer monitor box is at least 2’X2’.

After taking careful measurements, we decided to cut one of the monitor boxes in half and sandwich the two pieces together to make one skinnier box. Initially, this didn’t work so well. The two halves don’t fit together very smoothly. Duct tape was in order. We needed to tape the two halves together in order to keep it together and the top mostly flat.

You know how tape has a tendency to un-stick itself from cardboard? Well, it does. We solved that problem by wrapping the duct tape all the way around the box – side to side & top to bottom.

We put the box in the back seat. It fit snuggly, thanks to our careful measurements, between the front & back seats.

Snug fit from front to back – check!

There was a problem though. It seems there is a small hump in the middle of the backseat floor. While the box fit pretty well, we needed to make sure it didn’t rock from side to side while on the road.

Second order of business was to stabilize the box. Lop off the bottom & cut a little curve in the bottom. That sounds like a good solution. Back to the car.

Stable from side to side – check!

Time for the laptop. We attached Velcro to the top of the box & the bottom of the laptop. This seemed to work out ok, but now we needed to plug in the laptop. Rob has one of those adaptor boxes with a regular outlet on one end and a thingy to plug into the cigarette lighter.

Power – check!

We put the girls in the back seat and went for a test drive.

Reality – big fat goose egg! There seemed to be some issues.

First, the girls complained that they couldn’t see very well. It was an old laptop so viewing the screen from an angle left much to be desired in the picture quality. There were a whole lot of dark spots.

Secondly, and overall more important, the front passenger seat could not be reclined. It seemed there was an obstacle. Oh, yah, it must be the box because it had to be wide enough to hold a laptop and the space between the two front seats was less than 12”.

I guess this wasn’t such a good plan. Good thing we tested it early. We still have time to order a new DVD system – it should arrive on Monday.

Silver lining:
Dude, do I even need to give you one? In retrospect, the whole idea was not such a good idea.

Ridin' Along In My Automobile

We are driving to Wisconsin to visit my family for Thanksgiving. It is a big to-do because we haven’t made the trek to the frozen tundra since my cousin got married more than three years ago.

Speaking of that wedding, we had one of those handy-dandy portable DVD players which kept Kate occupied. We had to listen to the same Baby Einstein video over and over, but we eventually tuned it out. Kind of like when your spouse is babbling on and on about designing a VPNISPVOIPRAMROMCPU (how do you pronounce that?) compatible computer network, the decision making process in choosing the right fabric for drapes, or fitting FASB amortization tables into the GL matrix.

Something went haywire with the power cord on that DVD player and we called in a warranty claim, got a shipping label & everything. We haven’t gone anywhere for a really long time so I didn’t think about it much until I came across it while unpacking our garage (one year after moving into our new house). It had never been sent in for repairs so it is now useless.

Back to the Thanksgiving trip. We no longer have a video system to entertain the kids on the eight+ hour trip to see my parents. Until, EUREKA, Hubby had an idea!

He has an old laptop with a DVD player in it. Could I sew some kind of bag and harness to hold it between the seats? I couldn’t believe I was actually considering this. I guess I could try to sew something – my specialty is straight lines so it could get interesting. What would we use for the harness part? Maybe elastic? No, too much movement. How about we just tie it up with rope?

Driving down the highway (or at every rest stop), I can only imagine the thoughts of the other travelers around us:

The elite in their limos: Suckers! They have to drive themselves. I think I’ll take a nap now.

The soccer mobile (AKA mini van): Glad I bought this mini van with the DVD player built in. What a bunch of hoosiers.

The couple without kids: We are sooooo buying a vehicle that has the DVD player built in. I don’t want to look like a hoosier driving around town. (Never mind that kids are expensive enough without going out and buying a special vehicle just to feed their need to watch videos 24/7.)

The grandparents: Those poor deprived children, their grandparents should get them one of the car systems for Christmas.

The other families traveling several miles with kids in the car & no DVD player: Damn! That’s a good idea. Wish we had thought of it.

We considered it further. Sewing something wasn’t such a good idea. There were too many complications – how to hold it up, creating a slit for the DVD drive to open, sewing something like corners, etc. We needed a new idea.

There isn’t a hump in the middle of the back seat, maybe we could put the laptop on a box. How would we keep it on the box? Velcro. OK – we have a plan!

Stay tuned to find out how well this plan was executed.

Silver lining: We’ll just see what happens . . .