Old-Fashioned Hard Candy

Another Christmas-time creation, another moment of nostalgia for me. 
Twelve years ago, when my husband and I bought our house, my neighbor brought me some home-made hard candy at Christmas.  I had one of those moments where you you feel like your life is rewinding at a high rate of speed.  Everything around me went blurry. I probably went a little slack-jawed as I whooshed (yes, that's a word in my house) back to when I was about seven years old.  I was at my great-aunt Garn's house.  (Maybe it was Jane's? or Sal's?  My grandmother had a lot of sisters.)  I remember being there with lots of cousins that I didn't really know, but we were of course expected to play together nicely, and not be too loud, and for God's sake, don't knock over the damn houseplants.  I remember it being late, and being tired, but my mom and gram were not done visiting yet.

 Then I discovered Garn's candy jar.  It was filled with these beautiful, colorful, irregularly-shaped candies.  They reminded me of pieces of stained glass, except more delicious and digestable.  In my mind, I was in a dark room, with white Christmas lights in the background that made the candy sparkle.  Made the candy irresistable.  And I snuck piece after piece, licking the powdered sugar off of my fingers so as to hide the evidence.

Going back to my neighbor: she is a dear woman, and after I had a complete spaz attack because I hadn't seen that candy in 20 years and I was so excited, she agreed to teach me how to make it.  And now I share that knowledge with you. 

Old-Fashioned Hard Candy

Ingredients:

• 2 C. Sugar
• 1 C. Water
• 3/4 C. light corn syrup
• 1/2 tsp. flavor oil (I use LorAnn)
• food coloring
• powdered sugar

Combine sugar, water and corn syrup in a 2 quart heavy saucepan.  Stir until sugar is dissolved, then cook without stirring.  Once it is boiling well, lower heat and cook more slowly to 300 degrees (hard crack stage.)  While it is cooking grease (with margarine) a cookie sheet and cover with powdered sugar.  Once it hits 300 degrees, remove pan from heat.  Add food coloring and oil flavoring.  Stir well and pour onto cookie sheet..  Sprinkle more powdered sugar on top.  Allow to cool a bit and then cut with kitchen shears or break apart with your fingers.

Word of warning...do not put your face too close to the mixture as you are pouring in the flavor.  Not that my sister ever did that while making the hot cinnamon flavor, nor did she burn her face.  Nope.

Joy and Pain

Ahhhh, the joys of raising a daughter.
Don't get me wrong here, I love my daughter. She is smart and funny and is a great helper. She loves animals and loves to read and is starting to love volleyball. She is a great student and is perfectly well-behaved at school and for other people.
Our only struggle is that she is unimaginably strong-willed. Our first glimpse of that was when she was about 10 months old and threw up on her cherished "Yellowie" (the blanket) in the car. I changed her clothes and tried to put her back in the carseat without the barf-soaked blanket. 25 minutes later, we were still walking around the parking lot. I could not physically get her into that car seat. And she was under a year old.
Then there was the day we were shoe shopping. She was a little over two and insisted on getting in the car seat by herself. I forgot about that and tried to put her in. Kicking, back arching and screaming ensued. After about 5 minutes, I got her back out and told her in a less-than-kind manner to climb back in herself. She threw her head back, right into the edge of the door and started crying more. That's when I looked across the parking lot and saw a lady watching me, cell phone in hand. I put DD back in the car and then climbed in myself and counted to 10. My sweet little, 4 1/2 year-old son said, "Mommy, you are scaring me." It took another 10 minutes of "Scary Mommy" plus almost all my weight to get her into that car seat.
Fast forward 6 years. She's beautiful and smart and wonderful and every once in a while, that bull headedness comes out. (She's a Taurus. No surpise there.) Today it was over homework, for no good reason other than she didn't want to do it.
My parents tell me my sister was similarly strong willed, and she grew up just fine. In fact, she's quite awesome.
So, I have faith that DD will do the same. There are just those moments when I feel like a failure as a parent. And then she comes over and gives me a hug out of the blue and it's all better.

Photoshop Failure

So, I downloaded the free 30-day trial of Photoshop. And I kind of hated it until I allowed myself to download some free actions. Dangerous, very dangerous.
I started with this photo of me and my lovely, wonderful, beautiful sister and tried to make us look even better. It's a cute picture of the two of us, taken on a weekend that we spent in the Windy City.
Allow me to rephrase. It WAS a cute picture of the two of us. I have managed to make her look cute and me look like some sort of circus freak.
I started out by using an eye brightener. All of the cool kids are doing it. Then I ran a Pioneer Woman Action called "Lovely and Ethereal." And we were lovely and ethereal.
Could I leave well-enough alone? Is the Pope Methodist? Does the Bear crap on a toilet? I had to try Pioneer Woman's "Vintage" action. While I sat here and waited for it to work its magic, I kept imagining how amazingly awesome and old-fashioned it was going to look. Like, "Frame it and hang it on the wall" awesome.
And then this showed up on my screen, and I nearly busted a gut laughing. It would seem the Vintage Action looks great on pretty, fair skin like my sister has. Not so much on my more tanned face. And boy, so those brightened eyes of mine stand out. Freaskshow!!
Oh well, at least my teeth are pretty and white!

Ultimate Bad Hair Day

That's me, on the right. And my little sister, on the left. She has threatened to kill me in the past for posting this photo. I am taking my life into my own hands by sharing this with you, my nonexistent readers.
This was Easter Sunday, 1986. I remember how I wanted that dress, had to have that dress, thought I was going to die if I didn't have that dress (actually skirt and shirt.) I don't know if I thought I would look a little like Laura Ingalls Wilder. Maybe the mauve plaid was just too tempting. The cute little round collar? And beads to match. I was hot.
But really, am I ignoring the elephant in the room? Holy balls of fire, look at that hair. You see, my sister and I were not allowed to cut our hair. "Little girls have long hair," stated my father. My mother went along with it, but made sure he had to brush the bird's nest snarls we'd get every once in a while. Somewhere along the way, we convinced Dad to let us have bangs. And then those bangs steadily marched backwards until the entire crown of our heads were "bangs." And then mom got tired of curling said bangs (have I mentioned that my sister and I have stick-straight hair?) so we got ourselves some Ogilvie Home Perms. Sweet, huh?
The end result was this. Mega Mullets.
And if my sister ever sees this, I will pay. Love you, Court!