By the Book

I swear that my kids take after their dad and had I not given birth to them, I wouldn't think that they were mine too.
There is one way in which Keebles is like me. She is a voracious reader. When I was her age (4th grade,) I had just discovered Nancy Drew. I tried to get her to read Nancy Drew, but after a failed AR test, she refuses to read any more of them (I will bite my tongue about that.) Now, she's working her way through the Harry Potter Series. She just finished Order of the Phoenix yesterday and was quite annoyed that I was attempting to take a picture of her as she read.
It's good to be the mom.

2011 Favorites

I had a hard time choosing my favorite photos from 2011.  I started to go through all of the photos on my hard drive, then I realized that would take a month of Sundays, so I just took my favorites from my Project 365.   
Without further ado, here are my favorite photos from 2011.

Here is JJ, just after midnight on January 1, 2011.  The lighting isn't great, the photo is a little noisy, but I just plain old like it.



I took this one of my son, just after I got my D7000.  It was dark so I cranked up the ISO and didn't care about the noise because I love action shots.  I was so glad I did because I am in love with this shot.  I entered it in one the The Pioneer Woman's contest and she chose it for one of the groups.  It wasn't a finalist, but that doesn't matter to me.  It also happens to be my son's favorite photo of the year.  By the way, the ball did not hit him.



I love my cats.  Poor Einstein was left alone after we had to put our other two cats to sleep within five months of each other.  We adopted Chester and you can see just how Einstein felt about that at first.  I like to imagine he is looking at me, saying, "Seriously?"



We took our kids to Riviera Maya this year.  It was their first time in the ocean.  We snorkeled every day.  I couldn't justify the underwater housing for my D7000, so I took a chance on a Dicapac.  It's a Ziploc Baggie on steroids, with an opening for the lens.  My little Canon Powershot did a great job.  The only issue was that I had NO idea where I was aiming.



Here is my daughter, heading to her first softball tournament.  I love her experssion and I think that she has the most beautiful eyes. 



In November, we played hooky from school and took the kids to St. Louis.  These kids grew up together in playgroup, from the time my daughter was 6 months old.  We were so excited to go to the Arch and then it was foggy.  Total bummer.  We had lots of fun anyway.

I totally fell in love with this car.  It was parked at one of my son's baseball games.  It was an exercise in composition as there was an UGLY chain link fence off to the left and lots of cars parked around it.



This was photo 365 of my Project 365 and I love love love it.  We went out to dinner for my birthday and then ate so much that we decided to walk around the outdoor mall.  All of the Christmas lights were up and they were just gorgeous.  And, of course, I go NOWHERE without my camera, so while my family shopped, I played with bokeh.

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.

Perfection in a Cookie

There is nothing that brings memories of my Grandma Toots rushing back more than baking her orange cookies.  Well, maybe the mixed up telling of an off-color joke, but that’s just not very grandmotherly, now is it?  (Sorry, Toots!) She would gush about these cookies and how pretty they are.  Also, she was proud of how well they freeze.  I’ve never frozen them.  My husband makes sure they find a good home.

Anyway, as a kid, I remember going to see her in the summer and she’d have a plate of orange cookies out.  And I, being the picky little turd that I was, refused to eat them because of the orange rind.  I was, quite obviously, deranged.

As I got older, and less of a spaz about food texture, I realized how yummy they are.  And then when I got even older, married and had my son, I decided I needed to start baking them.  Gram sent me the recipe and I still have it in my recipe box, in her handwriting, full of warnings and admonitions.  DON’T LET THEM GET TOO BROWN.

There were several Christmases when she was able to help me bake them.  She hovered over me, like a disapproving school marm, critiquing the size and color of the cookies and the consistency of my frosting.  Gram passed away a few years ago, but I still hear her when I make them.  I now use a handy little cookie scoop to keep the size and shape more consistent.  I may let my frosting get a little too runny.  But I never, ever let them get too brown. 

Grandma Toots’ Orange Cookies (Toots is like foot, not boot.)

Ingredients: 

·         2 C. sugar
·         2 eggs
·         1 C. buttermilk or sour cream
·         1 C. Crisco
·         2 medium oranges
·         2 tsp. baking powder
·         1 tsp. baking soda
·         Dash of salt
·         4 ½ C. flour, sifted

Grate rind of oranges.  Set aside 1 tbsp. for frosting.  Juice oranges and set juice aside.  Mix sugar and Crisco (beat well.) Add eggs, orange juice and rind, beat well.  Sift flour, baking powder and baking soda together and add to mixture, alternating with sour cream (or buttermilk.)  Drop by teaspoon on greased cookie sheet.  Bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes.  Makes 7-8 dozen.  Don’t let the cookies get too brown! 

Frost with Ornamental Frosting

Ingredients:

·         ¼ C. Margarine, softened
·         4 C. sifted powdered sugar
·         2 egg whites
·         1 tsp. vanilla
·         ¼ tsp. cream of tartar
·         1-2 tsp. milk
·         Orange rind

Mix margarine and sugar.  Beat well.  Add unbeaten egg whites, vanilla and cream of tartar.  Beat thoroughly.  Add milk and beat until it is of spreading consistency.  Mix in orange rind.

Frost.  Try not to lick your fingers.  Or lick them and keep it a secret.  It's your call.  Enjoy!

10 Things about Breaking Dawn

Beware: There be Spoilers.
1. It's entirely unfair that this didn't come out when I was 15. I could have enjoyed it guilt-free.
2. The CGI seemed much improved. I wanted to pet the wolves.
3. Why weren't the vampires all sparkly at the wedding?
4. How in the hell did no one notice that Emmitt looked like he had clown make-up on? He was only pasty on the face. It was very distracting.
5. Jasper still reminds me of a wooden dummy.
6. The entire wolf-growling-human-voiceover Jacob-decides-to-be-alpha scene was so awful and cringe-worthy that the only words I have for it are not appropriate. And I use lots of inappropriate words.
7. C-section via fang? Wow. I covered my eyes. "Look, there's my baby-daddy covered in my blood because he just gnawed our daughter out of my womb." What a precious family moment.
8. PG-13? I swear I've seen more skin on network tv. Not that I would take my kids to see it.
9. Overheard in the theater: why is he (Jacob) wearing his shirt all of the time? I wonder just how creeped out Taylor Lautner is knowing how many 30-something women just want to see him shirtless. At least he is over 18 now!
10. It was an overly-dramatic, cheeseball pile of puke. And I loved it.

Riddle me this, Batman

 I made a mistake earlier.  I lit three yummy apple cider-scented candles to make the house feel warm and cozy.  The mistake wasn't in lighting the candles; the mistake was in forgetting about the kitten.

Chester strikes again.

J walked into the dining room to find two candles burning.  The third had been flipped over on its top with wax sprayed for a good two feet, all over my dining room table.

 Since this is November, the month of Thanksgiving, let's see if I can focus on the positives here

I am thankful that she managed to flip it over upside down and the flame went out.  I shudder to think about what would have happened if that flame had kept burning.

I am thankful that she didn't set herself on fire.  She is a puffy cat, after all, with a big, puffy, feather-duster of  a tail and tufts of hair growing between the pads of her paws.  My first cat, Galileo, got too close to a candle one winter and singed his whiskers.  The smell brought me running and there he was, blinking and confused.  He never got near a candle again.  I'm not sure that Chester is that smart.

I am also thankful that I had some of those handy-dandy Pampered Chef scrapers in the kitchen.  They made quick work of the wax without scraping my table up.  Thank you Pampered Chef. Let me add that it's a good thing it is the winter, so it's cooler in the house.  That allowed the wax to come up off the table much easier.

All in all, it wasn't nearly as much of a disaster as it could have been.  For that I am grateful.  But here's the mystery.  I can't find any wax on her.   You would think that for all that mess that she made, her fur would be covered in wax.   For sure, there has to be some wax on one of her paws, or in all of that tail fur.

There isn't.

Upon closer inspection, which she loved, I found one single drop of wax inside her one ear.  ONE DROP.  She reeks of Apple Cider Yankee Candle, but all I can find is One. Stinking. Drop. Of. Wax. 

How in the world did she manage that?

My Better Half

I am going to admit something.  One of the many things that I love about J is the fact that he is so handy.  I don't think that I could have married someone who couldn't do things like fix a faucet, hang drywall, or put some under-cabinets lights in my not-so-new kitchen.
Don't get me wrong.  I am not some helpless female.  My father made sure of that.  I learned how to mow the lawn, how to hammer a nail without smashing my thumb, how to help hold the 2 x 4s that are being cut with a circular saw and still sort-of protect my ears.
I have been taught to appreciate the sheer beauty of a cordless drill (Makita was the early love, but nowadays it's all DeWalt yellow.) 
I learned how to check the air pressure in my tires, how to check and add oil, how to drive a stick shift.  In fact, I even knew how to find the fuse box and change the fuses on my 1984 Fiero.  That came in handy the day a fuse blew and my windshield wipers quit working.  I just pulled over to the side of the road, wiggled down under the dashboard (not a lot of room in those Fieros!) changed the fuse and I was on my way.  Well,  after a triumphant little dance, I was on my way. 

It was important to my dad that my sister and I be self-sufficient.  As we grew up, my dad did all of the repair projects around the house, teaching us a little here and there.  As I got to know J better, and learned that he had many of  the skills that were valued in my family, I loved him all the more.  He has done the vast majority of the improvement work on our house, with help from my dad and his dad.  When something goes wrong, I know he can fix it.  And as much as I hate to sound like a wimpy woman, I love knowing that I will be taken care of.  I am spoiled by him and his handiness.