Memorial Day

For my family, this weekend was all about family, fun and racing, but it was also about something else. Here is to all the men and women who have given the ultimate sacrifice by laying their lives down for our country, to preserve and protect the freedoms we so often take for granted. 

Post-Easter Fun

There is a gallon bag of Easter candy mocking me from the kitchen counter.

So what, you say. I have an even larger pile in my kitchen calling my name.

I would gladly trade you dilemmas.

You see, it's not just that I don't need all the added sugar or calories. I mean, I don't. My jeans have some wiggle room and it'd be nice to keep it that way.

It's what happens AFTER I eat the candy and before that last button won't close.

The hives.

*Shudder*

No woman should be allergic to chocolate. Talk about cruel and unusual...

I'm not going to go into anaphylactic shock or anything, so I push the envelope. Chocolate chip cookies won't do me in. But it's the fact that I've had a few chocolate covered pretzels today. I may have swiped a mini Twix.

And I got my allergy shots today.

And now my lips are a little itchy.

Normally I can blame the cat, but I'm pretty sure he's been asleep on our bed since after dinner. Our paths have not crossed.

It's the Easter candy.

Luckily when the pretzels are gone, we'll be down to stuff I'm not as crazy about. Which means less temptation. Sorry, I'm just not going to risk a red, itchy mess all over my legs and arms for some regular M&Ms... now peanut or peanut butter, that's a different story.

But I'm giving the kids a week to whittle down the gallon bag and then it's getting shipped off to Hubby's work, which is hopefully far enough away that I can't hear the chocolate calling my name.

I'll wear earplugs just in case.

Busy as a baking bee

My oven is smoking.

Well, not really. That would be bad. And require remembering how to use our fire extinguisher.

But in the last three days, I've made two new dinner recipes (both home runs), two loaves of bread, pickled beets and French toast sticks for my bottomless pits to try out for breakfast.

What I lack for in execution I more than make up for with sheer determination. Or I'm a slow learner. However you want to look at it.

Every once in a while I get a wild hair (not to be confused with a wild hare) and start making our own sandwich bread. I have a breadmaker, why not? We go through a crazy amount since two rugrats I know have a conniption if I even suggest anything but "butter jelly" for lunch. Every.single. freakin'. day.

Baking is all about precise measuring, but it never fails, no two loaves ever look the same. I haven't changed ingredients and they are all still well before expiration dates, so I have learned from the Monster cookie incident.

But apparently only I can make mushroom bread. 

Toad? Is that you?

 Of course the mushroom rose and baked over the flimsy little handle that I need to pull the bread out of the breadmaker, so I had to call Hubby in to rescue my bread. He laughed. But that's normal.

When he pulled it out of the pan, the paddle actually came out for once. He left it like this. And then it fell over. Don't worry, the cooling rack of deliciousness behind it kept it from falling onto the floor, where my bread-a-holic dog would have devoured it before I would even had a chance to grab it.

And what, you ask, is the cooling rack of deliciousness?

This. French. Toast. Sticks.

My other loaf of homemade bread was cinnamon raisin, which was decidedly not mushroom-like and also camera shy. I had been itching to make it anyway, so two birds, one stone... YUM!

But then there was the rest of the batch...

They got a little, uh, crunchier than I like.

I had to flip the sticks halfway through baking and when I did, I noticed the top rack was was a lot lighter than the bottom, so I swapped pans too. Man, I'm kinda glad I did, because only eight got charred to a crisp. And that was before the timer went off. Hubby asked what I was burning; I hadn't noticed anything. I think my nostrils were full up with beet juice.

Can you guess which side was pan-down halfway through? Ugh.

I'm not sure how long 12 FS sticks will last us, especially with my Starving Marvins, so I imagine I may re-purpose the remainder of the raisin bread sooner rather than later.

If I don't eat it all first. It's pretty darn good.

The pickled beets are doing their pickling thing in the fridge right now for Easter. Who knew they were that easy to make? It's half of my contribution. My admission to dinner is dependent on bringing baked pineapple, which I'll throw together at the in-laws Sunday morning.

Now I've used every bowl, measuring cup and spoon that I own, I have packed the dishwasher AGAIN and have settled down with the best creation of the evening.

Night y'all.

The Blur, revisited

Ahem.

My in-laws read my blog. Flattering and frightening all wrapped into one. But my father-in-law decided to enlighten me as to WHY opening Christmas presents with Hubby's family is like setting rabid squirrels onto a 10-lb jar of peanut butter.

I can't do it justice, so in his own words...


In years past we tried the one gift at a time routine. The problem is the math. Time vs people vs opening of said gifts.

Min number people 11 - could be much higher


Gifts given from 1 person to the other 1 (never this low, better average 2.5)


Time to open presents 5 min per person.


Min math 11*11*5=605 min /60 min = 10.08 hours min


Max math 11*27.5(2.5 gifts from each other gift giver) 302.5 min*5 min opening time = 1512.5 /60 min in an hour =25.20 hours 


Needless to say we did not have the time since every one was hungry.


I stand corrected. Bring on the paper cuts.

'Twas the night before the night before Christmas

And I'm hoping Santa takes one good look at my living room and basement and decides my kids don't really need any more toys.

Move along, jolly man... no need for presents here...

Since the birthday/Christmas/present extravaganza began at Thanksgiving, my little man has been gift-greedy and overwhelmed with all of his new stuff.

"Mom, what I play with?"

"Mom, I wanna do somethin" What, my darling, darling son? "I dunno. Sumpin'"

"Mom, what you play with me?"

And on and on and on...

He sincerely loves his new presents, but for somebody who only gets true gifts one month a year, it's a lot to take in. He'll probably get into the groove either a) right before they all break or b) next November. One of the two. I understand why the people who love us want to give him gifts, so I don't discourage the practice, I just grin (cringe) and bear it.

My princess has been amazingly patient through all of brother's gift openings. On Nathaniel's actual birthday, I got her out of bed and told her it was brother's birthday. She looked at me and said in the sweetest voice possible, "Me too?"

I assured her that it would be her birthday soon.

"Otay."

She was a model little sister at his party and he gladly let her play with (most) of his new toys.

But if in a few years I have TWO greedy Guses I may take a page from Nana's book and start threatening to shoot Santa.

Part One, the Blur

Good thing I don't get paid, cuz after five days of no blogging, my butt would be fired. I'm not sure what happened. I blinked. If you are a mom, I'm pretty sure you'll know what I'm talking about. But let's see if I can catch you up...

I cookie swapped like a champ. My roughly 5.5 dozen cookies were gone instantly. I gotta say it felt pretty good to open that first tin and hear, "Oooh, you made pizzelles? I love those!" There were quite a few straggler cookies left on plates. I had crumbs. I wasn't even home before my friend texted me asking for a recipe. Oh yeah, I rock.

We had Christmas part 1 of 3 with the grandparents. My living room looked like Christmas exploded. There was no putting presents under the tree. They would have BURIED poor Doug. It wasn't like the family went super crazy, but a lot of them were just physically large. And I feel like I missed the opening of everything, including my own.

In my family, we dragged out the opening of presents. Everyone got their turn to be the center of attention, to ooh and aaah appropriately so that the giver and the receiver could both rate their gifting experience. (Watch out for the Russian judge... always critical) The youngest always went first, and in my years, I guess it was to keep my head from exploding in anticipation. I was the baby. I never had to wait for anyone. Explains a lot, don't it?

Hubby's family gets everything over with in one giant cluster. One person plays Santa and passes out gifts, and once everyone has a box or bag in front of them, it's all over but the cryin'. Even with only my fam of 4 opening I felt like I had no idea who got what for whom. I checked all my tags, but before I could commit the name to the present under the paper, my attention was drawn to one of my offspring tearing into the new favorite toy of the last 30 seconds.

Sorry, I've had two kids. My brain can only handle so much at once. Christmas last year with the WHOLE family about did me in. That's a whole lotta wrapping paper flying... eek... paper cuts...

So kinda glad the rest of our Christmases should be low-key. Besides our family Wii, Craig and I will only have stockings to open on Christmas Day. And if we're feeling left out, I'll break out the iPod and he can go to the garage and stare at the Other Woman (his boat, if you're just tuning in).

On the 26th, we'll head to PA to visit my family, which will be the one-at-a-time deal with my Nana, aunt and uncle. Aaah... I can hear the almost silence now.

I'm a mom. Silence is golden.

So are Starbucks gift cards, Santa. Hint, hint.