Easter Parade

Easter means a lot of different things to people.

For some, it is the most spiritual time of year.
For others, it's one of few times they head to church.

For kids, there are myriad egg hunts.
For foodies, a hunt for a great brunch.

For big families, it's a time of rambunctious get-togethers.
For those who are alone, Easter can be a quiet time of reflection.

For little girls, it can mean a pretty new outfit to wear.
For traditionalists, it's Easter lilies in memory of lost loved ones.

For gardeners, it's spring; everything is fresh and life is new.
For fashionistas, the white shoes come out.

For retailers, another cha-ching in the candy aisle.
For the health-conscious, a minefield of artificial colors.

And so it is. Everyone celebrates (or doesn't) in his own way.

Growing up, Easter Sunday meant a trip to church, posing for pictures, and the backyard egg hunt. Sometimes there was also a hunt at our grandparents' country club (which I remember included plenty of those cellophane-wrapped pastel-colored candy eggs with white centers...thinking of them now makes my teeth hurt). I was probably at least 12 before I realized that the reason we kids stayed behind at church with Granny and Grandpa (while Mom and Dad raced home) was really so the Easter bunny had time to hide eggs, and not as much because our grandparents wanted to show us off to their friends.

I still have the 8mm films from many of our egg hunts, even more fun to watch when we ran them backwards and put all the eggs back in their places. I'm pretty sure we hunted hard-boiled eggs. I'm also thinking my mom was the only person who ate those -- Dad was allergic and as a consequence the rest of us believed these eggs were nearly poisonous. As part of the hunt, we always found a special basket just for each of us, and that's where the chocolate bunny and other goodies were stashed.

As a grown-up, I took over the Easter meal after inheriting Granny's dishes and a little box crammed with index cards on which were her hand-written recipes. While I don't always get out her good china, one thing I always make is a strawberry ice cream dessert that we had at her house. It's pink, sweet, and surprisingly easy to make. And since I've got the ring mold she always used -- and the flat spatula she always used to get the ice cream out of the ring mold -- I've got no excuse not to.

One day, I intend to experiment with the formula to figure out how to use fresh fruit, maybe add some blueberries, and possibly even freeze it in my little hand-cranked ice cream maker (I think it would have a different consistency that would be easier to eat).

Strawberry Ice Cream Dessert

• 10-oz frozen strawberries in syrup (I haven't been able to find 10-oz packages so I just use a whole 16-oz package these days)
• 1 pint sour cream (use the real thing)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla

Thaw the strawberries and break them up with a fork (Granny's instructions say to use an old-fashioned egg beater...but I don't have one!). You don't want whole berries since they get very hard when frozen. Stir in the sour cream, sugar and vanilla. Pour into ring mold (of course you can use any type of mold or dish you like!). Freeze.

In 2007, on Granny's china with homemade cookies.

Loosen ring by running a little warm water over the back side of it. Run a flat spatula around the edges and unmold onto a plate. Cut into slices and serve, garnished with fresh berries and mint leaves. We serve small slices with shortbread, sugar cookies, pound cake or cupcakes!

With coconut cupcakes in 2010.
My Dessert Boy loves it.

We'll have an egg hunt (plastic eggs instead of real ones -- I tried hiding real eggs one year and they boys refused to pick them up..."nothing good inside"). If it rains, either the kids and eggs get wet, or we do it in the house. I'm leaning toward getting wet. Easy for me to say...I'm not hunting. :)

Happy Easter!

2004 -- first Easter. Bunny feet!

 

2006 -- you did not see me eat this!

2013 -- big kids...and a lot of dandelions!

2009 -- bucketheads





Make the Best of It...

My Granny had a saying. Whenever things weren't going well, I remember her telling us we'd have to "make the best of it." She was always cheerful about it (although I don't know what she might have been thinking behind that optimistic exterior) and I figured it probably had something to do with having lived through the depression...a long-ago, faraway occasion that as a child I couldn't possibly comprehend.

Three weeks ago I had cause to adopt my grandmother's attitude when, after a difficult evening of burned-out light bulbs and broken Spinbrushes, I dumped a large load of wet clothes into the dryer and attempted to start it. I pushed start like I always do, and the dryer just stared at me after beeping and clicking a bit. No amount of coaxing could get it to tumble, not even a little. It had just successfully dried a load of jeans about 8 hours before. Ugh! I wanted to go to bed early and cry. I hung the wet clothes all over the tiny laundry room, and checked Sears' repair schedule. Conveniently, they could take a look in a week (which usually doesn't guarantee it would be fixed that day). I checked my calendar and knew it would be at least two weeks before I could spend a leisurely day waiting around the house for a repairman.

Desperate, I made the best of it and turned to facebook, hoping someone could recommend a super repair person they had found. What I got was a bunch of guys encouraging me to visit You Tube for repair instructions. So naturally I googled the problem and took apart the machine. Right...it sounds so easy until you're lying on the floor in a puddle of lint. Sadly, it wasn't the two most common problems (a fuse or a belt). But the good news is, I've got a much cleaner lint trap (which yielded 13 cents and a number of stray collar stays). Have you ever seen the interior of your lint trap? It's a little bit scary!

Deep breath. Make the best of it.

Knowing I had to do something about the growing mounds of dirty clothes (we had just returned from a spring break trip, and the family was still rudely changing their clothes daily), and knowing I didn't want to spend even 10 minutes in a Laundromat, I put on my errand hat and traveled to Home Depot for sturdy clothesline (and a few lightbulbs) and then to Target for a bunch of clothespins. Armed with that can-do attitude, I strung that clothesline all around the back porch and out into a tree. Knowing the washing machine still worked, I set about washing clothes and within an hour I had the back porch decorated with a load of men's and boy's underwear. This felt pretty good until I went to bring them in...and found that while they were dry, they were also a bit...how shall I say?...crunchy.

Making the best of it, I had an epiphany: So that's why people use liquid fabric softener.

Which explains why the second load (my underwear) came out softer. You see, I realized pretty quickly that hanging the little dryer sheets on the line wasn't going to help soften anything. So my friend google helped me find a recipe for homemade fabric softener. Did you know you can take all those little bottles of hotel hair conditioner, mix them with white vinegar, and make a perfectly good fabric softener? That's what you do when you're too lazy to go to the store, or when you're making the best of something.

Now that I'm in my 4th week of drying clothes outside, I've learned a few more things -- especially that laundry without a dryer is very weather-dependent.

• There are some days you just can't do the wash. This is both good (day off!) and bad (no way you'll have those jeans for tomorrow).
• It's important to watch not only the precipitation but also the humidity. I've had loads dry in 20 minutes when the wind is blowing and the humidity is zero. But on a humid day, trying to dry clothes is about as smart as fixing my hair.
• And the wind -- it can be such a help -- but you'd better have things clipped onto the line tightly, or that underwear will be flying across the yard!
• There's nothing that will get you to jump out of bed faster than leaving your laundry out overnight to finish drying...and then hearing a huge clap of thunder at 2am.
• On a nice day, hanging the wet stuff on the line is a great reason to spend some alone time outside (people scatter when I say it's time to put out the laundry). And later you get to go back out for more quiet time, to retrieve the dry clothes!
• When you grill with clothes on the line, sometimes you wear a smoky essence.

Turns out, most things dry just as well on the line as they do in the dryer, which I didn't expect. Cotton towels aren't as soft. Some shirts come out unwearable. But that's minor stuff. I've got an appointment for the repairman later this week. We'll see how bad the damage is. But at least we have a workaround -- and temps in the 80's in the forecast. Overall, this is WAY better than when the dishwasher was out for a month. Don't get me started on that!

In other appliance news, the front-loading washer (for which I've been very grateful since the dryer went on vacation) isn't perfect. When I innocently opened the door last week to run a load of clothes, it was like Niagara Falls in the laundry room. I am not kidding when I say water poured/gushed/cascaded out the front of the machine (the seal works great, incidentally, if you keep the door closed) and splashed onto the linoleum, obviously enjoying its sudden freedom. Fortunately, a basket of recently-line-dried towels was nearby and I could mop up pretty quickly. Making the best of it, I can say the floor in there is a bit cleaner now.

I can only imagine how amused my Granny might be if she could see how this appliance failure has affected me. After all, she used her dishwasher for storing pantry items (I can remember going there for dinner and having to hand-wash dishes because the dishwasher was filled with crackers and boxes of Chex). She had a dryer but rarely used it; her square pink bathtub always had clothes dripping into it. All I can figure is, growing up during the depression must make these bulky appliances seem pretty silly. 

'Tis the Season...

...no, not football season. Sadly, not baseball season. Not any particular holiday season. And definitely not watermelon season, despite what's in the grocery store.

'Tis the season for political ads, endless polling, and vicious backstabbing.

I just thought I was sick of the mushy, tear-jerking Olympic-themed commercials. I was ready to throw something at the television every time that little girl started bragging about all the things her mom does (where is her mom, anyway...not in any of the pictures with the girl...but I digress). Determined to walk out if I saw another adorable home movie of future Olympians skiing/skating/sliding backwards. Looking for the "mute Bob Costas" button on my remote (until he got pink eye, then I felt bad about that). And don't get me started on the Sonic guys and their stupid pretzel dog...take that whichever way you like.

And then all of that was eclipsed by a sudden torrent of political ads. Everyone has his sleeves rolled up, looks eager to make sure he represents ME (I'm betting he doesn't) and takes credit for all kinds of stuff (last time I checked, one guy cannot pass a law). The attack ads are so ugly...enough to make me check the perpetrator (not the object of the ad) off my list before learning anything more about him. An awful lot of them are using God as a campaign partner, and how can we determine if their comments are genuine or just crafted to appeal to a specific voter demographic?

And now, in addition to interrupting figure skating, these people are calling me on the phone. Some call for themselves and others call on behalf of a very qualified buddy who is running for office. Some want me to push buttons even though they are talking to my answering machine, and I'm hearing them 8 hours later. It's like junk mail, with voices. This is an actual transcript (almost) of what was on my machine one day this week:

"You have eight new messages...

• Message 1. Pause. (booming, confident voice) HELLO! This is Bob Somebody, and I want to be your DELETE
• Message 2. (female computer voice, starting in the middle of a sentence) you will not vote, press 1. If you might vote, press 2. If you didn't know there was an election, press DELETE
• Message 3. (voice of school principal) Parents, this is just a reminder that DELETE (I have already gotten this call on my cell phone. Twice.)
• Message 4. (background noise from an overcrowded loud place, presumably a bustling campaign headquarters...people talking, but not to me) DELETE
• Message 5. Pause. (cheerful, pleasant woman) Do not be alarmed. Several recent break-ins in your neighborhood have prompted us to bring you this special DELETE
• Message 6. (man who sounds like he is wearing a tightly knotted tie) Good afternoon. I'm someone whose name sounds vaguely familiar, and this is not about me. My good friend Jim Guy is running for district judge and DELETE
• Message 7. (computerized voice of my city, which calls often with alerts) Kennedale residents, several streets will be closed today between 9am and 4pm for water main repairs. We apologize for any inconven DELETE (I am hearing this at 5:30)
• Message 8. (same female computer voice that called earlier, starting again in the middle of a sentence) take less than 60 seconds of your time. If you will not vote, press 1. If you might DELETE

End of messages."

Why, I wonder, do I even have this phone? No actual people have called it -- just computers or robots or phone systems. Most of the time when it rings and I'm home, I don't answer...especially when the caller ID reads "POLITICAL CALL." That one has called several times and, oddly, doesn't leave a message. Are they really surprised that I don't pick up? No, wait...it's a machine. Now if my caller ID said Jimmy Fallon was calling, that might get my attention.

Have you driven past an early voting place? Talk about ground clutter! The signs are so packed in that I couldn't read them if I tried. If I'm ever stopped long enough to read a few, I'm really just looking to see if anyone I used to go to school with -- or any facebook friend -- is running.

Back to the Olympics, I turn on the television and am stunned to see that young polar bears drink Coke. That can't be good. Nor can the soda machine that mysteriously operates in the middle of an otherwise pristine snowy landscape. And if I scream in that woods, will anyone hear me?

Let's Eat : Garlic-Roasted Cauliflower

Haven't you always loved cauliflower?

Yeah, me neither. White. Not that much flavor. Odd-looking. Too bulky to fit into the vegetable keeper. Traditionally overcooked and covered in some kind of suspiciously fake-food cheese sauce to make it more appealing. Something to definitely pass over at the salad bar!

Well, I've changed my mind about cauliflower. Once I tried Garlic-Roasted Cauliflower from Ina Garten's "How Easy is That?" cookbook, it was all over. This recipe has amazing flavor, thanks to the garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, fresh parsley and toasted pine nuts. The first time I made it, my husband and I ate an entire head of cauliflower. The next time, we let the kids taste it and nearly fought over the last few pieces.

Before roasting --

And the finished dish! I can almost smell it...yum.

Maybe the best part of this recipe is how easy it is to make. A little chopping and a little tossing is all it takes. Here's her recipe, modified to reflect the way I make it:

Ina's Garlic-Roasted Cauliflower, Sharon's Way

1 head of garlic
1 large head (or 2 small ones) cauliflower, trimmed, cut into large florets
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
3 tablespoons pine nuts

1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup minced fresh parsley
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice 
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

2. Separate the cloves of garlic and peel them. Cut large cloves in half.

3. On a sheet pan, toss the cauliflower with garlic, 3 tablespoons olive oil, 2 teaspoons salt and 1 teaspoon pepper. Spread mixture out in a single layer and roast, tossing after 15 minutes and adding the pine nuts at that time. Continue cooking for 10 minutes or so, until the cauliflower is tender and garlic and pine nuts are lightly browned.

4. Scrape the cauliflower into a large bowl with garlic and pan juices (I do not normally have any pan juices, but Ina thinks I should!). Add remaining 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil, parsley, pine nuts and lemon juice. Sprinkle with another 1/2 teaspoon salt, toss and serve hot or warm.

Now a regular vegetable in our repertoire, cauliflower has been forever transformed from "ew" to "ah!" -- my whole family is actually excited when it's on the menu. Which helps to prove my theory that there really aren't bad vegetables...just bad ways to fix them. Roasting is a delicious way to fix so many vegetables, and I hope you'll try this one!

Write, Right?

The last few times I’ve attempted to write something, anything, I’ve had help.

Inexplicably, every time I sit in the chair in front of my computer, I almost immediately have a visitor. A curious, attentive, too-smart child who is fascinated by every keystroke. It’s almost like there’s a little alarm in the chair that flashes lights all over the rest of the house, signaling that I have started to relax.

Son: What are you doing?

Me: Trying to write.

Son: About what?

Me: Well, I just had an idea but it’s not really all worked out yet. Sometimes I just type until it comes together.

Son: (bewildered face) That’s weird.

Me: (now with complete writer’s block) I know. Have you had your bath?

Son: Yep.

Me: Brushed teeth?

Son: Uh-huh.

Me: (typing a few lame sentences) Is your homework finished?

Son: (sigh) Hours ago. (reads what I've written, out loud) That doesn’t make sense.

Me:  Right. (typing more) Aren’t you thirsty?

Son: I just drank a whole bunch of water. (burps to prove it, then reads more aloud) You made a typo.

Me: (a teeny bit annoyed) I’ll fix that. Thanks.

Son: (giggling as I make the same typo again) Can we look at Pinterest now?

Me: Well, I was trying to write something. (I consider suggesting that he give it a try, then decide against it -- I'm not in the mood to know if a 10-year-old is better than I am at this.)

Son: Puh-leese? It will just take a minute. I want to see how many “likes” I got on my board.

Me: I don’t think Pinterest works like that. Sometimes people pin your pins, but mostly it’s for you to keep track of stuff you like.

Son: (clearly disappointed) Oh. Can we look at your facebook then?

Me: Oh my, what time is it? Maybe I should tuck you in?

Son: Can I get a membership to Roblox? Or maybe a cell phone?

Me: (slightly exasperated, wondering how I thought I’d ever write a couple of decent paragraphs) Not tonight. Hey look, it’s nearly 8:30. We should go upstairs.

Son: Why do you get to play on the computer whenever you want?

Me: Well, because I'm a grownup and -- believe it or not -- I'm not always playing.

Son: Not. I’m hungry. Do we have any ice cream?

Me: Oh, no, you’re going to sleep now. You can eat breakfast first thing in the morning. But not ice cream.

Son: No fair. (repeating sentences he read, now from memory and in what sounds to me like a mocking tone) Still doesn’t make sense.

Me: (sarcastically) Thank you for critiquing my work.

Son: (brightly) Hey, can we order some stuff?

Me: (slowly closing laptop) No, not right now…

Let's Eat : Try Some New Things!

I may have mentioned that I don't do resolutions. And that's unlikely to change (can't take the pressure!). But I do like to cook things, so as the new year gets going I'm trying some new recipes as we get back on track after the holidays. I've gotten lazy about planning meals even though I know that having a plan is really an important key to getting food on the table every night. After the planning, then having good ingredients on hand is next, and I've slacked on my shopping too. Which is weird since I like shopping, in the right stores, and I like planning...but the holidays and a lack of a regular schedule got me all mixed up!

So here are a few of the new recipes I've tried so far this new year:

• Orange Shortbread Cookies (King Arthur recipe using candied orange peel, which I just happened to have on hand) -- yum! Keeper.
• Avocado "Hummus" (Giada recipe from her newest book) -- interesting. Stays green, in spite of having avocado in it. Needs a little more spice. I put hummus in quotes because it's made with white beans and no tahini, so not exactly hummus in my book. Once I perfect this one to my own taste, I may write about it again. It has potential.
• Whole Wheat Bread (recipe was in the comments of some blog I was reading...never to be found again) -- but that's okay, since it was an epic fail. it resembled a brick. Operator error, I think. Kids wouldn't even pick it up to try it. They actually looked frightened. Tried it again using a different recipe: Honey Whole Wheat Bread (via 100 Days of Real Food) -- better! At least I'll eat this one, even though the kids remain suspicious of all homemade bread. 
• Whole Grain Cranberry Muffins (found via Pinterest) -- another winner! Even Brett, who is The Most Difficult Kid to Please Ever With a Muffin (see related post) ate one every day until they were gone. Don't skip the glaze -- although it's easier to just mix OJ and powdered sugar than to follow the recipe there. Keeper.
• World's Best Chicken (found via Pinterest) -- and while the jury is out on world's best, it has mustard, and the kids ate it. Wow...that's a first! Super-easy and I had all the ingredients (there are not many).
• Nutella Cookies (another Pin) -- few ingredients, and it cleared out our Nutella supply, but these went together quickly and everyone liked them. I used white whole wheat flour and added a little coconut oil to help bind the dough. I'll repeat these if I'm ever willing to run out of Nutella again...

As I wait for my energy to rev back up for even more new recipes (and for a good time to grocery-shop my favorite stores), we'll keep cleaning out leftovers and bits of holiday remnants (a lot of which is chocolate, so how bad could that be?). I'll probably keep collecting more recipes, too, since they're everywhere I look.

I've got a couple of new cookbooks to keep me company and so I'm planning for some nice healthy things to come of it. Like this one, which was a new recipe for us last year and which has become one of our favorites. At least it has for the adults in the house and everywhere I've taken it...why not try it out yourself for 2014?

Farro Salad (I'm not reprinting the recipe here because this link shows it so nicely!) -- The Farro is good and chewy (I like to use Trader Joe's 10-minute farro, but I've also used the pouch of pre-cooked from Target), while the vegetables are crunchy and it's all got a warm dressing poured over the top made from sautéed onions, olive oil and balsamic vinegar. How would you possibly go wrong with that? And it's pretty enough for a pot luck!

 

 

As one of the TV chefs used to say (I think it was Jacques Pepin), "Happy Cooking!" Or in his case it was more like "Appy Cuking" -- ha.

What's Everybody Doing?

There's a kid at school whose parents I'd like to meet.
This youngster is causing all sorts of unrest around our house.
His name? Everybody. I've heard more about him than I care to know.
Maybe your kids know him?

Entertainment and Electronics (the most important topic for tween boys):

• Everybody has a television in his bedroom.
• Everybody has a DS, and he even sneaks it to school in his backpack.
• Everybody plays video games after school, all he wants.
• Everybody's read The Hunger Games. He has seen the movies, too.
• Everybody plays Call of Duty and other M-rated games.
• Everybody has his own cell phone. With a data plan.
• Everybody's seen Ted.

Other:

• Everybody gets flaming hot Cheetos, every day, in the cafeteria. If he doesn't have those, he brings in a big bag of Takis.
• Everybody throws away the school-lunch vegetables.
• Everybody rides in the front seat.
• Everybody drinks soft drinks for breakfast.
• Everybody says "those" words.
• Everybody cuts the corners when he's running laps.
• Everybody wears shorts to school when it's 40 degrees outside.

If you haven't guessed, I hear about these because Everybody's life is so much better and cooler than ours. I've resisted asking the clichéd Mom question -- "if Everybody jumped off a cliff..." because I don't really want to hear the answer. 

My kids are just 10. They're too young to fully understand the reasons why we don't do the same things Everybody does. So I get the enviable role of making many unpopular decisions around here, like not stocking blue Gatorade or soft drinks in the fridge. Like blocking content on the TV and computers, and limiting screen time. Enforcing chore time before the fun stuff. Insisting that there's no SpongeBob on the weekends (that's a personal thing -- I can't stand the sound of it!). These are the kinds of rules that unlimited-do-what-you-want Everybody doesn't have. Don't get me wrong -- we don't live some kind of sequestered, deprived existence. Just everything in moderation, and in its own time.

Why not just ease up and follow Everybody's lead? Part of it, I think, is that while some of these are (in my opinion anyway) basically unhealthy choices, others represent adult activities that distract from being a kid. If you've already seen the R-rated movies and played the M-rated games as a young child, what will you find amusing as you grow older and become an adult? If you're tied to a screen during all of your free time, how will you learn to play soccer? If you don't learn healthy eating habits as a youngster, won't it be twice as hard to learn them later? As someone who has been an adult for a loooong time, I feel qualified to say that there is plenty of time for the grown-up stuff...and not nearly long enough to just be a kid.

As I recall, when I was a kid Everybody was in school with me too. But it seems like that child was a lot more harmless, back then. Everybody wore Calvin Klein jeans and she had a phone in her room. I think that was it.

I think I prefer another kid I've heard about, Nobody. Nobody wears a coat on cold days. Nobody loves vegetables. Nobody sings in music class. Nobody does the extra credit assignment. Yes, that's my kind of young person!

The boys go back to school this week after a long winter break away from Everybody. Gee, I can't wait to find out what he got for Christmas. And what he saw...and played.

Old Dog...New Tricks

So we’re finishing up an old year and getting ready for a new one. Really? Already? Man, 2013 flew by so fast. I think that every year, but this time I mean it. (I say that every year too.)

I don’t like to make “resolutions.” They never work out. Not through any fault of my own, mind you, but life gets in the way of those completely virtuous things that we intend to do…and once we order pizza on January 3 it’s all over. Of course there are things I intend to do – don’t get me wrong – but they won’t be published in a list to be laughed at later.

What I do like to do is take a look at the last year and remember the things that were new and different. They don’t have to be big things, or great things, but it’s important to try new things and as much as my inertia sometimes holds me back, I did do a few of those.

1)    Assisted with building Pinewood Derby cars. This would not have happened, except Art was in China during the key Pinewood activity weeks. Despite my complete lack of knowledge in this area, I was the assigned adult for helping my sons create their first-ever derby contenders. So we attended workshops, designed and sanded, painted and decorated. Admittedly, the cars weren’t all that fast. But they looked really nice! This next year I might even do one for myself...

 

2)    Rode a horse. Confession: I’m not crazy about riding anything. And I’ve ridden a horse before, just not recently. But this was a controlled ride, on a trail in an Arkansas state park, and everything went just fine once my horse was happy with his position in line. It was fun and the kids had a great time too.

Me on a horse with no name. He had one, I just can't remember it!

3)    Got braces on my teeth. I’d been considering this for a few years (just to get them straighter), but always put it off. And since I had braces in high school, it seemed like something I’d already gotten and so I wondered if it was silly to re-do. But when I had some problems with broken teeth due to an uneven bite, well, that was enough to get me to the orthodontist. I was able to do the Invisalign, and overall it’s been pretty easy – I’ve only got a few more months to go!

4)    Went camping. This one wasn’t my idea, and in fact it was something I’d been actively avoiding for quite some time. But when there’s a “family campout” with the scout pack, and clearly nothing else on the calendar for that weekend, it happens. Never mind the cold. Or the rain the first night. Or sleeping on a concrete pad. Or latrines – which, I’m told, are very nice latrines in spite of being more like built-in port-a-potties. There were also boys having lots of fun, s’mores, and some of what my kids call “PTV” time (parent talking virus) with the other scout adults. I'm not saying it will happen again, mind you, but I do have my own sleeping bag. 

5)    Conquered the Bundt cake. Not a big thing, you say? Following one failure after another (cake not coming neatly out of the pan, or occasionally not coming out at all) I made it my mission to slay the Bundt Beast. So now I’ve got a method, some foolproof recipes, and pans I like. AND some successful results under my belt – which is more important than it sounds! I have confidence…

This one is lemon, with hand-picked East Texas blueberries filling the center.

6)    Pinned. While the rest of you have been pinning madly on Pinterest, I had tried a couple of times (unsuccessfully) to understand it. At last, I took a little time to figure it out and – just like you told me – it’s easy. And kind of fun. But, like facebook and email and other cool apps, I can see how it might eat up hours and hours of time. So I’ll have to think about how it fits into all my other electronic clutter. I don’t do LinkedIn and I don’t do Twitter, so at least I’ve drawn a line someplace. But it’s a wiggly line at best.

7)    Agreed to get a dog. This one was for the kids, of course, but a big step for me. We hadn’t had a pet since about 2006, so we’d gotten comfortable with going wherever, spending the night away, vacations without worrying about where the dog would go, and cold nights when we just worried about the plants. It’s been an adjustment – especially for allergy-prone me since we’ve had so many cold nights when she’s had to sleep in her crate in the house. But she is a sweet, funny young dog who loves hugs. Once we can get her to play ball with us, and not just by herself (which she does when she thinks we aren’t looking) I'll let you know.

This is Frida. If you were here, she would certainly want a hug.

8)    Started a blog. That one had been coming for a while…not because I’ve got any mission to save the world or share my extensive knowledge of everything with my vast public, but because sometimes it’s just good to write. And doing so has cleared a bunch of stuff out of my head that was just floating around, waiting to get out. So that’s nice. Now there’s more room for reality TV in there (not!!). It’s also been fun to see what the rest of the blog team comes up with!

Certainly, I did more than this in 2013. But looking over this list at least I feel like the old dog can learn new tricks, all the time. Why, just last week I programmed a robot. Or is it a vacuum cleaner? (It’s both. I call him Jeeves.)

Do You Hear What I Hear?

Do you ever pick up the wrong lyrics to a song, and then you're stuck with those forever, instead of the right ones?

I've done it myself, more often than I’d like to admit. To this day, when I hear that song "Every time you go away..." it's "you take a piece of MEAT with you" instead of ME. It changes the whole sentiment of the song, but it turns out I like it better that way, so that's how it goes in my head.

Christmas has been a prime time for lyric mangling at our house, and especially amusing with young children. When my sons were 3 or 4, they heard a new (to them) holiday song on the radio and began singing it in earnest. Over and over every day in the car, I heard the happy sounds of "Police La-Di-Da" going in the back seat. Repeat three times and then a bunch of jibberish. Never again will I hear "Feliz Navidad" the same way. (Later when I told them this story, they insisted that could not have happened...after taking Spanish in Kindergarten, they had learned the real words!)

Then about three years ago it was a different one. At school they must have heard or talked about the "12 Days of Christmas" -- honestly, one I'm not crazy about since it goes on and on and on. One night as we finished dinner, Trey and Brett wanted to sing it for us, but as Brett explained, it would be abbreviated to the "7 days" because that was all he could remember (relief!). The first time they performed it, the only thing we remembered was how they stopped and very dramatically sang, arms flung wide and in best operatic voice, "FIVE GOLDEN RINGS!!!!" We were hysterical for several minutes.

In later renditions we realized Brett hadn't really understood the Partridge in a Pear Tree part. Even after I explained what a partridge is, what a pear tree is, and why that might be the right lyric, he continued singing "a parge in a ginnabear tree," insisting that he could not sing it the other way. He may have liked it better because it was all his, and because we smiled when he sang it. To this day, I wonder what picture he had in his head singing it!

And just today we were driving along, listening to the XM holiday station. I wasn’t paying particular attention, focused on the obstacle course that is every road in the Metroplex these days. But then I heard a voice from the backseat say, “did he just sing ‘pay for pizza people everywhere’?” – and had to listen for a second to the song, and then translate. “No, sweetie…it was ‘pray for peace, people everywhere.’”

 

Sometimes it just works best to listen to the Muppets' versions of traditional tunes. In "Ringing of the Bells," Beaker, the Swedish Chef, and Animal join forces and the words don't matter -- which is great since they don't really use words anyway! I know it's not Pentatonix, but it's fun.

Aside from carols, Trey has been playing Beatles tunes on his guitar. You know, like “Hey Dude” (Mommy, why doesn’t that song ever finish?).  I can’t wait until he starts listening to Elton John. Hmmm...does he have a Christmas album? That would be very interesting…

Let's Eat : Beef Stew

Brrrr!

Anybody else a little chilly?

For many of us, it’s winter. For some of us, that’s unusual; others were expecting it (although maybe not quite as cold as it’s been this last week!). In Texas, we’re often running around in short sleeves and even shorts as the Christmas shopping escalates. The mall might be cool enough for a jacket but the outside air usually isn’t. So this recent cold-weather blast was an excellent opportunity to experience our holiday sweaters, hot spiced cider and crock pots filled with homemade soups and stews.

At our house we had one of our favorites, Paula Deen’s Old-Time Beef Stew. Link to her version, or use this one (slightly adjusted for my family’s tastes, and with the added comfort-food layer of mashed potatoes). It looks like a lot of ingredients, but it's not much work and you may already have most of what you need.

Old-Time Beef Stew over Mashed Potatoes

For the stew:

• 2 pounds stew beef
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 cups beef broth
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1 clove garlic, peeled
• 1 or 2 bay leaves
• 1 medium onion, sliced
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• Dash ground allspice or ground cloves
• 4 large carrots, sliced
• 3 ribs celery, sliced
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch

Brown the meat in hot oil. Add beef broth, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, bay leaves, onion, salt, sugar, pepper, paprika, and allspice. Cover and simmer 1 1/2 hours.

Remove bay leaves. Add carrots and celery. Cover and simmer 30 to 40 minutes longer. Combine 1/4 cup water and cornstarch until smooth. Mix with a little hot liquid from the pot and return mixture to the stew. Stir and cook until bubbly.

For the potatoes:

• 3-4 large baking potatoes
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• Milk as desired
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Sliced green onions or chives

Peel the potatoes and cut into 1-inch chunks. Boil until tender, 15-20 minutes. Drain and mash with fork, pastry blender or potato masher, adding oil and milk to get the desired consistency. Season with salt and pepper to taste; mix the chives into the potatoes if you like.

To serve, place a serving of potatoes into a bowl. Ladle stew over the top, and if you still have the chives you can sprinkle them on top. This will serve 6-8 depending on how hungry they are!

Here's the stew, garnished with a few green beans!

Now that you have a warm dinner, how about that winter playlist? It doesn’t have to be Christmas carols, although those are great for December. If you think about it, there are lots of wintery songs, appropriate whenever there is a chill in the air:

·         A Marshmallow World [nice with some hot cocoa]

·         Baby, It’s Cold Outside

·         Frosty the Snowman [we all know he was made from Christmas snow…but the song doesn’t actually say that]

·         I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm

·         Jingle Bells

·         Let It Snow

·         Sleigh Ride

·         (I Love the) Winter Weather

·         Winter Wonderland

·         …you get the idea. Note how none of these songs refer to ice. Pretty, fluffy, romantic snow is the stuff these are made of! You may also have some favorite, newer tunes so feel free to mix it up. I'm kind of stuck in a music groove that happened 40 years ago.
 

And everyone needs a little winter décor, besides that damp pile of coats, gloves, hats and scarves taking up space on a perfectly good chair. I’ve got an extensive snowman collection, and "the chosen ones" come out this time of year (which ones, and how many, just depends on the year). It’s a winter thing, but since we decorate for Christmas in December my husband has come to think of the snow-crew as a Christmas thing.

We have the same conversation every year when Christmas has passed but the decorations remain. I’ll agree that the stockings and the tree and the nativity sets all scream “Christmas” but argue passionately that the snowmen and snowflakes are “Winter,” and therefore should stay up through January. I generally win, because I’m the one who packs up the inside decorations anyway…but it’s an annual post-Christmas discussion nonetheless. I suspect that maybe he feels like their little black eyes -- and there might be hundreds of those -- are watching us.

Some of my favorites...these make it out EVERY year.

  

He, sometime after New Year's: Why are there still snowmen on the mantle?

Me: I like them. Besides, they’re winter.

He: Not really. That one is wearing a red and green scarf.

Me: They’ve all got different colors. That one has a heart, so he might be for Valentine's Day. 

He: Christmas is over.

Me: I took down the stockings, isn’t that enough?

He: Seriously. Christmas is over.

Me: But winter isn’t.

He: (sighs) I’m going to China.

Me: Ha! They’re staying out until February then…

Stay warm, everybody!