Category Archives: Holidailies

Holidailies, Wheel-O & cookies.


No, I am not participating this year, BUT, I really enjoyed it last year and I wanted to encourage anyone NOT burned out by NaBloPoMo or, perhaps, on a roll from that to check out participating in Holidailies. There were some really fun writing prompts provided last year. My favorite had to do with writing a letter to Santa & then also posting about childhood toys. In fact, one of those posts about toys has some particular highlights! It’s titled Hair, Hair, beautiful Hair! On thanksgiving, if you were following my frantic tweets, oldest took out the photo albums and I was lovingly raked over the coals by my dear boys and Jacqueline. Specifically for the charming pixie style hair cut that my mom subjected me to for a very long time. Oddly, that Hair! post generated a LOT of traffic later on as people did google searches on pixie cut! Aack, may it NOT be in style!! PLEASE! (note to Jax: Check it out, I don’t think you saw it last year and it also showcases Velvet – the doll with the growing hair you saw in one of those old photographs!)

For some reason when I thought of the old toy meme the first thing that came to my mind was the Wheel-O:

Is that thing totally a ’70s toy or what?? Complete with psychedelic inserts to totally blow your mind as you get that Wheel-O up to speed with just the right flick of the wrist! I distinctly remember the whirring sound, the feel of it in my hands, and just how annoying it would be when the wheel would get off-kilter! But I also remember carrying it around a lot, just mindlessly flicking and flicking as my mind wandered off to never never land. Kinda like scrolling on a mouse nowadays ;-)

I’m also going to start a Recipe page/tab up top – yes, copying from many of my blogging friends with a similar page on their sites. I’ll holler when I put a new one in, but I am sure it will start out heavy on cookies cookies cookies!! For some reason I’ve recently taken to wanting to bake cookies as soon as December arrives. I must thank my August mom friend in PA today for starting a thread for a cookie recipe exchange. Yummm….three new ones to try right off the top!

So – feel free to share your favorite childhood toys  in the comments (or steal the idea for a blog post of your own!), and please please, do share your favorite cookie recipes with me at ANY time. Baking will commence this weekend :-)

Almost over – odds & ends from winter break


Sigh…the long, lovely vacation is over. Back to school and work tomorrow. We are bummed :-( Of course, *today* MusicMan cleaned out his pile in the garage so after trash pickup tomorrow I could get moving with my own clean up. Ah well. Just gives me projects to work on before LL kicks in right? Because I needed that (ha. ha. HA)

Hey, did you see that I got my birthday wish? Oh right, I was twittering but hadn’t yapped in here about the Chargers. Yes, football. Sorry. You know I do love my sports along with my politics (which I’ve relaxed on since the election to clear my head). The Chargers started the season out horrible so I wasn’t about to mention them. It was looking like the entire San Diego sports year was just going to be a huge bust and frankly, we are used to it here! Then in December, they woke up. And were lucky to be in a crappy division battling a team on the decline for the top spot. They killed the Broncos last weekend to earn a playoff berth. Which ended up being a home game against the every present Colts who they knocked out of the playoffs last year. These two teams ONLY play tight games that come back to the last play. They did not disappoint yesterday and I seriously wondered if I would make it to see 45 at one point my heart was so stressed!! But they prevailed in the end and my birthday was perfect:

sproles-ot-td

I’ve had this house for 5 years and have used the fireplace plenty of times, but for whatever reason yesterday was the first time I noticed how the flames reflect in the granite:

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A common thread I’ve seen reading other sites this past week. Nothing was more fun for kids and cats than the box your favorite item came in:

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holi08-badge-peng

44


44hat

jackson44

obama44small

There it is. The number I have to carry with me for 365 days in varying forms. Of course, the really cool part about turning 44 this year is it is the same year that our 44th President is inaugurated. And since the birthday present that I appreciated the MOST last year was the actual start of votes being cast in the election process (Iowa), then you know that this is a fun bit of trivia for me to be turning 44 when #44 heads into office. Of course, it helps that it’s That One :-)

obama-election

Do Over 09?


doover

Can we have a Do over on the whole BringIt09 concept? Perhaps BringIt was too much of a challenge? Because according to a couple of emails and a phone call things are not quite starting out with that whole positive twist we were shooting for. No, not at all. So, let’s try this AGAIN shall we?

Happy New Year!! May 2009 be filled with health (dammit!), happiness (dammit!) wisdom (double dammit!) and most of all NO F’in DRAMA. OK? OK!

Good thing I didn’t make any resolutions ;-)

BringIt09!


I noticed a common thread yesterday. One that I have seen through the year actually. For many of my Real Life and Internet friends, 2008 was not so great. In fact, on the blogs a couple of different people started referring to it as Suck It ’08. Grandy, Dawn and the writers on Mother Talkers. Grandy followed up with the BringIt09 mantra and I fully support that. I love fresh starts. Re-arranging furniture. De-cluttering (when I can!). Turn the page on the calendar. To all my friends for whom 2008 really was sucky – I hope with all my heart that 2009 is a HUGE improvement. Meanwhile, I am enjoying my new toy:

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With the TV now off of the cabinet, I have more room for pretty candles and knic knacs! I suspect that holiday cards will appear there next season :-) Meanwhile, it is back to watching hockey being played on a baseball field in HD with the stereo sound working nicely. Way warmer than those folks watching it live in Chicago!

No Resolutions. No Year End Lists. Just a post like any other.


calvin_resolutions

Ever the independent rebel, this is not the typical Year in Review or New Year’s Resolution post. The most you get is the header change to New Year’s fireworks :-) You see, those other things take organization. Clear mindedness. Heck, any kind of mindedness! And the timing is just not right for me on those at the moment. I need to de-clutter first. Literally. I know, you see the pictures of  my house and think, what clutter? True enough that I have been successful at maintaining order int the areas seen by guests. But that does not mean by a long shot that there is not excess stuff in here. It’s just quite cleverly hidden. At Thanksgiving break I made a list of those hidden places that needed clearing out. A few were tackled before the Christmas decorating began. Looking at all this time off work, one would think the rest would be done. Theoretically. Maybe. However, there is a clog in the process. Ok, two clogs. The main one is that the last step in any de-cluttering process is throwing things away. Which I cannot. Because the trash in the garage is already overflowing thanks to DS1. In his prepartions to move out, he’s been stocking up on things he didn’t have before. Like a real bed. A new computer. A new tv etc etc. All of which means the old items need to be disposed. And the new things came in boxes. Then Christmas meant more new boxes for everyone. And even though we toss out as much as we can with each weekly trash pick up, the containers can only hold so much. So I am stopped. I’ve cleaned out a couple of little drawers and one closet shelf which makes me feel that *something* is getting done, but it’s no where near what I wanted. Even if I wanted to take down decorations, I cannot get near the shelf with the holiday boxes anyway. So instead I allow myself to be distracted by the other reason for not getting things done – Harry Potter.  It’s so much easier to just get lost in the books.

The only thing I can say is that once the clutter is dealt with, I will most likely think through the best way to handle all that 2009 will be. I know that on the surface it will be as hectic as 2008 since I have the same obligations and DS2 will be in the same activities.  I’d like to handle all of those with a little more balance. Which probably means less blogging. Certainly NO daily commitment :-)

Have a safe and happy new years eve and new years day. I do look forward to sharing 2009 with everyone! I know that many of my cyber-friends have had truly crappy times in 2008 so in support of you I will say Goodbye and Good Riddance to Suck-It ’08!

I figured out what this blog is!


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It’s a Pensieve! Created as a place to put down my thoughts on life and, more recently, to document memories.

Can you tell I am reading Harry Potter? Yes, one of the last to do so, I know. I’ve just finished books 4 and 5.  The routine is that SportsBoy and I read the book, then watch the movie and do a compare/contrast. And he is taking this *seriously*! I finished book 4 the other day and he would NOT let me start 5 without seeing the movie first! He even went so far as to hide book 5 from me. Stinker!! Now it’s the same thing with 6.

I must say that Goblet of Fire was a very poor representaiton of the book. Of course it would be as the book was more than 600 pages. Order of the Pheonix was nearly 900!! The movies have to cut out so so much, and IMHO, TOO much. The wonder of these books is in the details.The little moments that all weave together from tale to tale. But I was truly irritated at the end of Goblet of Fire at the HUGE details left off or changed!! It had not been that bad with the first 3 at all. So we will see how the 5th movie can stand up. I hear they did perhaps split this one up? They had to I would think! I have lots of tv switching chores to do today, but I will get that movie so we can watch it. I want to read #6!!

Please do not be frightened


Thanks to Bennie, I give you this meme. And I apologize now for what I must share. Bennie caught me stopping to read blogs as I thought about what to do for breakfast. My friend had just called to spur of the moment suggest we meet to catch up and *still* I decided to continue reading so he caught me before I started to get ready to go out (dammit).

Here are the rules:

1) Take a picture of yourself right NOW!
2) DON’T change your clothes, DON’T fix your hair… Just take a picture.
3) Post that picture with NO editing.
4) Post these instruction with your picture.
5)Tag 10 people to do this..(cutting it down to 7)

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Coulda been worse!!

I tag:

Corina

Kitty

MLL

Bibliomom

Dee

Grandy

and Ramblingmom

Recipes as promised


The first two come from Mimi. She recently moved her site and archives are not there so I’m just typing them out again.

LACE COOKIES

  • 1 1/2 cups uncooked oatmeal
  • 1 1/2 cups light brown sugar
  • 2 tbl flour
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 2/3 cup butter, melted (10 2/3 tbl)
  • 1 egg, slightly beaten
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 F. Mix oatmeal, brown sugar, flour and salt in a bowl. Stir in the melted butter, then add edd and vanilla and combine well. Arrange the batter by 1/2 teaspoonfuls, about 2 inches apart on a baking sheet covered in parchment paper. **Pay attentention to this!! The cookies will spread a LOT so they need the space and it does not take more than the 1/2 tsp to make a cookie. I know. I’ve learned :-) ** Bake until lightly browned around the edges. About 5 mins on a regular cookie sheet, and 9 for an air bake sheet. Cool slightly before removing cookies from the parchment with a spatula. **Another hint – this are super delicate so this year I simply stored them by cutting out more pieces of parchment and stacking them on the slips. This keeps them from sticking together and from cracking apart. See photo here.

HOLY BREAD

Basic dough:

  • 3 1/4 cups all purpose white flour
  • 1 tbl white sugar
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 package rapid rise yeast
  • 1 cup warm water
  • 1 Tbl butter, melted

Mix 2 1/4 cups flour, sugar, salt, yeast, warm water and butter. Add enough of the remaining flour to form a soft dough. Turn out onta a floured surface and knead for 4 minutes. Roll out into a 10-14 inch rectangle/oval. Now it is ready to be filled. I chose a pesto provalone version. I bought a container of pesto and sliced provalone and simply spread the pesto out down the center 1/3 of the dough and then layered the cheese slices over it. Mimi posted a recipe for a cinamon sugar version where you would slather the entire rolled out dough with 3 tbl of room temperature butter and then evenly sprinkle out some cinamon sugar over that. Either way, once you’ve chosen a filling, the next step is the wrapping. With a sharp knife slice the outer 1/3 of the dough at 1 inch intervals on both sides making the same number of cuts on both sides. Starting at one end, fold the sliced dough tabs alternating sides. Gently press down on each tab so it wont pop free while baking. With the thicker pesto/cheese filling you will need to stretch the dough tabs a bit to cover. For the pesto version, brush an egg white over the folded dough. For the cinamon version, brush more melted butter on it. Transfer the dough to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Boil about 4 cups of water and pour into a shallow baking dish. Place the  baking sheet on top of the pan with the water and cover with a clean towel.Let rise for 15 mins. It will just become slightly puffy. Meanwhile, heat the oven to 400 F. Bake it, uncovered for 20 mins with a thin filling, 25 with more. Before and after photos of the pesto version are here.

I found this crock pot roast recipe on a random recipe site. There are variations like this all over, but this is what I made exactly and as I said – RAVE reviews!

CROCKPOT ROAST BEEF

  • 4 lb boneless roast meat (chuck, sirloin etc. Whatever is on sale will do!)
  • 1/2 cup flour
  • 1 envelope dry onion soup mix
  • 1 envelope brown gravy mix
  • 2 cups ginger ale

Coat roast in flour. Place in crock pot. Blend the rest of the ingredients including the remaining flour in a bowl and pour over roast. Cook on low 8-10 hours or on high 4-5. I stirred the gravy around the roast a couple of times while it was cooking since I was home, but I am sure it would be just fine totally left alone. The meat is ridiculously tender, the gravy is perfect right out of the pot and this makes amazing leftovers. Youngest is already asking me when I can make another one!