Just a quick note to myself

Hey, you there with the purse and the sticky fingers. Just stop it, will ya? Don't ever buy candy for Easter, Halloween or Christmas that you personally like. And while you're at it, put half that back in the first place. Because your kids don't like candy as much as you do. Except for that one kid. And the other one. And they don't need to eat it any more than you do.

But when it comes right down to it, for real, buy the c-r-a-p that you don't like. Starburst, Jelly Bellys, Sour Patch kids. Buy that. Because they'll eat it and you won't. Or it will eventually turn to little rocks and you can throw it out with a clear conscience.

But no more chocolate, ever, unless it's Mounds or Almond Joy, or Butterfinger. Because you don't like any of those.

You'll thank me later!

Hugs and kisses,

Yourself

Chess pie for Easter dinner

  Chess pie for Easter dinner 

I made a chess pie this morning and I really enjoyed my piece after dinner. Strangely, neither of the kids wanted any. I promise they eat barbecue and grits both -- well, at least until the 8yo became a vegetarian last year -- but for some reason, I have apparently failed at getting them to appreciate this particular Southern delicacy. I'll keep working on it.

I got this recipe from my mom. It's always great.

Chess Pie
2 c. sugar
2 heaping T. flour
1 heaping T. cornmeal
1 stick butter, melted
3 eggs, beaten
1/2 c. buttermilk
2 t. vanilla
1/4 t. lemon extract
Pinch of salt

Combine sugar, flour and meal. Add melted butter. Add eggs, buttermilk, vanilla, salt and lemon extract. Beat until well mixed. Bake in a pie shell at 400 degrees, for 10 minutes. Then lower heat to 350 degrees and bake for 30 minutes. Pie should be golden brown on top, and should jiggle just a little when you shake it -- not like water or soup, but not as firm as Jello, either.

Easter wha?

I took vacation this week because the 8yo is on spring break. We usually go to Florida to visit my parents on such occasions [free lodging at the beach!!] but this year, she wanted to stay home. For various reasons, it was a good idea to go along. I'm waiting for my mom to call and tell me how it was in the 40s there all week anyway and not to feel bad for missing the beach.

Hmm. She hasn't called yet.

[Of course, that's probably related to her being in TAMPA with the VANDERBILT COMMODORES. Woo hoo! Pause. I bet the weather sure is nice in Tampa this time of year.]

Nonetheless, I've been hanging out with the kiddos all week, but it took until tonight, when I was sitting in the choir loft for the Maundy Thursday service at church, for me to realize: Easter is Sunday.

There is no dinner planned. There are no hidden stashes of candy. There is no Easter grass! Well, I take that last part back. I am now remembering that several years ago, I bought enough Easter grass at a post-Easter sale to keep me in plastic and paper greenery til my children are out of graduate school.

Frankly, I likely would have been better prepared had I worked this week, since I would have overheard other people's conversations about Easter preparations, thus reminding me to get on the stick, and I would have had a lunch hour to dash over to Target.

Now I am stuck with counting on an almost-3-year-old to not really pay attention when we go to Target on Saturday. Not to notice all the chocolate and trinkets I'm stashing in the cart. Umm, right.

Easter dinner will be easier -- no subterfuge required -- though it is going to take a lot of brainpower to come up with something that the 8yo picky vegetarian will eat, and that I consider worthy of serving for Easter dinner.

On the bright side, I have been kicking ass and taking names this week when it comes to wedding planning. I have:

• Bought my dress
• Ordered invitations
• Ordered announcements
• Lined up the florist
• Lined up the photographer

Cakes were ordered last week and chapel has been secured for a couple of months. All that's really left is to figure out what I mean by the "reception" we have invited people to on the invitation. Well, and I have to decide what the kids are wearing. Though we got some ideas about that when we were out at Shopryland today. I just couldn't be in that place one more minute, after we got the 2yo an Easter outfit and both of them shoes. Well, there was a little more to it than that...but my lack of patience with shopping malls is not a secret. I got out while I still could.

Stay tuned....we'll see what I come up with. I'm sure I'll get lots of planning done tomorrow night while the 8yo has a friend over to spend the night.

My Christmas favorite

  It's not Christmas without it. 

Several years ago, Santa brought the 8yo a chocolate orange. While she was intrigued by the idea that you first banged the candy on the counter before eating it, she declared it to be disgusting.

I ate the whole thing in two sittings, which was kind of disgusting now that I think about it.

I've managed to be a bit more restrained in the years since, but I do have to have one every year. I'm halfway through the 2007 chocolate orange.

The holidays are over, thank goodness

Oh my word, have we eaten the past few days.

We started with our annual Christmas Eve dinner at P.F. Chang's. Christmas Day was an anomaly -- my biggest meal for most of the day was Chex Mix. FYI, the only things open on I-65 south of Nashville on Christmas are gas stations. Try feeding two children something semi-nutritious from several gas stops.

We had several great meals in Florida with the parentals the next few days, including a luncheon my aunt and uncle threw for NYC sister and her fiance.

Then we came back to Nashville and we've been eating cookies and party food ever since. No, my clothes don't fit anymore, but thanks for noticing. Now I'm really glad I had the foresight [ie., was the victim of peer pressure] to sign up immediately before Christmas for that 5K and half-marathon later this spring. Back to the treadmill tomorrow.

Happy New Year!

Today I baked....

• Pecan shortbread cookies
• The chocolate crinkles I mixed up and refrigerated last night
• A sour cream pound cake

Every time I do a meme, I say, I never do memes

So Linda is writing about being the last one to get around to this Christmas meme. Linda is one of the smartest people I know, so I think I must just be late in getting to this.

Feel free to join in if you, too, are late.

1. Wrapping or gift bags?
Wrapped, with handmade ribbons. Gift bags are of the devil.

2. Real or artificial tree?
I have done both but I far prefer a real tree.

3. When do you put up the tree?
This is hard to answer. I went for years doing the tree Christmas Eve, or maybe the 23rd. Now I'm at the other extreme, sometime in the week after Thanksgiving. I will say, now it's far less about choice and far more about, when do we have a free night?

4. When do you take the tree down? 
Right around New Year's. The only time I've failed at that is the year I was pregnant with the 8yo. The tree -- a real 11-foot tree -- stayed up until February. We just closed the door to the room it was in. It was a source of great stress to me, but being 5 months pregnant, there wasn't a lot I could do about an 11-foot tree.

5. Do you like eggnog?
Blech. I hate all things with eggs. I don't like any custardy things. So no, this isn't on my holiday wish list.

6. Favorite gift received as a child?
A 10-speed bike. I still remember coming down and finding it next to the tree. At about 2:30 a.m. Christmas morning, because that's how I rolled as a kid. I must have given my parents serious anxiety.

7. Do you have a Nativity scene?
I have five I can think of off the top of my head. I love Nativity scenes. I would like more. And I'm not a stuff-you-must-dust kind of girl.

8. Worst Christmas gift you ever received?
There are bad Christmas gifts?

9. Mail or email Christmas cards?
Mail. I have gone the way of the Christmas letter, then more recently, the way of the photo-of-the-kids-with-printed-signature card, but I still mail these religiously.

10. Favorite Christmas movie?
It's a Wonderful Life.

11. When do you start shopping for Christmas?
Typically, July. This year, after Thanksgiving. I'm still not done, and I'm feeling about this like I did about that 11-foot tree. Except this is totally my fault.

12. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas?
Homemade candy: Fudge, caramel, divinity, chocolate-covered cherries.

13. Clear lights or colored on the tree?
Colored. I'm easily swayed by the idea of a tree with white lights, but I bend to nostalgia when it comes to decorating my own.

14. Favorite Christmas song?
O Come, O Come Emmanuel. Also: O How a Rose E'er Blooming. And In the Bleak Midwinter and Night of Silence. And Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence. Is that too many?

Oh, one more: Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer. [Doesn't go with the rest, I know. And it's killing Newscoma to see that here, I suspect.]

15. Travel at Christmas or stay home?
Funny, I was just telling a friend tonight how we always stay home, but this year we're traveling. That, too, is beginning to cause me stress.

16. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer?
In my sleep, baby.

17. Angel on tree top or star?
Angel, but I sometimes wish I had a star. On the other hand, I love angel ornaments. That's it. I want angel ornaments but a star on top.

18. Open the presents Christmas Eve or Christmas morning?
I grew up opening them on Christmas Eve. And then Santa had come when you woke up Christmas morning. Also, Santa does not wrap presents, people.

The past few years, we've done the family presents whenever the 8yo is here, since she spends every other week at her dad's.

19. Most annoying thing about this time of year?
The need I feel to do everything.

20. Do you decorate your tree in any specific theme or color?
People really do that?

21. What do you leave for Santa?
People really do that?

22. Least favorite holiday song?
Mele Kilikimaka

23. Favorite ornament?
My Metropolitan Museum of Art sterling silver snowflakes.

Triple yuck

  A pan of horrific sweetness 

We were looking for some interesting cookies to make to send to the 8yo's teachers. [Having sent Hershey's kiss cookies to some last week.] And I thought these gumdrop cookie bars sounded fun. Really, I should have re-thought that.

* The recipe called for an extreme number of eggs and too much sugar, in my opinion. Did I let that deter me? Oooooh no.

* The recipe said it made 2-3 dozen, yet you used one 9x9 pan. Still forged ahead.

* And finally, this recipe came from a cookbook that's been proven to have many, many mistakes in the recipes. And still, I cooked the gumdrop bars.

Sigh. You'd think I'd learn.

Here's what I wanted: Thin, slightly crispy and otherwise chewy bars -- buttery, even -- with the gumdrops as a fun topping.

Here's what I got: Fluffy yet dense ginormous bars, more cake-like than cookie-like, so sweet as to be inedible, even in the 1-inch test bite I cut.

Here's the lesson: When there are thing that sound off about the recipe, they probably are. Don't waste your gumdrops, people.

Update on Thanksgiving 2007

  Ready for the freezer   

I've made the rolls. They're in the freezer.

I've got my shopping list ready. We're hitting Publix first thing in the a.m.

Also Sweet 16th and the liquor store.

End of the day, we're picking up the fried turkey from the men's group at church.

In between? Cooking about a bazillion things. I'll try to post some photos.

Don't knock on my door tonight

Long on record as a Halloween hater, I want to take this opportunity to make it publicly clear why I'm not participating in this evening's festivities.

It has nothing to do with my hatred of dressing up in a costume. It has nothing to do with a desire to see my children avoid sugar shock or cavities.

Really.

Unless you've ever had a 2yo who is terrified of people in costumes, well, judge not lest yet be judged, mmk?

I spent a long time looking for the red horse costume I made the 8yo when she was 2. It was a work of art, but it's now apparently lost to the sands of time. And one too many Sterilite boxes of children's clothing in my shed. Once I was unable to find it, I kept procrastinating about getting him a new costume. Since he really has no clue what's going on.

But last week, we ran into someone in costume -- a mask, the whole bit -- and a tow truck winched around the 2yo's waist wouldn't have dragged him off me. I've never messed around with sound files on this blog, and you're lucky, because otherwise I'd share with you what it sounds like when the 2yo shrieks in your ear. Repeatedly.

And finally I thought, why on earth would I torture my child so that he can participate in the "fun" of the holiday? Forget it.

So while the 8yo goes out haunting the neighborhood with her dad and a number of friends, the 2yo and I will be hiding in the back of the house with all the lights off. Don't come a knockin'. You're liable to scare the fool out of both of us.