This morning didn’t fare well with the dogs and getting my coffee.
I only managed one cup before the
pleading began: Let us out of this dull, human-attention free hell! I had to listen. I was semi -stressed because there was so
much to do prior to our early bed-time, so I got right to it and tried to
figure out the psychometrics of an assessment.
This is precisely why I’m not a mathematician…. Still, got it finished and sent in my
portfolio. Just some tidying up now. In celebration, I went around the house singing
as if I were on Broadway. Come to think
of it, why am I not on
Broadway?? The kids laughed, initially, but then I may have annoyed them a bit with all my singing. Still, that’s life in showbiz.
Next on the list was “nice clothing
for the theater in San Francisco” for the boy and considering that the last
time I bought him clothing (6 weeks ago) it consisted of 2 pairs of sweat pants
and 3 hoodies (which he has already misplaced), I knew it would take more. We struggled to find him jeans (there were
tons of them, he just didn’t like any) and dressier shirts were
just about the down fall. Still, we
managed, then shoes, then odds and ends
for our baking. We saw a kick ass Datsun
in the parking lot, which he loved. It
was an atrocious green and had a rad Gumby sticker on it. I'd love one, myself.
Once at home, I saw that Maggie had cleaned the entire kitchen
and WOW, how nice it looked! What a
beautiful thing....<clean kitchen equals high marks in brownie points>. I started
a beef bone-broth soup and then the baking commenced. The initial idea was simple: almonds dipped in
chocolate. I went a bit further with
this – two types – one milk chocolate, one a dark chocolate with a pink
Himalayan salt sprinkled over it. I
decided to step outside the box and added other types of nuts and a caramel…then a salted chocolate toffee with
pecans. Finally, homemade sugar
cookies with homemade frosting. It was a
lot of work, but we had the Grateful Dead playing (same album, about 15 times. Like it or not, my kids are Dead Heads now)
and there were a lot of fun moments.
Then it started to fall apart.
Maggie, who had been working on the cookies the entire time (and there were 3 minutes left on the oven timer),
decided to take a break and go watch something on her Kindle. The cookies burnt. The toffee Ethan and I were working on cooked
loooonngg past 20 minutes and the
temp didn’t seem to get any higher, so I figured, ‘meh’ and took them off. Not good.
Something that should be added as a side note on the recipe is that it is imperative for the temp to reach 310 so
all the sugar granules melt and toffee can form. It did not….<erhegtrfwhyrfgheegd>. The chocolate peanut caramels wouldn’t stay stuck
together – so essentially there are two morals
to the story: Stick with your first plan
and/or keep it simple. Take your pick.
One the bright side, Ethan grilled his first steaks and
they were quite tasty – only being busy with baking, there was no side dish, so
all we had were 2 steaks (I shared mine with Maggie). I figure we’d do well in a just about any scenario
– who needs all of that fancy stuff, like sides and salads. It’s just filler, if ya ask me.
Kids are in bed (early) – and Ethan had packed up all his
stuff for his SF excursion trip. He’s
been often enough, but I think it does him good to pack his own stuff (I posted
the list of what he needs) and he says he has everything. If he doesn’t, that’s on him, but he’ll be
fine…it’s just 2 days. He seems to be
doing a lot better. I’m cancelling the follow
up with the doctor as it won’t be any different. He hates talking to doctors and it won’t
accomplish anything. I think what
happened was a tremendous wake-up call for him.
As for Maggie – my sweet angel – that girl is one heck of a mature young
lady. Does that mean I’ll not worry
about her as much? Hell, no! I’m keeping my eyes on her, too. She needs me just as much. I love those kids. Can’t wait till our adventure.
Pictures: Our holiday fence; The gorgeously-gloomy sky; Super rad Datsun. I had a B2-10 long ago....; Our holiday fake fireplace, ready for ChristKindle.
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