Recipe

So three hours later..this is the new background! The whole HTML uploading the style is still completely beyond me. While is seems to work on on the laptop I'm not loving the look on my desktop. Oh well maybe when I decide to kill anouther 3 hours I'll get closer to figuring it out.

So today was the day to reclaim the house. Almost found it! Found the front room, but there are still boxes in the entry way and the basment has yet to be de-Christmastized. But I had to write about the "recipe" and the reason that there are boxes still in the entry way. At one point Sesame Street ended up on one of the televisions this afternoon as the bulk of our boxes got carried down to storage. And someone on sesame street must have been talking about recipes. Because on one of my trips Gracie declared that she was going to make her special recipe for me. "Sounds great honey," was my response thinking she'd be distracted by something else. On the next trip (someone truly goes overboard on the whole Christmas decorating, but that's another story), I realize that 4-year-old indepence in is full swing and Gracie has 1 box of ritz crackers, 1 large bowl, is getting a spoon, and a cup of ice. (Mom comes to a full stop). Then the negotiations begin: Whatcha makin? My recipe. Can I teach to to make something fun? (Short pause.) No I'm making my recipe. What's goes in it? Crackers, and milk, and ice and water. Ok. Can I teach to make your Great-Grandma's special recipe? My grandma....Did I know her../is she dead...Can we make brownies? (OK a quick aside. I really do not want to make brownies. Given the extra poundage from the holidays, and the fact that no one in this house besides me eats brownies...I just don't want to feel obilgated to devour an entire pan of brownies by my self! back to the negotiation) How about we make grandma's recipe? Is it brownies? No it's bread....well like cake. I want to make my birthday cake...can we make my birthday cake? (fyi her birthday is in JUNE!) If we make your birthday cake we'll just eat it now and can't save it for your birthday. Can we make brownies? Ok. (so I pull out a recipe book to find the least desireable brownie recipe I can find...at least it's not cookies. Which always begins as a "we" project and ends up a "me" project because they take so long to bake...recipe found complete with photo). I don't want to make THAT....can we make the square ones...no the circle ones...no the square ones. Honey which do you want to make...circles like cookies (hold breath) or square ones like these? OH, chocolate chip cookies...can we make those? Sure.

This is where we really have a great time and make the cookies...at least it wasn't a pan of brownies and I can actually have some retraint when it comes to the cookies...mine NEVER are as good as Melanies so I know I'm pretty safe. Gracie was a terrific help, measured and poured even helped crack the eggs and made cute little "baby ones". Then when the last pan was baking she was back to her giant bowl. Adding ice, and water and ritz crackers. I felt brave enough to actually leave for some personal time. Upon my return I found that 2 eggs had been added to the recipe...well 2 that I saw. The confession later was that 5 eggs were used. Hmmm not sure who the recipe is for. I think we'll save it for DAD!!!

Shopping and Such

OK so I've decided to come to the "dark side" and actually try this blogging thing. The deal was sealed when my friend Melanie put it this way: "at the end of the year I press print, and viola! my family history for is complete for the year..." That actually resonnated with me. I've struggled with what to blog...how to be clever and interesting when life seems so not sometimes. Then decided if I was searching for the clever and interesting maybe I'd find it. So here goes.