Bittersweet

Pinkle Purr

by A. A. Milne

Tattoo was the mother of Pinkle Purr,
A little black nothing of feet and fur;
And by-and-by, when his eyes came through,
He saw his mother, the big Tattoo.
And all that he learned he learned from her.
"I'll ask my mother," says Pinkle Purr.

Tattoo was the mother of Pinkle Purr,
A ridiculous kitten with silky fur.
And little black Pinkle grew and grew
Till he got as big as the big Tattoo.
And all that he did he did with her.
"Two friends together," says Pinkle Purr.

Tattoo was the mother of Pinkle Purr,

An adventurous cat in a coat of fur.
And whenever he thought of a thing to do,
He didn't much bother about Tattoo,
For he knows it's nothing to do with her,
So "See you later," says Pinkle Purr.

Tattoo is the mother of Pinkle Purr,
An enormous leopard with coal-black fur.
A little brown kitten that's nearly new
Is now playing games with its big Tattoo…
And Pink looks lazily down at her:
"Dear little Tat," says Pinkle Purr.

My little Pinkle Purr, Nathan, graduated from high school last week. I was fine until I saw him in his cap and gown and almost didn't recognize him. He looked so grown-up! It's one thing to know that an 18 year old is an adult, it's another thing to see it. To feel it.

When he was first born, a co-worker told me that he would never be as close to me or need me as much as he did that day. That every day, if I was doing my job right, Nate would get farther away from me and need me just a little bit less. It hurt but it was true.

Paul and I did our jobs right. He is going off to Duluth for college in the fall and won't need us to take care of him anymore. But because we did our jobs right, we will always be connected and he will always be ours. (Even if we have to share him)

This is one of those things that"hurt so good". It is right that he grows up, but dang, I'm already feeling the big hole he will leave in the house. Everyone who has ever had a child feels this, it isn't new or unique. Right now I'm concentrating on freaking out about his open house later this summer. I had the first open house nightmare last night. In it, I poisoned everyone with bad tuna salad.

These are Nate's favorite brownies. Use bittersweet chocolate to really feel my pain.


Nate's Brownies

50 caramels (1 pkg)
1/2 cup evaporated milk (not sweetened condensed milk)
1 pkg German chocolate cake mix
1/2 cup evaporated milk
3/4 cup melted margarine
1 cup nuts
1 6 or 8 oz pkg of chocolate chips or chopped bittersweet chocolate

Melt caramels and 1/2 cup milk together. Mix cake mix with other 1/2 cup milk, margarine and nuts. Put half of mixture in buttered 9x13 pan. Bake 6 minutes at 350 degrees. Remove from oven and sprinkle with chocolate. Pour melted caramels over chocolate. Spoon remaining batter over caramel - don't worry about holes- batter will spread. Bake at 350 for 15-18 minutes. It is better to undercook brownies than to overcook them. These must cool before you can cut them.

Makin' Me Nutty

People are making me nutty. It's not even so much the insults as the fact that they believe they have the right to talk to me that way! GRRR.... Keep it up and there will be an unpleasant explosion. Just sayin'.

To relieve stress and restore sanity, I am a big believer in craft therapy. I do a lot of crafts, (as I apparently need a lot of therapy). I scrapbook, knit, cross-stitch, punch-needle and quilt. I make my own soap. I melt glass to make beads and make jewelry. I switch back and forth depending on what project is stuck in my head and won't get out until I do it.

Lately, I've been dyeing fabric in interesting ways. Non-quilters are mystified by this and always ask,"Now what are you going to do with it?", quilters understand that it is process art. The fun is in the doing. Also, we believe that there is no such thing as too much fabric.

I made good use of some snow earlier this spring to do snow-dyeing. You put snow on top of fabric and the put the dye on the snow. As it melts, it dyes the fabric. Very cool!


That was so much fun that I decided to try to dye fabric with an oatmeal resist. You cook up the oatmeal (we had some new kind of instant that the kids hated, so I used that) and spread it on the pretreated fabric.
Here my friend Palmer the visiting lab is very interested in how good the art smells. Maybe a little lick? After it dries, you spread on thickened dye. The directions said to use some special thickener, but I used cornstarch and microwaved it and it was just fine.
The red was beautiful, but reminded me a little of Bella Swan's last birthday party. I also did a nice blue. The hard part was waiting 4 hours for it to set in. Do yourself a favor and wash this off outside, with the hose. You don't want that much oatmeal going down your drain.

Look at how nice that turned out! I am very pleased and I didn't have the urge to smack the annoying people all day. Sadly, today is another day and some of them are busy pushing my buttons already. Great. Maybe I need to try sugar therapy.

Here is Grandma Elly's recipe for Nutty Bars.

Nutty Bars
1 cup (2 sticks) margarine
1 cup brown sugar
Cream margarine and sugar and add:
1 egg yolk
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
Pat this mixture into a greased 9x13 pan and bake at 350 15-18 minutes until golden brown. Cool a bit.
Topping:
6 oz butterscotch chips
1/2 cup light corn syrup
2 Tbls Margarine
1 Tbls water
1 (12oz) can salted mixed nuts (the kind with no peanuts)

Mix chips, syrup, margarine and water in saucepan until chips are melted. Stir in nuts and spread over crust. Bake 7-8 minutes at 350. cool before cutting into small squares.

This seems awfully familiar, did I already give you this recipe? Oh, well, I told you I was nutty.

(Up and) Down on the Bayou

That's my Dad and me. Until Thursday he lived in Louisiana. My brother Chris and I went down to fetch him last week. My dad was a brilliant engineer once upon a time. When I was born he worked for Lockheed on the space program. I guess that makes him a rocket scientist!

Unfortunately, he isn't so great with people. He and my mom divorced when I was 5. They remarried and divorced again. He married a woman named Darlene with a son named Charles. It didn't last long.

He next married a nice woman named Barb with 4 sons and a daughter. I was thrilled to have a big sister and 2 big brothers! It was fun to be part of a big family. Chris and I helped our youngest step brothers with their paper routes. The bonding I had hoped for with the 2 oldest never happened, but I had a little crush on one big brother. We all went camping and sailing, it was odd to share our dad, but having more siblings was worth it. In the space of time between weekend visits, Dad and Barb broke up. Chris and I never saw Barb or her family again. Dad moved down south after that.

That is Chris with Dad. We never met wife #5 (if you count our mother as #1 and #2). Our sweet Grandma said Dad should give up on marriage and just get a dog. Wife #6 was named Jerry. They were married nearly twenty years and were separated and planning to divorce when Dad had his first stroke. Jerry took him back and took over his care until her death last month. Dad said he wanted to come home to Minnesota, so Chris found him a room in a beautiful nursing home equidistant from our homes. Thursday was a long travel day that nobody enjoyed, but dad is safe and sound at his new place.

Jerry had 3 children. This is her daughter, Jamie. This is a TERRIBLE photo of her. Jamie is actually very slim and pretty and does not have even a hint of a double chin in real life! Jamie picked us up at the airport, drove us to Dad and Jerry's house and gave us the keys to the house and the car. She packed up dad's clothes and made multiple trips to check on him before and after he went to the care facility there. She told us to take whatever we wanted our Dad to have from the house. She texted several times a day to see if we needed anything. Chris lived with Dad, Jerry and Jamie for 5 years in the 80's and referred to Jamie as our stepsister. Which she is. I just never thought of her that way. Maybe I thought she'd disappear, too. This makes me sad, because I could have had a relationship with her all these years. When we thanked her for her kindness, she said, "Well, ya'll are family!" Family. That's what it's all about, isn't it?

I did have a good time with my brother. He's fun. We went out to eat and tried all the local stuff we could. Alligator is delicious and nutritious. Oysters we can live without. We had a tasty shrimp Etouffee on Tuesday night. I found a recipe for that in a cajun cookbook. You're gonna like dis, chere!

Shrimp Etouffee

2 lbs shrimp (little ones are fine)
1 1/2 cups chopped onions
1/3 cup crushed garlic
2/3 cup chopped green pepper
1/2 cup tomato paste
2 chicken bouillon cubes
2 tsp salt (taste before adding, you may not need it)
1 tsp tabasco sauce (Tabasco is made in Louisiana)
1 cup oil
3/4 cup flour
1/4 cup chopped celery
1/4 cup butter
3 cups water
1 can chicken broth
2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp paprika

Cooked rice for serving

In a large skillet, make a roux by stirring oil and flour over medium heat. Stir constantly. When roux reaches peanut butter color, add onions, celery, garlic, and green pepper. Saute 5 minutes. Mix 1/4 cup butter and tomato paste and saute in another pan until smooth and thick, about 5 minutes. Add it to the roux along with the rest of the ingredients except the shrimp. Cook together 5 minutes. Add shrimp and cook 5 minutes. Serve over rice. Crawfish can be substituted for shrimp.

Unnecessary Warnings

The world is a scary place. Sometimes you need help navigating the hazards, which is where friendly warnings come in. "Stay away from the boss today, she's in a bad mood", "Don't drink and drive", "Watch out, the sidewalk is icy", these are useful things to know and so avoid trouble.

Lately I've been getting some ridiculous warnings that make me wonder, "Who needs to be told such obvious things?"

In with new shoes, the little pack of silicone stuff that absorbs moisture is labeled, "Do Not Eat". Because somebody thought it was a snack with purchase? Maybe free LIK-M-Ade?

My new e-reader directions warn against getting it wet (fair enough, not for use in the tub) but continue on to say that if you do get it wet, do not attempt to dry it out by putting it in a microwave oven! I was astounded that anyone would think of this until my niece confessed that she had once tried to dry an ipod in the nuker. (Her mom stopped her in time.)

I have recently had some horrendous dental work done. Ok, it was a cleaning, but it had been 10 years since I had been to the dentist (Yeah, it's a phobia, but can you blame me?) and they had to do the "Deep Cleaning". (Cue ominous music). When I made the appointment I mentioned my dislike of dentistry and asked if they had knock-out gas. (No, I did not ask if they had gas). Yes, indeed, and plenty of it, they said. (Liars)

This deep cleaning can be done in 2 appointments of 2 hours each or 1 appointment lasting 3 hours. Not being a total idiot, I took the 3 hour thing. The hygienist put on the "numbing gel" and got to work. Scraping up under my gums with sharp things and some drill-type machine, it hurt like the dickins! This is when she tells me that she is only allowed to give me enough novacaine for half my mouth! Long story short, at the end of 3 hours, I was a mess. (Please note that I actually have a high pain tolerance. Really.)

Here is where the unnecessary warning comes in. Captain Obvious warns me that this deep cleaning can only be done every 2 years, so don't ask for it again before that! I kinda thought she was joking, but she was serious! I promised through my bloody drool that I would NEVER do such a thing and crawled to my car.

Captain Obvious also gave me a prescription for antibiotic mouthwash. I will describe the taste for you: If a bear ate a tube of toothpaste, his poop would be like this mouthwash. As a bonus, the flavor was long lasting. Another unnecessary warning: NO Refills.

Here is a nice recipe for jalapeno poppers. Two unneeded warnings: Filling is hot, and do not eat the whole batch as a low-carb meal. (A nice person would not ask how I know this).

Jalapeno Poppers

10-15 jalapenos
8 oz cream cheese
1 cup shredded cheddar
6 slices cooked, crumbled bacon

Halve and seed jalapenos. Mix cheeses and bacon in mixer and put into a ziploc bag. Cut off a corner and squeeze goop into jalapenos. Bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes or grill on foil for 30 minutes, until browned.

Santa's Lap of Luxury

We went to the Wisconsin Dells for Christmas! We stayed in a very posh timeshare, courtesy of Paul's mom who needed to use up "points" or lose them. It had a whole kitchen, so I cooked our roast beast there. The recipe I gave you last time worked perfectly, although the boys said it was too rare. I think because I used a bone-in roast, it could have cooked a little longer.

Paul gave me an ereader, which I really like. I downloaded "Huckleberry Finn" for free and read it in the dark!

I felt a little bad about missing Christmas Eve services at our church. I was also surprised that the hotel/timeshares were completely full on such a big holiday. Then I took a longer look at the other guests. They were probably not Christians, so it was just another weekend to them! I forget how small my little world is, sometimes. I need to get out more! I was interested in the very modest swimsuits the Muslim women were wearing. Kind of like a wetsuit with a dress over it. The headpiece even had a bump-out for the wearer's hair bun.

This posh place had 3, count them 3, waterparks in it. (More in the summer.) Big waterparks, with scary slides and tube rides. I seriously thought I would die. Paul says you could hear me scream and say"OH DEAR" all the way down. There was also mini-golf and laser tag and arcades. Paul and I endured a 2 hour sales presentation for the time shares to get a $150 gift card. The guys used it to go skiing. I have a bum knee, so I try to avoid skiing. Sadly, I had to stay alone in the posh suite, soak in the hot tub, read magazines and work on a quilt. It was rough.

We're going to have a quiet New Year's Eve. Appetizers and movies in our pajama pants, fire in the fireplace... I am glad to say that Nick turned down an invitation from a buddy to stay home with us! With Nate going to college next year, I am relishing every minute of family time.

Here is a party dip recipe that was new to me. Have you ever had that appetizer where you spread cream cheese on Buddig lunch meat, wrap a pickle in it, then slice it? I like that, but spreading the cream cheese is a pain. This recipe has the same flavor, but without the hassle!(Now how much would you pay?)

Wrapped Pickle Dip

1 (8oz) pkg cream cheese, softened
1/3 cup real mayonaise
1 pkg Buddig corned beef
1 pkg Buddig beef
Pickles to taste
Crackers (Wheat thins are good)

Mix cream cheese and mayo. Chop meat into small squares and add to mixture. Dice pickles and add to your taste. Add pickle juice to make it easier to spread. Or just use pickle relish! Serve with crackers.

Happy New Year!

Mama, Mama, Holiday Drama

Ready for Christmas? Got all your shopping done? If one more person asks me something like that I will scream! Because I am extremely unready. Yeah, I know, IT'S TOMORROW! EEEKK!!

Yesterday was the Christmas program at preschool. Now they are all tucked up in their house with their parents and I can work on MY family's Christmas.When I mentioned how behind on preparations I was, Mr. Ose said, "Maybe you should learn to multi-task". He is definitely getting coal in his stocking. He was kidding, he knew I was already multi-tasking my little heart out. Next year will be easier, first year is the hardest, (I keep telling myself). Really, we just have to buy stuff. Gifts, food, etc. Teenage boys are hard to buy for. It's amazing how much of this is Mama-driven, at least at our house.

At least I don't have to make up a menu. That may be the reason that traditions are born, so that you don't have to make everything up from scratch every year. (Mothers are geniuses!) We will have rib roast, mashed potatoes, broccoli, carrots, jello for Nick, Yorkshire pudding, and gravy. We will have English "crackers", party favors that look like wrapped tubes from toilet paper. Inside the tubes there is a small firework that goes "POP" when you pull on it, a tissue paper hat, a corny joke and a small, cracker-jacky prize. (I mean the kind of prize you USED to get in Cracker Jack, not the piece of paper you get nowadays). Lucy dog is so afraid of the small pop sound the crackers make that she hides in the basement anytime we sit at the dining room table, in case it is Christmas Eve. She comes up later, looking for fatty bits from the roast.

The roast is a BIG DEAL. It is expensive, the best price this year is from Cub, $6 a pound. I rarely buy meat that expensive. I would hate to ruin it. Ruining, to me, is well done. I like my steaks on the rare side of medium rare. I do not want to overcook this roast. My friend Mary gave me this recipe she got from County Market. She said it is foolproof. As I am a fool, it is exactly what I need! I'm going to try it, while still hovering over the oven with thermometer in hand.

I wish you a Merry Christmas,
Kellet

Prime Rib

This recipe works for ANY size rib roast.
DO NOT open oven door at all during the cooking time.
Preheat oven to 375
Roast should be placed in a shallow pan on a rack, do not cover.
Season with Salt and pepper
Bake for 1 hour.
Turn oven off for at least 2 hours, but not more than 4 hours.
DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN DOOR DURING THIS TIME.
Turn oven back on to 375 and cook for another 45 minutes.
Remove from oven and let set for 15 minutes before carving.
Roast will be medium rare from end to end.

Madness

I'm back! Miss me? Sorry to leave you with pictures of bacon turtles for so long, but I've been THIS CLOSE to insane! The new job at the preschool has taken up all my brain cells and more. I am drained, empty, no fun at all. I was afraid for a while that I would never even enjoy the kids again, but that has been coming back.

I got the nicest note from the nicest person telling me she missed the blog, and could I write some more? That was just what I needed to get me going. I have been noticing blog-worthy things lately, so maybe it'll be ok. Here is a Christmas item I thought was a little crazy:

Fancy Chair Leg Covers! Dress up your dining room furniture for the Holidays! You will surely be known as the eccentric relative if you buy these for your chairs. (Isn't the one on the left what the wicked witch was wearing when Dorothy dropped the house on her? Very festive.)









Did you see the Martha Stewart ad for Black Friday? The woman has totally lost it and isn't even trying to hide it! It's not so much showing up in people's bedrooms at 3 a.m. as it is the crazy look in her eyes as she rubs the chicken on their bedspread. See the video here. If that link won't work, I'm sorry, it's been a while since I've done this.

Jessica Simpson and Martha Stewart Wake Up Black Friday Shoppers for Macy's

I herewith declare myself the winner of the "Ugliest Thing" contest for the year, as nobody else entered. I purchased the following Halloween decoration for a nickle at a garage sale this last summer. I hung it in the kitchen just until I could take a picture of it to show you. IT'S STILL THERE! The family has begged me to take it down, so now I can. Somebody went to a lot of trouble to crochet 2 ghosts, a pumpkin-headed ghost and 3 bats. They even covered the hanging hardware with yarn! As hideous as this is, it was almost overtaken this last weekend by a purse made from a whole (deceased) armadillo! If I had a photo of that you would be amazed. I saw it in an antique shop in Duluth, but did not have my camera.



















Have I given you my recipe for cornflake chicken? I'm pretty sure Martha wouldn't be caught dead making it, but my family loves it!

Cornflake Chicken

Boneless, skinless chicken (I use thighs)
Salad dressing (the guys like ranch, I like french, use whatever you have, or want to use up)
Crushed corn flakes.

Cover a baking sheet with foil, or this will be a pain to scrub off. Coat the chicken in the salad dressing, then in the crushed corn flakes. Crush more corn flakes if you need to. Bake at 350 degrees until the chicken is done, maybe half an hour. Nice and crunchy, not as good as leftovers, because it gets soggy.