It’s Come To My Attention

that I’ve come within a stone’s throw of completely abandoning you.  I promise, I’m still here.  Just overwhelmed with the end of summer, camping trips, school lessons to plan, school starting and said lesson plans to put into practice. 

PHEW! 

But I’m here.  In fact, because of a certain childhood virus, I’m homebound for the next 10 days. 

I’m guessing somewhere in there I’ll have plenty of time to write up all my random, bizzare, insightful, pointless and if you’re lucky, funny posts that have been buzzing around my head for the last month. 

I’ve missed you.

I just read a fabulous post over on Pioneer Woman’s website that you need to go read.  It’s from her homeschooling section.  I feel it hits the nail on the head and is funny in the process.  But then, Mrs. G. (her guest homeschool post-er), usually is. 

So while you mourn the lack of posts from me, go read hers. 

And maybe there’ll be something here for ya when you get back…

So read slow… reaalllll slllooooowwwwww…..

Oldest One in the Book

Cinnamon Roll Intoxication

It’s Hubby’s birthday week and the kids and I are trying to do something each day for him.   So this morning I got up early to make Cinnamon Rolls for Hubby to take into his work.   I actually made up the dough last night so that this morning all I had to do was roll it out, slap on some butter, sugar and spices, roll and slice it up and bake it.  With a little rising thrown in here and there. 

If you are looking for a Cinnamon Roll recipe, my favorite is Pioneer Woman’s.  That’s her picture at the top.  It’s easy, fairly quick as yeast recipes goes and it’s the one I get rave reviews on everytime.    She claims you’ll get marriage proposals out of them.  I can’t say anyone’s dropped a knee at the heavenly taste of these rolls but they sure do make everyone REALLY happy and REALLY high on sugar. 

Those two things float my boat every time.  (speaking of boats, I’m watching Deadliest Catch right now.  Why is this show so addicting?  I sure don’t know.  But hooked I am none-the-less)

Click right HERE to go to Pioneer Woman’s recipe and be sure to thank her for any diamond rings that are bestowed upon you as a result.  I’d like an invite to the wedding. =0)  

** There is ONE alteration I make to this recipe and ONE only.  I add a little ground cloves after the cinnamon.  Shhh! Don’t tell Ree… **

A Gift of Compassion

LITERALLY. 

A couple weeks ago, Pioneer Woman and her husband, Marlboro Man, offered to pay for several Compassion sponsorships of older children if there were people willing to step up and and be the correspondents.  I emailed the Compassion contact, as hundreds of other readers did too I’m sure.   Older children often go unsponsored.  As one who has worked in the foster care system, that doesn’t surprise me.  Those lil munchkins running around with huge eyes and no shoes grab at our hearts.  The aloof teen in the background?  Not so much.  We dread our own teens, never mind some one elses.  Many of these teens have grown up with war all around them.  Poverty is a given but not parents, education or any sense of security.  That’s a hard life.  And without the help of sponsors, these teens will continue to grow up this way with no hope for a different future.  That’s why teen sponsors are so important.   Fast action must be made to reach these children before they are adults.   

Well I got an email this weekend saying that our child’s packet would be arriving in the mail in just a few weeks!  I am just blown away. 

I’m blown away first of all at the generosity of P.W. and M.M.  That’s a huge gift right there folks.  

I’m blown away at the thought of getting to have such a personal connection to a needy child living in a strange and foreign land.  My children, while we’ve worked hard at exposing them to the needs around us by working through our church to help the homeless in our town, they live a pretty cushy life.  So I’m excited for them to be exposed to a whole new way of life… a way of life that involves pain and suffering but that now will also involve food, clothes and education.  What an awesome thing to be a part of.

I’m also blown away by God.  Continually.  See, Hubby and I had actually discussed sponsoring a child through Compassion at Christmas time.  We had decided that we just didn’t have the whole amount needed.

But NOW!!  NOW we are able to be a child correspondent even without the money! 

It’s amazing.

Truly amazing.

Our God is awesome.

And that’s all I got to say about that.

Well, except, “Thank you P-Dub and M.M.!!  We are sooo greatful for this gift!   If you’re ever in need of some extra hands around the ranch, well, look no further.  We won’t even turn our nose up at the nasty jobs.  Nope.  We may get rreeaallll pale-like and shaky… maybe even a tad green but we’ll do ‘em.  I’ll even help with the manure-clad laundry… it’s the least we can do to show our appreciatation.

Cookies!!!

So yesterday was my big sugar cookie baking day.  Or at least that was the plan.  But as the day progressed… errand running (for cookie cutters no less!  Our one set of snowflake cutters would have gotten a tad boring after painting the 67th one… and yes I said painting but more on that later), 23 loads of laundry (that are still piled high in our papa chair, begging to be folded) and babysitting a beloved 1 year old nephew, somehow the cookies got pushed back further and further.  By the time we could sit down and actually get on with the treasured Christmas activity, it was late.  And when it’s late my stumbling brain stumbles even harder. 

I completely forgot that last year we had used a new recipe.  It was a new dough and a new way to decorate.  And it was fabulous.  So fabulous that I swore off all other forms of sugar cookies and devoted the remainder of my Christmas cookie years to this lone recipe. 

But what did I do last night?  Gone were the memories of last year’s cookie revelation.  Nope.  I pulled out the bagged Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix, whipped those bad boys up incorrectly (two different ways to make them, one for rolled cookies and one for drop.  I accidentally made the drop kind), had to ad-lib the ridiculously easy dough that I had the talent to screw up in order to try and make it roll-able, and then baked them.  But not only did I bake them, but I forgot one of the two cookie sheets I own is total junk.  It is way past it’s prime and I NEVER use it for cookies because it ruins every batch.  Well, now I can’t say never.  Half the cookies (the ones cooked on the only-good-as-an-oil-pan pan) came out looking like blobs… and too-done blobs at that. 

Aren’t you jealous of my amazing brain?!  I’m particularly fond of it myself but I could be convinced to trade… if the price is right.  Say… I don’t know… free?!!  I can only go up from here.

So today is Cookie Baking Day 2008, Take 2.  And I’m going to let you in on my treasured sugar cookie recipe.  Although you are probably well aware of it already.  Several billion people are.  Pioneer Woman has the best recipes and she held true to her record when she gave us this sugar cookie recipe that she grew up using.  That little bit of lemon zest is a perfect hint in the baked cookies and the texture of the cookie is awesome; a little chewy, a little crispy… it’ll make everyone happy no matter their sugar cookie preference. 

And her method of decorating? Revolutionary.  Okay maybe not but it was for me.  I know this will put me in the bah-hum-bugga-mama category but I have always dreaded the decorating of sugar cookies.  It’s always a total disaster.  Gobs of icing hanging off cookies and usually dripping from the light fixture too.  Sprinkles galore… everywhere.  I’m usually still sweeping up hidden pockets of various sugar cookie decorations (those dang little ball ones are the worst) in May and June.  Those suckers are hard to capture the first 315 times you sweep and vacuum.   And the finished cookies themselves?  Well, let’s just say I have to put on my brave mommy-face to eat the much labored-over-with-love cookies given to me by the munchkins.  As I chew, I keep telling myself that at least I can verify all hands being clean and no coughing or sneezing into the dough happened.  And I try to steer my thoughts away from the fact that so much tasting and double dipping and finger licking went on that I’d probably be safer, germ-wise, just to go eat one off the sidewalk… in the Subway! 

Well, that maybe a slight exaggeration but rest assured it’s not much of one.  Pioneer Woman’s recipe calls for decorating the cookies before they cook, thereby eliminating the chance of germ contamination.  All those bad-boy germs are killed off in the heat of the oven before the cookies touch your lips.  And the decorating is very simple.  Egg yolks colored with food coloring and painted on by paintbrushes.  Now, my kids never feel they paint enough during the year so to get to paint AGAIN at Christmas time and on cookie dough no less is a priceless treat for them.  And somehow, no matter how messy the paint job, the cookie comes out of that oven all glossy and pretty.  So what if you end up with a black Christmas tree?  Drizzle a little white icing over the top and add a red hot or 2o or even some of those delightful escape artists silver balls and that black tree is transformed into a beautiful piece of modern art.  Don’t believe me?  Try it! 

I’ll try to post some pictures after we’re done just to prove that even two and three year old bakers can make eye-catching AND tasty cookies.

I’m off… to do the RIGHT cookies, the RIGHT way this time…

I Love It When Other People Write My Posts For Me

Especially when they are famous.

THE Pioneer Woman, Ree, just so happened to offer to write a post for me about the new curriculum I’m taking on this year. 

Weellll, really it was more that she and I BOTH needed to write about the same curriculum, we drew straws and she lost.

Okay, so maybe that wasn’t exactly it either.  We are on first name basis though. 

At least, I know HER first name and she’s read mine along the way (I like to think) but I’m sure it got lost amongst all the other details of her life at some point.  One day though, she’ll realize that my comments are always so incredibly witty and my thoughts so chock-full of wisdom that she’ll just HAVE to pick up the phone and give me a call.  Because we have so much in common…

we use a lot of the same curriculum for homeschooling…

we both love to cook…

I own one of her calendars…

Does that count for anything? 

All RIGHT! Man you guys are so harsh and picky about details!  OKAY! So, Ree doesn’t have my phone number (Ree, email me if you want it!).  And so what if she has hundreds of stalkers people already lined up waiting for an invite into her “little” ranch world full of manure, cows, horses, kids, cowboys and food. 

It’s still nice to know there’s somebody who’s teachin’ and a edjakating hur kids thu sayme way I is. =0)