The Great Cookie Experiment

Well, for the first time around things did not go badly. I've sent cookies out before, but not such a mass mailing. All told it was 14 boxes and with the exception of Nancy and Ray all out to relatives, from New Jersey to Nebraska they are out. Making them was not as hard as you might think, but I planned well ahead. I found my handwritten old recipe book for the gingerbread first. Out of everything I can make that is the one that really brings home the feeling of the holiday. Then Spritz of course, sugar cookies, molasses, chocolate chip. I wanted macaroons but some of the recipes were beyond complicated. I found one from Food & Wine that had 5 ingredients and minimal fuss - sold! My requirements were easily found ingredients, ingredients that could be used in multiple recipes - the chocolate chips are one of the main ingredients in my chocolate hard sauce and then were used in cookies. Idid a shopping trip specifically for what I needed, made up all the rolled  doughs a week  ahead of time, found all baking stuff. When I got home on a Friday I started baking gingerbread,  then got up early the next morning and rolled, baked, cooled, iced, decorated, dried, baked again. David bought me two giant containers and I layered wax paper to cushion and keep them fresh. Homemade cookies, especially gingerbread are better if they sit for a few days. During the week David brought home boxes - I had decided on flat rate priority mail rather than use the boxes that needed weighed. And then I packed, wrote out cards, taped, addressed, and stacked. David mailed them from our wee little post office for two days, half at a time. The second day he showed up with the remaining 7 boxes and a plate of cookies for the post lady. And then off they went. I checked my tracking and they have all either arrived or are imminently due. Cost wise I think between ingredients, shipping, and a few extra expenses  (I found some really cute Christmas cloths that I used for padding) it was close to $400 - not a cheap date, any of you. On the other hand I made enough Christmas cookies for everyone, just about. Did everyone that got them like getting them?Next year I am planning on doing it again and will expand my list a little depending on the feedback I get - but its been positive so far.This year was more of a trial run, it was a little hard to figure out how many cookies I would need, how long, etc.. But I have to say it was fun doing this and I very much liked that even though we are so far away from each other I can still do some baking for everyone

A Note To My Family

So far this weekend I have made 4 batches of  chocolate chip cookie bars, 3 sugar cookies, 4 of spritz, 2 soft molasses, 3 shortbread, 2 chocolate puffs, 3 coconut macaroon, 2 batches of eggnog cookies and last but not least four batches of gingerbread. You would be more impressed if you knew the above gingerbread recipe came from Bakum and crew, liz's family who I am sure are responsible for the phrase "go big or go home" - each batch of gingerbread contains 6 cups of flour to start. seriously, those people feel if you're not cooking for an army you might as well not even bother. I've made gallons of royal icing, chocolate hard sauce, iced, stacked and ready to roll. Because this year, this year I am not sending gift certificates. The boys and Brandi will get of course and Rhi, but everyone else gets cookies I made myself. The past few years our family due to being so far from one another has gotten into the habit of exchanging gift certificates - I have started to feel like we could just take the same money and shift it back and forth I get a certificate for Amazon, I send one for Applebee's. So this year I baked - it's not saving me any money mind you. The ingredients cost a fortune, butter, sugar, ten pounds of chocolate chips, they will have to be packed and mailed, actually it might end up costing a little bit more. Because I'm sending to more family members this year, instead of shrinking my list I'm expanding it. Maybe no one will like it, they could get broken and I could be responsible for a mass wave of crumbs washing up on everyone's doorstep. I might go back to gift certificates next year as this has been no easy task, I literally baked all weekend from  8 in the morning til 6 at night. But it was fun, I can still make the chocolate hard sauce from memory, still have that double boiler I bought at a yard sale. It looks about the 40's or 50's. When I bought it years ago it looked well used - and it continues to be to this day. I have not baked in years and it all came  back in an easy rhythm, I mixed and baked using one recipe that called for yolks and balanced that with one that called for whites, my timing was spot on - as soon as one batch came out the next was ready to go. And as of an hour ago, they are done, packed in layers and layers of wax paper. During the week I'll be getting the boxes from the post office, packing them all up tight and off they'll go. So be warned - don't look for your gift card this year. I will not be looking for one either. Just remember when you get your box of Christmas cookies - or Christmas dust - that someone was thinking about you this year and thought you were worth the work.

Thanksgiving Traditions

 Tradition is what you make it, isn't it? Every year for the past four years we have spent Thanksgiving with Ray. To start the festivities off, he traditionally Cancels The Trip. This is done for a variety of reasons, it's too far, too cold, the weather, the time. We return volley with un-canceling, this year was faster than most. He called David early on Tuesday and I called him back before 9 am - the next time he cancelled us it was too late, we were 100 miles away. It didn't go as planned of course. My Master plan was to do a visit super early, get home, throw the dogs in the car,dump them in jail and off we go. The visit took longer than expected - of course!- when I got home I still had to finish packing, David was dawdling, the cats still needed to get settled... We FINALLY got on the way. Then halfway there David remembered he'd forgotten the dogs paperwork at home. ARRGH. The place we take them knows us and was not concerned, they said they'd just call the vets and it could be faxed over. So we finally get going and for once the weather was right, it was snowing like predicted. The roads were surprisingly good but it still held us up. Instead of the usual five and a half hours it took us over seven. We arrived almost 7 pm, tired and cold. We called Ray to let him know we got in ok and would see him in the morning, we had tiny four dollar frozen pizzas for dinner and turned in for the night. Morning wa much better - cold and sunny, snow melted. Ray looked great, he's recovered from the accident he had earlier in  the year. He's back to driving and doing his own grocery shopping, has gained back al it of the weigh he had lost. We went to the Stack for breakfast, did a little shopping, hung out at Ray's and then back to the Stack for our traditional Thanksgiving dinner. You might think that's a little weird or depressing, but it is the best night of the year. We laugh and talk of times past,the boys Setsu, Mikio, their kids, the crazy things we did. We talk of the years of Sunday brunches when everyone sat down to eat - sometimes as many as a dozen people. How that expanded into Sunday dinner too, hours of talking and laughing. The next day we went to the bookstore, drove byBest Buy -no thank you - and then for an afternoon at the art museum. We had dinner at the Arlington for a change of pace, then spent the evening at Rays. Saturday saw us off early - we had to be back by noon to spring the dogs. The ride back waa much faster, we manage it in about 5 and a half hours. So, that is our tradition - I hope everyone had a great holiday too.

A House Made Of Straw

I don't know if these pictures will stay -  I've been having quite a lot of trouble with them lately. I mean I like my iPad, but the pictures just don't seem to come through but I miss blogging so I think what I will do is blog without the pictures. In other news some people may have wondered what happened with the houses - it's still going on and it's still quite a mess. We went under contract with this woman and she claimed that the title was not clear,  the family of the woman that had passed away, oh jeez,  this is just so complicated so let me start again. The man and woman that originally owned it had a land contract (that's a separate type of contract that you make monthly payments on) when he passed away she got a loan and she purchased the house and  that satisfy the land contract. When we went to sell it  there was a paper glitch because it was never taken off the deed . They had six children between them so this woman and her lawyer claimed the title was not clear. Two title companies said they would underwrite the title but she refused that, then we had offered to just let her out of it and she refused again,she became quite upset so what David did was he got six quick claim deed signed by the children l-et me tell you this is a lot harder than it sounds,. He had to pay a full day salary for four of them and I couldn't blame them for asking. I mean they had to give up a day worth of work for something that was really not their concern David had to pay for that to be filed and this all took about three weeks. We were supposed to close on that Monday and on Friday she told us through her lawyer that she was no longer interested the house, she decided not to buy it after all. This was a huge problem for us as the house had been taken off the market for two months of prime selling. This time of year it's near to impossible to sell the house - in addition we've been paying the taxes the utilities and the mortgage on this house and now we have nothing but to start over. Even if someone wanted it tomorrow it would be at least another two months for inspections, closing, etc..the house in Fairmont is not complete yet either so we have the expense of that. We had to file a claim with the title company and now they gave us a lawyer and we are going to sue this woman but in the meantime we have a house we cannot sell and cannot rent so my one salary is supporting three houses, taxes,utilities and all. A little bit of a stomach clenched. A little bit.

You can have too many friends

I was recently friended by somebody on Facebook that I had worked with briefly about a year and a half ago give or take .I realized after her first post chances were pretty good we would not continue to be Facebook friends or friends anywhere else for that matter. The first post I read was her and her friends posting they would not be going to Starbucks because Starbucks serves gay people  - of course God would be smiting them too but hopefully after they got their Mocha latte. This for me doesn't work on several different levels. First of all that's not very Christian or very human for that matter. I mean I honestly I cannot believe that there is a God sitting around proclaiming things like that. And second of all really - why would God even care who's getting some Starbucks coffee . Does he not have anything better to do like save starving orphans are quietly get rid of Obama? And then we get into the hell thing, for some reason religious people seem to want me to go to hell. A LOT. They mentioned it in general conversation and sometimes more than once. I don't mind them thinking I should go to hell - after all I don't believe in it nor do I believe in God but to me it's sort of like if your friend brought a dress and called the color forest and you actually thought it was the color of vomit. Or you thought have made her but look extra fat - it's okay to think it but you probably shouldn't say it out loud. First of all,  that's just your opinion and second of all, you don't even know if it's really true. Maybe only you're the one that thinks it's the color  of vomit. The bottom line is this is  a bunch of people telling you what God thinks. Why would God think about me going to hell or  spend any time thinking about how gay people shouldn't get Starbucks coffee. I'm personally glad that gay people can go to Starbucks for coffee and I don't have to boycott it. it would be pretty awkward for me. I would either have to give up drinking Starbucks coffee or send David in to get it for me. See that's technically okay because David isn't drinking the coffee and I wouldn't be going in but that's neither here nor there Starbucks lets everyone have coffee.  I very politely told that woman maybe  we were not friend material and quietly unfriended her. No one is going to change their mind and I can keep going to Starbucks winner winner chicken dinner!!

Winds Of Change

We took the dogs to the game lands this morning, Reuben as usual ran like the wind - back and forth, up and down. Anyone that wants to outlaw electric collars has to take him for a week  without it and let me know how you made out. We usually just beep him and he comes right back but today he was very excited and it took awhile to reign him in. David was grousing, according to him all the Dogs Past behaved perfectly, yadda, yadda, yadda. I just laughed and said the dogs haven't changed - we have. Maybe it's because we're older, the kids are gone (Adam moved out a month ago and now lives in Kentucky), who knows. I reminded him of Lady, one of his first Vizslas he owned that the pound would cheerfully scoop up every time they saw her and wait for us to call. She would get snagged  as far as 10 miles from our house, sometimes be gone for a day or two. The only reason we got her back on a regular basis was the breed is very distinctive  and easy to describe, they knew who she belonged to.  The other reason was the fine was increased for each offense and she was a sure bet. The last time they caught her I said Maybe I Won't Come Get Her. The dog catcher laughed and said, Well, Maybe I'll Have A New Gun Dog This Year. I swore all the way there and all the way back, Lady of course could have given a rat's ass - she just wanted her dinner. We had one dog that ran off and after the 3rd time said the hell with you - we saw her happily riding shotgun in someone else's car and decided then and there to stop looking for her. We had cats disappear, reappear and then disappear - I don't remember getting too worked up about it. My grandmother Carter had Mama cat who procreated on a weekly schedule, she kept them in the lilac grove and you could play with them until they went crazy and feral. Then they'd run off and a new batch would take their place. But that was then and this is now - we get all of our cats fixed and vaccinated, they come in at night and we go looking for them if they're not. Vincent has lived with us for about 10 years and has spent exactly two nights outside. Scout, the newest addition has not been out at all since we rescued him from the garage. Molly and Reuben are taken out with collars on. I love to read so I've cleared paths in our woods and placed chairs around the whole place. They snuffle and hunt while I read - I can read outside just as easily as inside and I love being out in our woods so it works for all of us. But I think we get carried away sometimes about the pets - and I don't think we're alone in that boat, are we? Can you imagine what your great grandparents would say if they were told you take your dogs and cats for their annual shots and physical? That some of us drop them off in doggie daycare - or that I had a dog walker come to the house each day that we worked late when Pearl was alive? Or the stray kitten I adopted is not allowed outside until he's neutered and has all of his shots? But with our busier schedules, shrinking families and everyone moving away from each other, we depend on our pets more and more for social interaction and family. We socialize with Molly and Reuben on the weekends, with all my driving and working the idea of going anywhere just wears me out. I see people all week, my pets are my downtime.But I have said to David we need to be realistic about them, they will not outlive us, they might run off, you never know. He agreed - but that didn't change things, we are still going to worry on them, aren't we?