Some Favorite Posts From 2012

It's so much fun to look back and read what I wrote during the  year.  And I never tire of looking at my stats to see what you like, what you love and what you completely ignore. 

Your #1 choice for all of my posts written in 2012 is this one.  It's about vacuums.  I really think the one linked to it, a vacuum at the Louvre museum in Paris is more entertaining.   Actually, more people commented on it, but more people visited the first one.

The high school trip to Paris in February afforded me a lot of blogfodder and this post with the naughty sign was right up there in the top 10.

You can put the teacher on summer break but you can't take the teaching out of her.  You graciously visited my educational posts such as this one about wrought iron.

You enjoyed the entertaining tales of the middle school classroom with gems like this one.

And this blog wouldn't be this blog if I didn't teach you all sorts of new skills (or lack of) and crafts  like this one and this one.

You helped me learn to be a better dresser here and here (RIP favorite capri pants ever- I got about 4 more months out of them and then they met their demise).

My own  favorite post was this one about my Starbucks issues.  It has the most comments of any post I've written, but not as many visitors.  Hmm, more visitors just cruising by or more people dedicatedly reading and commenting?  It's a hard choice.

Still, the most popular post OF ALL TIME, is truly the one I am least proud of.  It's the shortest and the dullest and was obviously from back before I started reading blogs and found out how much fun it can be to actually  use your own voice when you write!  And if Jello is wondering if the public wants those pudding pops back, I have some pretty serious proof that a lot of us do!!

Thank you to all of my faithful readers as well as the passersby.  I am especially thankful to the poor souls  you dedicated readers who thought my writing was funny and then realized that happens about once a year and stuck around anyway.  Your constant visiting and occasional commenting really make my day.

In 2012, I actually earned a buck or two because of all my dedicated readers. 

And because of those anonymous nutjobs who said things like:

 Your way of describing the whole thing in this paragraph is actually good, all be capable of effortlessly know it, Thanks a lot.

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The world hopes fοг more passionate writers likе you who аren't afraid to say how they believe. All the time follow your heart.

It's so sad that you're all anonymous.  Really, I'd love to buy your land in Turkey and get your sensual massages and win your African lottery  see your amazing jewelry.  If only I knew who you were or how to find you.  I will follow my heart and be capable of effortlessly know it.  And no one would disagree that I am not afraid to say how I believe.  Thanks for dropping by, sharing your fantastic grasp of the English language and upping my stats anyway!

I'm excited to begin another year of writing and I have a doozy lined up for this week, so make sure you come back!

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Put The Kids Away, It's Gonna Get Hot In Here

I have been searching for a new pair of waterproof boots since way back in this post and though I had tried LLBean's Wellies and sent them right back, I thought maybe I'd try them again and like them this time.  I do this with a lot of things.  I despise them and then later try them again and I kind of like them. 

I wasn't happy with the choices available for waterproof boots anywhere else and I wanted them higher than my ankle, so back to LLBean I went.

By the way, LLBean is not compensating me for this post but I sure would be happy to do a future review for them....

Anyway.  When I went back to the site, I saw that they had shorter Wellies called mid.  As in middle of the calf for really tall people but maybe just right for me! 

The problem with the regular Wellies was the length.  They went almost to my knee which meant that with every step, they flopped all around and bothered me all the way up my leg/shin/calf.  They are loose in the ankle because there is no zipper to tightne them, so they kind of bang around as you walk.  These mid length looked better because they would only bother me halfway up my leg/shin/calf.  

And they were on sale.

And they were really cute.

I bought them and hated them for 2.5 seconds.  Then I wore them around the yard for a morning and happily splashed in mud and puddles and stayed dry!  WHOOO HOOO!

I got myself a pair of the socks to wear inside them called Wellie Warmers. 

And now I am about as sexy as I'm ever gonna get.

I'm not sure which is the hottest part:

a)  an adult wearing polka dotted galoshes
b)  an adult wearing galoshes
c)  the knitted wellie warmers that fold over the top of them
d)  my jeans stuffed into them

It's the jeans, I think.  Definitely the jeans. 

I never worry that I'll be alone if k-ster leaves me.  I figure I'll just post pictures like these on match.com and they'll flock to me.

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Forget Kissing The Cook, They Almost Flipped Off This Cook

Last week, I brought you this post about the most amazing rolls in the entire world.  They are sweet, dense, chewy and just unbelievable.

I was so excited to make them for Christmas.  I hate store bought rolls that taste like Wonderbread.  These are so much better.  And not at all hard to make, with my breadmaker, that is.  I'm starting to think I'm just too lazy to knead my own bread and I really just wanted a machine to do all of the mixing and kneading, on its own time.

I knew we were going to k-ster's mother for Christmas morning and then to my parents for CHristmas dinner at 12:30.  I really wanted to make the rolls right in time for dinner because the whole problem with the store bought rolls is that they always get burned.  They are always the last thing in the oven and everyone forgets about them.

I thought my bread machine timer would work for the dough setting, so I was planning to have it mix the dough some time in the wee hours in the morning and then I was going to put the rolls into the pan before we went to k-ster's mother's, letting them rise while we were gone.  We planned to leave just in time to get back and bake them.

It was about 9:30 and I assembled all of the ingredients and put the basket into the machine.  That's when I realized I can't set the timer for dough.  So, I had a choice.  I could mix it up then and wait for the almost 2 hours it takes to make the dough.  That was going to be pretty late and then I was going to have to put the dough out for the whole night (at this point, I was pretty sure that refrigerating the dough would interfere with the rising).   Or, I could leave the ingredients in the basket and get up early enough to make the dough before we left.

I chose the second option and went to bed.  And then remembered that there is an egg in there and I didn't like the idea of letting it sit all night.  I know, it's pretty cold in the kitchen, so it would have been fine, but I could just see this being the Christmas we all got food poisoning from those rolls. 

I put the basket in the refrigerator and went to bed.  And then thought about how the honey and oil would get thick and more solid in the refrigerator and might not mix well.

I woke up around 4 which was a perfect time to take the basket out of the refrigerator and let it warm to room temp again.  Then I got up around 6:30 and made the dough.  I had just enough time to roll the dough into rolls and set them out with a towel on top.

This time, I didn't put them on the radiator to rise because we would be gone for almost 3 hours.

Good thing, because they rose like I could not have imagined.  They were ENORMOUS.

I glazed them and put them at 400 degrees like I did the last time.  The recipe says 15-20 min.  After about 8 minutes, they were already that gold and crusty.  They are not crusty rolls, so I was getting nervous.

They were also a mile high so I thought they'd be too big.

I wasn't surprised to see that they weren't really that high, it was all a ruse.  They were hollow in the middle and then they fell. Some were a little bit undercooked.  I was afraid if I left them for too much longer, they would burn on top and we'd be right back where we are every year!

They were still really good tasting rolls but they didn't look so pretty.

I suggest not letting them rise for a million hours unless you make them really, really small to begin with.  My sister suggests putting them in the refrigerator and letting them rise there.  The problem would have been that I wouldn't have had time to let them get to room temperature before putting them in the oven.

In any case, they were snarfed down like it was last time any of us would have rolls, so they couldn't have been too bad!

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A Nugget of Goodness

While everyone cries when they are handed a fruitcake because they hate it so much, I'm the one running around proclaiming my love for the sticky sweet rings of goodness.  They are filled with dried and/or fake fruits and weigh just over 3.4 tons.  And that is totally fine with me.

I remember getting one in the mail every Christmas from some relative and everyone would roll their eyes.  I especially loved them when they had pecans on the top, stuck in the crazy, wild, sticky goodness.

Somewhere along the way, we stopped getting fruitcake in the mail.  And no one my age ever sends me any.  And I'm not about to go buy my own.

That would be like buying chocolates for myself on Valentine's day.

I'm just letting you know that you can send all of your fruitcake my way.

In the meantime, I get to enjoy this little bit of goodness each year.

My sister a-ster makes these for us for Christmas.  They aren't round and they don't come in a tin.  And I'm sure all of the ingredients are real food and not green pieces of rubber cut up inside.   It  tastes fantastic and nothing like the round tinned kind. 

I think it's a texture thing.  These taste nothing like any other fruitcake I've had, but I don't think it's the taste that I enjoy so much.  I think it's sinking my teeth into the ooey gooeyness and the surprise of dried fruit that has been soaked in some kind of alcohol that just burst when you eat them.

Or maybe there's so much alcohol that I'm just drunk when I eat them.

Either way, I'm definitely not picky about what's in my fruitcake.

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Which Witch Is Which?

Remember when I told you about going to bingo with my sister this summer?  It was my 500th post, and it portryed a stunning image of what bingo nights at the church are like.  You really should go check it out.

Anyway, I've been to bingo a few times since and I do like it, but it's hard to go on  a Thursday night during the school year.  My sister and her friend d-ster still go pretty regularly and I've joined them a couple of times on Friday night at a different church. 

Same idea, though. 

Lots of old people- like way more than I'd ever expect in the cold, dark winter.  Lots of people yelling bingo.  And lots of old ladies who are too weak tired lazy to yell bingo and keep their hand in the air so the spotters know who won.  Sometimes, it takes the spotters a while to get to them.

Some people have things that they hold up to get the spotters' attention.  One lady has a huge Mickey  Mouse hand that she hold up.  Some have clapper things that they hold up.  Some have lighted wands that they hold up. 

And now, e-ster has her very own attention getter. 

 

 

Since she wins pretty frequently at bingo, she gets very tired holding her arm up to signal yet another win.  We employed l-ster to demonstrate the wonders of the Princess Wand on Christmas day.

 

 

 



So now, if the spinning lights don't get the attention of the spotters, the spellcasting noise definitely will.

Once l-ster figured out how to press the button to turn it on and off (thanks to auntiesparkling), she played with it for the rest of the night.  She was more than a little fascinated by the spinning lights and the noise. 

It was referred to as her "scepter" for the rest of the time she played with it.  This is the Merriam-Webster definition of scepter:  a staff or baton borne by a sovereign as an emblem of authority.  She took her emblem of authority very seriously and it wasn't until she went to bed that the baton was passed.

She tried to mesmerize and hypnotize all of us with her wand.  But I think it really only worked on her. 

Or maybe it worked on the rest of us because we watched her play with it for way too long.

Don't you love that cute Santa dress she's wearing?  A-ster made it.

And that pink thing in front of her is not a hard hat or a toilet.  It's a toy called the Bilibo toy and it's to promote imaginative play.  They don't even send directions about what to do with it so that you can really use your imagination and come up with all of the fun yourself.  Of course I had to sit in it because my imagination was taking over.  That deserves a post entirely of its own, so I'll talk about that another day.

No Sir, Not My Baby!

This cartoon was in the editorial part of the newspaper today.  I don't usually pay much attention to those cartoons because half the time I don't understand them and the other half, I don't like them.  To me, comics are meant to be funny, so if they aren't, I can't be bothered.

But today's struck me as a little odd.

First of all, I'm not too thrilled with the baby Jesus looking like a character out of Beavis and Butthead or King of the Hill. 

I already don't like his attitude. 

I'm pretty sure he's saying:

"Yeah, that's right, I'm here.  You got a PROBLEM with that?"
"I'm the freakin' Savior, now bring me some milk"
"Oh look at me, I make rays of sunshine."

Or worse:

"ta-da!"

Mary's no better.  She threw her hands up right away and was like:

"Whoa, I have NO IDEA where that came from!  Look at me, do I LOOK like I just delivered the Son of God?  And what's with all the light coming off of him?  OMG is he radioactive?  Joseph, I TOLD you we shouldn't have taken that shortcut through the nuclear power plant!  You never listen to me!"

 

 

And Joseph's no better, standing there with his shepherd's crook.  Wait, wasn't he a carpenter?  What's he doing with a shepherd's crook? 

 

Notice how he's like "Hmph, NOT my kid either!"



 

And notice the animals.  The bull sitting down has a look of "holy cow (I had to do it) I can't believe what I'm seeing".  The one standing is full of disdain with the entire scene going on in his barn.  And The sheep probably just got spanked by Joseph (see his hand?) and is like "WTF is this kid doing in my food dish?????"

I agree that this is one light that will never burn out, but really, Dave Granlund has a lot of explaining to do.

I hope your nativity scene is less distressing to the eyes than this one is!  Merry Christmas!

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Auntie's Mean Face

When l-ster kept trying to open the doors on the entertainment center, everyone kept telling her no. 

Clearly, auntiesparkling's NO face didn't do much to deter her either.