Alice! Oh, Alice! Wherefore Art Thou, Alice?

There are two times of day that I just detest:  the fifteen minutes before we leave the house in the morning and the hour before dinner when we get back from the day.

Our mornings went so much more smoothly when, when...  well, I don't think they have ever gone smoothly.  Except when I'm home alone with the kids and that's because I organize like I have OCD.  When daddy's around, I don't set every little thing up the night before.  I don't shower before bed, hoping that my hair doesn't dry overnight like a flock of seagulls.  I don't put breakfasts on the plates, ready to zap in the microwave.  I don't order two cups of milk to stand at attention in the fridge all night, and I don't leap out of bed the first time my alarm announces morning.  I do all of that when he's gone and morning's go smoothly.  Hmmm...  *Smacking my own forehead* I think I just taught myself something here.

And that hour between work and dinner?  Ugh.  Ugh.  Ugh.  I can't think of anything more coherent to say about that witching hour.  Ugh.  I do completely understand that my kids miss me and clamor for my attention.  I know this because I miss them, too. I wish that we would walk in the door and Alice from The Brady Bunch would greet us, wearing her starched blue uniform, asking to pour me a glass of wine or a margarita or something, supper simmering happily on the stove.  If that were the case, I could devote that time to kids-on-the-couch snuggling or sliding-across-the-floor-in-our-socks contests, or even blowing-bubbles-in-the-driveway time.  But, last I checked, I don't have a maid.  Ugh.

Lately, they have both come home from daycare as hungry as hyenas -- I'm afraid to leave my hands near their snapping mouths, lest I lose a finger.  I somehow cannot cook dinner fast enough for spring days of outdoor play, running, climbing, swinging, laughing, and growing.  I offer a nutritious snack and it is inhaled before I turn back to the stove.  I give a big glass of water and it is drained before I turn off the tap.  Unfortunately, because I spend so much time hurling string cheese and apple slices at the ravenous vultures, I barely have time to tend the food for the meal I'm preparing to serve.  Things boil over or get stuck crisply to the pan, the microwave beeps endlessly to alert me that the veggies are done steaming.  I can barely slice a strawberry before a small pink hand plucks it from the cutting board.

I have learned that I cannot put the food on the table until we are ready to sit down because my children will climb up there and eat it before I can get there.  They have suddenly become very self-sufficient, dishing up their plates while I try to assemble silverware for all of us.  They empty the fruit bowl, gnaw on pork chops, and slurp up spaghetti before my bum even meets my chair.  And if Scott doesn't come the instant before I call him?  The kids are done eating, flying off their seats to wash their hands and scurry about their activities.  Leaving me sitting there, utterly bewildered, blinking at my husband as he sits down to his plate and we survey the wreckage left behind.  I just can't wait until they are teenagers...

Super Bowl Sunday

So it's Superbowl Sunday. What are you doing?

I'm listening to my kids play with Play-Doh. Well, more like listening to them squabble about wanting to use the same implement on the Play-Doh. Scott is at a tech rehearsal, and I am finishing up the last load of laundry in the house. Snow is sifting down over the landscape and it is white and quiet out here.

It's been a nice relaxing weekend -- Grandma and Grandpa made it back here for the first time since the day we moved, so Scott and I ran around like rabid squirrels cleaning yesterday before they arrived. When combined with the manic rushing I'd done Friday night, this pretty much took care of most of the cleaning I do on the weekend, so yay for that!

So what did I do with my spare time this weekend? I could lie and say that I started painting another room, but I didn't. I could say that I finished the curtains in my parlor, but I didn't. I could say that I started hanging the photos that are stacked neatly on the floor along the walls in the upstairs hallway, but I didn't.

I read a book.

It's been a while, but I felt like reading. Reading always makes me feel the tug to write, so I'll admit to wandering around, silently narrating my life for a few days after reading a good book. Does anyone else do that?

Anyway, that's what's up around here. I'm making beef stew and crescent rolls for supper tonight. We're not into football, but we can still have a SOUPer bowl tonight. Ha ha ha!

Things I Love: Food

This is just a post about stuff I love. For the record, I am not Oprah, so I will not be giving any of it away. Sorry! I don't have a giveaway section on my blog -- I'm still a newbie at this, you know!

I love chai tea. I steep it three times longer than you're supposed to, but what can I say? I like strong tea. I have tried umpteen varieties of herbal teas, but my preference is black chai. With two packets of Sun Crystals and, if I'm home, a splash of half and half. Mmmmm...

I love popcorn. With real butter and salt, please. I don't like the yellow sludge that is in the bag of microwave popcorn, mostly because I'm not sure what it is.

I love sushi. Sushi rolls with shrimp, salmon, tuna or eel. With lots of wasabi. And, if they have avocado in them, I've died and gone to heaven!

Speaking of avocado, I love guacamole! In fact, I sometimes make it and eat it without chips. Then it's avocado salad :)

I love dried cranberries. Especially in white chocolate macadamia nut cookies. De-li-scious!

I love spicy food. In fact, when I make tacos for the fam, I separate out my meat and double-spice it. I always put red pepper flakes on my pizza, and have begun using them on ravioli and lasagna. Tasty!

I love custards, puddings, and especially creme brulee. I love them even more when someone makes them for me. I'm not a baked goods person, so I can pass up cakes, cookies, and pies. Although I do love icing, so I'll eat the cake or cookie to get that. But there's something about cracking the caramelized sugar on top of a creme brulee...

My guilty pleasure? I love bacon. Crispy and patted so some of the fat is gone. But, yeah, I love bacon.

Is there any wonder why I'm fat??

Oops!

So, I figured out why my caramels never became more than mush -- I totally forgot to add one of the ingredients. D'oh! They still taste pretty good...

Sticky in the Kitchen

Well, it was a busy weekend around our house! I spent part of Friday afternoon at a synchronized skating competition. Got home in time to make supper and get the kids to bed. Saturday we went out to Scott's parents for a visit because his brother and wife and kids were around. Saturday night I was back at the skating competition -- arriving home after everyone was in bed. Sunday morning we did some cleaning and laundry and playing with the kids. I got groceries during Violet's nap, had a cooking adventure (which follows), and went back out to Scott's parents' for a birthday party. Whew!

My cooking adventure: I decided to try and make caramels for the first time. For some unknown reason, I have been craving the homemade caramels my aunt use to make a Christmas time. So I decided to find a recipe and try and make some myself. Wow. Big mistake. Cooking FAIL!

It seemed deceptively easy -- there were only a few ingredients and two steps. Well, I'm a whiz in the kitchen, so I really should be able to do this, right?

Wrong.

It started off pretty well. I got all of the ingredients into the pan per the recipe and started heating them through, stirring as instructed. And stirring, stirring, stirring... Fine. I knew that was going to happen because it said I'd be stirring for about twenty minutes. I took several quick breaks to butter a pan and to open and wash my brand-spanking-new candy thermometer. Back to stirring.

Violet is napping, Scott ran on campus to get his finals to grade, and Milo was plaing a game on the Wii. Or at least I thought he was. About 5 minutes into the stirring, he came into the kitchen hopping and red and clearly frustrated.

"I can't do it! Ben Ten won't jump the way he's supposed to jump! I need help!"

"I'm so sorry, little buddy, but I can't take a break from stirring right now. Maybe you should pause the game for a while and do something else."

"No-o-o-o-o-o! I'm going to try again!" So he did.

Back to stirring. Only now I've decided to get the candy thermometer involved as the caramel mixture is starting to boil. I try to clip it to the side of the pan, but can't get it so that it's not touching the pan, throwing off the reading. I have the brilliant idea to rig it to a wooden spoon so that it was suspended over the middle of the pan. Super idea!

As I'm rigging the spoon and thermometer, whose directions, by the way, say "do not submerge", and Milo comes back in again, crying about the game. I look away from my pot for a split second and SPLASH! I'm suddenly feeling about a dozen little burns in my hand because my non-submersible thermometer has just fallen into the molten caramel mixture, submerging and splshing up on my hands. Crud!

I use the extra wooden spoon to fish it out and stand it up in the pan, but how do I get it out? It's covered in caramel! I stretch like Mr. Fantastic and grab a paper towel, hoisting the dripping thermometer out and setting it on the spoon rest.

"Milo, love, I think you need to turn your game off NOW. It doesn't look like you're having any fun playing it."

"Noo-o-o-o-o! I just need Daddy! He can help me, you can't because you're really bad at it!" He stomped away. More stirring. Eventually I hear him yell in celebration, then he whips back into the room to tell me, "I did it, Mom! I didn't need help, either!" I guess persistence pays off?? I really would have preferred him to shut off the game...

I realize then that I have no way of knowing if the caramel was at the right temperature, so I scrape the setting stickiness off the thermometer and try again. Only this time, I've managed to get the clip over the markings for the temperature I'm supposed to use. And it's been twenty minutes, so I should be there soon, right? Who knows. The red line is behind the clip, so it's in the right range. I set the timer for 2 minutes and remove the pan from the heat at the appropriate time, adding the vanilla with a hiss as directed.

The rest is the easy part -- pour into baking pan to cool and set. I let it cool and set all night and was eager to see how it turned out this morning.

I open the microwave where it is cooling -- we have two large dogs and you don't leave anything you really want to eat on the counter tops. It looks lovely -- nice color, slightly buttery sheen. Smells great! I poke it and my finger dents all the way to the bottom of the pan. The caramel is roughly the consistency of thick paint. Not "wrap in wax paper and eat" caramels. D'oh!

I have the feeling we'll be eating a lot of caramel ice cream sundaes this week...