Wordless Wednesday - Funny Bunnies

Three of the funny bunnies  Easter Sunday, 2011

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Wordless Wednesday - Funny Bunnies

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Perspective

I don't actually have a recipe to post today.

Instead, I:

1.  Cleaned my house.  Well, thoroughly vacuumed all three floors.  And took a good inch of dust off the horizontal wood-type surfaces.  I wouldn't stop by and use the bathrooms just yet.

2.  Put away the obstacle course of toys that was our basement.

3.  #2 was promptly undone within 10 minutes of the bus arriving.

4.  I helped my daughter pack away her room and find all the clothes for her Daisy doll.

5.  I used my amazing new spray mop to clean my kitchen floor

6.  I did not use my panini press.

7.  I did converse with other parents at the bus stop concerning the absurdly cold temperatures this morning.

8.  I composed what I trust was an intelligent reply to a request for local food information.

9.  I made the post-school gaggle of kids hot chocolate with marshmallows and fed them ice box cookies.

10.  I questioned why I bothered cleaning the house.

11.  At all

12.  I had a power lunch with the wee man

13.  I talked to my sister approximately 5 times.

14.  I attempted to return our neighbour's wandering Scottie dogs.

15.  I finally folded yesterday's laundry.  It still smelled like the outdoors.

16.  I responded to approximately 3,546 requests for assistance from the small people in my world.

17.  I changed wee man's diaper 5 times.  Something is not right with that boy.

18.  I discovered bird poop in the side of my laundry basket.

19.  I entered contests, replied to Twitter feeds, and commented on Facebook posts

20.  I am now going to throw something frozen in the oven and watch some mindless television in my comfy warm house whilst wearing my comfy warm John Deere PJs, remembering that there are a whole lot of people out there who are not nearly as blessed as I am.

Thank you, and good night 1. 2.

Perspective

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The Old Standby

I received a curious call from my Romanian neighbour the other day.  No, Sir Winston had not escaped again.  My children were all fully clothed and accounted for.  My truck had not been in an accident with one of her husband's employees and no, I was not threatening to call the police about it. (Long story - OK, Coles Notes version - another one of my lovely neighbours drives almost the identical truck that I do.  The husband across the street owns a construction company.  One of his guys had slid into the other truck and was so distraught, thinking he did not have the money to pay for the damages, that the husband across the road was trying to track me down to pay for the damages that didn't actually occur to my vehicle.  He is an incredibly good man, my neighbour.  And a smart businessman. That employee is one of his best tiling guys.  The employee was so distraught he couldn't work.  Seems like a fair trade to me)

ANYWAYS...

An evil, evil neighbour brought over chocolate chip cookies and cream cheese brownies the other day.  Darn her.  They were so good I had to send some away with my father-in-law to keep from scarfing down the entire batch.

Apparently, my Romanian neighbour was the recipient of some as well.  And, apparently, she has never had chocolate chip cookies before.  Egads - she has been in the country 7 years and never had chocolate chip cookies?  Truly, we are failing our immigrants here, people.

At any rate, she asked me for a recipe, and I was more than happy to oblige

The recipe - please note, as always, the intricate detail noted on the recipe itself

And here we have the cast of characters.  And the ingredients.

Toss the sugars and the shortening in your mixer bowl and give it a whirl

This step is crucial, crazy as it may seem.  The goal is to coat each granule of sugar in the shortening you have added.  This will ensure that is evenly distributed in the final product and give you the nice, chewy consistency you are craving.  Or maybe that's just me.

After that, add in the egg, vanilla, and all the small dry ingredients (salt, soda)

Save the big guns for last.  I always make a triple batch.  I would make more, but that's all my poor old mixer can handle.  And a triple batch makes for easy math.

Here we go.  Note the nice dusting of flour.  Just about everywhere.  It is inevitable.  Do not fight it.  Do not attempt to hold the flour in with your hands.  Wear and apron, have your broom ready, and go with it.

Then, the good part.  Add the chocolate chips.  My mother always told me too many chocolate chips meant the cookies wouldn't bake well.  I have yet to break that threshold.

What I do like to do is a a mixture of chips.  Semi-sweet and milk chocolate, and on really daring days, peanut butter or butterscotch chips.

Mix'em in, but not too much.  The chips will break down and you'll loose the chocolate CHIP part of the cookie.

Then get yourself one of these little puppies.  I am tellin' ya, for an A-type like me, it is a sanity saver.  Call it an ice cream scoop, a disher, a measured scoop, whatever.  It's great.  I have a few different sizes.  Love them all.

Then you get to make pretty little rows of perfectly same-sized cookie dough balls.  Ah, sweet bliss!

Then into the oven. Be sure to enlist small people to carefully watch over them.  This is crucial.

Not really about the last part.  But it did manage to keep my kids occupied for a full 30 seconds without a single squabble, in close proximity to one another.  A small miracle indeed.

Then out they come.  Just look at that.

Remember:  UNDERBAKE.  They will keep cooking on the sheet.

Only once they've cooled should you move them.  Otherwise, they will take on the shape of your cooling rack.  And that would be weird.

Ah, sweet perfection.  Still warm and gooey.  Absolutely delicious.  Perfect for freezing and sharing.

And in case you were wondering.  E3 didn't get left out of the party. He made his own.

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The Old Standby

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The Apron Saga - Part Deux

It is finished!

At least the apron part.  And with several hours to spare, I might add.  E2's birthday isn't until tomorrow, you know.

The apron saga has not actually been too bad, so far.  I'm pretty impressed with myself.

Once I conceded that I would just have to hand gather the ruffle, things were rolling right along.

The ruffles actually turned out pretty even, too.

The pockets, however?  They took minutes off my life.  Maybe even an hour.

What I thought was a fairly smooth and even rounded edge wasn't so much so.  At least once I turned the pockets right side out.

This stuff here is a life saver.  Snip off a piece of this tape-like stuff, iron it down, peel off the paper, stick the second piece of fabric to it, and poof!  A forever seal.

After spending agonizing, grueling minutes attempting to perfectly align the non-uniform pockets, I again deviated from the instructions  Shocking, I know.  I had the audacity to machine stitch the pockets right onto the front panel of the apron, instead of the baste stitch it calls for after the whole thing is put together.

Next, I had to mentally wrap my head around where the neck and waist ties would need to be on the finished product, so I could figure out where to place them on the unfinished product.  Got that?

Looks a bit interesting right now.

Then for the pretty pink lining.  We are getting close.

Pins.  Lots and lots of pins.  Except I put them on the wrong side, which made sewing just a leetle bit tricky.

Now it is time to snip!  But carefully, lest I undo my hard work.

It is important to make these little snips anywhere there is a rounded edge to be turned.  Otherwise it bunches and puckers and just looks messy.  And who wants a messy apron?  Hmm?

Square corners also need to be trimmed on a 45 degree angle.  This will ensure nice, sharp corners.  Once you use your seam ripper and paper boner to poke out the corners.  Try to avoid bleeding on your almost finished project.  It will make you cry.

Once it's folded right side out, time for a leetle trip to Mr. Iron, where we'll press under a hem.

Nice and even all over.  Ready to be stitched!

And - ta da!  A lovely little apron for my lovely little girl.

 Here we have the back of the ruffle, all nice and neat.

 And the, er, pockets.  Which, in hindsight, I sewed on backwards.  The cup handles probably should have been to the inside.  On the plus side, I did remember to do the little triangle stitch thingy in the corner.  This builds a stronger pocket. Something that will certainly come in handy when carrying around ponies.

 The bottom front of the ruffle is just a tad uneven.  This is what homemade is all about.  Or at least, this is what I tell myself.

But the neckline is nice and smooth.  Look at it, a snipped piece of perfect.  Say that three times fast.

And there we have it.  And now, off to wrap a couple of Lalaloopsy dollies and a Barbie shirt.  Heck, I've got a few hours to spare.  Why rush it?

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The Apron Saga - Part Deux

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Progress Thus Far...

If I were even the teensiest bit wise, I would have started this project back when I originally bought E2 this fabric.  As in, back before Christmas.

If I were even a little bit smarter than that, I wouldn't have undertaken this project to begin with.

But how does one say no to a little blonde haired, blue eyed angel who looks in awe at the sample hanging on the wall and then comes up with one liners like "I love to go to the fabric store with you mommy.  There are so many pretty things there.  Then you take some thread and make me beautiful things."  Seriously.  Here's hoping I grow more of a spine by the time she discovers electronics.

Or automobiles.

Or horses.  Let's not even go THERE.

And so we begin with this cute little number, and use it as a guide to cut a lining.

You can see why my pink-loving, Cupcake Wars watching little girl fell in love with this particular model.

Again, simple directions.  Remember who we're talking about here.

These pretty little strips of cloth will become waist and neck ties.

 Like this.  Don't worry, Real Sewers!  I will press them.  But after the hour or so it took me to turn these little puppies, my fingers needed a break.  And some Ibuprofen.

I've decided to step outside the instructions here and line the ruffle.  Oh my.  Here I go again, gittin' all
crazy 'n' stuff.

Note:  for those of you who actually sew, I realize I do not have my fabric sufficiently ironed.  Not even close.  I also realize that I am not sewing for a runway model and thus, am perfectly OK with that.

Pins, pins everywhere!  Only 1/2 a pint of blood loss this time.  Hooray for me!

See?  All nicely stitched, turned, and pressed.  Only thing I've used the seam ripper for is to pull out the corners.  Progress!

 After a couple of quick calls and e-mailed photos to my lifeline, I abandoned ship on getting Old Faithful to put a gathering thread in the ruffle and ended up doing it by hand.  Very minimal blood loss here.

Now see these little pieces (kindly ignore the groady, ironing board background, it's been with me a long, long time)?  They will become cupcakes.  Yah, right.

You take the bottom and force fit it to the sides to create the cupcake 'wrapper'.  Right now, looks like some kind of alien.  Or maybe one of those weird, middle of the store change tents at Old Navy.  The one where busy mothers with little ones constantly try to convince themselves is a better alternative to use than the 'real' change rooms.  And then they and their underwear get exposed to the world when their toddler starts playing peek-a-boo with the world.

Not that I have any first hand knowledge of this type of situation.

They kind of end up looking like this.  And as if there wasn't enough blood loss already...

I now need to make these circles fit onto these bases.  Upside down and inside out first.  Um, sure.

I'll keep you updated on my blood donation.

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Progress Thus Far...

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