Shepherding

Chris gave Abigail a new title:

Twiddlepants

Shepherd of Plastic Livestock

I realize these chickens aren't plastic. This was visiting Grandparents at Thanksgiving. Yes, it was that warm. I guess we could say all livestock if we lived on a farm. I'm pretty thankfully we only have to worry about the plastic kind. Though Abigail is not.

Out of the Kitchen

Have you noticed that there are some days when it would be better if you didn't enter the kitchen? I periodically have those days. Yesterday was one.

I decided I would make deserts for some of my neighbors for Christmas. Yummy. Apple Cake.

Everything went well until I put the cakes in the oven. I doubled the recipe to make 4 8x8 cakes, but I only used half of the flour. They weren't cakes. I had four pans of apple goop.

Out they went and while dumping the goop in the trash, I spilled a panful on the floor. And used one of those "ugly" words I don't want Abigail to hear.

Determined I made some more batter. Poured it into the pans. Put it in the oven. And baked away. The cakes came out wonderfully. Then I got the sugar out for the topping. Somehow the canister, plastic, slipped out of my hands sugar skidded across the counter.

Chris determined that I should, "just give up already." And he swept up the sugar.

Here is the recipe though. It is great cake.

Apple Cake
3 eggs
11/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. brown sugar
1 c. oil
2 c. flour
1 tsp. soda
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 c. chopped nuts (optional)
2 c. chopped apples
1 topping mix

Mix the eggs and sugars together. Slowly add the oil. Beat thoroughly. Combine the flour, soda, salt, and cinnamon. Add to the egg mixture. Mix to combine. Add the nuts and apples.
Bake at 350 in a 9x13 pan frot 35-40 minutes.

Topping Mix
1/4 c. sugar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Mix sugar and cinnamon. Cover cake immediately after removing from oven.

Breakfast Guests

For a while now we have had various characters join us for meals. The horse came once. A doll had breakfast with us a few times. My collection of Santas spent a few meals over a few days with us. Occasionally it is been members of the Nativity. Yesterday, it was the farm animals from "Farmer Jed's" farm. This morning it was the barnyard animals given to her by her uncle for Christmas last night. All six of them.

But this morning was different. While I was making the oatmeal, Abigail was getting them ready for breakfast. They all gathered in a circle to "Pray Jesus." Because that is what we do, "Pray Jesus first." Then she brought them to the table and arranged them around her bowl. I thought better of that visions of oatmeal covered plastic livestock stampeding before me. So they got their own bowl with raisins and nuts in it.

Perhaps I am encouraging this trend. But I just want my child to eat.

Yet there are still two bowls on the kitchen table. One with nuts and raisins (plastic livestock don't eat) and one with oatmeal.

Laundry

The mother of a two year old should not wait a week and a half before doing laundry. In my desire to complete a gift, I neglected laundry last week. Today was the day to catch up.

So I gather the laundry from the bedrooms, the bathroom, and the kitchen.

I take the three heaping baskets of laundry to the basement to find more laundry pitched to the bottom of the stairs.

I start sorting. Underwear, sweaters, dress clothes, jeans, tee-shirts, towels, blankets, rugs. And the special pile of Abigail's clothes that need checked for stains. I sort and sort and sort.

I start that load of rugs and I stain fight. Check shirt, squirt, squirt, squirt. One more for extra measure. Check next shirt, squirt, squirt, squirt. How can one little girl have so many shirts covered with so much stuff!

Stain fighting finished. Freedom. (Well, at least till that load is finished washing.)

Ready to walk upstairs. My tea and blog and Bible are calling.

Walking by the drier. No it can't be--sheets and towels and blankets are in there. To make any time at all, they need folded BEFORE the rugs are finished. Put the tea and blog and Bible on hold.

There is a word for someone who leaves sheets and towels and blankets in the drier for a week and a half. There is a word for someone who well intentioned enough puts laundry on hold for crochetting Christmas gifts. Single-mindedly Stupid.

OK that is two words.

Impressed and A Little Scared

Chris has my Christmas gift all picked out. He didn't ask for any ideas. He just said he knew what he was getting me.

This from the same man who got me a shirt for one Christmas that was FOUR sizes too large. And the following year, a book with "Idiot" in the title. He has also been known to give me floormats and a tank of gas for my car. In more recent history he has requested a detailed list. Until now. With his history I am both impressed that he will try again and yet still scared. I think I have reason.

It is on Ebay being watched for the next few days. Do you know the temptation? Just a few clicks and I would know. But I refrain, and become ever more curious and excited at the prospect of a gift thoughtfully chosen without prodding. What a great guy!

And now to honor my husband's Christmas shopping courage, I give you YouTube.

Sometimes. . .

I feel like the monkey. But most times I feel like the tigers.

In a Funk

I am officially in a funk. I thought it was just a Sunday thing. Then yesterday I could not get my mind wrapped around anything much and what I was able to work on left me in an even bigger funk! I still have hope for today, though it is vanishing quickly with every glance at the clock knowing we are still in our pjs. There is just a lot of stuff in various states of completedness with none of the states being complete.

The last 20 Christmas cards need to be put together, the letter inserted, and enveloped (not a word).

The adoption form is looming with 20% of the blanks still blank. And then we must think about the timing. Do we send it in now starting the process locking in the current fees and getting ever closer to child number 2 with the funds with which to pay for this process locked up in a house in Michigan? Or do we wait knowing that the fees are going to go up next year and continue to wait however impatiently for that child number 2? By the way, Abigail wants a little pink sister.

Abigail's toys need sorted and some sent to the room that makes old toys new again. You know that place where they stay till she forgets she had them. And some of her clothes too. Except they have to stay till I forget about them and tire of the outfits rationed myself. Laundry needs put away. The kitchen ALWAYS needs cleaned.

The plans for making Christmas gifts are growing ever dimmer. Cakes, cookies, hats, mittens, scarves, bags . . . all patterns still waiting. And the stuff of Christmas is everywhere. Paper for cards on the dining room table, gifts tucked precariously on the top of the entry closet, the dehydrator waiting to be put back in the basement, parts of the nativity on various adventures throughout the house, dried oranges on the kitchen counter waiting to be hung in the windows. Alas!

I always prided myself on being "OK" with open-ended situations. That is where I went wrong--priding myself right into a funk. . . . I need closure. There it is. I have admitted it to everyone. Indeed I am a closer.

Now that I know this I can turn this funk around. Let me celebrate today by closing out all these open tasks. OK not all but some. Starting with that dehydrator that causes a crummy attitude every time I walk by it! To the basement with you.

Nativity

We have three nativity sets in our house this Christmas. One is a candle holder. I chose it. It sits far above Abigail's reach. Another is a music box. It contains all the characters in one large molding of ceramic. It sits on an end table. I want Abigail to be able to listen to the music and talk about what she sees. The last is a ceramic set given to me by my grandmother. It contains separate castings of all the main characters in the Birth of Christ story. Because it did not come with the cave like stable, the figures are arranged on the buffet around the advent wreath and in front of the advent calendar. Abigail can reach these. Again I planned it that way. I want her to ask questions and to be able to relate to the story in her own two-year-old way.

But I didn't expect yesterday's events.

As I was talking to my mother, Abigail scooted her mini-chair up to the buffet to get a better look. She commented on the baby Jesus' nakedness and admired the livestock. I am a phone-wanderer, and as such, I wandered from the dining room not giving a thought to the adventures Abigail is capable of taking toys on.

As I wander into the living room, though, I see the Holy family--Mary, Joseph, and Jesus--and the angel-keeping-watch ready for a ride on the Sit'nSpin. Needless to say the family was removed before certain destruction. Perhaps it was my warning not to spin them around that took the fun away, or perhaps it was already nap time in Abigail's estimation. For that was what happened, the Holy Family wrapped in a fleece dog print blanket spent the remainder of the day sleeping on the living room floor. The angel continued keeping watch from the vantage point of the seat of the Sit'nSpin.

Breathing a sigh of relief, I wander to the kitchen. (I would like to say to put something away, but I can't in good conscience say that.) But I turn, round the table, and am nearly run over. Apparently the nativity livestock--cow, sheep, and donkey--needed a trip to town. Abigail had loaded them onto the seat of her walker/bus and was pushing them into the kitchen. With the warning to be extra careful, she took her livestock to the town which exists in our back entryway. And there they stayed for the rest of the day. Some livestock shopping trip!

We returned the figures to their rightful places before the day's advent activities. None were worse for the adventure, and Abigail did relate the to Christmas story in her own two year old way. Perhaps when she is three she will just move them around as she tells the story. One can only hope.

It's the Smell!

Amish Friendship Bread. Have you ever heard of it?

If you haven't there is some explanation required. It is called "friendship" bread because after days of fermenting milk, sugar, and flour together you share you starter with three friends keeping one for yourself. I suppose you continue to need friends for starter if you forget and let your own ferment too long, or if you have guests and need to make 45 or so breads for their visit thereby not keeping starter, or for that matter giving the extra away.

My first experience with Amish Friendship Bread occurred when I was in high school--years and years ago. It circulated among our little hilltop church. I mean 30ish people including children on a Sunday little church. Think about that not 30families, 30 people and friendship bread starter. Imagine it. We had Amish Friendship Bread for months! Every day! I swore Amish Friendship Bread off FOREVER.

And God laughed.

Last year Maytag families moved to St. Joseph and I made a friend. (OK more than one, but only one this post pertains too.) A friend with Amish Friendship Bread. She had a twist though, fruit and nuts in the batter. I gave in. I ate a piece. Gone was that sick feeling that I had associated with the bread. I ate another piece. I rejected the starter. Oh I wasn't going to be sucked into that! Not me. It was for Sunday fellowship, not for my house.

Then we moved. We were welcomed by a neighbor (the one who later gave Abigail the sticker book) with... Amish Friendship Bread. It infiltrated the walls. Yes, just a loaf no starter, but I knew it was only a matter of time. I was losing the battle. But we ate the bread. I enjoyed the loaf lovingly given. I thanked my neighbor and kindly rejected the offer of starter. My friendship was going to be shown by tubs of cookies and platters of cakes, not with fermented milk, sugar, and flour. Not my love language.

But alas, I have lost the battle. Enjoying coffee with our landpeople/friends, the topic came up. She had been given a bag of starter. I recounted my high school tale of Amish Friendship Bread woe, but having become friends with the bread, I couldn't remember why I swore it off. So I agreed. I would take a bag of starter ten days from that night. The ten days passed and with a slice of warm bread came the bag of starter. It fermented on my counter. I added the required milk, sugar, and flour and mushed away at the bag. It grew fat with the gas of fermentation. I released the gas. Ten days have passed. Currently cooling on a rack in my kitchen is two loaves of Amish Friendship Bread and four containers of starter sit by my refrigerator.

And the sick feeling has returned. I remember, now! I know why I swore the stuff off. It is the smell! The smell of fementation baking with eggs and seasoning. The smell of months and months of starter-go-round. The smell of friendship.

This is why tomorrow I will dump the starter out, I will graciously accept loaves of Amish Friendship Bread into our home and just a graciously refuse the starter. I will give cakes and cookies as gifts of the friendships I treasure and the joining together in the joys and sorrows of those people precious to me. My friendships will smell of baking chocolate chips and oatmeal and apples.

Birthday Party Pictures

Well, as I said before, Abigail's birthday was Friday and we had the party on Friday. A small gathering of immediate, if that includes aunts and uncles, family. Abigail was cranky that morning and woke up from her nap even crankier, and slightly warm. I gave her some ibruprofen for the warmth and thought nothing of it. Maybe teeth.

Maybe not! Half-way through dinner of hot dogs, pasta salad, baked beans, and fruit salad. Abigail was done with her guests. And she was HOT! Yes, it was four hours later. Aceteminophen this time. Because Abigail recovers quickly after the medicine hits her system, we (yes, a concensus of all the women present) decided to do candles before presents and gifts before cake. After all you almost have to forget you put hot dogs in your body before you can consume cake and ice cream.

And then the gifts, she wasn't feeling great but when she discovered toys came out of the wrapping she was more than willing to find a loose place in the paper.

Even those bigger than herself.

Finally the cake or a toy. Abigail likes cake but not icing. Though I can't be sure she likes the icing as an artist medium more that as dessert or if she doesn't like icing. So sick she refused her ice cream. Unheard of in this house.

I had to put a picture of the cake I made (with the help of Duncan Hines, of course), but the shape is all mine from the Family Fun website. They have all sorts of great cake ideas and the patterns those of us who can't see a horse in a 9X13 cake need.