What I Love

On account of today is Valentine's Day, I've been thinking about the things I love and I thought it would be appropriate to document those things on this sappy day of the year.

1. Heart Shaped Pizza - Who doesn't love pizza already, but then you go and put it into a heart and you truly do have a heart attack on a plate. This has become a Valentine's Day tradition in our house.

2. Free Printables on the Internet - This is the first year that I haven't created my own Valentine's for the girls to share with their friends, and it's okay. I found these awesome printables at The Celebration Shoppe and they were super easy to personalize. I just bought some generic Pop Rocks at the Dollar Store and Bam! Valentines in 30 minutes.

3. Retro Toys - I found these Wooly Willy Iron-Shavings-For-Hair-On-the-Bald-Dude thingies at the Dollar Store. Who remembers these things? You drag the shavings around with the magnet wand to arrange attractive hairstyles on the Willy who can't afford Rogaine.

The girls loved these things and they sat on the couch mesmerized by the creepy, clumpy hair.

4. Eyelash Serum - Speaking of Rogaine, did you know that people have been using it to grow long beautiful eyelashes for years? Of course nobody calls it Rogaine. It's marketed under fancy eyelashy names like Li Lash. I was noticing a lot of Bambi lashed girls at school and wondering what the heck is in the water around here for them to be growing eyelashes like that? No lie. These eyelashes are so long that I don't even know how these girls keep their eyes open, they might as well be hoods of cars, they are that long. Well, I asked The Magician about it at my last hair appointment and she gave me the 4-1-1. Underneath my rock it's so dark and cozy, I had no idea. Anyway, I had to get some of this stuff just to try it out. You know, in a back room, at home, science experiment kind of way.

So I did, and let me tell you, it works. I'm really lazy when it comes to the hair and make up, so I'm not real consistent with the application of the serum, but still I can see a visible difference in my lashes. And let me tell you, that's really saying something because I'm getting up there in my 40s and I wear the granny glasses now for my close up vision. What I'm saying is, I can't normally even see my eyelashes, but now, they're all OBJECTS IN THE MIRROR ARE LARGER THAN THEY APPEAR kind of long. No lie.

5. Chocolate - I don't think this needs an explanation.

6. Books - This is my current read, inspired by Peanut Head. Meaning he told me to read it so I'm giving it a try. I'm almost 100 pages into it and I can say this. It's weird. It's weird, but it's also kinda neat. Parts of it require a lot of concentration to read, not unlike the Bible, because the language is not your every day easy reading, conversational prose. In fact, oxymoron seems to be a recurring theme in word pairings in Mr. Adams' writing. That, and I get the distinct impression that he's making fun of mathematicians and scientists.

Anyway, my original point was supposed to be that books are my escape and my reward to myself. I look forward to crawling into bed at night and ending my day with some relaxing reading while raking my cold feet over Peanut Head's warm legs.

7. Tax People - As in someone else to do my taxes. For years I did our taxes myself and many of our family members' taxes, and I've had it with taxes. When I went back to work, paying someone to do our taxes became one of my many indulgences. In fact, I'm supposed to be getting my tax papers together right now, because I have a tax appointment tomorrow, but as you can see, procrastination is still my BFF.

8. iPad Insurance - As in I wish I had it when I truly needed it. Sad, ironic story. You can laugh while I cry. I've had my iPad for going on two years now. It's the iPad 2 and it's a miracle I have never dropped it. No, really. A miracle. I'm the biggest klutz on the planet. I'm so klutzy that I trip over flat surfaces, my own feet, and up stairs. I walk into walls. I walk into doors. I run into people and bounce off of them. I'm a train wreck, but I've managed to keep my iPad safe for going on two years.

Ahem. Remember when the girls and I bought Peanut Head his iPad 3 for Father's Day? Well, he and I were walking into Barnes & Noble to enjoy an evening in the B&N Cafe, sipping hot drinks and eating decadent desserts whilst surfing the Internet without our offspring nearby, when tragedy struck.

Let me drag it out for you.

"Honey, let's go to the restroom before we settle into the cafe," I say to Peanut Head.

"Okay," is his reply. I know, he's so chatty.

"What are you going to do with your iPad while you're in the bathroom?" I inquire.

"I'm going to set it on the counter," he replies while holding back the eye roll that I know is quivering behind his girly lashed lids (and he doesn't even use the Rogaine stuff. It's not right).

Immediately visions of a battalion of bathroom germs jumping atop Peanut Head's iPad cloud my vision. I know I don't have any Clorox wipes with me and I panic.

"Here, let me put it in my purse," I pushy command-cajole him.

So I reach for his iPad and as I'm slow-motion putting it into my purse, it slips out of my hands and 6-Million-Dollar-Man-Slow-Motion plunges to the pavement, and lands right on its corner.

Gasp. I couldn't even look at it. We just rushed into the store with the quickly retrieved, one whole paycheck electronic device. We get into the store and . . . 

Yep. I suck.

If I'm going to break an iPad, why can't it be mine? My iPad that is two years old and due to be upgraded to an iPad 4, except that now I can't afford it because I'm so stooooooopid and have to go and break a perfectly brand new iPad that doesn't even need replacing.

Karma is a bad word.

9. Peanut Head - Even though I broke his iPad he didn't yell at me and he still loves me.  He has a new iPad now, and this time we bought insurance. I've never before bought insurance on any type of electronic device, but I've learned my lesson and I know now that it is worth every penny. 

10. My Babies - They're noisy and they're messy, and sometimes they make me feel like my head is going to explode, but I love them more than chocolate and I thank my lucky stars for them each and every day.

My life isn't perfect, my house isn't clean, I have an inch thick layer of chicken poop on my back porch, and I have a lot of things I need to work on, but I have amazing people in my life that I am so thankful for. My family loves me even when I am grouchy and tired. The kids I teach make me laugh every day. I am surrounded by awesome people everywhere I turn, and I wonder, do they really know how much I love and appreciate them? I tell them, but do they really know?

Do you ever sit back and watch the people in your life, amazed by all that they are and all that they do, and just feel warm with love, and wonder, and appreciation, and awe?

Snow Day

Last week we had our second snow day in two weeks, and most years we're lucky to even get one. For this last snow day I was secretly praying for a blizzard to concentrate over the top of our Superintendent's house in order to motivate him to call off school. I don't know what his deal is, but he doesn't give out the snow days for just any ol' storm.

Lucky for us, it worked.

Peanut Head decided that since we had a snow day, then by dang it, he was going to have a snow day too. So we all laid around in bed until the crack of 9:30. It was awesome.

When we got up, we learned we had a low battery in our fire alarm. We have one of those annoying talking alarms that repeats every 30 seconds, "BEE-EEE-P! Danger! Fire. Evacuate outside."

I believe the purpose is not to gently remind you to change the batteries, but instead to drive you to Do It Right Now lest you fling yourself off a bridge from the monotony of the alarmist drilling her cacophony into your brain.

Our sweet little Gunny Bunny did not like the fire alarm one little bit. He cowered in the corner with his tail between his legs, and he wouldn't even walk down the hall because then he would have to walk by the jabbering alarm.

Peanut Head said that if we ever have a real fire, one of us is going to have to carry the dog out, because he won't move when he hears the fire alarm.

It's ironic that we named him Gunnery Sergeant. One gun shot and he'd be reduced to a quivering ball of mush, drowning in his own drool. He's quite the Delicate Flower.

Mr. Bun Bun has many fears. For example, heater vents. He will not get anywhere near a heater vent, blowing or not.  To illustrate, Peanut Head, the love of the Bunnery Sergeant's life, has a heater vent on the floor of his side of the bed. Gunny will army crawl under the bed to get to his man, and back, to avoid walking by the vent. And he's not as little as he once was.

At least we have some sort of regular rounding up of the dust bunnies with him crawling hither and tither under our bed.

Once we made it outside we had a lot of digging out to do. We got 8+ inches last weekend. We spent some time on the chicken coop too, digging out. The girls have to be able to get to it to feed and water the chickens.

The girls came out to see what all the commotion was about. They've pretty much stayed inside the coop for the last several weeks because it's been so cold. They're looking skinny and taxed, just trying to keep themselves warm.

They went on strike for about three weeks, not that I can complain, and didn't lay one egg for us. They just started laying again, but we're still only getting one every couple of days instead of three to five eggs every day.

Peanut Head put a light bulb in their coop to try to take some of the chill off during the weeks of negative temps.

It's difficult to focus on the task at hand when some people are easily distracted.

Poor Gunny. He's not the brightest bulb in the box.

I'm not sure what he thought was under there.

But I don't think he found it.

These two spent a lot of time rolling around in the snow, not being very productive. Thankfully our nice neighbor sent some of his work crew over to help us dig out of our driveway.

Now we're ready for more snow.

Bring it.

Snack Attack

As untimely as this post is, you should know that I meant to get it up a couple weeks ago. The problem was that I just kept procrastinating because I was dreading editing all the pictures and updating the baking ingredients spreadsheet. Editing the pictures alone takes forever. 

Well, it just so happens that today school was cancelled due to the cold, so yay! Free Day! Days like this are a gift from Heaven above. The best part about them is the surprise in the morning, waking up to a text message telling me that school is cancelled. That, and it's a Monday. It's better than Christmas morning, let me tell you.

Temps in my neck of the woods dropped to 20 below last night and they've been hanging out around 0 and 1 all day, so I'm not going anywhere, and since I'm not going anywhere, I may as well make myself useful. I should go to the gym, but I don't really want to walk into my cold garage and get into my cold car to warm it up. I'm such a Delicate Flower.

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you know that Peanut Head and I used to do an insane amount of holiday baking to give away to our friends and neighbors for Christmas. Well, in 2011 we decided we were finished with the whole ordeal. It had gotten so out of hand and become such a huge time suck and stress to accomplish, that we just threw up our hands and said "No more." 

So last year we didn't do any baking. Nothing. Nada.

And it was awful. We missed giving the treats away and frankly, we missed the treats.

So this year we cranked the machine back up and went to work. I thought it would be fun to share the crazy amounts of ingredients we use to accomplish our Bake-a-Palooza and how we pull it all off.

It starts with this. Our ingredients list. We print this baby out in October and slowly start amassing the ingredients with each grocery shopping trip, checking things off as we acquire them. On this spreadsheet you can see that we go through 39 boxes of white chocolate, 8 pounds of chocolate chips, 2-1/2 pounds of mint chocolate chips, 5 packages of Vanilla Almond Bark, 2 pounds of milk chocolate stars, 3 pounds of dried cranberries, 21 cups of almonds and pecans, 6.25 pounds of Oreos (from the Devil, they are), and on and on. Don't ask me how much it all costs because I'm afraid to keep track of it and I prefer blissful ignorance.

Here are some of the things we make, although each year we add and take things away, just to keep it interesting.

This is the Cranberry Almond Bark and it is by far the easiest thing to make. This one is my responsibility because I pick the easy stuff. Peanut Head is the patient one, so he does the really time-consuming stuff.

This is what I'm talking about. Peanut Butter Bon Bons. Peanut Head spends an entire day making these things.

And they do not disappoint. Someday I'll make a recipe card for them, but until then, you can have this picture. I know, annoying, right?

These are also made by Peanut Head, and they are Buckeyes. Or you could just call them Peanut Butter dream balls, although as a middle school teacher, the b-word is one I am very careful not to say around teens and pre-teens, as they lack maturity.

Egg Nog Fudge, another one of Peanut Head's treats. I know it's not much to look at, but every year people rave over this stuff. It's awesome.

These are Mint Chocolate Truffles. They are super yummy and smooth, but one of my least favorite things to make. I think it's because it seems like it takes forever to roll all of them into their little truffle shapes. Like maybe two hours or something like that. Not all day like Peanut Head's treats.

I used to roll these in chocolate sprinkles, but this year I made a white chocolate mint drizzle that saves a lot of time, and I think it makes them prettier too.

Pretty is good. So is pretty yummy.

Another one of Peanut Head's treats. Does it seem like he makes more than I do? Perhaps. Who's really keeping track anyway?

These are Star Cookies and they are one of my favorites.

Ah. Oreo Truffles. Who doesn't love Oreo Truffles? The only not so pretty thing about these is that when they sit at room temperature for any length of time they get a little greasy-beady looking, on account of all the lard in the Oreos. That's what makes them so good. Says my Grandma. Lard makes everything better because it comes from bacon.

Here's another one of Peanut Head's treats, White Chocolate Coconut Clusters. People rave about these too, and I have to agree, they are pretty dang good.

These Gingerbread Snowflakes are my responsibility and they are probably my most time-consuming treat to make. I make the dough one day, it chills overnight, and then I roll the dough out, cut the cookies, and bake them. Then they usually sit in my garage, frozen, until I get off my gnarly carcass and decorate them already.

That's on account of the decorating is a little tedious as I'm compulsive and insist on using tweezers to put little pearlescent balls on the snowflake ends.

Eighteen of them on each cookie

I eat some too. When they're defective and not perfectly round. That's me, taking one for the team again.

It generally takes us two to three weeks to crank out about a dozen different treats. Once something is made it gets stored in an airtight Rubbermaid container and then it sits on Peanut Head's Martha Stewart workbench in our freezing cold garage.

It's like having our very own deep freeze.

The last step is to distribute everything among the containers and deliver. It always surprises me how long this step actually takes. Hours.

Generally, every year on the day after Christmas, we hit the stores up for our treat containers for the next year. That way we get them half price. Unfortunately, we didn't do that last year because we thought we were done for good.

That meant that the usual containers we buy were out of our budget since we had to pay full price. We ended up using paper plates and cheapo boxes that had to be reinforced with Scotch tape. Neither option stacks, so it also made delivering and storing a bit of a nightmare. Live and learn though.

After Christmas we scored our usual mass quantities of treat containers for next year. Now we just need to find 1,264 small paper candy cups.