Thursday, December 24, 2009

May Your Days Be Merry & Bright!

Wishing you all a joyful holiday season and a peaceful 2010 and beyond!

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Sunday Snow

It snowed last night, it is still snowing this morning.
I love when Mother Nature hands us a storm when it is most convenient. We've got no place we've got to be until much later today, so we can enjoy just hanging in for a while.
There's a pumpkin bread in the oven, and I think I'll have another cup of coffee.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Spin Cycle - Christmas morning brunch

I do my darndest to NOT leave my house on Christmas Day. When The Girl was little, we started inviting the grandparents over for brunch on Christmas morning and it has evolved into our tradition. I think if I made anything else I'd be in big trouble with The Girl, and that's okay, because these are both recipies that require that they be made ahead. I usually have Christmas Eve off, so it isn't an issue, but this year I'll be "working from home." I think I'll be able to fit it in (wink, wink).

Overnight French Toast
1 stick of butter
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
12 slices Pepperidge Farm white toasting bread (very thick)
5 eggs, well beaten
1 1/2 cups milk

Melt butter with brown sugar & cinnamon. Pour into a 9x13 baking pan. Place 6 slices of bread din pan; put remaining 6 slices on top of those.
Mix eggs with mil and pour over bread, covering completely. Cover and refrigerate overnight.
Bake at 350 uncovered for 45-50 minutes. Flip bread over onto plates and cut diagonal. (It makes its own syrup!)

Egg, Cheese Bake
9 eggs
3 cups mil
1 tsp dry mustard
9 slices buttered bread (Pepperidge Farm firm bread)
1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp. pepper

2 cups Corn Flakes
1/2 cup butter, melted

Spray 13x9 pan with cooking spray. Cut buttered bread into cubes and spread into pan. Mix eggs, milk, mustard, cheese, salt and dpepper. Pour over bread. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. Remove 1 1/2 hours before baking. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes until eggs are set in the middle. (As it puffs, stick a knife in center.) Combine corn flakes and melted butter. Sprinkle over eggs. Bake for additional 15 minutes.

You can also add sausages, crumbled bacon or tomato.


Note - to save myself from cracking all those eggs, I usually buy some sort of "milk carton" eggs. I've made it both ways and there doesn't seem to be much difference.

So, now you know what I'll be doing at around 11:00am Eastern Time on Christmas morning - stuffing my face with overnight breakfast treats!

Go see Jen over at Sprite's Keeper, she's got all sorts of yummyness going on over at her place!

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Spin Cycle - Two EASY Holiday Treats

I love to bake and have made some pretty elaborate stuff in the past (have also had some pretty elaborate disasters, but that is a post for another day), but these two very simple treats always get rave reviews.

Pretzel Treats
"Snyder's Snaps" square pretzels
Hershey's Kisses
M&M Candies

Preheat oven to 170. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and spread the pretzels in a flat single layer on the paper. Unwrap the Kisses and place on Kiss on each pretzel (an excellent job for kids to help with!). Place in oven until Kisses soften, about 5 to 10 minutes. Remove from oven and immediately push one M&M into each Kiss to mostly flatten the Kiss. Cool in the refrigerator until the Kisses re-harden.

Since the fine folks at M&M's (the one candy to have when you're having more than one) make them in colors for many holidays, these can be made for all occasions. I have had these made with Rolo candies instead of Kisses, too, but I prefer the original with the Kisses.

The Mailman groans when he sees me making these. "You're not making those AGAIN?" but there are places that we go that I'll be yelled at if I show up without them.


Peppermint Bark
30 starlight peppermint candies (or any peppermint candies)
2 1/2 boxed Andes mints
1 1/2 bags white chocolate chips

Cover a cookie sheet with wax paper. Unwrap peppermint candies and put into two Ziploc bags. Using a hammer or mallet, crish the candies. Melt Andes mints in the microwave and spread on the wax paper. Melt the white chocolate chips in the microwave and add the crushed peppermints (you can reserve some to sprinkle on top, too). Spread over the Andes mints. Cool in the refrigerator for one hour. Cut or break into bite-size pieces.

The nice Andes mint people also make Andes chips that are sometimes sold with the chocolate chips in the supermarket, and this makes life a whole lot easier. They aren't always available, though. I bought a new (new to me anyway) Nestle's product "Dark Chocolate and Mint Morsels" a few days ago, but haven't tried them yet. I sometimes use candy canes instead of starlight mints - they just seem easier to break up.

Want some more holiday goodies? Just reading about them doesn't add inches to the hips, does it? Go see Sprite's Keeper, she's also the keeper of the Spin Cycle list.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Spin Cycle - My Christmas Wish

For more Wishful Spinning, head on over to see Sprite's Keeper.



I have been thinking about this all week, wondering if I would write it. I was thinking of it this morning when I woke up at 3:13. I was thinking of it again when I saw the clock at 4:13. I did fall back to sleep, but I don’t know when. My wish . . .

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

My wish list is pretty short and pretty simple, however it seems pretty impossible.

I wish my oldest brother would get over whatever it was that made him walk away from his parents and siblings 15 years ago. I wish that our family could be whole again.


Honest to God, I have no idea what pushed him (them) over the edge. The only things I can imagine that would be bad enough to make me walk away from my family are unthinkable. I am the youngest of four, and this brother is the oldest, older than me by seven-plus years. He and his wife and their two children were living with my parents, trying to save money to buy a house. It was a bad idea from the start. The relationship had been volatile for years. They had lived with them before and it hadn’t gone well, but my parents felt that they couldn’t say no. When I questioned my dad about it, he told me that he had to say yes, even with misgivings, because what if one of the other kids needed help some day? How could they say yes to one of us if they had said no to them? I said “easy” and he laughed and said he wished that was the case.


It is a huge understatement to say that my mother and my sister-in-law are two very different people. It is a big house, but still tight quarters given the people involved, and things happened. My sister-in-law re-arranged stuff in my mother’s kitchen. My brother spent money that my parents didn’t think he should be spending when they were living rent free in their house to save money. My sister-in-law has a temper, my mother holds things in. My father is strong willed and opinionated, but certainly not mean spirited. Things were said, things were not said. It was pretty bad. Then my parents went away for a week of vacation. When they came home, my brother and his family were gone. The rooms that they had occupied were empty, and they were not gentle to the house on their way out.


Everyone was stunned. And that is when it got really bad. It got back to me that my sister-in-law had told people that my parents had kicked them out. I heard that they were sleeping on the floor of my sister-in-law’s mother’s one bedroom apartment. I found out that they found a house soon after. I don’t know if it was in the works when they snuck out of my parents house, but I have always assumed so. I had always been Switzerland in previous messes and had always been able to maintain contact when one side wasn’t talking to the other, but my brother basically told me it was him or my parents, I couldn’t have both. I got no answers as to why.


I tried for a while to keep in touch. I sent Christmas presents to the kids and they were returned. I ran into my brother at one point and had a civil conversation with him and thought, “maybe now enough time has passed.” I was wrong. He told me not to come to my niece’s, my godchild’s, First Communion, that I wasn’t welcome. That was when I stopped trying. I couldn’t set myself up to be hurt by them anymore.


Yet, I continue to hurt. I think about them all the time. Every. Single. Day. My niece was five when she was in my wedding 17 years ago, my nephew seven. That is the girl and boy I remember. I wouldn’t even know the woman that she is today at 22, the man of 24. I wonder what they think of us. I wonder what they’ve been told. My daughter is ten, and she doesn’t even know they exist. I keep saying that I need to have a conversation with her about them, but I don’t know how. On some level, she knows about my brother, because there are pictures of the four of us as children in my parent’s house, but no one really talks about them in front of the kids. How do I bring it up to her? How will I answer the questions that I know she will have? I have too many questions myself.


My brother has nieces and nephew’s he has never met. His children have cousins that they don’t know. Our grandmother passed away seven years ago. She lived with us for many years when we were kids, was a huge part of our lives, and she never got to see her great-grandchildren again before she died. My sister’s husband never knew my brother and his family. He has met them briefly once or twice. He knows the story, but didn’t live it. The Mailman lived it with me, and still gets to see me cry on the kid’s birthdays or when something has made me think about them more than usual. He hugs me and says nothing. There is nothing to say. He misses them, too. He and my brother were friends, played golf, had a few beers, liked the same music. My niece is the first baby he ever held, the first kid he ever knew well “from the beginning.” My other brother and his wife and kids were on the periphery of the whole thing. They live a ways away and didn’t live it day to day, so they were hurt, but not as profoundly as those of us that still live in the same town with family that has walked away from us. Yes, they still live in the town where we all grew up, as do my sister and I. My parents have lived in the same house for over 40 years.


So, my wish for this Christmas season, as my brother approaches his 50th birthday in February, is the same as it has been for too many Christmases now, to have my family whole again. Our parents are getting older. Mom won’t really talk about it, which is typical of her. Dad will talk about it too much given the opportunity; over analyze every sighting or mention of them. I know that things will never be the same, too much time has passed, too much has happened, but I believe that it isn’t too late for there to be some kind of relationship. I’ll send a Christmas card again this year, as I have done on and off for the past 15 years, and hope that maybe, just maybe, this will be the year that I get one back. I won’t be surprised if there isn’t one.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Sniffle, sniffle, cough



Lots of randomness going on over at The Un Mom's place.

I'm working from home again this Tuesday, this time because The Girl is sick. She not terribly sick, but did have a slight fever this morning, and I think they told us that we have to keep 1/4 mile from school if she's had a fever in the past 12 days or something ridiculous like that. Okay, she really has to be "fever free without medication" for 24 hours before she can go back, which means she's home tomorrow, too. *sigh* I'm grateful that I can work from home. I wish I could get her to do something other than watch TV.

I had a list of things I was going to get at Target today on my lunch hour . . . so much for that idea. Maybe I'll go tonight on my way home from getting my hair cut, if I'm still awake enough.

The Christmas Tree is finally decorated!! The Girl finished yesterday. The tree went up on the day after Thanksgiving, and I was getting used to having it there with just the lights. Now lets see how long it takes The Mailman to bring the Rubbermaid bins back down to the basement . . .

The bottom 18 inches of the Christmas Tree are pretty much bare, because Nut Job cat was taking all the ornaments off. He's way worse this year than he was last year when he was 5 months old.

The Mailman has been given the assignment of buying gifts for his parents for Christmas and for his brother's son for his birthday (on the 20th) and Christmas. The kid is going to be seven, so you'd think that would be easy, but he's a bit of a horror and doesn't like anything. I struggle with these gifts every year, so I handed them off to him, since I take care of everyone else. We'll see how it goes. I hope it isn't one of those "If I do a really bad job she won't make me do it again" things . . .

Friday, December 4, 2009

Cheesy Mexican Bake

So I finally made this Enchilada Casserole from the recipe from Jan's Sushi Bar. I love it! The Mailman was sort of "meh" on it, The Girl didn't even try it. I'll keep the recipe, though, because it was pretty easy and something that isn't the same boring things we eat all the time. I didn't have leftovers, so I bought Perdue cooked chicken and I cut the recipe basically in half and cooked it in a 8x8 casserole dish, since it was just for the two of us. YUM!

Anywho, it inspired me to post one of my favorite casserole like things that we've been making for years. I also cut this in half sometimes, since it is just me and The Mailman that eat it, but I've made it big too, when we've had friends over to watch football. It is always a hit. We just call it "Cheesy Bake" around here . . .

Cheesy Mexican Bake
1 1/2 bl. ground beef
1 1/2 cup jarred salsa
1 Tbsp. chili powder
1 can Green Giant corn
2 cups pizza cheese or some sort of shredded Mexican blend
2 tubes crescent rolls

Brown beef and drain fat.
Add salsa, chili powder and corn. Simmer until liquid is gone.
Unroll and place one tube of crescent rolls in the bottom of a 9x13 baking pan.
Spread beef mixture on top and then add half of the cheese.
Unroll the other tube of crescent rolls on top, top with the rest of the cheese.
Bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes.
Serve with extra salsa, sour cream, etc.

When I pulled out the recipe to type it here, I flipped it over and remembered that it came from a BJ's advertisement years ago. You just never know where that next "family favorite" is going to come from.

Dear So-And-So . . .

Dear Fed-Ex Man -
You have restored my faith in the holiday spirit! You showed up here on Wednesday when The Mailman was home and knocked on the door without a package in your hands. The Mailman opened the door and you whispered "Are the kids at home?" The Mailman said, "Nooo?" You said "Good! Wait right there!" and hustled back to your truck. Back you came with a rather large package the was clearly a gift for a child. No plain brown box for this one! You told The Mailman that you were hoping that someone would be home and had been thinking about what to do if we weren't there.
Thank you, thank you! And Merry Christmas!
Hugs!
Mary Anne


Click and visit Kat for more so-and-so stuff. I hear it is okay to use the bathroom now . . .

Dear So and So...

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Random Tuesday from home

randomtuesday

Why am I working at home you ask?  Excellent question!  The painter is here to . . . wait for it  . . .  FINISH the bathroom project!!  How happy am I?  VERY.  Having a shiny new shower that I was advised not to use until the new plaster and wood was painted has been like torture.  The only bonus has been listening to The Girl when she's showering in the downstairs bathroom.  She talks, she sings - it can be quite entertaining.

Usually when I work from home, I put my work laptop on the kitchen table.  Today, because the sewing machine is on the kitchen table, I have my work laptop on the desk where my home Mac is.  I keep using the wrong mouse and/or keyboard.  I might have to move the sewing machine and move my laptop to the kitchen table.  This is getting annoying.

December?  Are you kidding me?  I'm so not ready for it to be December.

The UPS guy is going to hate me.  I'm doing most of my Christmas shopping online.  I have no patience for shopping in stores anymore.

Hey, Keeley?  We've got a mouse, too.  We seem to get one or two this time every year.  I found his telltale leavings by the cat food.  The Mailman set a trap, but so far, the little bastard has eluded us.  I'm waiting for the middle of the night cat scramble to wake me up.  Always a good time.

Have a happy Tuesday everyone.  Go see Keeley for more randomness.  Don't worry, its safe.  She only traps little things and zombies.