I went to bed super-early while Lloyd and others played cards, and I forgot to write a post. Instead, go see this hilarious page. I could certainly use these new marks, and since they’re downloadable, I just might.
Archives for February 2013
Straw thief
(Mom update: Dad told me mom might actually have severe bronchitis instead of pneumonia. She coughs so much she can’t sleep, so hopefully they have her on the right medicine. Thanks again for your prayers.)
Ok, on to the post. Yes, it’s another cat one, but cut me some slack – I have a very boring life.
In preschool we have journals: three-prong binders filled with papers that the children draw a picture in and then dictate their story. Cayden is a boy who really doesn’t like to work in his journal, but I asked him to draw a picture of Shirley, his cat. (By the way – Best. Cat Name. Ever.) He perked right up and drew a circle for Shirley’s head with radial lines out all over as whiskers – which I deeply regret not photographing for this post – and we swapped cat stories. ‘Shirley gets chased by Duke, but runs away through a hole that’s a square. He doesn’t know why she’s so fast.’ (See, Cayden? That is gripping journalism right there. Keep it up, buddy.)
I shared with him that Wally likes to steal straws out of cups if you don’t put them away when you’re done. (Ever since the cats made their visits to preschool, they have become local celebrities/legends. In fact, Cayden and Evie like to play ‘Wally’ early in the morning. They crawl around on the floor and bat at stuff asking, “Is this what he does? Is this it?”)
Cayden didn’t quite understand what I was talking about, so I pulled out my pocket paper and drew a little sketch.
I also sometimes show them videos of the cats in the early morning before breakfast. Cayden, this one’s for you – right out the cup! Such gall:
Prayers, please.
My mom is in the hospital with pneumonia. She wasn’t feeling well this weekend and was trying to tough it out, but finally asked my dad to take her in.
She has been back on her cancer medications for a while. I am a horrible daughter because I can’t keep the names of the meds straight, but I know she’s taking four right now. She’s doing alright with it but her immune system was down and she was supposed to stay away from people so she wouldn’t get sick with something like the flu. Or pneumonia. (Significant long-distant look at my mom.)
Anyway, your prayers today for her and my dad would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Ummmm….
It’s bedtime and I forgot to make a post.
To make up for it, I’ll just post past stuff from ….. er, the past.
One year ago today, we were visiting my folks in Colorado.
Two years ago today, Lloyd was making brownies.
Three years ago, Lloyd found an unexpected shrine.
Four years ago, I killed a fish.
Five years ago, I lost a camera.
Six years ago, I was taking down wallpaper border and the website was having some trouble.
Seven years ago, I have no idea what I was doing because this website didn’t exist.
Good grief. That took longer than I thought it would. I should have just written a post!
*Chats in the Chaise
(*That’s French for cat. Cats in the Couch didn’t quite have the same ring to it.)
I worry that I may have posted this first part already, but welcome to my world of forgetfulness. Long, long ago the kittens were small enough to cram their little bodies under the cabinet toekick in the kitchen, scoot their little bodies under the dishwasher, and pull out the insulation. “Fun! Fluffy stuff!” The floor would be littered with little bits of white. It angered me, and the solution was to stuff a box under the dishwasher. As you can imagine, this was super-convenient.
Here’s a glimpse from the past:
Well, they got older and outgrew such shenanigans. That is, they couldn’t fit under that space anymore and forgot about the fluff. A couple of months go by and Ralph is scooting around on the floor, scoots up to the dishwasher and realizes, “Hey! My arms are a lot longer! This stuff is just right here!” He cleaned out the door in a matter of days. Our dishwasher is noisier now.
So imagine my surprise when weeks later, there is just a ton of fluff on the carpet upstairs. I know we don’t have a dishwasher up there, and the dishwasher we do have is insulationless.
Oh.
Remember my chaise chair?
So does Ralph.
A well-documented ‘meh’
A while ago on The Splendid Table I heard Lynne Rossetto Kasper interview a dear southern lady who talked about southern biscuits and all the love and low-gluten passion that went into their making. She said that when she teaches beginners how to make biscuits, she starts with an easy recipe that only requires two ingredients: self-rising flour and heavy cream.
I was intrigued.
Well, I don’t have self-rising flour but you just add baking powder and salt to regular flour, so that wasn’t a problem. (Lloyd is quick to point out that this is actually a four-ingredient recipe. Whatever.)
I halved the recipe (as is my custom) and figured that I needed:
A cup of flour (plus 1/8 more if needed)
1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt
A half-cup of cream, plus a a little more if needed.
Ok! Here we go! Except that I realized that I barely had a cup of flour, and I needed to keep some in reserve for patting out the dough. Crud. This was going to involve math. Fraction math.
Nope. Estimating would have to do – accurate math is for accountants and bankers. I just scaled everything else back a little. A little less baking powder, and what I thought was a little less salt.
Then I started to pour in the cream. You’ll noticed that there is almost a cup of cream in that cup, not half a cup. D’oh! I realized it as I was pouring, though, and only poured in (maybe) the right amount.
Whatever. Stir it a bit, but not too much because you don’t want it to get tough. Oh, I should mention that I put a tablespoon of sugar in this because I was doing the ‘shortcake’ variation. (“Five ingredients,” Lloyd hollers.)
Pat out the dough. Fold it over and pat it again. Fold and pat. That’s enough already. We’re not doing laundry here.
Cut, cut, cut.
Bake, bake, bake.
As I checked them mid-way I actually exclaimed, “Holy cow! This is working!” They looked all flaky-ish, and I was mightily pleased.
I could barely wait for them to cool! I whipped up the rest of the cream, slathered that biscuit with berries, set a cup of coffee up as a prop, snapped a photo, then dug in.
Bleh. I don’t think I scaled back the salt enough. Either that or that dough needed heaps more sugar. The texture was a little wet, too, like it could have baked a minute or two more. It wasn’t awful, but it certainly wasn’t the transcendent moment I was going for.
Rats.
Whatever. Let’s just look at the photo again, shall we?