Show & Tell With Mel - Dec. 27th

“Come Fairies, take me out of this dull world, for I would ride with you upon the wind and dance upon the mountains like a flame!”

~William Butler Yeats~


My little driveway fairy:


What my Christmas looked like through my picture window:(Yes, those are raindrops)


What are you showing today? More Circle Time.

Show & Tell with Mel - Dec. 20th - Making Cookies!

I thought it would be fun for this week's Show & Tell if we made cookies together! Every year at Christmastime we make Snowballs. That really isn't their name, but that's what everyone ends up calling them anyway. We make a TON of Snowballs and then we usually give them all away. We made a quadruple batch - 125 cookies (less 2 one of the midgets in my house ran off with). Follows is the pictorial and recipe!

I'm a very big proponent of the dump and mix method. The dark spots are the vanilla.

Add the nuts.



Mix to a soft dough consistancy. With a handmixer this usually takes forever and makes your arm feel like it's gonna fall off. It will seem like it is too dry - but keep mixing, some sort of chemical change takes place and you get this nice dough. My Bosch does this in just about a minute - it totally rocks!



Now form the dough into small balls. You don't need much space between them on the cookie sheet as they do not flatten out. (Yes, that's my recipe written in crayon on the paper covering my table - I had to call my mom when I couldn't find my old copy!)



Bake and cool on racks.

When cool, roll in powdered sugar. That's my assistant - isn't she cute? She's also very slow - I dusted about 4.5 dozen snowballs to her measly one. That's what you get when you don't pay your help.



That is what over 10 dozen Snowballs looks like. I usually put a 21 lb turkey on that platter. (Don't worry - I washed it after Thanksgiving!)



We counted them out and put them in Gladware. (Great stuff - reusable too!)



Top with a bow and tag and voila! You get to eat the six that are leftover now.

Now that you've seen the action - here's the recipe. Hope you make them and enjoy a bit of sweetness from my house to yours!

Pecan Petites (aka Snowballs)

1 cup butter
1/4 cup white granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Mix well to a soft dough. Roll into balls and bake on ungreased cookie sheet for 15 minutes at 325 degrees. Cool on racks. When cool, roll in powdered sugar.

Enjoy!

To see what the rest of the class might be cooking up - see here.

Little Red Sports Car with a Bottle of Clairol on the Side, Please!

Yes, I know things have been rather dull around this here blog. I seem to be overcome with a big case of the "blahs". One would think I should have plenty of things to talk about - having a hysterectomy and turning 40 shortly thereafter, both topics ripe for plenty of introspection, retrospection - some kind of 'spection. Alas, I am falling short of any thing remotely brilliant. Then, I read some magnificent posts by others in the blogosphere and begin to feel woefully inadequate. (Mel, the great Stirrup Queen herself, with "Tertiary Mourning", Mrs. Spit - who is always brilliant and witty, my dear friend Loribeth who always finds the best articles on topic - the list would go on and on - and even in the comments sections of various blogs, some amazing and profound minds at work - truly very humbling.)

Oh, I have plenty of things stewing around in my brain - many of which I think would make excellent topics for a blog post. Sit down at the keyboard and poof! Fabulous topic vanishes. While I remember well my anatomy and physiology, I can't help but wonder if removal of my uterus somehow severed some connection my brain required for capable thought output? Maybe it is Holidayitis, and the 'sturm und drang' of the season is causing my current state of befuddlement. Maybe, and this may likely be the true culprit, I am just still trying to sort myself out. Most of the time I am alright with the whole surgery-I-am-absolutely-completely-infertile-now thing and other times I find myself thinking "holy ovaries - what just happened to me??!" I don't feel different, but then again, I really, really do feel different. There was before, during and now after. Before I know, during I know well too - this after thing - wayyyyyyyyyyy more daunting than it sounds. I have no idea what to expect, where I fit in - the devil you know right? Because this devil I don't know and, what if I do the after, well, you know, wrong, because I don't know how to do it? Permanence is also a very scary thing - this cannot be undone, so no going back. Truly, I am pretty certain I don't want to go back. I did the infertility and loss thing for 15 years and that is plenty of ttc, fertility drugs, tests, miscarriages and all the rest for a lifetime, definitely! Then it hits me, I always expected the "after" thing to be when I was older, so now that we're here at after, I must be old. And maybe that is what this is all about - accepting that I am getting older and I've reached that age that my 20-something self considered no longer "young". That younger me didn't think 40 was incredibly old, but definitely considered it not young. So, enter in midlife crisis. For now, I am plucking at the gray hairs that are cropping up (inexplicably kinky, curly gray hairs in my black, stick straight too thin hair already) and hoping that this time next year, I will have sorted through all the flotsam and jetsam of the 40, hysterectomied and finding myself after the younger me era, and be back to my normal brilliant self (feel free to snort right along with me) or at the very least, feel a bit more steady on my feet again.

Show & Tell With Mel - Dec. 7th

Okay, so I've missed the last couple S&T's; today I am trying out a new toy (for details on what happened to the "old toy" see here - warning, this takes you to my other more kid-centric blog, but involves a somewhat entertaining video) and I did get my Christmas tree up this weekend. This week's Show & Tell is - yep, you guessed, pictures of my Christmas tree!

Ta-da!









There are seven pairs of angel wing ornaments on the tree for my angel babies. The snowflake tile ornaments are also symbolic - as you know, no two snowflakes are alike. I'll leave it to you to determine the symbolism there. ;0)

For more of this week's Show & Tell - go here - it'll be fun, I promise!