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Archive for November, 2016

Anyone Interested in a Cookie Recipe Exchange?

November 27th, 2016 at 10:51 pm

Each year my church has a Christmas bazaar and at the bazaar they sell cookies by the pound. Before I retired, I would bake a few to send along, but my baking time was limited. Yesterday and today I've baked 12 dozen and plan to bake more in the next couple of days. The ones I baked yesterday and today can be frozen and thawed and they come out like they are fresh.

I was just going to propose something...anyone interested in sharing cookie recipes here? I'm going to share one I got from a Joanne Fluke book. Her protagonist Hannah Swensen runs a cookie shop in Minnesota and this was one of her recipes. I've been making it for years and it is a wonderful recipe. I've even just not put in the cinnamon and rolling the dough in the cinnamon and sugar mixture and added other things like different chips (milk, semi-sweet, and even white) and it is a great all around recipe. This original recipe is like Snickerdoodles if you are familiar with them.

Cinnamon Crips Cookies

Preheat oven to 325 F

2 cups melted butter (4 sticks)
2 cups brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 beaten eggs (large or jumbo)
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of cream of tartar
1 teaspoon of salt
4 1/2 cups of all purpose flour

Cream butter and sugars, add eggs. Set aside. Mix dry ingredients together and then slowly add to wet mixture. Add vanilla at last.

Dough ball rolling mixture: 1/2 cup of white sugar, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon

Roll dough into balls, then into mixture. Bake at 325 10-15 minutes. Cool on cookie sheet for 2 minutes and then on a wire rack.

This recipe, since I made the cookies about medium size made about 7 dozen. You can half this recipe easily if you don't need or want that many cookies. They freeze well after they are fully cooled.

Some Thoughts on American Housewife

November 21st, 2016 at 12:10 am

ABC has a show this season called American Housewife. Not sure if you have watched it, but each episode makes me like this character so much more. Basically, she is a slightly overweight normal gal who loves her family, but feels inadequate because most of the women in this fancy neighborhood are stick thin, exercise constantly, and are basically snobbish.

I think this program sort of mirrors society to a certain extent. Unless you, as a woman, are drop dead gorgeous, stick thin, and travel with the in crowd, you basically feel left out.

I've always been overweight. Well, I take that back, I was born underweight, but that didn't last long. Smile I've dieted and exercised and I have lost weight, gained it back, lost it, gained it back, and gotten frustrated. At one point in my life when I was a lot younger I ate one meal a day and exercised faithfully. I did lose quite a bit of weight, but I never was stick thin. Of course when I started eating regular meals again, I gained it all again.

Being an overweight woman isn't fun. When the program "What Not to Wear" was on, I always understood when the heavier gals would go shopping and burst into tears because they couldn't find things that fit or made them look decent. I have had that issue most of my life. Shopping in the plus section is often an insult because it is usually tucked into a basement or upstairs which just adds to the shame. Most of the stuff out there is just plain butt ugly. I'm overweight, I don't need even bigger patterns to accent that fact. So, I can either go for the potato sack fit which is no fit, or have stuff that is so darn tight I'm afraid to move so it doesn't rip out a seam. Most of the stuff in my closet has some age to it because I lucked into something and am keeping it, stylish and trendy or not.

A number of years ago a group of us from my district went to present at an educational conference. One of the women was short and stout and was an expert in her field. When the two ladies before her spoke briefly, they had the audience's attention. When my heavier friend spoke, people quit listening. They judged her not on the merit of her words, but how she looked. She wasn't sloppy or dirty. She was overweight and therefore most of the audience didn't give her the time of day. She had on nice clothes and her hair and make up were well done.

I struggle with my own self esteem, but I have decided I'm going to try and look at things differently. Perhaps if I walk in with a confident stride and pretend I'm decent looking, maybe I'll feel better about myself, even if others still judge me.

It would be so nice if we didn't judge people so much on how they look. The biggest share of my dearest friends are not model beautiful. Their beauty lies in their character. The folks who know me best kid me about what attracts me to a man. Muscles? Nah! Height? Nope. I've always had a weakness for guys in glasses. I think it is because I'm drawn to men of intelligence. DH says I don't suffer fools gladly so perhaps that is my prejudice.

So, as I watch the American Housewife, it makes me look at things a little differently. Have I become an education snob? I sure hope not. I hope I have not made someone uncomfortable because of how they speak or act or look. I am going to watch myself more closely. I don't like being discriminated against because of my weight so I needn't discriminate against someone because of something they do or say or are just because it is different from me.

Busy Hands

November 16th, 2016 at 08:52 pm

Life has been busy around here. DH and I have worked to get the house ready for fall and winter. DH is still trying to take it easy after his surgery so things take a little longer. But, we've gotten many of our summer items put away. I finished drying herbs and have them ready to use as I cook. The hose is emptied and put up and the rain barrel has been dismantled and put away as well.

Each year my church has a bazaar for Christmas. In the past I've donated what I could, but time constraints have limited me somewhat. This summer as I went to thrift stores and garage sales I had a few items in mind as I shopped. I wanted some table top trees. I also wanted some crochet thread. I found both at different places very reasonably. So, off and on this summer I crocheted ornaments for these trees. The beauty of these ornaments is they don't take a ton of thread so I could buy already started crochet thread and make a few ornaments and not have a lot of money involved. I finished three trees and took them to church so they are ready for the sale. I also found a candle wick Christmas stocking kit new in the package for 99 cents. Candle wicking is a form of embroidery. I worked on it this summer too, finished the embroidery part and then sewed the stocking together. It will also be donated. I forgot to iron it when I ironed some other things the other day.










A couple of months ago I joined a group at church called Stitches of Love. This group makes a variety of things, but a couple of things everyone works on at one time or another has to be these knitted hats that are made on a knitting loom. They taught me how to do this and I've made both hats for preemies and then hats to donate. We've donated to three schools so far. In one of the closets there are tubs of yarn that have been donated so we can use that if we want. I had some odds and ends of the yarn I've used to make these hats, both from the stuff I've purchased as well as the free stuff and I wondered what I could do with it without waiting to make one big projects. I discovered a pattern to make a cover for the Swiffer. So, I made one for myself out of the scraps and tried it and it works pretty well. So, I went through the tubs at church and found bits and pieces of yarn and have been working on making these covers to donate to the bazaar.

All these projects aren't major things, but they have kept my hands busy and hopefully will help out either the bazaar or the children we donate the hats for. As far as cost, other than buying the looms retail, everything else has been bought used at thrift stores and garage sales or gleaned from the yarn tubs at church. I don't know if I'm saving money, but it is pretty decent entertainment for little money.