12-23-08

Edited to add:

In honor of Festivus (for the rest of us), go air your grievances in MaryBeth’s comments. If she hits 2,000 unique hits and/ or 150 comments by midnight Christmas night, she’ll recreate the George Costanza chaise lounge portrait. Personally, I’d like to see that! Go, read, comment!

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So, I made another batch of Sundry’s Chocolate Chip Cookies yesterday to see if I would end up with the same puffy, cakey cookies as the ones I made the other day.

I used frozen and thawed eggs again, I measured the flour exactly as required, and I got the same puffy cookies. Since Fred likes the cookies this way so much, I’m glad to know that I can duplicate the recipe.

The other day when I made the first batch, Fred got one cookie that had no chocolate chips in it at all, and he said it was particularly good. Then he put a smear of peanut butter on one of the chocolate chip cookies and said that was particularly good, too. So yesterday I made the cookie dough right up to the point where you add the chocolate chips, then I took out half the dough and added a cup of chocolate chips to the dough that was left in the mixing bowl. I made the cookies out of that dough, then took the other half of the dough, added half a cup of peanut butter to it, and made cookies out of it. I thought that adding peanut butter to the dough would make the cookies flatter, but as it turned out, they were puffy and cakey too.

Y’all had some good suggestions on why the cookies might have been puffier than Sundry’s (never occurred to me that the elevation could have something to do with it!), and I don’t know if the reason is the elevation or the beating ’til fluffy I did with the butter and sugar or because I used exact measurements of the flour or because of the frozen-and-thawed eggs, but whatever the reason, I’m just glad to know that I can make them the same way next time!

We had so many cookies that I sent a bunch to Fred’s mother. Hopefully she likes them as much as her son does!

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I realized yesterday that in my entry from 2003, I talked about a movie with Tubby and Mister Boogers (or “The Bean”, as I was calling him back then), but back then either YouTube didn’t exist or it was in the beginning stages of existing, so I was self-hosting the movie and it was no longer available.

I went and found the movie and uploaded it to YouTube, so check out Mister Boogers and our dear departed Tubby. Mister Boogers was so LITTLE!

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I cleaned the HELL out of the house yesterday, which was an all-day affair, and I can still think of about a thousand things that need to be done, but at some point you’ve gotta give up and call it good enough, right?

Right.

The last thing I did, cleaning-wise, was use some of that orange oil furniture polish on the stairs. I’ve never used that stuff on floors or stairs and I wanted to see how it would work. Turned out, it works pretty well. The stairs were pretty and shiny yesterday (if maybe a tiny bit slippery), and still pretty and shiny this morning.

It’s nice to have a clean house. I should probably try it more often!

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Night number two of having the kittens out and about all night long went pretty well. I need to put up the plastic ring with the ball inside it before bed apparently, though, since Tommy woke me up again at 10:30, smacking at it and smacking at it and smacking at it.

I woke up at 2:30 and couldn’t move, I was pinned down by so many cats. Miz Poo took her usual place by my side, and I had Marion and Claudette on either side of me, Delmar flopped across my legs, and Lem was somewhere down by my feet and helpfully jumped on my feet anytime I moved them.

This morning I went out to let the chickens out of the coop, and when I walked back to the house, I could see Delmar, Lem and Marion sitting on a table in the living room window, watching the birds. When I walked toward the window they all freaked out and ran off, but I wish I’d had my camera outside with me – that would have been an adorable picture.

More pics over at Love & Hisses.

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Is it just me, or does Spanky look like he’s trying to sneak up on his reflection?

Still, they’re cousins!
Identical cousins and you’ll find!
They laugh alike, they walk alike,
At times they even talk alike —
You can lose your mind!
When cousins are TWO OF A KINNNNNNNNNNNNNND!!!

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Previously
2007: The eyes of a lover, the heart of a monster the world has never seen before.
2006: No entry.
2005: I have the best readers EVAH!
2004: Gotta love that Jack Bauer.
2003: When it’s such a noteworthy event that my child stops and stares in wonder, it’s possible I’m just not cleaning often enough, ya think?
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: No entry.
1999: That’s my girl!