12/21/09 – Monday

I expect posting will be sporadic this week, what with the holiday coming up and all. Not that I have a whole lot to do, but hey, I’ll take the excuse to slack, thank you!

 

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I was a baking motherfucker this weekend.

Friday, I made (at Fred’s request) a batch of Sweet Potato-Pecan Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting. What I forgot about this particular recipe until I was halfway through making it is that it doesn’t just make a dozen cupcakes, like any reasonable recipe. What it makes is at LEAST 24 cupcakes, and probably more like 30 (but after I got to 24 muffin tins filled, I tossed the rest of the batter. There are two of us. Who the hell needs that many cupcakes in the house, especially since I don’t particularly care for the damn things?) Fred said that they were good, but they weren’t as good as he remembered (he remembered them being really REALLY good, apparently), and after he’d had his fill of them, he wrapped up the rest to take to his mother’s this morning*.

Saturday, I didn’t make a damn thing (we’ll cover Saturday later).

Sunday was my super bakin’ day. Once I rolled my ass out of bed (at SEVEN O’ CLOCK! But only because Veruca and Violet are prone to waking me at 1:30 am by rubbing their cold, wet noses on my face. I suppose WHEN YOU NEED PETTIN’, YOU NEED PETTIN’ NOW DAMNIT), I did my usual morning stuff, ran to Publix for a few things, and then got started on everything I wanted to get baked.

I started a batch of Chocolate Mint Cookies (a recipe I stumbled across last week and decided I needed to try), and then when the dough was sitting in the fridge, I whipped up a Honeybun Cake. The Honeybun Cake was a trial run – we’re supposed to bring something sweet to breakfast at Fred’s sister’s house on Christmas morning, and I had considered trying Pioneer Woman’s Cinnamon Rolls, but they look like a huge pain in the ass, to be honest, so I thought I’d give the Honeybun Cake a try.

In short, I don’t really care for the Honeybun Cake. Fred said it was okay, but you only get Christmas breakfast once a year and I don’t want to bring something that’s “okay.” I also don’t want to make the super-fabulous Easy Sticky Buns, because they’re best when they’re warm.

Any suggestions? I’m listening!

The Honeybun Cake came out of the oven at the perfect time, so I could start messing with the Chocolate Mint Cookies and getting them ready for the oven. By the time I scooped out 40 cookies’ worth of dough, I realized that the recipe makes a LOT of cookies. And I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to have enough mints for all the cookies I was going to end up with (you melt a chocolate Andes mint on top of the cookie while it’s still warm). I ended up making 80 cookies, and only had enough mints for about 55 cookies.

Fred and I discussed it, and he thought maybe we should use the extra mint-less cookies to make peanut butter sandwiches. In the end, once the cookies were cool, I talked him into making the chocolate frosting, and he did an excellent job of it. I had to taste-test one of the chocolate-peanut butter sandwiches, and it was really damn good.

The Chocolate Mint Cookies are pretty good, too – they remind me a lot of Thin Mints.

Chocolate Mint Cookies and Chocolate PB Cookies recipe here.

I took a break from baking to make Sunday dinner (spaghetti, salad, garlic bread, YUM), then puttered around the house for a few hours.

Then I made a batch of Cooking Light Chocolate Chip Cookies, only instead of chocolate chips, I used the red and green M&Ms, just to be different.

Cooking Light Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe, here. (I don’t know how “light” they are, given that there’s a stick of butter and ten tons of sugar in them, but they are the BEST chocolate chip cookies ever, light or not!)

And almost all of those cookies are going in the mail tomorrow, so they won’t be sitting around here suggesting that I have cookies for breakfast, lunch and dinner! Stupid tempting cookies.

*Fred’s dropping off not only leftover cupcakes at his mother’s, but also a bag of various pork products and a turkey. Oh, and a jar of Splenda Strawberry-Habanero jam for his stepfather. Every time we have pigs, his mother saves their food garbage for our pigs. I swear, the woman must give us 50 pounds of food for the pigs. Only fair to pay her back in pork, right? But every time Fred gives her some meat, she tries to give him money for it, which is very sweet, but they’re on a fixed income and for god’s sake WE’RE NOT TAKING MONEY FROM THEM FOR THE PORK THEY CONTRIBUTED TO. She still tries, though, bless her heart.

 

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Saturday, I got up and emptied and scrubbed out the litter boxes and refilled them with clean litter. I swear to you, I had no sooner gotten the last litter box scrubbed and refilled, and there were kittens in every single litter box, stinking up the joint.

Stupid poopin’ kittens.

Did you know I currently have TEN litter boxes in my house right now? Three in the laundry room, three in the Cookies’ room, one in the upstairs bathroom, and two in the foster kitten room.

Huh.

Did you know I currently have NINE litter boxes in my house right now?

I scoop them all once in the morning and once at night, but I’m thinking that I need to go to scooping in the middle of the day, too, at least as long as I have 20 cats in residence. These cats can FILL UP those damn litter boxes in no time flat.

Anyway.

I got the litter boxes scrubbed and started a load of laundry, and then Fred and I started talking about how we both kind of wanted to get out of the house, but didn’t know where the hell we wanted to go. I would have liked to make a run to Petsmart, but asking Fred to go into a store on a weekend day that ISN’T the weekend before Christmas is hard enough. There was no way I was going to get him anywhere near any damn stores.

We finally ended up going to the Limestone Flea Market. There’s always lots of junk on display there, and we invariably end up finding books to buy, and sometimes a movie or two. This is why the Kindle will never completely replace real live books: you can’t go to the flea market and buy a Kindle book for $1.50.

(Well. Not YET, anyway.)

At the last section of the flea market, there was a vendor who had t-shirts and sweatshirts hanging up. I can always use another oversized hooded sweatshirt, so I picked out a gray one and a blue one (they were $8 each, or $15 for two), and Fred came over to mock me for picking out such “bland” colors.

“I can’t get dark colors because it shows the cat hair, and I can’t wear white because I’m apt to spill shit down the front of me!” I protested.

“You always wear gray!” he said. “Gray sweatshirts, gray pants!”

People. I have been wearing jeans EVERY DAY for at least the last year. I have worn the gray pants perhaps twice in that time. My husband, Mr. Observant.

In the end I gave in and got a purple sweatshirt and a pink one. It remains to be seen just how much I’ll be wearing them. I’m wearing the pink one today, and it’s awfully cozy and warm. Hopefully it doesn’t fall apart the first time I wash it.

The vendor came over and asked if we needed help, and Fred told him that we wanted the two hooded sweatshirts, but that we wanted to look at the books too, before we paid.

“I’ll put these in a bag for you,” said the vendor.

“Oh, we have a bag,” Fred and I chorused. Fred held up the bag that we’d put our earlier purchases (books) in.

“Well, I have a bigger bag,” the vendor countered.

“We have more bags if we need them,” I said.

“She’s – she doesn’t like to bring home plastic bags,” Fred said by way of explanation. The guy shrugged and turned away to put the sweatshirts on a nearby table.

We looked at the books, each picked out a few, and went back to pay. The guy took the books, looked them over, and before we knew what was happening, stuffed them into a plastic bag.

“We have a bag,” Fred and I chorused.

“Okay!” the guy said with a smile, and put the plastic bag of books into our bag.

SIGH.

I suppose I could have dug the plastic bag out of our bag and given it back to him, but I didn’t. I just let it go. Fred and I grinned and shook our heads at each other, paid for the books and sweatshirts, and left.

On a side note, I carry in my purse at least five reusable bags at all times – four Baggu bags (for the love of god, don’t pay full price for them – wait ’til they go on sale, or look for them at eBay) and a small Dollar General bag the manager of the dollar store across the street gave me (all the regular dollar store employees know that Fred and I never want them to put anything in plastic bags). When I get groceries, I carry several of my beloved Hannaford bags in with me. I do my very best to make it so that I never have to bring any plastic bags into my house. Like I’ve recently told several people in the past few months, every time I accept a plastic bag at a store, I swear I can feel the entire planet gasping for air, and I feel guilty.

I think 2010 is going to be the year I get super-vigilant about not accepting plastic bags.

ANYWAY.

We left there, and headed toward home. On highway 72, there’s this little thrift store that popped up in the last few months – the Hard Times Thrift store, I think it’s called. I always glance over at it as I drive by, and think about stopping. Fred apparently does the same.

On Saturday, we stopped. The guy who (I assume) owns and runs the place was working, and greeted us. He said that he was wiring the building, and so things were a mess because he needed to move them out of the way. Things were, indeed, a mess. The building was cool, though, and we took our time looking around the front room before we moved toward the back of the building.

“This is very much like the beginning of a horror movie,” I murmured to Fred. Things were piled every which way, and it was dark and deserted, and if someone in a mask had rushed out and grabbed me by the throat, I don’t know that I would have been so very surprised.

In the end, we bought a couple more books, thanked the guy, and left. I’d like to maybe go back in the Spring, when it’s not so cold (it was VERY cold in that building) and when hopefully the guy has things arranged a little better and poke around again.

 

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Our boy Keebler has NO fear. He’ll flop down next to any cat, anywhere. Actually, now that I think about it, he may have a thing for torties. He’s always flopping down next to Miz Poo (no matter how much she hisses and growls at him), and he can often be found next to Violet or Veruca.

I’m sorry, HOW CUTE is Miss Orange over there in the back, all flirty and adorable?

Violet and Mike, snuggled up against the cold weather.

Hydrox just cracks me up more and more every day. He’s such a character!

I’m starting to think that maybe the floof is in the Kudzu family and we’ll wake up one morning to find it wrapped around the entire house.

“Hellewwwwwwwww, laydeez!”

Good lord, does it kill me when they groom each other. Kills me DEAD.

 

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If you were wondering, that is not so much a look o’ love Stinkerbelle‘s got on her face.

 

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Previously
2008: No entry.
2007: Kismet! Match made in heaven! Fate!
2006: I said to Fred, “I know you think we have too many cats, but -”
2005: I imagine that when all three of our phones are in the same vicinity, we’ll get them confused and hijinx will ensue.
2004: Reader questions, answered.
2003: “Um, no,” I told Fred when he asked. “And not only no, but HELL no, and I’ll be out of the house whenever they come to interview you and tape you exercising and all that goofy-ass shit.”
2002: No entry.
2001: I guess he defines “tension” as “getting drunk and pawing every female in sight.”
2000: I practically woke up screaming, I tell you.
1999: Suddenly, it occurs to me that nestled next to my underwear is not the best place to put a bag of very potent catnip.