From this:
to this:
in 21 short years.
Amazing, isn’t it?
This entry from two years ago still says it all.
I love you.
(Now behave* yourself tonight!!!!)
*When Danielle was little – three or so, I’m thinking – she would do or get into something she shouldn’t, and her father would say “Dani, behave!”
And she would say “I’m bein’ have!”
Then I would squish her to death.
This weekend went by so quickly, I hardly know what on earth I did. Let’s see… Friday morning I decided that I would try making some Peanut Butter S’mores Turnovers, because hello – graham cracker, chocolate, and peanut butter in a pastry dough, baked and then marshmallow fluff drizzled on top? How could that not be good??
Well. It kind of wasn’t great. I will happily send you the link to the recipe, but I don’t wan to link to it and then say it wasn’t all that, because I feel like it would be rude. There was too much peanut butter – it was overwhelming, actually. I couldn’t taste the chocolate, and the graham cracker kind of disintegrated. Fred tried one when he got home, and agreed with me.
Then he came up with an interesting idea in the turnover category, so Saturday morning I got up and unfolded puff pastry dough (you didn’t think I make my own, did you? CRAZY.), cut each sheet into 9 pieces, put a blop (that’s the scientific term – I didn’t measure it, I just used a spoon and put enough that it looked right) of Caramel-Apple Jam on each piece, then folded them over, sealed the edges, put them on a cookie sheet, brushed them with a beaten egg mixed with 1 T of water, sprinkled Turbinado sugar on top, and baked for 15 minutes at 400.
And they. Were. Fabulous.
My husband, I’ve gotta say, has an eye for making up recipes on the fly and having them come out pretty damn good.
The best thing about these turnovers (and they’re really more mini turnovers – they’re not like huge, full-sized turnovers) is that you can fill them with whatever sounds good to you – you don’t have to make an entire batch of Caramel-Apple Turnovers if you don’t want to. I actually used lemon curd in four of them (instead of the Caramel-Apple Jam, not in addition to) and they were pretty damn good.
(The Caramel-Apple Jam ones were better, though.)
I meant to make more Caramel-Apple Jam over the weekend, but between spending time with the Wonkas and bottle feeding and spending time with the Cookies, and then spending time with Terry and Sookie and doing three hundred loads of laundry in between all that, there wasn’t a whole lot of leftover time to be chopping up apples. Maybe I’ll get to that today. We’ll see.
Have I mentioned that having babies in the house makes for a lot of laundry? It doesn’t help that several of them are still pooping in their cage (the litter box is RIGHT THERE, damnit!) and then tromping through it. I clean them as best I can with baby wipes, but at a certain point you’ve got to give up and give them a bath. I don’t like to bathe them too often, because I don’t think it’s great for their skin and also it scares them and stresses them out, but when they’ve got poop smeared down their sides, I just can’t stand having them like that. So I use towels for that, I use blankets to line their cage (which have to be changed out when they’re pooped upon), and I use towels in my lap when I’m pottying them just in case something dribbles when I’m not paying attention. I’m doing one full load of towels, washcloths, and blankets every day. On bad days, I’m doing two loads.
Ah well. Could be worse, right?
Sunday I… don’t know. I did my own laundry (having babies tromp through their poo and then across my lap makes for a lot of my own laundry), I did more baby laundry, I…
Oh, I know. I didn’t get up ’til 5:30, because Fred has one of those automatic clocks that gets the correct time from space aliens or something, and the space aliens decided that since they’re turning clocks back for Europe, clearly the clock residing on Citizen Anderson’s bedside table needs to be turned back an hour, right? So Fred thought he was getting up at 4:30, but it was actually 5:30, and he didn’t realize it until he came to wake me up and saw the correct time on my clock.
(We’ve been getting up at 4:30 every morning to feed the Cookies. I hate the first five minutes after rolling out of bed at 4:30, but I like being up early and getting stuff done. I’ll still be glad when the Cookies are bigger and I can sleep a little later.)
Once the Cookies were fed and the kitchen was cleaned up, I gave the Wonkas their morning snack, then had Fred put hair color on my hair. I was originally going to grow my natural color out, because I was getting tired of coloring my hair, but after three months, when I could see just how much gray hair there was, I changed my mind. Fred has to help me out by putting the color on my hair, because if it were left to me, I’d probably only get about a third of the back of my hair covered.
I yelled at him a few times for getting color on my face (“I guess maybe you should have RICK do it!” he snarked, because I told him the other night that Rick had foil colored Nance’s hair, and marveled at that, because as I told Nance, I feel like I’m taking my life into my hands by just having Fred put color on my hair straight from the box with no fancy foiling involved), but all in all he did a pretty damn good job of it.
I’d like to say that I plan to get into a regular hair-coloring schedule from here on out, but I think we all know that that’ll happen right after Satan puts in his order for a Storm Chaser 3-in-1 Jacket (in Colonial Red, obviously).
Annnnd… what else did I do Sunday? Not a lot. Kittens, kittens, and more kittens.
It’s a rough life, but someone’s gotta live it!
If you didn’t check Love & Hisses over the weekend, you missed a good-news announcement, some great pictures, and an adorable movie on Saturday. And on Sunday, you missed ANOTHER adorable movie and some adorable pictures.
I love my Wonkas. When I walk into the foster kitten room and they are SO excited to see me that they stumble over each other in their rush to get to me, well, how can you not love that?
They like me to hold them (until they see something more interesting, of course, and then they’re off like a shot), and they like me to kiss them behind the ear (they purr super-loud when I do), and they like me to rub their bellies. Gus and Mike are so funny, because if I’m holding one of them like a baby and rubbing his belly, and then stop for a moment to pet another nearby kitten – OH do they get irate. Mike will complain in short bursts, and Gus will do a long, high-pitched meow. It cracks me up every time. The girls, on the other hand, if I’m holding Mike like a baby and Veruca feels the need for some belly-rubbin’ action, she doesn’t hesitate. She climbs up and flops across him and waits for her own belly rub. Same with Violet.
“MY toy.”
“MY toy!”
I love it when they sit with their front paws tucked under them.
Sweet Gus in the sun (with his toy!)
LOVE the whiskers.
Three of the four (Veruca was uninterested in posing.)
The thing about the Cookies is that they are so cute.
So cute.
SO cute.
And I love me a Siamese mix, but my lord.
This guy right here?
The one flopped across the stuffed Momma kitty?
“Who, ME?”
YES, you! Hydrox, you are the cutest, sweetest, most personable 4 week-old I have ever come across in my entire life! I don’t know if it’s the fact that you’re so laid-back that when you’ve eaten and gone potty, you go back into your cage and flop across the Momma kitty and go back to sleep. I don’t know if it’s the fact that you love yourself a good belly rub and know how to ask for one. I don’t know if it’s the fact that when you’re happy, you march and march and march. I don’t know if it’s the fact that you have the NEATEST feeling fur or that you’re clearly a litter box-using genius, or a fearless explorer, but Hydrox?
I am in LOVE with you.
I don’t even care that you CLEARLY prefer Fred. When he was done feeding kittens yesterday, and I was hanging out with your sisters and brother on my lap, and you FOLLOWED him to the door and then howled inconsolably at the closed door until he came back, I was all “What am I, chopped liver, you brat?!” But I was just glad that when he left again, and deposited you in my lap before he left, you deigned to stay and enjoy a belly rub before you deserted me for the stuffed Momma kitty.
Now, if I can just figure out a way to get you to teach all your siblings to use the litter box as well as you do!
In the meantime: a Hydrox movie!!!
Tomorrow, Terry and Sookie are off to the adoption center, where they’ll join Bill and Lafayette. Today, I’ll be devoting my time to snapping pictures of them, and giving them extra doses of L-U-V to carry them through until a person with good taste comes along and falls immediately in love with them.
Kara likes to hang out where it’s quiet. She has to rest up in case there’s some butt-kicking that needs to be done. It’s rough to be Sheriff Mama.
Previously
2008: No entry.
2007: I hope that the days come easy and the moments pass slow, And each road leads you where you want to go
2006: My little girl.
2005: The spud is 17 today!
2004: I hope you dance.
2003: No entry.
2002: “You want to buy STUFF faster than we get rid of it!” he accused shrilly.
2001: Well, the little bastard is home again.
2000: No entry.
1999: Boring work-related shit.