Thursday, February 2, 2012

Scraping Cookies off the Bottom of the Oven...

Yes, seriously.
Let me start by saying that lately, my 17 year old daughter has decided she wants to learn to cook. Naturally this tickled me to death because this is sorta "my thing". She's been trying some recipes and blessing my socks off because I get to teach her the things that I have learned.
So she found this recipe for a "cookie cake" she wants to make. Today I had two babies, and she decided that today was the day. I watched the babies- kept them out of the kitchen- and let her just go at it. She asked me what to bake it on- I'm thinking "cookie- stoneware". Definitely. I told her to bake it on my round flat stone because ideally it should be round I guess. I thought nothing in the world about it. A few minutes later I go into the kitchen and there is smoke coming out of the oven, cookie batter pouring out of the bottom of the oven. At this point I have no idea what I'm about to find. I open carefully and there sits my beautiful round stone covered in cookie dough, as is the ENTIRE BOTTOM OF THE OVEN!!! O. EM. GEE!!! I had no clue what had happened. I could only guess that the batter was somehow not quite thick enough and it boiled over before it had a chance to set.
We aired the smoke out of the house, let everything cool off, then I went and scraped hard crispy cookie off the bottom of the oven, the floor, and the inside of the oven door. Stuck the shop vac in there and sucked all of that cookie up in 60 seconds. Not hard to clean up, thankfully.
So she's determined she's making this cookie tonight. A little before ten, she goes back to the kitchen. I'd been on the phone- business of course- so she got started. After I hung up, she asked if we had more flour. (?!?!?!?!) ok we just bought a bag of flour and I told her this. She told me she had maybe a cup left. I asked her how much the recipe called for. I don't remember what she said because I decided I needed to get up and go in there. There on the counter sat a small silver canister. With maybe a cup.. Of a soft powdery white substance... Known to the world as POWDERED SUGAR!!! Well after I stopped laughing uncontrollably, I understood completely why the other cookie just poured all over the oven. Ha!! I showed her where the FLOUR is kept, she made the cookie, and it was quite delicious. I have to say - I give her 5 stars.
Btw- after she reads this tomorrow, you will all be invited to my funeral!! Night!! :)

Monday, January 30, 2012

Why Doesn't Mine Look Like the One in the Picture??

Ok. I'm a Pinterest Junkie. Ask anyone. If I'm not up to a thousand pins yet, I'm dang close to it. I love the crafts, the homemade detergents, the mason jars, the decorating, sooo many things!! But the one thing, I have to say that I like the best is.... The RECIPES!!! And if you know me even a little bit, you already knew that without me having to tell you. All of my Christmas recipes canes from Pinterest. Since then, I have made several things from Pinterest, and still plan on making every single recipe I have pinned.
So over the weekend I found a recipe for this divine looking cinnamon roll cake. I freaking LOVE cinnamon rolls!!! I could eat cinnamon rolls all the time. The cinnamon- the icing- oh my!! The ingredients are just basic. I have them on hand so I made it. I got my beautiful stand mixer down and I mixed that bad boy up. I worked meticulously to follow the directions carefully because as excited as I was, I was bound to leave something out.
Baking is my favorite thing ever. But I've noticed the last few things I've baked from scratch have not exactly risen correctly. Several factors could have contributed to this. First thing I did was blame the flour. I threw out all the flour and bought all new flour. The next time, I blamed the MS humidity. Humidity takes the blame for a lot of things around here. (Mostly cooking and hair. )
This time I didn't have humidity problems. I popped open a new bag of flour. Yet still, the timer went off, I opened the oven, and where the cake part was supposed to rise up all around the cinnamon part and make this wonderful flaky caky rolly goodness, I had a flat dry piece of something resembling a cake, with some yummy crunchy cinnamon goodness on top. Nevertheless, I drizzled on my icing and we ate it. I was still not happy. I had to figure out why the CRAP my cakes would not rise!!! (oh- I did take pictures, and I am trying to figure out how to send them from my iPhone)
So I checked my ingredients again. Everything was fine. Except. The baking powder. Turns out, this stuff expires. And I had three cans of it. The one that I happened to be using- yea. It expired in 2002. Yep. 2002. I'm hoping the only thing that I get out of that is a flat cake. Surely I can't get botulism or salmonella from baking powder. You think?
So needless to say, I threw out ALL the baking powder in the house, and hubby bought me more today. So I am good to go until December of 2013.
And yes, I have posted pictures of what this cake is SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE, and then, WHAT MINE LOOKED LIKE!!! GAH!!!

Friday, December 23, 2011

Oh so annoying INSOMNIA

I. Can't. Sleep. Yes, I tend to have a problem with this quite frequently. But tonight the reason for this insomnia is not that I'm not sleepy. And I have to talk this out in an attempt to get over it. So here goes.
Last night I had the weirdest dream. I'm notorious for my odd dreams. You tell me about your strangest dream, I can probably top it. I'm not usually disturbed by this. I can't control what I dream. I don't believe that dreams have some deep dark secret meaning like dreaming a purple elephant means you're gonna die or something. (I don't know if this is what dreaming about a purple elephant is supposed to mean. just an example, ok?) I have looked up stuff that I've dreamed, just for kicks. I don't believe in that. I just don't. I don't read too much into the things in my head when I sleep- the good Lord knows there's enough going on up there to dwell on while I'm awake.
This one is bothering me though. Not that I think it means anything. But what on earth would possess me to dream what I dreamed? I'm not going to share it because it's too creepy. But the subject matter of the dream. Not something I think about. The people it involved. The images that I haven't thought about until I tried to close my eyes and sleep. When I close my eyes, I see these images and I don't want to sleep because I don't want to dream this again. The faces. The pain. The things I hope I never have to see in real life. But the faces. Two children. I've never seen them before. So how do random faces just populate in my dreams? And I feel guilty because I'm thanking God that this wasn't real and I don't have to deal with this. And I'm feeling guilty because I'm praying I never ever have to see in real life the things that I saw in my dream because even though this was a dream- a nightmare- to me, to some, this is real life. And I feel so guilty because I just want to shut it out of my head and not close my eyes so I won't be tortured by the things that I dreamed.
So here I am now at almost 3am. I can take a sleeping pill and eventually doze off with a book or in front of the tv but I'll sleep all day tomorrow. Being December 23rd, it is not a good day to sleep all day.
I know eventually the images will fade, and I may remember the dream but it will not be so fresh. But meanwhile, what am I supposed to do with this?

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Real Friends

First of all I have to say that I am blessed to have many people in my life that I consider "friends". If I were truly in need of food, a tank of gas, or in a life or death situation, I have an address book and a church, and even a bunch of folks on Facebook that I know I could call right up. If you are one of those folks, I say thank you, and I love you for this. (If not, then um, why the heck not? I'm a good person!! And I'd do it for YOU!!)
I have fewer friends that I hang out with on a regular basis, and by regular I mean- I shoot them a message on Facebook and say "yo what's up? We have GOT to get together and catch up!!", and then feel like we have accomplished something great when it happens! Yea, you know what I'm talkin about! I have even fewer that know my deepest darkest secrets.
That's normal I am certain.
Tonight however, I am reminded of a type of friend that is different than all of this. This is the friend that you call when you are at your very lowest. (or text, because I am famous for this. I am convinced the text message is the greatest invention known to man!)
This friend does not agree with you that your life sucks. She doesn't say "how could they do that to you?" She does not say "well let me tell you how bad my life sucks". She doesn't make you feel hopeless. She doesn't tell you to take a pill or have a drink and go to bed. She makes you feel better. She tries to make you see the good in every situation.
This happened to me tonight. I texted my friend. I said "ya know what, I just don't know how much lower I can get. I'm going to bed for a while. I'll call you later." (in a nutshell) she simply replied "I love u". I told her I loved her too and to please pray for me. She said she was praying right now. That's not what I "wanted". I wanted her to call me and listen to me whine and say "oh poor Tammy". If she had done that, I'd be laying in my bed, in the dark crying my eyes out right now. Instead I'm laying across the bed typing this blog from my iPhone. Do ya see where I'm going here?
I heard a song a few weeks ago by Sugarland called "Shine the Light". It moved me to tears for an entirely different reason. Right now it's stuck in my head because that's what Kristi has done for me. She shined the light for me. And she does so over and over. She never fails. I want you to go listen to this song. Kristi I want YOU to go listen to this song. You are this person. You made me feel so much better today and you probably have no idea you even did anything.
As for me, I have a lot of work to do. I have a tendency to be the "oh bless your heart, poor you" kind of friend. Starting right now- Monday, November 1, 2011 at 7:02 PM, I am gonna change. I am going to be the Shine the Light friend. I'm going to fail miserably. I'm going to slip up and throw someone a huge pity party. If I do that to you, them you need to beat me up. But I am going to strive for excellence. When you guys come to me whining, I am going to help you see the light- the bright side. I am challenging myself personally and I am challenging you. Will you join me?
Kristi- thank you. I love you more!

Monday, July 11, 2011

I'm still around...

It's not that I haven't wanted to blog. I have thought of several things I wanted to write about. I really dislike writing from my iPhone. My laptop is out of commission right now, and the PC is in the back of the house. I don't know why, but I absolutely hate going back there "just" to get on the computer. It's just not worth it. I'm at my sisters house this morning watching some of her kids, so I jacked her laptop for a few minutes to catch up on the world.
Have you checked out Google+? I have to admit, I'm kind of intrigued. I think Google will probably end up owning the entire internet eventually, so I resisted. Also, with the absolute disaster that was Google Wave, I didn't think much of this. But I got an invite so I checked it out. I'm still figuring things out, and of course an app for the iPhone is going to be a "must", but I kinda like it. Not sure what exactly I like about it yet- maybe it's merely the newness. (Is that a word??)
Here's one cool thing- When you add someone, you add them to a circle. You can add them to one circle, or several. When you go to post something, you can choose which circles you want to post this to. Now I know that the mighty Facebook allows you to do this or something similar, but something about the way it's done with Google seems so much smoother to me.
Of course Google released this slowly but surely. I had not even heard of this until last week- imagine that!! So it has been invitation only. I'm not real positive about this- but I signed in to another Gmail account I have this morning and it automatically prompted me to join G+. So maybe they have opened it up today to everyone? Again, I'm not positive, but try it. I'm curious to know what you guys think of the new Google revolution!! If you can't get on, email me and I will send you an invitation- because I'm cool like that!!
As far as my lack of blogging recently- you can expect a lot more coming up. I have officially decided to make a HUGE change in my life, which I will blog about later today. And I am sure I am going to have many thoughts about this.
Love to all in blogger-land!!

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

My Babies...

I keep kids at home. I love kids. Providing quality childcare and early education is something I am passionate about. My favorite job ever was in AR. I was teaching Pre-K. I was young and had no education but I threw myself into learning everything I could learn and the kids who left my class and went to kindergarten were the best. We didn't use a curriculum. We wrote our own. Looking back, remembering that I didnt even have Internet, I have no idea how I learned everything I did. I did this for a while in Meridian but was never given the opportunities I was given back then, and therefore just wasn't as happy. I worked other jobs, made good money but it all came back to this.
It took several months to build my business up. I was very discouraged. Now I am overflowing thanks to God and a little thing called word of mouth. God really blesses you when you are patient.
I have just done the absolute most heartwrenching thing I have ever done. I have a 4 year old. My favorite age to teach. She's a sponge. I could have this child reading and writing like a pro before she goes to kindergarten in the fall of 2012. Yes. I would place money on that. But she's the only 4 year old I'll have left. The other 4 year old that I get part time will be going to kindergarten this fall. Knowing how important interaction with children her age is, and knowing that the parents have already talked about putting her in pre-k in the fall, I have recommended a preschool and a teacher. My heart is broken. What's even worse is that I also keep her baby brother. I just feel that for convenience they will want them both at the same place. So I'm going to lose him too. I hope and pray I do not. Funny how quickly you get attached to these little ones.

Monday, June 20, 2011

Colossians 3:23

I was in a job that I hated. Ironically it was in childcare- the job that is and always has been my passion. More about this passion in another blog.
This job- it was horrible. I needed the money, or so I thought, or I would have left the job in a heartbeat. I just had all of these dreams and ideas and I couldn't use any of them. I felt my creativity was being squashed in a playground filled with dirt- and ONLY dirt. I loved my babies so very much. I wanted to love them and teach them. My parents trusted me to do these things and I worked hard not to let them down.
I found myself getting bogged down with stupid petty office things. "You're supposed to be wearing green scrubs today and not purple"; "ok this kid told you to kiss his ass. Punish him by making him sit in your lap." seriously? Take him out of the big never-ending desert behind the daycare and give him special treatment by letting him sit in my lap? I really hate to see what he comes up with next!!
Anyway. I was frustrated. Beyond belief. Ready to walk in the next day and tell someone off and it was not going to be pretty. Yes I was a Christian then too. But a person can only take so much. Right Lord? Are You on my side here God? I am so obviously being mistreated here!!
Okay so I get home and get out of my car, ready to go in and tell the hubs that It is over. I quit. I look in my yard and there is some paper in the yard. Bright pink paper- almost fluorescent. I grumble as I walk over to pick it up. I pick it up and head to the garbage can but I feel a slight nudging to see what it is. It is a brochure from the church down the street. The youth group is having a get together. I don't have youth at this time so I don't plan on reading much further but one little word catches my eye. Work. Ok a big word at this time in my life. So then I had to look. Here's what it said:
Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men. Colossians 3:23
I had to read this several times to let this sink in. Was this really in the Bible? Seriously? Was this some kind of joke? I'll admit, I had been very vocal about my frustration. I go in the house and grab my Bible. There is was. It was in the Bible. I kept reading. This is the day I realized that no matter what situation you are facing, the Word of God has you covered.
This verse helped me stay at this job another year. I did move on but only after I knew it was time and not in frustration.
Since then, this verse has gotten me through many a rough day. At work and home. Just because it says work heartily doesn't mean it's only talking about your job. We work as much at home these days as we do at work!
No matter what you are doing, do it as if you are working for the Lord. Not that gripey boss. (unless your boss happens to literally be the Lord, in which case you really shouldn't be calling Him gripey...)
If you go up to verse 22, God specifically commands slaves to obey their earthly masters. In this day, this no doubt is referring to an employee/employer relationship. So there we have a command to obey our bosses and then a command to do this as to the Lord- so, with the right attitude.
We must do these things to set a good example. As we know, we are being watched by non-believers who are waiting for us to stumble. BUT- when we start facing our day with the attitude that we are working for the Lord, our days will look much better.
I leave you tonight with a challenge. Write this verse on an index card. Several index cards. Put them up at work. On your fridge. Wherever you think you might need them. Recite this verse over and over throughout the day and strive to live it. Do this for ten days and see if your days don't get better. Then leave me a comment below and let me know. I can't wait to hear about it!!
Love and hugs!!
Tammy

Sent from my iPhone