What I Love Today is getting a new home and a fresh start!
When I started this blog I’ll admit I was a blog newbie. I had no idea where I wanted this blog to go or what I wanted to portray, just that I wanted to write. I spent zero time creating the blog, just clicked and posted. Thus the domain name that has nothing to do with the blog and is, let’s face it, boring… the hodgepodge header, no pictures, and no clear theme… the lack of ornamentals, pages, about me, etc...
I could keep going but I’ll spare you the redundancy.
Back to the good news. New page, new name, new blog! This blog is organized and oh so pretty. I’ve spent some time putting this little gem together so there’s no bearing with the new-blog-in-progressness. Yes, I just said progressness.
Read me! Follow me! Love me!
(Maybe I didn’t get enough attention as a child…)
Unladylike Behavior
unladylikebehavior.com
The Final Moral of the Story: Today I love new beginning.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Key Lime Pie
Spoiler Alert: There’s a delicious recipe for chocolate chip cookies at the end of this post. But, wait, this post is titled ‘Key Lime Pie’. Why is there a recipe for chocolate chip cookies? You’ll just have to read on to find out what the two have in common…
When I was in junior high my grandma passed away and my grandpa decided to move closer to his family. He moved into a 55 and older community in our town. Next door to him lived a spitfire of a woman who, despite her old age, could often be found on her roof cleaning her gutters or doing some other physical activity. She and my grandpa quickly became friends. My grandpa, ever proud of his Lincoln, would take her on shopping trips with him. They would cruise down Interstate 80, then on the way back pull over and take a nap – right there in my grandpa’s Lincoln alongside the freeway.
Despite having his neighbor’s companionship my grandpa discovered that, as a retired, single man with lots of time on his hands, he was lonely. He took up baking. He began by baking for my family. This quickly spread to baking for his neighbor, then her neighbor, and so on. In a town where my grandpa knew no one he found that nothing breaks the ice better than a freshly baked pie. His specialty was key lime pie and be began to take these pies everywhere he went – the doctor’s office, church, the bank… I’ll never forget walking into the grocery store one day and seeing my grandpa chatting away with the employees of the produce department while distributing his famous key lime pies.
Today, in honor of my grandpa, I’m posting one of his recipes. While he’s known for his key lime pie, I’m posting his recipe for chocolate chip cookies. These are my favorite cookies, and not just because they remind me of him. They’re delicious… enjoy!
Arnold’s Chocolate Chip Cookies
The trick to these cookies is to make them really, really big. That’s how my grandpa used to make them, so that’s how I make them.
2 Cups of Flour
1 Cup of Sugar
1 Cup of Light Brown Sugar
2 ½ Cups Blended Oatmeal (measure oatmeal before blending)
1 Cup of Butter (2 sticks)
2 Eggs
12 Oz. of Guittard Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips*
1 Cup Chopped Walnuts (optional)
2 Tsp. Vanilla
1 Tsp. Baking Powder
1 tsp. Baking Soda
1/2 Tsp. Salt
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
Sift the oatmeal, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl.
In a separate bowl, cream the butter, sugar, and brown sugar.
Add the eggs and vanilla to the creamed butter.
Mix together with the sifted dry ingredients.
Slowly stir in the chocolate chips and walnuts, if using.
Roll the dough into balls and place two inches apart on a cookie sheet. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown on top.
*Note: I always use the Guittard semi-sweet chocolate chips because I like their large size.
The Moral of the Story: Today I love something that I learned from my grandpa: Everyone loves a fresh pie!
When I was in junior high my grandma passed away and my grandpa decided to move closer to his family. He moved into a 55 and older community in our town. Next door to him lived a spitfire of a woman who, despite her old age, could often be found on her roof cleaning her gutters or doing some other physical activity. She and my grandpa quickly became friends. My grandpa, ever proud of his Lincoln, would take her on shopping trips with him. They would cruise down Interstate 80, then on the way back pull over and take a nap – right there in my grandpa’s Lincoln alongside the freeway.
Despite having his neighbor’s companionship my grandpa discovered that, as a retired, single man with lots of time on his hands, he was lonely. He took up baking. He began by baking for my family. This quickly spread to baking for his neighbor, then her neighbor, and so on. In a town where my grandpa knew no one he found that nothing breaks the ice better than a freshly baked pie. His specialty was key lime pie and be began to take these pies everywhere he went – the doctor’s office, church, the bank… I’ll never forget walking into the grocery store one day and seeing my grandpa chatting away with the employees of the produce department while distributing his famous key lime pies.
Today, in honor of my grandpa, I’m posting one of his recipes. While he’s known for his key lime pie, I’m posting his recipe for chocolate chip cookies. These are my favorite cookies, and not just because they remind me of him. They’re delicious… enjoy!
Arnold’s Chocolate Chip Cookies
The trick to these cookies is to make them really, really big. That’s how my grandpa used to make them, so that’s how I make them.
2 Cups of Flour
1 Cup of Sugar
1 Cup of Light Brown Sugar
2 ½ Cups Blended Oatmeal (measure oatmeal before blending)
1 Cup of Butter (2 sticks)
2 Eggs
12 Oz. of Guittard Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips*
1 Cup Chopped Walnuts (optional)
2 Tsp. Vanilla
1 Tsp. Baking Powder
1 tsp. Baking Soda
1/2 Tsp. Salt
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
Sift the oatmeal, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl.
In a separate bowl, cream the butter, sugar, and brown sugar.
Add the eggs and vanilla to the creamed butter.
Mix together with the sifted dry ingredients.
Slowly stir in the chocolate chips and walnuts, if using.
Roll the dough into balls and place two inches apart on a cookie sheet. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown on top.
*Note: I always use the Guittard semi-sweet chocolate chips because I like their large size.
The Moral of the Story: Today I love something that I learned from my grandpa: Everyone loves a fresh pie!
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Mouseketeers and Molly Ringwald
The Best Friend is looking pretty hot these days. Don’t get me wrong, she’s always been gorgeous, she just has a little extra ‘va’ to her ‘voom’ lately. Now that we have a couple hours distance between us we don’t see each other as often. We have to keep up via facebook and the like. I’ve noticed a trend with the pictures she’s posted as of late – her hair keeps getting shorter and she keeps getting prettier. It made me wonder – very briefly – if that theory would work on me.
I’m impressed that The Best Friend had the guts to chop her hair again. I remember when she first experimented with cutting her hair short. We were in the days of The Mickey Mouse Club churning out pop stars. The Best Friend, whose curly hair beats mine any day, excited told me one day that she was going to go to the salon. Her mom had booked her a hair appointment the following day and she would be returning with long, golden locks ala Christina Aguilera. She did, indeed, return with the hair of a Mousketeer. Unfortunately, her short, curly hair with bleach-blond highlights was more along the lines of Justin Timberlake than Christina Aguilera. I can’t help but giggle at the memory, though I, too, have had my fair share of wearing the hair of a pre-pubescent boy.
The first time I cut my hair short I was in junior high and on my way to an ice skating party. I brought a friend with my and swore her to secrecy – I wanted to show up to the party with a chic new haircut, surprising everyone. My mother, who at the time still rocked an 80’s perm, took me to her hair dresser. I should have known that this wouldn’t be good, but childhood innocence left me in the dark. It didn’t dawn on me that I perhaps should have picked a different hairdresser until I was perusing the books in the waiting room… one 80’s cut after the other. I attempted to explain to the hairdresser what I wanted, but, being as young as I was, I didn’t realize that she needed more than ‘cute’ and ‘short’ to get a better picture. I walked out of that place with my curly hair chopped short and angular, then teased to a volume I’ve never seen before – a volume only Molly Ringwald could appreciate. My friend attempted to stifle giggles while I attempted to hold back tears. I spent that ice skating party tugging a hat as tightly over my ears as possible, though I swear my hair was teased and sprayed to the point that the hat stood three inches above my scalp.
The Moral of the Story: Today I Love Mouseketeers and Molly Ringwald. I just don’t want to look like either.
I’m impressed that The Best Friend had the guts to chop her hair again. I remember when she first experimented with cutting her hair short. We were in the days of The Mickey Mouse Club churning out pop stars. The Best Friend, whose curly hair beats mine any day, excited told me one day that she was going to go to the salon. Her mom had booked her a hair appointment the following day and she would be returning with long, golden locks ala Christina Aguilera. She did, indeed, return with the hair of a Mousketeer. Unfortunately, her short, curly hair with bleach-blond highlights was more along the lines of Justin Timberlake than Christina Aguilera. I can’t help but giggle at the memory, though I, too, have had my fair share of wearing the hair of a pre-pubescent boy.
The first time I cut my hair short I was in junior high and on my way to an ice skating party. I brought a friend with my and swore her to secrecy – I wanted to show up to the party with a chic new haircut, surprising everyone. My mother, who at the time still rocked an 80’s perm, took me to her hair dresser. I should have known that this wouldn’t be good, but childhood innocence left me in the dark. It didn’t dawn on me that I perhaps should have picked a different hairdresser until I was perusing the books in the waiting room… one 80’s cut after the other. I attempted to explain to the hairdresser what I wanted, but, being as young as I was, I didn’t realize that she needed more than ‘cute’ and ‘short’ to get a better picture. I walked out of that place with my curly hair chopped short and angular, then teased to a volume I’ve never seen before – a volume only Molly Ringwald could appreciate. My friend attempted to stifle giggles while I attempted to hold back tears. I spent that ice skating party tugging a hat as tightly over my ears as possible, though I swear my hair was teased and sprayed to the point that the hat stood three inches above my scalp.
The Moral of the Story: Today I Love Mouseketeers and Molly Ringwald. I just don’t want to look like either.
Monday, November 15, 2010
A Vicodin A Day
The human body is fascinating. Specifically, how each human reacts in a different way is fascinating. One person may smoke their entire life and never get cancer. Another may be straight as an arrow – no smoking, drinking, and exceptionally healthy person – and be taken by the disease. I, personally, react to medication much different than others.
When I was in high school I underwent surgery. I was sent home with vicodin for the pain and some sleeping pills to take the first couple of nights. The first night my mom, being the worrier that she is, gave me half of a sleeping pill. Instead of sending me into peaceful dreams of rabbits and rainbows, I spent that night watching the second-hand tic… tic… tic... all night long. No sleep for me. These same very sleeping pills will send my father, who carries a good 100lbs on me, into a kind of sleep that takes an army to wake from.
Flash forward to day two post-surgery. I was in a little bit of pain so I took the first of my vicodins and lay back in the couch to watch some trashy reality shows. There’s a lamp next to the couch that is plugged into an outlet wired to a wall switch so whenever you want to turn the light on and off you can simply use the wall switch. I guess I had unplugged the lamp at some point and plugged it back in to the bottom outlet that isn’t wired to the switch. My father came in and, in an attempt to help me out, went to turn the light on. Neither of us realized that the lamp was plugged into the wrong outlet and, to make a long story short, my father asked me if I had broken the lamp.
This is when I discovered my odd reaction to vicodin. It makes me cry.
I sat there, bawling my eyes out, unable to even explain myself to my poor dad. He thought that he had somehow hurt his poor recovering-from-surgery-and-in-pain daughter’s feelings. He asked me a question and now I couldn’t stop crying – and crying hard. I’m talking “I gasp didn’t gasp break the lamp-puh...uh...uh...” crying.
My father tucked and ran. He felt so bad that he went to the kitchen and made me mashed potatoes and gravy, my favorite comfort food. This made me cry even more. I didn’t know at the time that it was the vicodin – it took me a couple more doses to put that together. I still laugh when I think of my poor father, completely bewildered and not understanding how he made me cry, thinking it’s somehow entirely his fault.
The Moral of the Story: Today I Love life's little oddities.
When I was in high school I underwent surgery. I was sent home with vicodin for the pain and some sleeping pills to take the first couple of nights. The first night my mom, being the worrier that she is, gave me half of a sleeping pill. Instead of sending me into peaceful dreams of rabbits and rainbows, I spent that night watching the second-hand tic… tic… tic... all night long. No sleep for me. These same very sleeping pills will send my father, who carries a good 100lbs on me, into a kind of sleep that takes an army to wake from.
Flash forward to day two post-surgery. I was in a little bit of pain so I took the first of my vicodins and lay back in the couch to watch some trashy reality shows. There’s a lamp next to the couch that is plugged into an outlet wired to a wall switch so whenever you want to turn the light on and off you can simply use the wall switch. I guess I had unplugged the lamp at some point and plugged it back in to the bottom outlet that isn’t wired to the switch. My father came in and, in an attempt to help me out, went to turn the light on. Neither of us realized that the lamp was plugged into the wrong outlet and, to make a long story short, my father asked me if I had broken the lamp.
This is when I discovered my odd reaction to vicodin. It makes me cry.
I sat there, bawling my eyes out, unable to even explain myself to my poor dad. He thought that he had somehow hurt his poor recovering-from-surgery-and-in-pain daughter’s feelings. He asked me a question and now I couldn’t stop crying – and crying hard. I’m talking “I gasp didn’t gasp break the lamp-puh...uh...uh...” crying.
My father tucked and ran. He felt so bad that he went to the kitchen and made me mashed potatoes and gravy, my favorite comfort food. This made me cry even more. I didn’t know at the time that it was the vicodin – it took me a couple more doses to put that together. I still laugh when I think of my poor father, completely bewildered and not understanding how he made me cry, thinking it’s somehow entirely his fault.
The Moral of the Story: Today I Love life's little oddities.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Not Quite Ms. Fix-it-All
The Boyfriend has had a bit of a rough patch these last couple of months. It hasn’t been anything drastic, just enough small issues to drive a man crazy. It’s been a lot of the usual… work, car problems, money... it seems like everything is breaking and costing us more money! He had his personal cell phone stolen (again!) and just about gave up on owning a cell phone. He finally gave in and got another personal phone since we don’t have a house phone and his work phone doesn’t get service where we live. He made this decision after my car broke down one morning and I had no way to contact him. I ended up taking a long (read: expensive) taxi ride home and he felt horrible about it.
With The Boyfriend as stressed as he is, my Momma Bear instinct has kicked into high gear. He invited the boys over this weekend. While they went out to cause some trouble, I opted to stay home and do everything in my power to make our home sparkle and shine. I wanted him to step into a relaxing haven when got back. I slipped my marigolds on and went to work – did the laundry, cleaned the kitchen, baked banana bread, shampooed the carpets… I think I cleaned myself back to 1954.
When the boys returned they found themselves outside playing in the mud. It never fails… The Boyfriend’s most prized possession is his bobcat, and whenever the boys come over they want to play. They hadn’t so much as stepped out of the truck when they fired that thing up. After successfully sinking the bobcat in the mud The Boyfriend came inside, disappointed. In his excitement he had forgotten he was wearing his favorite jeans and managed to get the thick red clay that our house sits on all over his bottom. Still playing my housewife role, I took on the duty of stain removal, eager to make everything better. I’ve never been great at stain removing, but I’d be damned if I was going to let this one get the better of me. I scrubbed that stain and proudly returned the pants to their intended color. Satisfied with my conquer I tossed the pants into the wash for a final cleaning and retired with The Boyfriend to enjoy the rest of the evening together. Then…. I heard it. The thumping. Oh lord, I knew something was amiss… I could see the pants, my victory, swishing through the soapy water in the wash. Everything looked great, yet there it was. Thump… thump… thumpthump thump… with dread filling my chest I turned off the washer and waited for the gurgle of water to subside. Reaching in I searched through the bubbles until I found the source of the thumping.
The Boyfriend’s brand new cell phone.
So much for my I’ll-take-care-of-all-the-stress attempt.
The Moral of the Story: TodayI Love I can't help but laugh at the irony of it all.
With The Boyfriend as stressed as he is, my Momma Bear instinct has kicked into high gear. He invited the boys over this weekend. While they went out to cause some trouble, I opted to stay home and do everything in my power to make our home sparkle and shine. I wanted him to step into a relaxing haven when got back. I slipped my marigolds on and went to work – did the laundry, cleaned the kitchen, baked banana bread, shampooed the carpets… I think I cleaned myself back to 1954.
When the boys returned they found themselves outside playing in the mud. It never fails… The Boyfriend’s most prized possession is his bobcat, and whenever the boys come over they want to play. They hadn’t so much as stepped out of the truck when they fired that thing up. After successfully sinking the bobcat in the mud The Boyfriend came inside, disappointed. In his excitement he had forgotten he was wearing his favorite jeans and managed to get the thick red clay that our house sits on all over his bottom. Still playing my housewife role, I took on the duty of stain removal, eager to make everything better. I’ve never been great at stain removing, but I’d be damned if I was going to let this one get the better of me. I scrubbed that stain and proudly returned the pants to their intended color. Satisfied with my conquer I tossed the pants into the wash for a final cleaning and retired with The Boyfriend to enjoy the rest of the evening together. Then…. I heard it. The thumping. Oh lord, I knew something was amiss… I could see the pants, my victory, swishing through the soapy water in the wash. Everything looked great, yet there it was. Thump… thump… thumpthump thump… with dread filling my chest I turned off the washer and waited for the gurgle of water to subside. Reaching in I searched through the bubbles until I found the source of the thumping.
The Boyfriend’s brand new cell phone.
So much for my I’ll-take-care-of-all-the-stress attempt.
The Moral of the Story: Today
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)