Somebody Appreciates My Efforts

Ever since I made the crocheted rug and plopped it down in front of the rocker at the end of my tiny kitchen area, someone has assumed it was made just for her.

First we noticed that Zoey the Wonder Dog chose to position her bony little butt on it while sitting and waiting expectantly for her dinner every night. Now it seems it's also a good place to curl up and keep half an ear/eye on me while I'm working in the kitchen.

"Will ya stop with the pictures, Mom? I'm trying to get a snooze here!"

Think Valentine's Day - Think Cookies

Last night after dinner I decided to do something that would make me feel a little organized and on top of it. I baked cookies for Valentine's Day.

The cookies I made are my Sugar Cookies but they are not your typical thin, crisp sugar cookie. These are puffy and soft, and oh-so-yummy! I think the flavor is unique, I don't know how to describe it . . . maybe you should fire up the ol' wooden spoon, make and sample some for yourself!

I personally suspect the sprinkle of nutmeg has a lot to do with the unique flavor. But, you ask, how can a mere few grains of nutmeg make a difference in flavor? All I know is once I accidentally forgot the nutmeg, and the cookies were not as good.

I've made this recipe for years and it's become a traditional "all-holiday" cookie at our house . . . rolled out and cut into an egg shape at Easter, heart shape at Valentine's Day, pumpkin shape at Halloween, and so on.

Rather than having the usual sugar sprinkled on top before baking, I frost mine. (After baking, of course.)

SUGAR COOKIES

2/3 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups unbleached white flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
Dash of nutmeg

In medium bowl, thoroughly mix butter, sugar, eggs, milk, baking soda and vanilla.

Blend in flour, salt and nutmeg.

At this point the batter will be pretty soft and needs to go into the refrigerator for 45-60 minutes to firm up before you can roll it out. I scrape the batter onto a sheet of wax paper, wrap it up, stick it in a plastic baggie and put it into the refrig.

Roll the dough 1/4" thick (no thinner) on a lightly floured surface. Using cookie cutters, cut into desired shapes.

Place cookies on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake in a 350 degree oven for 6-8 minutes.

These are cookies just out of the oven. Don't let them brown at all. You can tell if they're done by lightly pressing a finger on top of cookie. When done, they will feel firmed up.

Cool on racks. I got 59 of these heart shapes from the recipe.

I packed them away last night and stored them in the freezer . . . yes, I did. Every last one of them. (Aren't you proud of me?)

The cookies will be ready and waiting for me to take them out of the freezer closer to Valentine's Day when I'll frost them. Just in case you can't wait to try them, I'll include the frosting recipe here.

FROSTING FOR SUGAR COOKIES

1/2 cup butter, softened
3 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
Milk
Food coloring of choice

Cream butter, sugar and vanilla until smooth. Add enough milk for desired spreading consistency. Tint with food coloring. Makes about 1-1/2 cups.

I'll try to remember to post some pictures when the cookies are decorated . . . but don't be expecting anything fancy as I'm what I call a "folk art" froster. (Read: fast and rustic-looking!)

Wait, January! Don't Go!!

I share this blog post knowing full well I may get hate mail, but I have to put forth my true feelings.

I'm sorry to see January go. Winter is "down" time for me. Time when I don't have two full-time jobs. All I have to handle (for the most part) in the winter is my inside work. Of a normal year, once the snow goes and the weather turns hospitable to the human body, I'm outside. Unfortunately, there is no one to pick up my inside work in the spring, summer and fall. So perhaps you can understand why winter allows me to feel as if I have more hours in the day in which to accomplish all I want to do.

I cannot believe it was a full month ago that I was taking down the Christmas tree and stowing the decorations away for another year. It seems like yesterday. What the heck happened to the last month? Regardless, I have to face the fact that what most people consider to be "the long, slow month of January" is gone.

Even way up here in northern Minnesota, February is the last true winter month. Although we can get lots of snow and blow in March, the days give us so much more daylight and in between the bouts of foul weather, we start to experience melting and the very beginnings of spring. So even though it might not always act like it, March is classified as more of a spring month than winter.

I personally wish February wasn't such a short month. Even though it's only a couple of days shorter than any other month, there is so much I try to pack in to it that it always seems to fly by. This year it's going to be a month in which I really have to hit the winter-wanna-do projects.

We're committed to finishing up the remodeling on our house in 2011 and although we've been working toward that goal all winter, there are so many things that are made more laborious and difficult when the wind is whipping and the temperature is hovering around zero. So even though we have been slogging along, I know as soon as better weather comes, we're going to be more and more involved with the tearing down, re-building and generally messy work of construction.

It's downright scary to me how fast life and times are going by. When you are in your thirties or forties or even fifties, it seems as though you have enough of your life left to accomplish . . . well, anything. It's all still possible because you have y-e-a-r-s stretching ahead of you. Not that I plan on croaking any time soon, mind you, but when you find yourself in your late sixties (good gawd, that's getting close to SEVENTY!) it begins to dawn that the time of your life is drawing nigh when you'd like to have all the "work" or "getting set up" done so that you can spend your retirement (ha!) years taking it a little easier or doing more of exactly what you want to do.

So I'm going to do my durndest to take full advantage of this last, wonderful month of winter. More sorting, cleaning and organizing to do. Time spent in my quilt studio. Plans yet to be completed for the remodeling. Many nights snuggled down reading with hubby in front of the wood stove. Cooking creative, nutritious meals using the canned, preserved and frozen treasures I put by at last harvest time. Expeditions on sunny days on snowshoe or snowmobile.

In honor of February, next time I go to town, I'm going to stop at the local florist's and splurge on a few red and white carnations to put in a vase with fragrant evergreen boughs. And it's time to bake heart-shaped sugar cookies to squirrel away in the freezer so they'll be ready to pull out, frost and give on Valentine's Day.

I'd better stop this chatter, get up off my duff and start doin'. Looks as though February is going to zip by just as fast as January did!

Jane Said This Might Happen

End of our third week of our new eating plan. Weigh in first thing this morning. Results? Papa Pea lost another three pounds for a total loss in three weeks of nine pounds.

Okay, let's change the subject now.

Oh, all right, I'll tell you. Jane (the former personal trainer) said not to be surprised if I hit a plateau and didn't show a weight loss one of these weeks. So did I lose anything this past week?

Nope.

Did I gain any weight this past week?

No, thank heaven. Now that would have really been discouraging. And I would have been totally flummoxed as to what I did to cause that. (Oh, I know. It would have been because all of that snow shoveling and muscle gained. Yeah, right.) But I did not gain, so I'll be happy with that.

I'm not discouraged. I honestly do feel a little lighter. Don't know if "lighter" is the correct word; maybe less bulky? Why didn't it show up on the scale? Dunno. Maybe because I thought about food so much this past week. Psychologically you can screw yourself up, ya know.

Three weeks done, only one week to go. What will we decide to do at the end of the month trial? We aren't going to make any decisions until then.

So I've lost five pounds in three weeks. That's a good, steady, slow, sensible loss. Now I sure hope I can drop twenty pounds in this last week. :o)

Some Things You Might Not Know About Me

I am an introvert of the first order. As a child I was painfully shy. I've gotten a little better with age.

I wish I didn't require so much sleep. But I have since I was small and no matter how hard I try, I don't feel well if I skimp on the hours I get.

I lost my best friend from high school when we were twenty. She dated a guy who treated her like scum, I tried to tell her so, she told him what I said, he told her to choose between us. He won.

I can totally see myself having a career as a forensic sculptor.

In school, I loved algebra, hated geometry.

I sincerely believe I have some kind of a short circuit in my brain that makes it impossible for me to understand the workings of computers.

I always thought I would have many children.

I hate science fiction movies or books.

I love the looks, feel, styles, furniture, houses of the 1940s.

When I was about eight, a man tried to abduct me by talking me into getting into his car.

If I lived alone, I would have the worst nutritional diet. I'd live on potato chips and orange juice.

My favorite movie of all time is "Dirty Dancing." It's the only movie I've ever watched more than once.

If I could somehow evade all guilt, I would be the laziest person on the planet.

I can totally see myself having a career as a cook for a wealthy family.

If I were rich, I would be a very generous, kind, GOOD, rich person.

Although I've always been very athletic, have good balance, and control of my body when doing physical things, I cannot dance worth a lick. At all. Just cannot get my body to move with music. Period.

In my next life, I'm going to be an Olympic downhill skier.

Shoveling Snow Is Bad For Your Wrists - And Other Body Parts

We got about 8-9" of new snow overnight last night. Our temps have stayed fairly low so this snow was light and fluffy. Not so bad when it comes to shoveling the stuff.

Hubby and I both spent the morning clearing various paths and entries to out buildings. He had to do the roof again, of course. We keep the front deck shoveled off so Zoey and the granddogs have a dry place to stretch out on during the day and soak up some sunshine. It's getting hard to find places to throw the snow off the deck as the piles are now up even with the railing.

I don't know how much depth perception you can get of the snow in this picture of some our fruit trees, but the snow is now up about three feet on their trunks. We're not complaining though as it's good insulation for them and will keep the frost from going so deep.

We've done so much shoveling lately that hubby complains a little of a sore shoulder. The only place I'm feeling it is in both wrists. Must be something in the way I toss the shovelfuls of snow. But I'll keep at it and by the end of the winter I'll have very muscular wrists. (Is that good?)

Our daughter kindly left her plow truck here when she went on into town for work today so hubby spent a couple of hours plowing the driveway and all the other areas we have to keep free of snow. We're very grateful to both her and our good neighbor who says we can use his plow any time we want it.

This past week I've gotten the freezer restocked with three or four kinds of soups to have on hand for easy meals. I get three to five quarts of soup from each batch so that's many meals for us. I even got two containers of Chicken Noodle Soup made up. So when I hear of someone down with a really bad cold, it's nice to have some to take to them to help speed their recovery. Yes, I do think it really helps. Especially when made with homemade chicken broth. And maybe a little extra garlic thrown in to kill the bad germies.

We're going to be in our jammies and watching a movie tonight at 7 o'clock. At least that's the plan. What's the movie? Well, now don't be too shocked. It's a little racy. McLintock with John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara and Yvonne De Carlo. Made in 1963. Woo-hoo!