Fun With Food

I bought some raspberries and a kiwi today. It turns out there are many uses for raspberries. They are little cups - just fill 'em up with water. It's a lot of work if you're really thirsty, but it's fun. And cute. And that's all that counts, right?

They also make great hats for finger people. Really. No, I mean it. Try it. Draw a little face on your little finger, put the raspberry hat on top and voila! A finger person with a hat. Cool, right? A little bit? Well, it's tasty anyway. Just eat the hat. But not the finger. That would hurt. Ok, I admit it. Nothing better to blog about today. Here's some pictures then:

Quack!

Inspiration

This here:

is part of where the inspiration for 'Ginormous Duck' came from. Snickers, my middle child, loves ducks! It all started on a trip to Disney a couple of years ago. There were lots of birds around - sea gulls, sparrows, pretty brown and black starling-sized things I never did identify and ducks. Little white-speckled, black-bodied, peeping ducks, big, scary, mean-looking ducks and, of course, lots of mallard ducks. The waddling, the quacking, the cute little feathered bodies. It was love at first site. He even got one to eat popcorn out of his hand.

Out of that trip came the need to own lots of plush ducks. He owns some that quack, some big and some small, some realistic and some not so much, but all of them are cute and cuddly. At one point he decided he wanted to have a "Ginormous Duck"! He never did get that duck (at least not yet - huge plush ducks are hard to come by) but since that time, it's been there - slowly burbling away in the back of my mind. This is it's first incarnation. We'll see where it goes from here.

Quack!

The Secret to Keeping Christmas Lights Alive . . .

. . . is lots of spare strings of lights. No really. I've proven it. This year not a single strand of colored lights refused to work. It used to be that every year at least two, if not more, strings of lights would die, usually after they were strung on the tree, but occasionally before. And yes, I've tried changing the little fuses in the plug and looking for broken or loose lights, but it never fixed the problem. Until I discovered the cure.

This year not a single strand refused to work.

For the last two years, everytime there is a sale on Christmas lights (after the holidays are over or at the start of the season) I have picked up several strands of lights. However, I never really kept track of how many strings I had. Well, I counted.

I have, not kidding, 19 strings of colored lights! Holy too-many-lights Batman! But it worked! I didn't need even one of those NINETEEN BOXES!

However, I also have a second tree that I put up every year that is my husbands 'outer space' tree. It holds all the Hallmark Keepsake Star Trek and Star Wars ornaments, as well as 'planet' ornaments and stars and, of course, the white lights which look like stars. Two strings of white lights would not light this year. And how many backup strings of white lights do I have? NOT ONE! So of course, without the cure, the lights will die.

My task tomorrow is to go out and buy a lot of white lights. Too many white lights. Enought to ensure that I won't need them. That is the cure!

Quack!

Random Quote for the Day

Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.

-Edgar Allan Poe

P.S. Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Quack!

A Failed Attempt

I decided to make cookies last night. I often decide to bake something on the spur of the moment and everyone generally appreciates that. This time, not so much.

I've had this recipe for a while that I've wanted to try and decided to give it a go. Hungarian Cream Cheese Thumbprints. From the recipe and picture I imagined a lightly lemon flavored poppy seed cookie (sort of like a lemon poppy muffin) with a dollop of sweet cream cheese in the center. I was thinking a flavor like the filling in a cheese danish. Needless to say, I was disappointed. They look much like the picture, but the flavor is disappointing. Most of it is probably my fault - we were out of lemon extract, so I substituted lemon juice to try to get a little lemon flavor. And, they were slightly undercooked which made them a little, um, not exactly gooey, but a just a little funny. Despite being undercooked they came across as very dry. And the cream cheese mixture didn't have any flavor to speak of. The only one who really like them was little red doggy:



He can have them all!
(Yes, a bad picture I agree - I need to work on my photography skills. But you get the idea.)

Quack!

Fiber Optic-ness

OK. First blog post. No introductions, just gonna dive right in . . .

It's the Christmas season again. Already the kids are excited and can't wait to get the decorations up! Part of that is because I bought two small fiber optic Christmas trees this year. I actually bought them about a month ago when the Christmas stuff first came out in the stores. Sweet Pea talked me into perusing the Christmas aisles (not a difficult task) and then talked me into the purchase. Sweet Pea will have one in her room, and Snickers and Doodlebug will have one in their room. Now, for the past month, these uber-cool, fiber optic, multi-colored beauties have been in their boxes. Yes, IN A BOX! IN THE BASEMENT! For over a month! Mom! What is wrong with you?!

The first challenge of course if to find room for these. They are under 3 feet tall, and not real wide, but the bedrooms are crammed full of furniture, books, toys, you-name-it. Just about every square inch of space (except for the center of the floor) is claimed by something else. But we managed to find room for them somehow. Pushed this over, squeezed this in, stuffed this in the closet and voila!

Quick and easy assembly. A quick lecture about how they were NOT toys, and should be treated carefully and they were ready to be turned on. Drum roll please!

Click!

Ooooh! Aaaah! The beauty! The changing colors! The fiber optic-ness! Mesmerizing! Hypnotizing!

Now they need ornaments. And a star for the top. Oh, and don't forget garland!

Quack!