I hate gingerbread houses.

 

OK.  Now that I've gotten that off my chest, let me qualify a bit.  I don't actually hate gingerbread houses.  I mean, what's to hate, right?  They have candy all over them, and you can eat them later.  What can possibly be so bad about a holiday decoration you can eat? 

 

Putting it together, that's what. 

 

Royal icing, the glue, is a wonderful concept.  Somebody had something there.  Sticky, gooey, sweet, glue-like.  However, by the time you bake gingerbread to the point where you can build with it, the stuff is rock hard, tends to break, and weighs too much to stay upright without serious reinforcement (oh, and candy canes don't work, btw).  Since I haven't found scaffolding or saw horses in gingerbread house sizes to this point (come on, Wilton, what's the hold-up here??), I improvise with cups, soup cans (full, of course--empty ones aren't sturdy enough), plastic bowls, and so on.  And the roof?  Yeah, right.  There is no way that's not sliding off the side supports of the house at least once in the process.  By the time you're done, you've ripped the house completely apart, gotten mostly dried royal icing from one end of your kitchen to the other (because all you have to do is drip a little on the floor and you will immediately step on it, thus tracking it from the dining room through the kitchen where you've gone to search for more structural support), broken at least one main piece of the house, glued it back together with that horrible, half-dried icing, attempted to design a pattern on that piece to cover the break, failed miserably, put the whole thing back together, scraped off excess, dripping icing only to find that you've taken away the stickiness that was holding the whole base of the house upright, reapplied icing, yelled at a kid for getting in the way (how stupid is that?? like it's their fault the thing won't cooperate..), walked away from the whole mess, only to realize that you can't walk away for long--the glue dries fast, and finally turned the decoration of the half-dried, half-falling-apart project over to your kids so you don't throw something across the room (and maybe even throw something just for good measure somewhere in the middle of that process).

 

So much for a fun, kid-friendly, sweet going-away gift for your next door neighbor.

 

And to think that in a month, we'll be going through the whole process again, times three.  It's our tradition with my mom every Christmas. 

 

Maybe it's time for a different tradition.  Making quilts sounds like fun.  Anything would be more fun than stupid gingerbread. 

 

Then again, maybe I'll forget I hate gingerbread in a month.

The end result...they did a pretty great job.  And Bryson drew this this morning...with his name completely backwards.  Crazy kid.

Oh

 

My

 

Gosh.

 

I'm making Tiramisu tonight.  The Food Network's Tyler Florence says it's authentic Italian.  We'll see.  Honestly, I don't care.  Because, you see, it has all of my favorite things in it, whether it's "authentic" or not. 

 

Custard.

Espresso.

Cookies.

Whipped Cream.

Alcohol with the alcohol evaporated.

And of course:

 

Bittersweet Chocolate.

 

I'm sitting here eating half an ounce of the leftover Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate bar (because, for Pete's sake, the recipe calls for 1 ounce, plus shavings for the top of the dessert, and the bar is 4 ounces when you buy it...seriously, what else are you going to do with it???) used in this amazing creation.  Have you ever had a Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate bar??  It's heavenly.  When I imagine heaven, I think of Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate and a cup of espresso that doesn't make me shake...and this permanently.  So I can only  imagine how incredible heaven will really be.  :) 

 

It's the kind of dessert that would drive my mother to distraction.  Given the choice, my mother would clean over cooking or baking any day.  All you have to do is walk in my front door to decide which I prefer.  Cleaning over cooking???  Are you kidding me??  My house is not terrifying, but it is cluttered, lived in (umm, I homeschool), and the kitchen floor needs mopping (primarily because I have dripped espresso and pumpkin filling on it while baking tonight, and also because I served spaghetti to nine people last night, five of whom were children)(Oh, and my niece Jaidyn chewed on (I mean played with) Playdoh in my kitchen today and threw much of it on the floor.  :) ).  I love to cook, and to bake, and the more detailed and fussy the cooking or baking, the better.  Pecan Pie Tarts, No-bake Pumpkin Pie (expressly due to the presence of a graham cracker crust and the absence of the traditional baked, normal pie crust for my brother Kevin), and Tiramisu are on the dessert menu at the Mattison/Blower/Frazer family Thanksgiving celebration tomorrow (Mom and I are in charge of desserts).  Mom is making Apple Pie (Seth's favorite), and Lemon Meringue Pie (Paul's favorite).  Umm, I think there's going to be enough dessert.  17 people (seven children included in that count), and 5 full desserts. 

 

Have you ever made Tiramisu?  Have you ever tasted it?? 

 

I haven't.  Made it or tasted it.  Yes, I'm a little crazy (OK, OK, maybe more than a little) to even attempt something this foreign to me.   Ah, well.   Always wanted to try it.  There will be enough other stuff...I guess if it flops, we're covered, right??  I should have asked for helpful hints or words of wisdom on Tiramisu from all of you a week or so ago...

 

You'd think I'd learn.

 

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

 

Here goes nothin'!

My last entry spoke to the fact that I get to the end of every day, and realize there is a whole list of things that still need to be done.  I need more hours in my day, and less things on my plate.  That being the case...well, here I am. 

 

The days fill up and pass by so quickly.  The next task looms so closely to the one I just finished up, breathing and thinking are hard to come by.  Don't get me wrong, I love most of what I'm doing, when each of those things are taken one at a time...it's the endless, breathless, thoughtless procession through all of the events of the day that gets to me.  Vacation days when I should be enjoying my kids and the fun activities scheduled for these brief days fly by with very little splendor or celebration.  My grand ideas and plans have gone mostly unexplored this week.  I read friends' blogs about their wonderful days with their children spent reading and baking and doing wonderful things and I kick myself (mentally, of course).  What am I thinking?? 

 

Well, right now I'm thinking about what wonderful desserts I might make for Thanksgiving at my brother's in-laws' house on Thursday.  I'm wracking my brain trying to come up with something delicious and unique and impressive while figuring out when I'm going to shop for it, prepare it and still get the crafts and school things I promised the kids I would do, while, in the process, not making my husband furious that I put the baking off until the kids went to bed so I could spend the day fully devoted to them.  Plus the hair cut I'm giving a friend tomorrow, the gingerbread houses we're going to make on Friday with my mom that really should bake for a long time tomorrow and the candies and frosting I need to organize if that's going to happen, the trip to the library I need to make to get books for school next week because I know I'm going to forget on Friday or Saturday and I will need them for Monday, the juggling of the weekend schedule coming up because my Father-in-Law will be in town for the weekend to hunt (and thus, knowing that for much of it, Seth will be unavailable and that we probably won't get to see Dad anyway so it's really not worth worrying about...).

 

And really, I thought the four-cake weekend was pushing me over the edge.  Nope.  It's not the cakes.

 

So, I'm sorry it is taking me so long between entries, friends.  Thanks for faithfully visiting my blog (though I've noticed some of you have given up on me recently). 

 

There just nothing brilliant to write.  Same story, different day. 

 

You'd think I'd learn.

Every night, it gets to be about 11:30, and I suddenly look up at the clock and realize what time it is.  I look up and realize I should have gone to bed half an hour ago.  At least.  The problem lies in the fact that when it's 11:30, I still have so much to do.  Just a little more time.  That's all I need.

 

Anybody out there reading this have any great ideas for a 12-year-old level 4 gymnast who can't connect her roundoff and backhandspring?  Especially since she can do it. 

 

And if you have a great plan for helping your kids understand the necessity of school and not fight you every step of the way...

 

...yeah.  I'm all ears.

On Fridays in early elementary school, I remember the anticipation of Show and Tell.  Actually, I remember it on Mondays at different times too, I think, but let's go with Fridays for the sake of this entry.  In honor of that long-forgotten tradition, I want to join with Kelli (and my friend Paige) as they share their Show and Tell with the world on Fridays. 

 

Pictured below, you will see my Show and Tell for this Friday.  I have a few things in my home which I absolutely treasure.  Nothing is of great worth (though, as Sarah gets her name out there, it has more and more "worth"), only of great value to me.  It is absolutely not my style to collect costly stuff (and it's completely outside my budget, and I'm ok with that), however, no one could buy my treasures from me at even the greatest price.  This portrait hangs in my livingroom, with empty walls around it, waiting (impatiently!!) to be accompanied by two similar portraits promised to me.  My sweet sister-in-law, Sarah, painted this portrait of Reasa as a surprise when she was about  six months old.  Sarah gave it as a Christmas gift when I was 7 months pregnant for Lainie, and going through such a stressful time--feeling that I had failed my first born by having another baby so close to when she arrived, sure I wasn't going to be able to handle two babies at the same time, not really confident I was doing the right things with my first one...This portrait didn't solve any of those problems, but it served as a reminder--her sweet face frozen there in that portrait, with that face.  You know, the face that she always made that was so signature her, that I rarely captured on film and which my sister just happened to snap.  It was a reminder of how precious the time I had with her was to me--that I needed to cherish it, and not waste the two months I had left with just her. 

 

If I knew disaster would strike, and I had time to grab only one possession from my home, that painting is what I would run for.  Without a doubt.

 

Happy Show and Tell Friday!!  Visit Kelli's blog, and join in!

 

Now, it could just be because they are already through the worst stages of their colds, or it could be that the Dellsym really, really worked, but we slept through the night last night.  Or I should say the kids slept through the night last night.  The first one was awake at 7:43 this morning (thanks to Mommy turning off all the alarm clocks to help them sleep as long as possible).  :) 

 

I'll take it!!

OK, so two weeks after the first dosage of horrible, horrible, hideous cough medicine, I actually found one they'll take.  And not freak out, cry, run screaming to the other side of the room with their hand over their mouth.  They take one single tablespoon of the stuff, it's good for 12 hours, it tastes like grape, and there's no arguing, whatsoever.  Tonight, I might sleep through the night. 

 

I'll let you know.

 

Oh, it's Dellsym.  Just for the record.