Everything is Unfinished

Maybe it was for the best that my mixer died. No, I didn’t get a Kitchenaid (yet…) but my new hand mixer is pretty cool. WAY more powerful than the old one, and it came with a wisk, drink mixer and dough hooks in addition to the regular beaters. The hooks made short work of my dough:

That’s just 3 batches there. For reference, that’s one of the HUGE Tupperware bowls - the one that’s about 18″ in diameter. I ended up making 5 batches all together.

Here’s a couple dozen of them cooling. I used a cookie scoop to get them all onto parchment paper, and had myself a nice case of cookie scoop shoulder and elbow the next day.

Here they are glazed and drying. I wanted to take a picture of all 30 dozen bagged and ready to go, but I was (surprise, surprise) running late before we had to leave and didn’t get that shot. I did come home with a nice big grocery bag of cookies though, and so far everything’s been really good. We’re taking them to my parents’ house this weekend and hopefully we won’t come home with any leftovers!

And as I leave you to finish making a few last gifts, here’s Jack enjoying some ice cream cake at my Mom’s birthday last weekend:

I knew it was going to happen. I knew it, and yet I still pushed. Pushed until the poor thing just couldn’t take any more. I should have slowed down, given it a rest, unstuck things, but I just kept going.

My mixer is dead.

Fortunately, it was just an inexpensive hand mixer. But that’s what caused the problem in the first place. See, I’m in this cookie exchange. Just me and some friends, getting together to share Christmas cookies. And by “some friends” I mean “29 friends”. And even though we really only need to make half a dozen for each person, mine are small so I opened my big mouth and said I’d make a full dozen. No big deal, I only have to make 5 batches of dough. But cookie dough is thick, and this dough is thicker than normal. Things were actually going all right at first. I made 2 batches with no sign of trouble. But the third batch, well I must have added the flour too fast because the beaters got all gummed up and before I knew it, there was literally smoke coming from the mixer.

And now I need to decide how to proceed. Because this would be the perfect opportunity to invest in a nice, powerful Kitchenaid stand mixer. But if I get one, I want a purple one and no place carries that color, you have to order it. Plus they’re very expensive. Not to mention I have no place on my counter to put one. (I would make room though, in case anyone was thinking of getting me one.) The biggest reason not to go this direction right now, however, is time. The cookies have to be made by Monday, and there’s no way I could order a mixer and have it here in time. So a new hand mixer is what will have to be procured. I just hope I can find one powerful enough, or else I’m going to have to rig up a contraption using the beaters and my drill.

Let’s just get the pictures up, because that’s what everyone wants, right?

As you can see, we made it to The Beach last night. The Santa pictures are a little fuzzy because I didn’t want to use my flash, but I love love love the first one. Jack’s looking up at Santa kind of awestruck. And the last one was taken before we left the house - that smirk lets me know that Jack knows EXACTLY how cute he is, and will use it to his advantage.

So The Beach was…all right. There was a petting zoo (where Johnny got nipped by a goat), ice skating, you could sled down one of the waterslides, and the lazy river had paddleboats. I thought it would be a great idea to paddle around, and had to cajole Johnny into coming with me. Woody’s girlfriend Lisa came with us and had all sorts of fun with Jack, and watched him during out paddleboat adventure. I will now gladly admit that I should have given in to Johnny and gone elsewhere, because we managed to get the boat stuck sideways three times. At one point, Johnny had to get out of the boat, push me the right way, then get back in the boat at a later point.

Then we went to see Christmas In Lights. You remember the beer commercial from last year with the house that had the lights synchronized to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra song? That guy lives right near The Beach and this year has decorated several house façades in a local park. Last year there was an accident as someone was driving down his street gawking. Anyway, there was a big sign at the park entrance that said “Christmas In Lights! Now Open Every Day 6:30-10:30pm” Well the City of Mason are big fat liars. We drove in at 10:15 and it was obvious that there hadn’t been anyone there for quite a while. On the website above it lists the hours as 6-9:30pm on Monday through Thursday, so obviously someone didn’t get the memo about the extended hours. I’m very disappointed.

In other news, the craftiness continues. I’ll have a whole lot of pictures to post after everyone gets their gifts, but for now you’ll have to trust me. The cat’s got white paint on her whiskers and everything. I’d show you, but do you know how hard it is to get a cat to pose for you?

Yesterday was the day! I had to go to Mansfield to finish up some shopping at the mall (yep that’s right, I went to the BIG CITY to the MALL, whoo!) and I decided that Jack should see Santa. I figured the line wouldn’t be very long on a Monday afternoon, and I was right - there was one person in front of me. In fact, there were only about 100 total people in the mall at all, including the 4 kids who sounded like they were being brutally murdered in the play area. Despite the lack of crowd, Santa actually looked pretty decent. And Jack was adorable in his little santa suit and hat. Which doesn’t explain why the picture came out like this:

It reminds me of a picture that would have been taken 100 years ago, where you had to sit still for 45 minutes for the image to burn onto the film and no one ever smiled. I really just hope it doesn’t end up on a gallery like this one someday. But trust me, that was the best of the 4 shots they took. I’m not sure why they felt the need to digitally insert the snowman and trees at the bottom; because they could, probably. I do like that Jack’s got a handful of beard though. I knew he was going to do that before I even got him out of the stroller. And of course the moment we paid for the pictures and walked away, he had smiles for everyone, until he decided he’d had enough of the stroller and I was to carry him through the mall.

Anyway, we’ll have another chance to see Santa at The Beach tomorrow night. (Warning: annoying music on every page) Yes that’s right, we’re going to the beach in the winter. For one thing, it’s not a real beach - it’s a water park across the expressway from King’s Island down near Cincinnati. And for another thing, it’s not really winter here yet. It’s been in the 50’s for the past week or so, and it’s supposed to stay that way until the end of next week. I’m not complaining about this. Since I’ve been hearing we’re supposed to have one of the worst winters in years in terms of cold and snow, I’ll take reasonable temperatures for as long as I can get them. Plus, getting Jack into a snowsuit is a lot harder than getting a coat on him.

I got a bit off track there. What I really wanted to post were the pictures that I took before we saw Santa.

Today, while at K-Mart of all places (I very rarely shop there), I found Salt & Vinegar Pringles. Why did I not know these existed? They are the best salt & vinegar flavored chips on the planet! Yes Johnny, even better than Tim’s Cascade Style, which you one puked onto your ex-girlfriend’s friend. They have just enough vinegar, just enough salt, and the unique style of chip, er sorry, CRISP as the package says, holds it all together just right. Yum. Hey, how is the whole can gone already? Maybe it was better when I didn’t know about them.

In other news, Jack’s being stubborn. Quite a surprise, given that his parents are not stubborn in the LEAST, right? But he’s only being stubborn about going to sleep. It started a few days ago, where he will fight and kick and scream in order to keep himself awake. Then when he calms down and finally drifts off, he’ll wake up and fight and kick and scream some more, until we pick him back up. Well, I was out shopping for 9 hours today, and I was tired myself, so I wasn’t having a whole lot of this tonight. I did accomodate him at first and sat in the recliner, calmed him down, and we both took a short snooze. Then Johnny picked him up and took him up to his crib. As soon as he sensed he was being put down, the screaming started. We turned on his mobile, used the soothing aquarium thingy which I personally like, but neither worked. What worked immediately was when I picked him back up. So I played his game and rocked him back to sleep. Then once again, as soon as I put him in the crib he was all flailing legs and screaming at the top of his lungs. Since I knew he wasn’t hurt or hungry or in any danger, I just put him back in the crib, shut the door and left the room. He held out for about 20 minutes while we ignored him. I’m sure this story makes parents of colicky children scoff, but since Jack is really so good all the time, we just weren’t prepared. Still, I’m glad we won this round.

I am late in thanking her, but Kerry sent me a Donald Rumsfeld soap! It’s purple, which is my favorite color (can you tell from the color scheme around here?) and it smells good - kinda spicy. Thanks Kerry!

In other news, I hunted high and low for the new Sierra Mist Cranberry Splash and finally found some last night. I have to say, I’m underwhelmed. There’s a little more than a splash of cranberry in it, plus they only make it in the regular high-sugar kind so it sort of overloads me. But a small glass at a time, VERY well chilled, is ok. I mean, I’m still going to drink it.

Well I’m off to tidy up this mess of a dining/scrapping room I seem to live in. Also need to get the Christmas decorations up so we can take pictures and get our cards made. Yep that’s right, we’re doing the picture card this year. At least it’s not a newsletter.

When I was a teenager, I considered myself mature. Oh sure, I still managed to do a lot of stupid teenager things, but for the most part I was very well-behaved and responsible. I was (still am, actually) the oldest of my siblings, and started babysitting at age 11. I loved kids, and even though I was a little scared around babies I was well known around the Cub Scout troop as a good choice to leave your kids with. So when I was 16 or 17 years old, I was already looking forward to meeting the man of my dreams and getting married and having some kids. Five was the number I settled on, for some reason. It’s not nearly that high now.

So I went to college and didn’t meet the man of my dreams, although I have had some nightmares about the men I *did* meet. Yadda yadda yadda, I eventually met Johnny and we got married and lo, we even had a baby. And I’m so glad that it all didn’t happen earlier. I “sowed my oats”, so to speak, and now I’m in my thirties and have a baby. I am not at all freaked out by this.

You know how, when you’re single, and you can’t meet the right person to save your life, and your married friends tell you that when you meet The One, you’ll just know? And you hate them for saying that and being happy, but then they turn out to be right? Well it’s the same way with kids. When you’re kidless and they have kids they tell you that you just can’t explain the new and different kinds of love you feel. They’re right again. I even believed them this time, and I was still amazed.

When I was pregnant, I had a lot of worries like any soon-to-be-new-parent. They were mostly of the “will I resent the baby for taking up so much of my time?” or “I hope I’ll wake up when the baby’s crying” variety. I don’t think I could ever resent Jack for anything. I can’t even describe how I feel when I get up each morning and see him. Every day I watch him learn new things and explore the world around him and develop likes and dislikes and grow and change. The feeling I get in my heart and my brain and the pit of my stomach when he gives me a big grin or wants ups or needs to be snuggled is comparable to nothing. All of this makes me appreciate my parents on a completely new level.

Yesterday Jack was very tired and fussy, so I laid on the couch with him to get him to sleep. I haven’t done that in a couple months, and I realized how much I missed it. And even though there was laundry to fold, dishes to put away, and I was still in my pajamas at noon I didn’t care - that was the only place I wanted to be, snuggled on the couch with my baby, all warm and cozy, watching him sleep.

We’re not (planning on) having another baby soon. But I know our family isn’t complete yet. I see newborns and remember when Jack was that little and I get misty and through the rose-colored glasses of sleeping through the night I reminisce about how awesome it is to have a new baby. And now I have the typical thinking-about-being-a-second-time-parent thoughts and worries. Will the new baby get less of my time and attention because I’ll also have a toddler? Will Jack get short-changed because I’ll have to split myself between two kids? How in the world will I take care of two babies when I don’t get enough sleep now? But even though I think these things, I know it will all work out. I didn’t know how I’d work one child, but I’m doing just fine.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go because I’m crying.

Hee hee, wii-ing.

So I have to admit, the Wii is pretty cool. However, I’m not quite as geeked about it as Johnny. Just imagine Johnny is Brent (the one with the sunglasses) in today’s PvP:

I got this as an email, but I thought I’d put my responses here. Answer it yourself on your blog or in the comments!

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Hot chocolate all the way!

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Wraps, and uses lots of pretty papers and bows and tags and ribbons.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? Colored on both. And do you KNOW how hard it is to find a decent pre-lit multi-colored tree?

4. Do you hang mistletoe? Nah.

5. When do you put your decorations up? I like to get them up the weekend after Thanksgiving, but in reality it’s usually mid-December because I don’t like to get the boxes up from the basement.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? Ground bologna at Gramma’s on Christmas Eve, scooped up with Ballreich’s chips.

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child? Probably the year we got our Nintendo (the original NES!). We had a small tree set up downstairs in the family room and it was waiting under that tree. Every year after that, we thought there would be a big gift there.

8. When did you stop believing in Santa? In fourth grade when I overheard a girl say she found out he wasn’t real :(

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Not anymore, used to do PJ’s and sometimes we’d convince Mom and Dad to let us open our gifts to each other.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree? The more color the better! Colored lights, beaded garland, and more ornaments than should really be on a tree that size.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? Yes.

12. Do you remember your favorite gift? As a child: my pink and gray Huffy ten speed (that I wasn’t allowed to ride because it was too snowy). As an adult: probably my new Samsung Duo-Cam digital camera and video camera.

13. What’s the most exciting thing about the Holidays for you? Waking up on Christmas morning and seeing all the wrapped presents under the tree.

14. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? All of them :)

15. What is your favorite holiday tradition? “Calling” the pink chair for gift opening, exchanging cards with my brothers on Christmas morning, taking a picture in front of our tree to see how our family is growing and changing.

16. What tops your tree? A gold star.

17. What is your favorite Christmas Song? Religious: O Holy Night Secular: Sleigh Ride

18. Candy Canes - good, bad, no opinion? why? Very good, especially the plain ol’ peppermint kind. Had one just tonight, in fact!