Bond, James Bond

"Some people say I look a lot like my Momma, but I'm just not sure I see it."

"Oh, did I mention I have a tooth?"

The Love of a Mother

When I was a little girl Mom always made us special Birthday cakes. She had these amazing shaped cake pans and she would bake our favorite flavor cake and then decorate it. She had pans shaped like Bugs Bunny, Raggedy Ann (which could also be decorated as Andy), Strawberry Shortcake, a T-shirt, and a Van that could also be decorated like a school bus, ambulance, etc. The night before our birthday there was no sign of a cake and in the morning, there it was, all perfect and delicious. It was always sad to cut into it because it was so fun just to look at it. She must have spent hours baking and decorating those cakes. One of the last years she made me one I was probably around 6 or 7 (its really hard to say just how old I was, I know I was less than 9). She was having an extremely busy year working in the shop with Dad and it really didn't look like there would be a cake that year. I was old enough to know it took a lot of time and I knew that, that was not something my Mom had a lot of to spare. I did really want a Bugs Bunny cake though. I went to bed late and if I remember right Mom was still working in the shop. When I woke up and came down for breakfast there was a perfect Bugs Bunny cake on the table that said "Happy Birthday, Lanette" in frosting. She had to have stayed up half the night to make that cake. Today I was Spring cleaning my kitchen and I came across those cake pans, Bugs Bunny and all. I don't know how I inherited them, but I am so glad I did. I took them out of the cupboard and looked through them and thought about James. I thought about his first birthday and which cake I would make for him. I remembered the times when Mom made us cakes even though she didn't have time and I knew I'd do the same for my babies. I love ya Momma. Thanks for all those cakes and all the wonderful memories.

Confessions of a Dangerous...er...Domestic Mind

I like ice cream. I like ice cream strait out of the carton. Its the best way to eat ice cream, it just tastes better. When eating ice cream directly from the carton the friendly fingers of obsessive compulsiveness wrap themselves around me. It won't do to just grab a spoon and munch contentedly on creamy goodness, no it has to be done in an orderly fashion. When I am finished there must be no dents or craters in the ice cream, it should be level and semi smooth. Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough is my nemesis. Obviously the hunks of cookie dough are one of my favorite parts, they aren't always easy to find and this can wreck havoc in my tidy little carton. Once I do find a nice fat wad of dough I am left with a little pot hole in my cream. What to do? well eat some more to even everything out, of course. But inevitably this quest to smooth things over leads to the uncovering of more dough, which I can't just leave there. You can see how this creates a problem for me. In the end the only sane thing left is to do a little excavating without eating. I say sane, you can call it what you will.

Today

Today is cold and rainy and if the temerature drops much at all it will be cold and icy. Today is a day for cooking and eating and curling up on the sofa. Church was canceled due to the impending ice storm so we are doing all of the afore mentioned things. I rarely make big breakfasts because it just requires more time than I am willing to give it before Tim leaves for work in the morning or before we leave for church. So today was the perfect day for a nice breakfast. Today I made Peach Raisin Coffee Cake. It was yummy so I decided to share.

Peach Raisin Coffee Cake

INGREDIENTS:

* 1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
* 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
* 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
* 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 cup granulated sugar
* 1/4 cup butter
* 1 egg
* 2/3 cup sour milk or buttermilk
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 1 fresh peach, (or frozen but if frozen drain) peeled, diced and tossed with 1 teaspoon confectioners' sugar
* 1/2 cup raisins, soaked in warm water for 15 minutes, drained and patted dry
* Topping:
* 2 Tablespoons dark brown sugar, packed
* 1 Tablespoon all-purpose flour
* 2 teaspoons butter
* Icing:
* 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
* 1 teaspoon (about) cream or milk

PREPARATION:
Preheat oven to 350 F. Line a 9 x 9-inch baking pan with non-stick foil.

In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, beat sugar and butter until combined. Beat in egg, sour milk or buttermilk, and vanilla extract. Mixture will be a little lumpy.

Add flour mixture to liquid ingredients, stirring with a fork just until combined. Pour into prepared baking pan and smooth. Evenly sprinkle diced peaches and raisins over the top, and press gently into the batter, but do not submerge.

With a pastry cutter or fork, combine brown sugar, flour, and butter until crumbly. Sprinkle evenly over the peaches and raisins.

Bake about 30 minutes or until toothpick inserted near center comes out clean.

For the icing, combine confectioners' sugar with cream or milk until smooth. Scrape into a ziptop bag, press out the air, and seal. Snip a small corner from the bottom of the bag and drizzle icing over the top of the cooled coffee cake.

Store covered at room temperature.

Shoes

These are my shoes. I love shoes. Yesterday Mom, James and I were out getting haircuts (not James) and running errands when some one commented about my shoes. They were my brown basket weave wedges and I believe the comment was to the effect of "I love your shoes, but I could never wear them". This led us into a conversation about how I've always loved shoes. Mom recalled how even when I was a toddler tagging along at garage sales she never worried about me, whenever she couldn't find me she would find the shoes and there I would be playing in the middle of the mass of footwear.
This past week I bought a pair of Asics tennishoes. Its probbably been five years since I've owned a pair of tennies. If I couldn't wear a heal or Docs I wore my flip-flops. When I went jogging I borrowed Kryna's Asics. But in the last few months it was becomming all too clear to me that it was time to add a pair of truely sensible shoes to my collection. I wore them today for the first time and I LOVE them. They are sooooo comfy. Who knew?
I rarely throw out a pair of shoes, I may give them away, but to throw them out just seems too cruel. Who knows I may need them again. If not me surely some one.
The oldest ones here are pobably the black heals in the back row, they are eight years old, the Docs and boots are a close second with the strappy silver heals nipping at their toes. The rest is just history.

My favorite shoes.

Aren't they pretty?

Ah yes and these are my favorite comfy shoes. My mukluks, Asics, and flip-flops. You can't beat Old Navy flip-flops...$2.50 and they last forever. They are all my poor, little, swollen, pregnant feet saw this summer.

Can I Hear You Now?

Not this past September but the September before, Tim and I renewed our cell phone contract with Altell. In doing so we signed a two year contract which enabled us to get two new phones for free, with the small catch that we could not get any more discounts on phones for another two years. Ok, sounded good to us. What phone wouldn't last two years, but just to be on the safe side we both insured our phones. Eight months later we decided to drop the costly insurance because, really, who needs insurance, and there is that pesky deductible anyway. Not two weeks after we canceled the insurance my snazzy flip phone developed a crack in the plastic around the hinge... no big deal...it still works fine. Right? Yeah no big deal. Well the crack steadily grew till a whole hunk of plastic fell off, still no big deal, the top just wiggles up and down. Right? Sure, no big deal. A week ago the inner light stopped working...Big deal this time. Yep big deal. I no longer could search through my address book, find missed calls etc. without holding the phone up at a peculiar angle looking only slightly mad. Now all I needed to do was start batting at imaginary flies. I started bugging my dear husband to find our old (dare I say antique, maybe just vintage, yes vintage) phone, so that I no longer had to put up with this evil machine. Yesterday was the final straw. I woke up and the world seemed normal. I picked up my phone...dialed the desired #, waited to hear ringing on the other end...nothing. I held the phone out and the aforementioned peculiar angle and looked...yes the call had been placed. I end the call and dial again...still nothing. Hmm, maybe its the other person's phone (not likely I'm the one with the gimpy phone). I call Tim, still nothing. Hmmm, whatever can I do? (Light bulb) Speaker phone! Yes, use the speaker phone...Ahh I hear voices and not in my head, but coming from my phone. This time I immediately call Tim (on speaker phone) and inform him that this will NOT due. I will need a new phone and soon. If he would not find our vintage phone I would trot over to Altell and buy a new one. ( Big threat he knows how tight I am.) When he arrived home from work he not only found the phone, but called Altell and transfered the service and charged the battery for me. What a sweet man. So now call away I am back in business!

Baby Food For Thought

I'm a good boy...

Cute too..

And just a little mischievous.

Where do they find the help for this place? Really did they have to harvest the oats for my cereal? I'm a hungry boy. Fine I'll wait patiently.

Naps with Dad are the Best!

James is now starting to eat big people food, that is if you call purreed bannanas, apples, peaches, carrots, and sweet potatoes big people food. He has now tried the bannanas and apples, tomorrow night we will try something new. I took time today to make some baby food to have on hand. Hopefully I won't have to feed him much of the comercially pocessed baby food. I've allways had a little phobia about canned baby food; canned baby food and Chef Boyardee. Kelsie was kind enough to make every one at my baby shower sample some of the scariest food (if thats what it really was) imaginable. I really can't imagine giving him something I wouldn't dare eat. Although I have to confess that I have never tried his rice cereal and don't plan on it. Its mixed with formula or breastmilk and that's just more than I can do. It's so fun watching him try his new food. He's very expressive. Tomorrow I promise to try to post on something not baby related. :) See my commitment?

Another Day in Paradise

Recently I ordered a sling for James identical to this one barring the color. Yesterday it arrived just in time for our shopping trip. Tim, being Mister Mailman, got it for me while he was yet at the post office in the morning and met me at JC Penny to drop it off. We trotted off to a dressing room to get it all settled. It slipped over my head fine and all seemed well till we tried to cram James in. He ended up looking more like a big ball of play-doh than anything else. The sling was obviously too small for my strapping child. His eyes were squished together and bulging slightly, his lips were puckered from his cheeks being so smushed, but the little guy loved every minute of it. There wasn't one peep from him and he had a satisfied grin on the whole time. I guess it reminded him of old times. Needless to say we did not use it on the shopping trip. When I got home and did some further investigation I realized that they had sent me the size smaller than I had ordered.
James and I did have wonderful shopping yesterday. Old Navy just so happened to be having the sale of the season. $80.00 later I walked out the proud owner of 20 new pieces of clothing for my family. Not too shabby if you ask me.

Remember Me?

The fruits of our rearranging labors.

The new Rug.

Recently there have been rumblings of my neglect. Since my last post too much has happened to catch up on in one post so I have decided to start a fresh with today. Today James and I are going shopping with Mom. She is leaving a week from today to spend two weeks in Scotland visiting B&K. It is imperative that we go shopping or I truly believe she will have to go naked. Well maybe not but she would freeze to death. So that is what is going on today.
I've been rearranging our living room. One of my Christmas presents from M&D was an antique area rug. After Christmas I laid it down in the living room and was thus inspired to rearrange. With rearranging came redecorating. Anyways, I LOVE the rug. Its just my style. Aaron gave me the antique painting of the rosy cheeked baby that is hanging over the love seat. I just love, love, love it. ( by the way I'm sorry you had to sleep in a wheel chair on the way home, Bo-Bo)
In other news...On Wednesday I went shopping with Sonja to get some clothes for when James grows out of the ones he's wearing now. I was horrified to find out that he has out grown the cute little baby things I've been dressing him in. Where has my baby gone and who took him?!? Who's idea was it to not make onsies bigger than 6-9 months, thank the Lord for giving Gerber enough sense to make a few larger sizes. I like to dress him in the cute little footed rompers because it is cold and they seem so comfy but lo and behold they do not make them ( except the kind that are jammies with the plastic footies) in the 12 month size. So this Momma has to adjust to the fact that her little boy isn't going to be a baby for long. He had a bad cold the week after Christmas and is still trying to get over it. I think I took more stuff to get him better than he did. :) Ironic huh? Needless to say I didn't catch it.
Well alrighty then, I'm off to shop.