So hot, it’s sizzzzzling. (And also dry.)

I complained before about my dryer deciding to quit being a Dryer in favor of a new career: Tumbler of Wet Clothes. Clearly it’s a much more lucrative profession to bandy clothes about without heating them or drying them or helping me out in any way. Stupid dryer.

Since the dryer is 11 years old (making it about 88 in dryer-years), and since I had to replace its mate last year at about this time, I thought I was going to have to replace the dryer. I looked up different dryer makes and models, compared sales, and pretty much decided on a Maytag that everyone says is comparable to the pretty, pretty LGs everyone likes because they come in pretty colors. Yes, I gave in to my dryer’s job action and called in a replacement…or at least I was going to until I mentioned it to my IO and he decided to step in.

The IO did some research. According to the Internets, the problem I was experiencing – intermittent heat that necessitated three or four cycles to dry anything – could be caused by a faulty thermostat. Or a broken heating element. Or a bunch of lint. He checked the air flow from the exhaust (which turns out to be on the roof, not on the side of the house like I told him. Whoops!), and there seemed to be a lot of hot air blowin’ out of the house (heh), so he ruled out air flow. He decided that I should order a thermostat since that was a $20 fix instead of the $60 for the heating element. Sold.

So, on Friday night, he replaced the thermostat and declared it the easiest fix in the history of dryer repairs – if it worked. All he had to do was pry open the top of the dryer and the thermostat was right there on top. Excellent. Or, it would have been if it had worked. Instead, what happened is that the dryer would heat, but only until I interrupted the load and opened the door to make sure it was heating. Then, when I closed the door, the dryer refused to heat up again. I know because I let some test loads cycle all the way through before I checked. Fine – so stop opening the door, right? Easy answer. False: the dryer only sometimes heated. Most of the time the clothes were still really wet. And cold. Stupid dryer.

After spending all.day.Saturday trying to get one single load of clothes to dry, I decided to check underneath the lint trap. My lint screen is held in place by a pretty narrow grid of plastic. That sucker was NOT moving enough to let me wiggle my hand in. Being the good tool-wielding human I am, I used my 18-inch plastic ruler, knitting needles, and my scissors to coax about a gallon of lint out of the teeny tiny space. The only problem? I could feel about a gajillion more pounds of lint cushioning the bottom of the dryer. So yesterday the IO pulled the dryer apart again, and this time he pulled the front of the dryer off, too. Guess what I found?

This:

And this…

(Okay, I’m not really posting the second one. It was enough to make me gag when I looked at the picture again and you guys might be eating breakfast.)

Yep. Two more bags of lint. The good news? I saved $60 on a heating element and $500 on a new dryer. Even better? I have dry clothes! WOOT! That totally makes up for showing the entire Internet my dirty laundry.

If she would improve the menu, I could totally exploit this.

It all started late yesterday afternoon as we were driving back from the zoo. I was exhausted after having walked about 1,289 miles in the past four hours while we looked at every.single.animal the zoo had to offer. My feet hurt. I was caffeine-deprived from not having the pleasure of my afternoon crack-high cuppa. I was worn out. So as we got into the car, I joked to Gracie, “Okay, you’re cooking dinner for us, Grace.”

“Okay!” she enthusiastically agreed way too quickly.

I thought she knew it was a joke and wasn’t gonna happen, but when we got home, she was dead set on cooking dinner. My hint was when I walked in the door and she already had a can of spaghettios under the can opener and was trying to make it work.

“Freeze, pipsqueek!” I had to yell as I put down my backpack, keys, and assorted zoo paraphernalia. The girl wasn’t gonna let me talk her out of making dinner. Thankfully, she did seem willing to let me help her a little with the potentially destructive can opener. Although, looking back on it, that might have been because the circuit had to be reset and she couldn’t figure out why the can opener wasn’t working. Sigh. So I helped her line up the can and get that started. She moved the sharp can lid into the sink while I averted my eyes from the potential ER visit. Then she asked demanded that I get down a big bowl and two small ones – so she could scoop the contents of the can into the big bowl to heat it up and set the other bowls on the counter to eat out of, natch.

Gracie managed to get the bowl o’ spaghettios into the microwave on her own and lowered herself to ask me how  long they needed to cook. She fetched the (lukewarm) bowl out all on her own and divvied up the contents for her and her sister. She got their leftover glasses of milk out of the fridge and asked her sister to get them some spoons. As they sat down at the table to eat their lukewarm, but always disgusting spaghettios, Gracie was as happy as a clam. And so, so proud.

I was, too. Although I will admit to thinking how quickly I could teach her to make a pork tenderloin. Mmmmm…

Little Miss Chatterbox.

We had a rough night at our house last night. Gracie brought her report card home and it was…less than stellar. Perhaps it has something to do with Gracie, but really I think it’s karma’s way of testing my mommyhood. Think you have it down pat, woman? Try this! Yeah.

Her report card was actually pretty good, grades-wise. She excelled in math, reading comprehension, phonics, writing, social skills. She had her known-pitfalls – like standing up for three seconds in a row without falling over, playing in a band (wtf, elementary school?!), and predicting the outcome to stories (the one area in which too much imagination can work against you. Ahem). She received top marks in following directions, working independently, giving her best effort and respecting her peers and authority figures.

There was just one problem. One area in which she was demoted. Gracie received poor marks in conduct. Worse, her comment from the teacher was that she has been talking far too much during lessons this quarter.

Gracie hung her head in shame when we went over that section. I had read it previously, so I saved it for last (I know Gracie shuts down and refuses to hear the positive whenever she’s critiqued for anything; I wanted to make sure she heard the good news, too). She knew what the words meant and how I would feel about it. She knew she had talked too much. She worried that she was going to get another bad report card and what that would mean. And then I started worrying that she was taking this all too hard and that she would make herself sick again. I want her to be invested in her grades, but I don’t want her to make herself sick over them. Unfortunately with Gracie, her middle ground has about one square inch of real estate. Landing on that sucker? Not. easy.

So I scooped my almost-too-big kid into my lap and cuddled her and tried to make her smile. “Okay, Gracie. We have a problem. But that’s okay because once we know what a problem is, we can come up with a plan to solve it. So. Our problem is that you are talking too much during lessons. What should our plan be?” The little twerp wouldn’t stop pouting long enough to answer. Finally, a very small “You go first,” escaped from behind her curtain of hair. “Okay, I’ll go first. I think that when Mrs. F. is talking, you should zip your lips up and throw away the key.” And then came Gracie’s justifications – she has no problem finding her voice when it comes to those! Luckily, I know how to shoot down excuses with the best of them. In fact, I might have lettered in that during Mommy Finishing School. It took some cajoling, but by the end of our talk, Gracie was on board with out plan and was full, once again, with a can-do attitude.

Of course, that evaporated pretty quickly when I told her she had only earned $3 instead of $5. I explained very carefully and lovingly that I couldn’t reward her for talking too much. Then I reminded her that she had the power to fix it by not talking as much. And then she would get a great report card and earn greens and she would get all! five! dollars! next time! She didn’t perk up that much. I kind of wavered myself there for a minute. I believe in rewarding report cards with money – in the real world after school, our hard work, efforts, and aptitude reward us with corresponding jobs and paychecks. The kind of schooling we have access to and jobs we can earn are tied to many, many things, but the one thing we can always control is how hard we try. I think that kids can learn that at a very, very young age. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t rethink all of that last night while I watched Gracie struggle. Was kindergarten too young? Was Gracie’s temperament suited to this kind of instruction? Could I expect her to toughen up, or should I adjust my “training” to suit her a little more? I decided to stick with consistency – and my offer of three dollars.

Heaven knows if I’m doing the right thing. When results come in – in, oh, about 18 years – I’ll let you know.

What I love about spring…

Bradford Pear trees in bloom.
Sending the girls outside to swing.
Running in a t-shirt and shorts.
Music always sounds better with the windows open.
Spring and summer birds returning to the yard.
An extra hour of daylight = an extra hour of energy.
Barbequed chicken.
Everything is so green!
Hope seems to lurk around every corner.
Patio weather for drinks with my girlfriends and my buddies.
Laughter seems to come easier when it’s 70 degrees outside.
My spring wardrobe choices include more than layers and layers of sweaters.
Have you seen how cute little kids look in t-shirts and jeans?
And, of course, love seems to lurk everywhere, too.

Happy Love Thursday, everyone! I hope you have a chance to slow down and appreciate what’s hiding in plain sight today.

The Pineapple Rebellion of 2010.

So I mentioned all of the snow and crazy weather this weekend? Yeah. How lovely. To protest the snowfall (IN MARCH!!), I decided to protest by slicing up my fresh, extra sweet pineapples flown in from Maui. What better way to laugh at the weather than to eat sweet summery fruit? The only problem was – I didn’t know how to cut up fresh pineapple. No matter – I googled it and will now show you how.

First, you need a cutting board and a big, sharp knife.

Next, slice off the pineapples hair and then its bottom.

Then you want to skin the pineapple. Most of the sites I saw showed the person cutting off the skin on four sides, or maybe five. But that pineapple smelled so tasty that I didn’t want to waste any of its sweet, sweet fruit. So I skinned it as close as I could. Then I went back and took off any of the dimples I missed.

I should note that with my first pineapple (I was gifted with three of them – yay!), once I smelled the pineapple, I went a little crazy. Then I made the mistake of nibbling just a little. And then I was hurrying so quickly to get that pineapple skinned and sliced that I forgot about taking pictures altogether. So from here on out, we’re looking at pineapple #2. It’s amazing what you can remember when you’ve satiated your pineapple craving by eating almost an entire pineapple by yourself. Ahem.

Once you’ve skinned your pineapple, you might want to rinse both the fruit and the cutting board off. It’s kind of a messy project, this slicing of pineapples.

When you’ve done that, slice your pineapples however thick you want them.

Then take each slice and core it. I did that by cutting each side of the slice right next to the core (it looks like a murky little circle or nucleus), so I was left with a square core. Then I chunked the fruit that was left. Voila!

I tell ya – that first pineapple was the tastiest pineapple I have ever had in my entire life. (The second one wasn’t too bad, either!) And the snow melted by noon on Sunday, so I guess the Pineapple Rebellion worked…and kinda makes me wonder what will happen if I stage a snowcone rebellion in the middle of June. Hmmm…

While Kim was baking Erin’s Lemony Buns…

…I was baking Erin’s Hermit Cookies, because I thought those went more with the theme of cold and snowy. Also, because Erin has excellent taste.

[I feel obligated to insert, at this point, that Hermit Cookies are molasses cookies with raisins. No one here seems to know what a hermit cookie is. Hmph.]

In any case, I finally baked Erin’s Hermit Cookies and, truly, they are what I have been looking for these past ten years. You see, my dad’s mail customers (he was a mailman with a route on the ritzy side of town) used to give him baked goods at the holidays, and this one older Jewish lady used to give him a tray-ful of Hermits. They were de-licious! In fact, I don’t think I shared those very well. I remember waiting every night for him to come home to see if he had the hermit cookies yet. One year, she was sick or out of town or something and I was disappointed because I thought I would have to forgo the Hermit cookies that year. Then, to my great joy and delight, he came home with his tray of cookies after the New Year’s. Hooray!

Flash-forward to a month or so ago when Erin forwarded another friend and I this recipe. I don’t know what took me so long to bake them; the ingredients are all things you’ll have in your house. Unless, of course, you’re like me and didn’t realize that you had about 10 raisins left in your cannister and so had to open about six of the lunch-sized individual boxes to meet your raisin quota. Ahem. You’ll need:

1 1/2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar (packed)
1 cup + 2 Tblsp margarine
2 small eggs
3 1/4 cups flour (yes, you read that correctly)
1 1/2 cups raisins
1/2 cup molasses
2 rounded tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
dash of allspice

Don’t you love those nifty terms like “rounded teaspoons” and a “dash” of something? It makes me think of my great-grandmother’s recipes. Actually, hermit cookie recipes are usually traced back to the late 19th century…not that my great-grandmother was that old. (I can hear her yelling at me and shaking a wooden spoon.) Now for the directions:

First, you want to soften the butter in the microwave in a large bowl (you’ll add ingredients as we go along). I’d put it in at 10-second intervals until it feels soft, but not melted. Then, add the sugars.

Cream those ingredients together (newbies: mix really well). Once that’s done, you want to add your eggs and mix those in.

In another medium (or largish) bowl, mix your flour, baking soda and powder, and spices.

Now you can add the molasses to your butter/sugar mixture. If you haven’t worked with molasses before, I would like to say that yes, it’s supposed to smell like death. Don’t worry – that goes away and it tastes wonderful. Mix that into the soup goop batter.

When you’ve done that, add the dry ingredients into the mess you just made batter. Mix slowly, but thoroughly. Once, I started stirring too vigorously and dusted my curtains. That are ten feet across the room. Yeah.

Once your batter is mixed, you can add the raisins. I don’t have a shot of this because I was in a hurry to get my mixture in the oven. Unfortunately, my batter seemed to have the consistency of peanut butter and I couldn’t imagine getting it to form into the logs you’ll read about in the next step. So I stuck the mixture into the fridge overnight.

That turned out to be a good plan. The dough was much easier to shape the next morning. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Spray two cookie sheets with Pam. (NOTE: make sure your cookie sheets have sides, because the dough will spread a lot. In fact, the only thing stopping them from taking over the planet will be the sides to the cookie sheets. Heed my warning, people.) Once the pans are sprayed down, divide the dough into two sections. Each section will make three logs. Build those logs up as much as you can, spreading them width-wise across the pan.

(There are better pictures at the original link, here.) The higher you build the logs up, the thicker (and tastier!) your Hermit cookies will come out. Trust me.

Bake at 375 for 13-15 minutes. DO NOT under- or over-cook them! The edges will seem a little crisp and the insides will seem a little underdone. That is the perfect Hermit consistency.

Enjoy! The recipe will yield 30-60 bars or cookies, depending on how big you cut them. I will warn you though it’s impossible to eat just one, so plan accordingly if you’re going to share!

Guest blog: Summer tastes like…

(Written by the very lovely and witty Kim.)

Okay, I know – it isn’t summertime yet.  In fact, it’s barely spring.  But!  Apparently, the Weather Gods love me more than Katie (big surprise, what with all my devotion these long years…).  Plus, I think they knew they OWE me after the Christmas cancellations and then the birthday/Valentine’s Day travel debacle this year.

You see, while Katie was ushering in the first official day of spring with a snowshower (in TEXAS!), I was spending the weekend out on my roof deck in gorgeous 70-something degree weather.  I even put on some SPF 40, just in case.  I swept the slate tile, brought out some new fun garden toys that I’ve been hoarding saving all winter long – but mostly I just lounged about on my chaise lounger writing stuff for my burgeoning academic career (Ha!  Take THAT, springtime productivity!).  Even when I was inside, the doors and windows were wide open and the heat I have to pay for was off.  It was glorious.

Come Sunday, I decided that what I really needed to get the most out of this gift of a weekend was some summery-flavored food.  I ordered a hibachi online (oh the guest blogginess that will generate!), but I needed something more immediate.  Something for eating on the roof deck now.  Something…lemony.

You see, lemon is a Summer Flavor.  It’s so light and refreshing and bright – exactly like my weekend!  THAT’s why I decided to do a test-run of the new recipe my BFF Erin sent out last week.  You all might know Erin from some of my sister’s posts (and comments) – she of Mint Choco-Ganache Cuppa-cake Fame.  Erin trolls multiple amazing foodie blogs and passes along the tastiest looking and most inspired of her gleanings to the rest of us.  This particular recipe is for homemade cinnamon buns that use lemon instead of, well, the cinnamon part.  [Katie's note: Can we call them Erin's Lemony Buns?] The original creator describes them in mouth-watering detail in her blog post – with pictures! – so I won’t go into too much detail here except to say: They are ambrosia.  Sure, they’re not something you can whip up after work for a quick get-together and yes, it’s true, there may be a few ingredients not readily to hand for spur-of-the-moment baking.  But boy oh boy are they worth every moment of planning and every nanosecond of doing other things while waiting for them to rise/rise again/cool off enough so you can eat them already.  (Don’t tell Katie, but I think I like these even better than the Mint Choco-Ganache Cuppa-cakes…)

So if you’re not scared to knead your own bread dough and grate some lemon zest, check out the recipe here.  Whomever you’re serving will be so glad you did – they’re guaranteed to springify even the snowiest of March days!

I wish I was kidding.

Yesterday morning, The Weather Channel woke me up at 4:21 a.m. with a text message about a Winter Weather Advisory. Oooookay, I thought. The last time that happened, it was because it started hailing during a thunderstorm. My text messages went “Severe Thunderstorm Watch, Severe Thunderstorm Warning, Winter Weather Warning, Thunderstorm Warning,” all in a row. Some crazy intern mixing up hail warnings. I knew we were supposed to get thunderstorms overnight, so I was all, Whatevs. I’m sure it’s really hail. I could even hear some plinging against the windows amongst the raindrops, but I just rolled over and went back to sleep.

Then I wondered why it was so cold when I woke up. Well, Katie, that was because it was 37 degrees. Ho-hum, no matter. It had been colder in the mornings, but warming up during the day. Except…a high of 42? What the hell? WHAT THE HELL, SPRINGTIME?! No matter. Other than giving blood, I wasn’t planning on going outside and temps were scheduled to be back to normal by Monday. It would be like it never even happened.

Except then I remembered that the batteries in both of my watches had died. So I dashed out of the house to run that quick errand and I was walking back to my car, I felt a teeeny, tiny raindrop on my hand. It was still cloudy and miserable outside, so I thought it was maybe thinking about raining. I noticed, too, that a small whitish thing floated past my peripheral vision and quickly dismissed it. It was NOT a snowflake. It was much more likely a crystalized exhaust flake from the SUV that was idling right next to me. Because it was March 20th. The END of March. A day when it does not snow back home, never mind in freaking Texas. Then I got in the car and had to turn on the wipers because something kept hitting the windshield. With a suspicious tiny little plink. Son of a bitch! It was SNOWING!

Look:

Those aren't fuzzies on my sweater. They're snowflakes. Mean, evil snowflakes.

I took more pictures, because the flakes were really coming down. Some were huge – bigger than pencil erasers. And I could still see blue sky! Oh, I was annoyed. It is time for spring. Not snow. I’m sure the weather gods thought they were rewarding me for giving blood and having such awesome veins and all, but really? SCREW YOU, spring! I want my patio weather back. Not this:

An inch of snow. An INCH.

What a girl won’t do for a few Oreos.

Confession: I’m not a big Oreo fan. I’ll eat them, but usually the only time I have them is when I go to give blood, and that’s just because they make me before they’ll let me leave. As fun as it is watching everyone’s blood agitate back and forth, I have things to do. So I eat them.

Yes, I gave blood this morning. I haven’t donated since just before the holidays. I believe it was just after I got back on track after the constant-vacationing in November. I remember because I had a hard time getting my running back on track. They say to take it easy for a few days, but I couldn’t get back to 2 1/2 miles for almost two weeks after donating. So when the very nice people at Carter BloodCare called after the holidays, I told them that I had a race coming up and I was very sorry, but I couldn’t donate until afterward. I felt horribly guilty and selfish – people were having life-saving operations and medical traumas and I refused to give them my blood because I wanted to run a silly race? But I’m a selfish person, so I stamped those feelings back down and told the very nice person on the phone to call me at the beginning of March.

Either that technician is really efficient or else they must really, really like my blood because those nice people called me last week, right on schedule. Unfortunately, I had the girls last weekend, so they had to wait until today before they could suck me dry. I planned better this time: I ran last night after work instead of trying to run right after giving blood. It’s a good thing, too – last night it was a balmy 72 degrees outside. Today, it is windy with a high of 42. I wish I was kidding. So I didn’t mind one bit earning an excuse to stay inside and take it easy. In fact, I learned that the next time I donate, I can be even more lazy: apparently, only 6% of the population has pretty, shiny A- blood like me. The techs checked out the quality of my veins to see if I would be a candidate to donate platelets. That process takes about two hours to complete. I asked why I needed to have strong veins and she said it’s because they separate and scrub my platelets clean and then a machine forces my blood back into my veins. If my veins aren’t strong enough, they explode. Or maybe just a bunch of fluid collects under my skin and I get the mother of all bruises. Either way. I wonder if I get four Oreos for that, instead of just two.

I joke and kid because – hey, why not? But if you’re not donating blood, you should. It’s quick, easy, and (most importantly) pain free. If you’re in the DFW area, click here to find the closest Carter BloodCare donation center, or click here to visit the Red Cross’s Web page to find out where you can donate anywhere in the country.

I’ve got big plans, big plans I say!

So, Spring Break turned out to be kind of a bust for the girls this year. True, they are out of school for the week, but they’re bouncing between their dad’s and Grandma’s instead of joining the fun activities daycare had lined up for them. I’m sure they’re having fun and don’t care a single bit about missing “school,” but it’s made me think of all the fun we could have next year.

I’d love to take them on a trip. Ideally, we could go for an extra week at Grandma’s or Auntie Kim’s, but that means a lot of extra money for plane tickets and rental cars and car seats. That is a bigger (extra) trip than I had in mind. So maybe something within driving distance.

I’d love to take them to a beach, but there isn’t a real beach within driving distance. There’s San Padre Island on the gulf, but that’s more of a college hotspot and I do not want to deal with any of that mess on my relaxing vacation. So I need something family-oriented, too.

Which brings me to Sea World. There’s one conveniently located in San Antonio, which is about a five-hour drive from the metroplex. I’m sure the girls will be royal brats by the end of the car trip, but it sounds completely do-able to me. Train ‘em while they’re young, I say. (And while I still have the courage. Ahem.) We can pack snacks, sing songs, they can have actual toys in the car! That should distract them for awhile. I’ll have to listen to them beg to take toys in the car every single time we go anywhere in the car for the rest of our natural lives, but an hour of peace is a fair trade.

After such a long car trip, their little legs will be itching to pour through the exhibits at Sea World and snap pictures of all of the fish and animals and marine life. I bet the girls stand for an hour watching the penguins, if I let them. Those kiddos love them some penguins. (Also, giraffes. But I don’t think those will be there.) We can take in a Shamu show (although March might be early to sit in the splash zone) and check out the dolphins and find some clownfish. There are kiddie rides and arcade games and lots of shows to enjoy. The park even offers multi-day vacation plans. We could hit Sea World for a day, day-and-a-half, and then maybe check out the children’s museum. (I checked out the zoo map, but I have to say, it doesn’t seem to compare to ours. Still nice, but not better.) Or maybe we can walk along the RiverWalk or take a river cruise. I bet they even have duck tours.

Those are grand plans for next year. Meanwhile, I feel all kinds of inspired to get out and do more here around town. Once we run the March/April birthday gauntlet, we can take in the zoo, have a picnic at the Log Cabin Village (and send pictures to Sars), ride the miniature train, go to the skating rink, and take them – Gracie, at least – to the planetarium. Grand plans, indeed. Now I just need sunshine and peace on earth for the next several weekends in a row.