Brilliant

This morning I tried a new recipe from America's Test Kitchens, and it was brilliant - ended up being the easiest ever French Toast to make!

Everyday French Toast

3 large eggs
1 T vanilla extract
2 t packed brown sugar
1/2 t ground cinnamon
1/4 t table salt
2 T unsalted butter, melted
1 c milk
8 slices hearty white sandwich bread **

1.  Adjust 1 oven rack to lowest position and second rack 5-6 inches from broiler element.  Heat oven to 425*.  Generously spray bottom and sides of 18"x13" rimmed baking sheet with vegetable oil spray.  Whisk eggs, vanilla, sugar, cinnamon, and salt in large bowl until sugar is dissolved and no streaks of egg remain.  Whisking constantly, drizzle in melted butter.  Whisk in milk.

2.  Pour egg mixture into prepared sheet.  Arrange bread in single layer in egg mixture, leaving small gaps between slices.  Working quickly, use your fingers to flip slices in same order you placed them in sheet.  Let sit until slices absorb remaining custard, about 1 minute.  Bake on lower rack until bottoms of slices are golden brown, 10-15 min.  Transfer sheet to upper rack and heat broiler.  (Leave sheet in oven while broiler heats.)  Broil until tops of slices are golden brown, watching carefully and rotating sheet if necessary to prevent burning, 1-4 min.
3.  Using thin metal spatula, carefully flip each slice.  Serve.

**  I like to use Pepperidge Farms Cinnamon Swirl Bread for French Toast, and since the slices are fairly small, I fit more slices on the baking sheet.

Besides making break through cooking discoveries, I have stayed incredibly busy trying to keep everyone's schedules straight.  It is not uncommon for both girls to have an activity on opposite sides of town at the same time - its' been logistical nightmare, and I'm looking forward to the end of Basketball season!

Add to the mix that Flu Season is upon us - I was down for the count for 4 days last week, and J succumbed for about the same period of time this week.  So far JP and L have steered clear of the nasty virus.  Between illness and the weather, our schedules were wiped clean for about a week, which was a welcome relief.

While being stuck inside, we managed to finish puzzles number 14 and 15 (puzzles 5-13 were 500 piece ones that we did last year as well.)  We also watched a couple of Oscar contenders:  "Bohemian Rhapsody", and "A Star is Born."

I also tried my first batch of "Sea Glass" in the rock tumbler.  I wasn't sure how small to break the bottles that I used, and apparently I need to go smaller.  Otherwise, I think they look pretty cool!  Now I need to start scavenging at the recycling facility for nice colored glass.

J sang and played guitar with her friend at the Choral Cabaret at school.  L continues to shoot at least one basket per game at her Basketball games.

I hope you all are staying happy, well, and not too busy!

Ice Cold

Snow day today - as I write, the temperature is -4 degrees.  They have already called for snow day #2 tomorrow.  It has been difficult to keep the water in the chicken house in a liquid form today.

I just wanted to show some pictures of a project I've been working on since Christmas.  We got a rock tumbler for Christmas, so I have been tumbling a pound of gemstones in a step-wise fashion.  They turned out really nice.

Next I plan to try tumbling some glass to make "beach glass."

Stay warm!

A Couple of Fails in the New Year

Here it is, nearly the middle of January, and I'm only just now posting about our goings on.  Perhaps that is because we have been a bit lazy on the weekends, and perhaps it is due to the fact that our week days got suddenly crazier with the coming of the new year.

Not only is L having basketball practice 2 nights/week (one of those being Friday night), she now has games every Saturday, at a location nearly an hour away.  J has started rehearsals for the Spring Musical, which includes choreography 2 nights/week and vocals Friday after school.  Both girls also have music lessons after school, and J is still doing dance.  Luckily we were able to combine trips to the school campus on Wed/Fri until now...just was notified by the coach that basketball is being bumped from the gym until 7 PM on Wed and Fri, meaning that the end of practice gets bumped back to 8:30 (meaning ACTUALLY 8:45.)  This will require multiple trips to and from the campus OR extended periods of one of us waiting there for one or the other child, not to mention that it is already difficult to get L to bed on time on practice nights due to other issues.  It's enough to make me lose it...in fact, I DID lose it a little last night - tears were shed.  SIGH.  For the life of me, I can't figure a way to limit the pointless miles put on the vehicles, the endless hours driving back and forth, AND giving the kids time at home to do such mundane things as eat dinner and do homework.

At home, things have not always been faring much better.  Although I did have a couple of wins with a bag of needing-to-be-used apples shared with us at Christmas time:  I made a Dutch Caramel Apple Pie, featuring homemade caramel sauce (delicious), and last night an Apple Crisp.  There have also been a couple of fails in the cooking department.  I put dried navy beans to soak before I went to bed on Saturday night, intending to cook them for most of the day and have them for dinner.  After 5 hours of cooking in the oven, the beans were still hard, so we put them to simmer on the stove.  By dinner time (approximately 7 hours later) they were still inedible.  I transferred them to the crockpot, and after an additional 10 hours, they are soft, but taste burned - so basically edible today.  I have no explanation.

In addition, it never fails that just when I am the most exhausted from running and/or working all day, and want to sit down or go to bed, some calamity occurs, involving at least 30 minutes of clean up.  Monday evening a can of tomato sauce fell out of the refrigerator as I was putting away things from packing lunches (One of the things I had accomplished that day was mopping the floor.)  Several days later, it appears that the lever on our water container in the fridge was compressed while the door was closed, and when I opened it to pack lunches, I found the bottom of the fridge and the deli drawer full of water...not to mention a puddle on the floor.

It's exhausting.

Thankfully we had a fairly restful weekend, and even had the time to play outside in our 5 inches of snow as a family.  The sledding was great - we made record runs from the house to the driveway - and the weather wasn't too terribly cold!  JP pulled us back up the hill with the ATV until it sustained a flat tire.  Even though both girls look perturbed in the pictures, it is because I am TAKING a picture, not because they were having an awful time. 

So, we are on to another week.  Here's hoping that ALL of us (Electra the Subaru included) make it through to another weekend!

Christmas Vacation

It has been a quiet vacation so far.

Puzzles:  we finished numbers 2,3,4 AND 5.

The seed catalogs began arriving on Christmas eve.

The girls enjoyed Christmas presents on Christmas morning.

My parents came over for Christmas dinner.  We decided to do a fondue this year.  It was an epic fail.

JP's sister and brother-in-law joined us for dinner on the day after Christmas.  We had a delicious tenderloin and this lovely pecan pie.

L's birthday was on the 27th.  She is now officially a teenager.

JP's family helped us make around 50 tamales.

Tomorrow is New Year's Eve.  JP is working and the girls have dentist appointments in the morning.  We plan to head to Barnes and Noble afterwards.

Christmas Confusion

For a good part of the day yesterday, I thought it was Friday.

It wasn't.

I did wear my new skirt to work yesterday.

Yes, it does light up!

One of my colleagues was almost overwhelmed.  "I have a migraine, and I thought I was seeing lights!" she said.

Today, TGIF, I spent all morning volunteering at the Middle School.  While helping 7th and 8th graders make tied fleece blankets, I overheard this conversation:

"Are cucumbers fruits or vegetables?"

"Cucumbers are fruits, but sea cucumbers are vegetables."

To save you all any more confusion:
- tomorrow is Saturday
- it is also 4 days until Christmas
- cucumbers are in the melon family, but whether that makes it fruit or vegetable, I'm not certain
- apparently Christmas unicorns are a thing, so are Christmas Spider Men.

This Week in Song

It has been a busy week for J's vocal cords.

On Monday after school, she had chorus rehearsal, with the chorus concert being Tuesday evening.

Wednesday after school were auditions for the Spring musical, "Mama Mia."

She sang at another Open Mic night tonight.

She is resting her vocal cords for the remainder of the week!

Have Yourself a Scary Little Christmas

I am sitting here, sipping my butterscotch cocoa (which I made even more extravagant with the addition of chocolate whipped cream on top), and enjoying the warm house with Christmas music playing in the background on this rainy day.  We are officially 10 days away from the big day, and this week has been anything from festive.

JP is finally nearly well from the cold which kept him up at night coughing (and me some too, being a light sleeper) for the better part of 2 weeks.  Unfortunately, I am the next one to be lucky enough to contract it.  I actually called off work on Tuesday because I couldn't stop coughing.  It was kinda nice to lie on the sofa, wrapped in blankets, watching corny Netflix Christmas movies all day.

I went to the Podiatrist on Wednesday, since my foot is STILL hurting from the Turkey Trot on Nov. 17th.  He diagnosed me with a stress fracture, and I am to follow up after the Holidays if it is not completely better. Soon after the appointment, I manage to open the car door right into my forehead, giving myself a nice goose egg there.  Now I seem to be developing an infection there, and have been periodically holding hot compresses on it.

The bank called that morning to inform me that our account was overdrawn. I was apparently half asleep when I paid the bills last time, as I wrote in a transfer that I never made, and addressed a large e-check to the insurance company, instead of the credit card company where it was due.

I've been pretty much of a hot mess for most of the week, but I've had it easy.

We heard from a dear friend, who was just diagnosed with brain cancer.  Another close friend, who is a teacher in Indiana, spent several hours hiding in her classroom with her students on Thursday, while an active shooter was in the builder.  He ended up taking his own life, at age 14, but none of the other children were injured.

In the midst of all of this pain and sadness, there has been some beauty.

J and her Chamber Choir sang carols at the bank on Friday afternoon.

The decorations are up in the house, including all of my snowmen:

We even bought a new decoration for outside of the house - a Moravian Star.  I love the lights at Christmas.

Gingerbread cupcakes:

And the moment where a patient remembered that I had these earrings made from old mason canning jars, and she gave me 2 of them, filled with green and red peppermint candies.

Here's hoping your Christmas season is more merry than scary!