Home Grown

Archive for the ‘Gracie’ Category

Yesterday I did not post the cookie recipe. Some of you may know something was up with my website. It was a glitch on the server hosting side and the nice people at Liquidweb had to take some time to fix things on their end. All’s well now.

Want to win a $100 Visa gift card and a Sonicare gift package? Go on over to Home Grown Reviews and leave a comment. There are 8 chances for you to enter to win. Please visit the site links to other participants. This would make a great Christmas gift plus the $100 gift card will put some damage on your Christmas shopping list.

I had another ENT appointment yesterday. Again he vacuumed out the ear (it feels good but makes you dizzy for a minute) and told me to keep doing what I am doing. The hole in the ear drum can take up to 30 days after the infection clears to heal. I am tired of hearing ringing and having diminished hearing. I need this thing to heal. I have no clue what super bug is living in my ear.

When the weather started creeping down the 30’s at night I brought in all of my potted plants. I had these double blooming impatiens on the side porch and just couldn’t leave them out to suffer death in the cold. I brought them into the kitchen looking a little leggy and the leaves fading to yellow. In the last two weeks they have made a comeback and are blooming again. Aren’t they pretty?

Cookies!

Today is the perfect day to feed the inner Cookie Monster in yourself and your family and friends. Today is the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street. (I was never into Sesame Street. This is one show that came after my time. My sister is from the SS generation.)

Gracie’s Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Pecan Cookies

Preheat oven to 350.

1 c. butter
1/2 c. white sugar
1 c. packed brown sugar

Cream the butter and the sugar.

Add 2 eggs beating well after each egg.

1 tsp. Vanilla

Beat well.

In another bowl mix well -

1 3/4 c. all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3 cups quick cooking oats

Combine with the wet ingredients mixing only to incorporate. Do NOT over mix.

Add in -
1 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Fold in and do not over mix.

The dough will be stiff and you will have to work a little to fold in the chips and nuts.

Spoon out 1 1/2 inch balls and place them egaul distance on a cookie sheet and bake for 12 – 15 min.

Let cool a full 5 min before moving cookies from the baking pan.

We use silpats to bake on. They make cookie making easy. We bake 1 doz cookies per pan. As soon as one comes out another is already waiting to go in. In under and hour the cookies are baked and the mess is cleaned up. This recipe makes about 4 dozen cookie.

Also – we voted yesterday. Did you?

If you did not vote please do not whine, bitch or complain. You lost your chance to voice your opinion.

The weekend began with making for the spooky but that sort of went awry due to not only the rain but winds. Wind + rain = no luminaries and no candles and that just isn’t fun and did not play into my decorating ideas so the front porch was a bust.

I set out my tried and true carved foam pumpkins and plugged them in and made the best of it.

The kids were excited. Gracie was meeting up with some of her friends from school and Steve was taking Steven out. Getting everyone in costume was a bit rushed but fun and filled with giggles.

Steven wouldn’t call Steve “Robin” or “The Boy Wonder”. He had somehow decided that Steve was in fact dressed as Barnacle Boy from Sponge Boy. So, in the delighted mind of a three year old he went out trick or treating dressed as a super hero with Barnacle Boy at his side. Gotta love it!

Steven only walked about 40 minutes or just long enough to get about half of his bag filled with candy then he was ready to come home. Done. Completely finished. He and Steve then took over handing out candy.

Gracie was as gorgeous as ever in her pink poodle skirt. She skipped along excited to meet her friends. She was also delighted by all the older people who told her they once wore a skirt just like hers. She was also thrilled with her candy haul.

This is the only photo of me from Saturday night. Believe me the photo makes me look like I am thinner than I really am. There must have been a spooky spell on the camera. Yes, the low carb is working, but it isn’t working that fast! I wish I was already as thin as this photo suggests!

We ran out of candy at about 8:30. We cleaned up the porch quickly, closed the door and turned off the light.

And kids kept coming.

All we had was some junky candy Steve had forgotten to mix in with the good candy so they got a handful of suckers. After unlocking the door for the fourth time and trying to find something for kids knocking we shut down all the lights in the front of the house and didn’t go back to the door.

I know we suck. But what do you do when you run out of candy?

I think everyone had a great night.

Do you get very many kids trick or treating?

Did you dress up?

Tomorrow I’ll tell you what we did with our ‘extra’ hour and show you the cookies Gracie baked.

Gracie’s video debute. Her first How To for Cosmetic Application.

This one is titled Every Day Gold Look with Red Lip

Give her some comment love if you have a youtube account. Please and Thank you.

My Bucket List

Live in a fishing village on the coast of Maine during lobster season.

Live in Alaska for a year to experience the full cycle of the Midnight Sun and the Polar Night.

Spend the month of December in Vermont secluded in a cabin in a snowy tiny village.

Spend time in the south pacific living like a ne’er do well.

Travel the US from coast to coast with no rhyme or reason – just going with the flow and money being no object.

Publish a work of fiction.

Fit in a size 2 dress for just one day – without being sick or mentally ill in the process of getting there.

See Steve develop that one application that the world can’t live without.

See my children grown and with their own happy spouses and children living comfortable and productive lives.

Have a ’sleeping porch’.

Earn a PhD.

Have a weekend garden party with Stephen King as my honored guest.

Meet my online friends in person.

This list will be updated radomly.