Saturday, December 10, 2005

End of a long, but fun day...

Seriously, I have been going non-stop since early this morning, but everything I did today was productive and fun. Okay, maybe the laundry wasn't fun, and cleaning the bathroom is pretty low on my list of good times, but the rest was fun.

We went to the movies and saw "Narnia," and had an enjoyable time. Good company, despite having to dodge an eleven-year old who is too tall while trying to have a conversation. Most surreal moment: while walking out of the theater, suddenly realizing that we were walking behind two big tough guys in leather jackets, one of whom had curls on the ends of his mustache...

The movie was pretty good, and a very good adaptation. The beginning scene was not in the book at all, but it was totally necessary to set the situation and time period (WWII, England, during the Blitz). But really, it has been so long since I have read the book, that I can't remember the details. It was fun, and I got a chance to have a much needed break, and fun conversation with someone over the age of eleven.

After the movie, I raced home to throw together some cookie dough to take to my sister's house. Work called a couple of times while I was trying to do this. We had a network hiccup that tanked a couple of printers, but it all recovered correctly. That's part of my geek super-powers - troubleshooting over the phone while folding dry ingredients into the dough base :)

My mom came to town to baby sit my nephew while my sister and her husband went to a Christmas party at his cousin's in Des Moines. Mom and I decided it would be a good time to get our holiday baking done, since it is always more fun to make massive amounts of treats together than alone. Plus, my nephew is more than a handful, and we needed two sets of hands. "All of THAT came out of YOU?"

I was glad to be able to bake with my mom. Alone, I often end up kicking myself as I am putting the umpteen billionth sheet of cookies into the oven at 10:00 pm, and they all have to be frosted yet. And I eat too many as they are cooling. I usually only make a couple of different treats, since we can't eat them all, and I still end up giving a bunch away. This way, we could make more types of treats, and split everything three ways (a third to my sister, for letting us use her kitchen). Not to mention the fact that we can have nice long talks while working. Very fun!

We ended up not getting as much done as we thought we would, as my nephew had a hard time getting to sleep. He just didn't want to lie down, so my mom ended up rocking him to sleep. As soon as she put him in his crib, he woke up, but he quieted down after about five minutes of us just leaving him alone.

We made chocolate star cookies (triple batch), a bunch of almond bark pretzels (one and a half batches), and a batch of Granny's party mix (four gallons). The party mix almost killed us. It had to be stirred every 15 minutes while baking for two hours. You stir by pouring it into another container, then back into the pan. We had two of those disposable aluminum roasting pans, and it was interesting, to say the least. No wonder my mom rarely makes it... Mom also made peanut clusters beforehand, and brought us a plate. I made sugar cookie dough that we didn't have time to bake, so that is on my list for tomorrow morning (my famous melt-in-your-mouth sugar cookies). Mom is going to make the pumpkin bread tomorrow morning before we come over. This way we each can split up that stuff, too.

Then, we are going shopping. My son is staying with my brother-in-law and my nephew, while us girls go shopping. I should be able to get more of my son's presents taken care of, which will be great. I would like to be done before the end of this week, so I can just enjoy the season without the attendant stress that comes from leaving everything until the last minute.

I only hope my feet and legs hold out tomorrow.

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