Stuck. in. the. mud.

I... am a creature of habit. I'm very brand loyal, until I change my mind 10 years down the road. One of the few exceptions to this is anything hair related.

So it should be no surprise to anyone that I've made the same chocolate chip recipe for the last 15-20 years, with only mild variations. It's a damn good recipe, why fuck with it, right?

But that's pretty much the only cookie I ever make. Well, I make 3 different kinds of cookies; chocolate chip, chocolate chip oatmeal, and no-bake chocolate peanut butter. (Do you see the theme yet?)

I've had in my possession, from my first marriage, a cookbook called Mrs. Fields I Love Chocolate! Cookbook. At least 15 years. In my possession. One hundred easy and irresistible recipes!

You would think, with as much as I like chocolate, I would have tried one or two of these recipes out, right?

Well, I'm stupid.

I've been meaning to bake cookies with Josie all week, and I finally got around to it tonight. But I wanted something... different. I'm tired of the same freaking recipe that I make every. single. time.

So I reach for the Mrs. Fields book. Flip through it to see if I find anything that catches my eye. That I might actually have all the ingredients for. I find Chocolate Coconut Crunch Cookies.

I have almonds. Raw unsalted almonds instead of salted and roasted, but I have almonds.

I have almond extract.

I have shredded coconut.

(This is the part where my mother starts laughing.)

Now, I have always hated coconut. My mother used to make this weird cake that was covered in coconut on the frosting, and I would refuse to eat it. I refused pretty much anything that had coconut in it. Till I saw Smitten Kitchen's recipe for Apple Granola. I figured a little coconut in the granola part wouldn't hurt, so I had Keith pick up some for me. I figured I'd try it in the first batch, and if I didn't like, I'd throw the damn stuff away.

It's now on my grocery list because I'm almost out.

So I made these cookies with coconut and raw almonds, and they taste pretty freaking good if you ask me and Keith. We'll see tomorrow how the kids like it.

Mrs. Fields Chocolate Coconut Crunch Cookies

2 c all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 sticks (1 c) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 c brown sugar
3/4 c granulated sugar
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract
2 c shredded coconut
12 ounces semisweet chocolate chips
1 1/2 c lightly salted, dry-roasted almonds, finely chopped

Preheat the oven to 300F

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt.

In a medium bowl with an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugars. Beat in the eggs, vanilla, and almond extract. Mix on low speed until blended. Add the flour mixture and mix just until blended; do not overmix. Add the coconut, chocolate chips, and almonds and stir until just incorporated.

Drop the dough by rounded tablespoon 2 inches apart onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, or until set. Transfer to wire racks to cool. YEILD: about 4 dozen

Now personally, I mixed the coconut, chocolate chips, and the almonds with my mixer. I'm too lazy to do that by hand, and they turned out just fine. I will, however, lower the amount of extract the next time I make these to 1 1/2 tsp of vanilla and 1/2 tsp of almond, because DAMN that's a lot of extract! And I'm sure having roasted almonds adds a layer of flavor I don't have with the raw, but the raw work just fine. I got 96 cookies out of one batch, but I make small cookies.

So yeah. Not so stuck in the mud with my cookie recipes anymore. Sorta.

So...

Our big move to Santa Monica is progressing. I guess that's a nice way to say it. All of the major projects to the house have been done, and now I just get to clean and sort and get rid of and pack. And entertain the kids.

woot.

I have till the end of June to get the house done. The house needs to be on the market by July 1st, and my schedule for July is insane.

If anyone feels the need to clean, sort, pack, paint or entertain children, do call!

Seriously.

Damn

I really haven't posted much this summer, have I?

Sorry.

I'll get the pics from Matt's b-day uploaded off the camera and post them soon... (and his first day of school)

The Passover Seder

Facebook style.

Moses is Departing Egypt: A Facebook Haggadah

The sages probably did not intend this.

I'm not really a big Terminator fan, in fact, I've not seen any of them on the big screen. I've seen most of one and two on cable, don't think I've ever seen three at all.

I am, however, a HUGE Christian Bale fan (so much so that I refused to listen to his rant last month). I've loved him since the long-forgotten Newsies came out oh so many years ago.

I don't really make it a point to watch Bale movies just because he's in them. It has to be a movie I actually want to see per my preferences.

I think I want to see this one.

site updates

So I've updated the left side just a bit. I added a link to our picture gallery on Smugmug (since we are no longer self-hosting) and I added a slide show of my current favorite gallery from said Smugmug account, just like Keith has done over at the family site.

One of these days I need to update my links and stuff, but tonight I have to make a run to a specific Target to get Princess Rockstar Josie a specific Tinker Bell bed set for her new big girl bed I'm hoping to get up either tomorrow or Tuesday. Not that that's the one she wanted, she wants the Strawberry Shortcake one that no one sells anymore. *sigh*

And yes, if you call her Rockstar, she will respond. But she looks so damn cute in her pink sunglasses!

ugh

I have several things I want to post about, but we potty-trained Josie over the weekend and had ZERO time for anything other than following her around waiting for her to urinate.

Hopefully, we'll get the pictures of her hair off the camera soon so I can post them.

from my (myspace) inbox

For your entertainment!

From Rafa, a 20 year old male:
hey hottie how r u doin just want to say hi and love to be ur friend
man ur so hotttttt lookin

my reply (after I stop laughing):
Are you serious? Does this approach actually work for you? I find it very rude and lazy.

Learn some manners and how to spell properly. At the very least, pay attention to your audience. Women in their 30's are VERY different than girls your age.

Grow up.

Rafa:
oh ok how different r u? i really want to know and u can teach me manners love to be ur student

He replied back? Now I'm laughing so hard, tears are streaming down my face. I know I shouldn't feed the troll, but damn!

My response:
No. I will NOT be your teacher. You've already demonstrated that you cannot follow directions.

Learn. To. Spell.

Does he learn anything? Like how to spell the word 'you'? Heck no!

Rafa:
omg lol just wanted to talk lol if u didn't want to u could have said no u don't have to find fault when u can't correct it

I hate stupid bois. But they're very entertaining!

The lesson here? Don't post pictures, even clothed, of new boobs in a folder anyone can look at. They're all now only viewable by friends. It brings out the crazies!

*sigh*

I did it, finally.

I know, I know, I'm WAY behind the times. And Fate, you can stop laughing now.

Dammit. I said I wasn't going to join, but I did. Sue me.

You can find me on twitter (yes, twitter) now.

hoochimama, if you really want to know how much my kids are driving me crazy.

gah. I may just shoot myself, really.

I swear, I did not fall off the face of the earth!

Just the internet.

And it's two days and counting, so don't expect too much from me for the next week or so.

Happy Birthday to ME!

Thirty-six years ago today my mother delivered a baby, asked the nurse "what is it?", to which the nurse responded "A Baby." And everyone but my mom got steak for dinner that night. (total rip-off if you ask me, I LOVE steak!)

It's become tradition for Keith and I to go out for steak on our birthdays and for our anniversary. The only time we didn't go out for steak was an absolute disaster. (I still need a new hood for the stove, we should get that soon, shouldn't we?)

So tonight we're going out to Nikko's, the Japanese Steak House at the OP Marriott, with my most favorite-est people in town, my family by choice. (We were going to go last year, but we had babysitter issues and wound up canceling, so we're trying again this year.)

Speaking of the Marriott...

Keith and I went to the new club Manhattans last night, the one at 135th and State Line, behind Hardee's. It's a nice club, but their bartenders SUCK. They're aiming for the over-30 crowd, who tend to be a bit pickier about their drinks, and they have bartenders that should be at a college hang-out. No imagination what-so-ever if you tell them to make you something interesting with a specific alcohol. And my lemon-drop martini was the oddest tasting one I'd ever had. They don't have any fresh ingredients and use a mix for almost everything.

Pitchers in the Marriott, on the other hand, uses fresh ingredients for EVERYTHING, including making their own simple syrups. The only mix they use is for Bloody Mary's. Everything else is made the way it was invented. One of the managers (a friend of mine) said that Pitchers will soon be getting a make-over (like the rest of the hotel) and will be much more up-scale in looks. And they're going to stop having "bartenders" and have "mixologists" instead.

I'm sure that it helps having a restaurant to get everything fresh, but if you're going to cater to the over-30 crowd, make sure you've at least got the right kind of bartenders. For Keith and I, we tend to view cocktails as cuisine, not just another drink. Know how to make them right, dammit!

blech

The worst part about getting a baseline mammogram before my upcoming surgery?

Getting up at the butt-crack of dawn to be on time for my 7:30am appointment.

I'd have a much more coherent post, except I'm still not awake yet, even though it's almost 10am!

Only for my friends

Some of you may know that I was officially a Mary Kay consultant for many years. Many people don't because I absolutely HATE being a sales person.

I also don't really like to be a hostess for any kind of 'parties', be they Pampered Chef, Lia Sophia, etc....

BUT.

Because my very good friend Jerusha does the Party Lite thing, and because she lives 3 hours away from me and I rarely get to see her, and the only way she can validate a weekend off at her day job and away from her kids is to throw a party...

I'm hostessing a Party Lite party (candles and candle accessories) this next Saturday, the 19th. At 6pm.

I'll have finger food and alcohol. Wanna join us?

Almost Spring

My flowers are *kinda* starting to pop up.

My tulips.

Columbine

Day Lily

The space in front that has over 100 bulbs in it.

The iris I planted last year.

I took these pictures almost a week ago, and everything has greened up even more, and several of the bulbs have popped up in the front as well. I can't wait until that patch is all green with plants!

And this is a picture that Matthew (Matthew!) took of his mommy that day.

Stealing other bloggers' stuff.

In case you haven't noticed, I read Dooce. Did you see the baby kangaroo? Too fucking cute!

I found this over at Sageweb's:



This song really struck a chord with me. Love was what I needed to recover and heal after leaving the JW's, and love is what Keith and Kris gave me. Without them, I wouldn't be where I am today.

Thanks, you two. I love you both.

Yeah, I'm a lazy-ass.

That, and last night was the first solid night of sleep I've had since Josie got sick on Sunday. She's still running a fever, but at least she runs a normal fever, like 100.5, instead of the insane fevers that Keith and Matthew run (103.5).

On a positive note, my bulbs that I planted a few weeks ago are starting to pop up. I'll have to take some pictures for everyone.

Oh, and I'm getting my hair chopped tonight.

Stupid Weather.

It's March 15th. Wednesday, it was so nice we went to the park and didn't wear our jackets! Josie had to do what all the big kids were doing, so she learned how to walk on the concrete wall all by herself.


Yesterday was my nail appointment, and we both got our toes done up for St. Patrick's Day. Aren't these the cutest green toes you've ever seen?!


My toes aren't nearly as cute. But they're green none-the-less.


Today, despite the SNOW, we took the kids to the Garmin annual Easter Egg hunt. Because of the weather, it was held inside, not that our kids cared, they still refused to take their coats off. They had the kids hunt in age groups, so I took Josie and Keith took Matthew.

She figured out pretty quickly the name of the game!

Josie's haul (and Keith's hand):

Matt's haul:

The prize bunny basket that Josie won and both of the baskets:

Happy boy!

Too busy eating candy to smile for mommy:

Yes, the Godless Atheist Heathens took their kids on an Easter Egg Hunt! The irony does not escape me, but damn! the kids had so much fun! And that's what it's all about, right?

HUGE!

Keith finally got around to uploading about a zillion pictures we've taken since October (including those at Halloween) but never put on the family site.

Sader picture goodness is HERE!

Included in that is over 200 pictures that Matthew took. He likes trains. A LOT.

Recap

So, I ran out of time to post that we were leaving for the weekend last week, (and I didn't really want to let any stalkers know we weren't going to be home for 3 days.)

We drove down to Springfield during the precious nap time, so the kids were asleep, which made for a really nice, quiet drive. Right before we left, I got a package in the mail from a friend who lives in Canada. He sent me a lovely CD that I'd asked him to pick up for me since it wasn't available here in the states. Which CD you ask? Staring Down the Sun by Tal Bachman! You remember that guy, right? He did this song way back in the day:



Still love it.

Anyway. We listened to my lovely new CD on the way down to Springfield. (Thanks Alex!)

We stopped off at my mom & dad's house for a bit when we hit town, then went to McSalty's Pizza for dinner. It's my favorite pizza joint in Springfield, bar none.

Then we went and checked in at the Residence Inn Marriott. Absolutely awesome hotel. We had a two room, one bedroom suite, with kitchenette. It was perfect. (Although next time I'm getting the two bedroom suite for just a bit MORE privacy from the kids!) It even had a balcony so the kids could go "outside".

Saturday, we took the kids to the park and then the Nature Center, then met a friend for lunch. Took the kids to a different park because the weather was just too awesome not to spend it outside. Then it was dinner with my aunt and uncle at Bandana's BBQ. Not as good as Jack Stack, but still pretty darn tasty.

Sunday we went to a park again, then went to lunch with my oldest brother, Tom, and his wife Andra. In the afternoon, we went back to the hotel, where I had too much time to think about the bombshell my brother had dropped on me during lunch.

Then we took the kids over to my mom's and left them while we went out to dinner with the only person to have been in BOTH of my weddings. I love Jerusha, and her husband Ken is pretty darn cool. We ate at Ocean Zen, which was excellent, if a bit pricey. Their Pomegranate Lemon Drop Martinis were very yummy.

Then Monday morning we packed everyone up in the CRV and headed home before the rain turned to ice.

All in all, a really good weekend, with moments of toxic religion. The kids were awesome the whole trip, and especially good while we ate out, which was a lot!

Still alive.

Just nothing new going on really.

I've pretty much been in hibernation mode lately, not for sure why; my mood is good, no depression or anything like that.

Just not very chatty lately.

I'm sure that will change soon enough.