Bittersweet

 JWP

In many ways it was your typically busy weekend. We had soccer, a birthday party, loads of laundry, grocery shopping, etc. But in the middle of all this normal stuff, we worked on getting my grandma’s house ready to sell as well. It’s something I haven’t discussed here, but recently my darling grandma moved into an assisted living facility. It is not an easy transition no matter when or how it happens, of course, and somehow working on the house brought it really close to home. I spent most of the day trying not to think about the bigger picture and overall, I fancy I did a pretty good job of just getting it done.

I worked on many parts of the house: the laundry room, the toy closet, my grandpa’s study, my grandparents’ bedroom. Obvious trash was thrown away but everything else was saved. An estate sale is going to happen after the house sells and mainly we had to get the personal stuff out of there. 90 years of personal stuff. I’m sure you can imagine the breadth of a long life full of “personal stuff.”

It was a bittersweet kind of day. I tried to focus on the sweet. We did find some great old photo that I hadn’t seen before. One is my grandpa, looking totally Mad Men, hanging out at his desk with a set of plans. I’m keen to use it on our company’s new website. There were also some cool fedoras, custom from the era, with my grandpa’s initials stamped inside them. Perhaps he was wearing one of them in the Mad Men photo.

sewingnotions

I found a couple of souvenirs too. My grandma’s sewing area had about a million old spools of thread, wooden ones. I had to have just a couple. There was also this hilariously cute “Happy Home” needle book.

churchcookbookThere were also about 10 copies of this church cookbook. Judging by the clues that I can interpret, I’m guessing it was published in the early to mid 1960s. It’s filled with typical church cookbook type recipes, but my favorite part of it is the bit on the front, where it has the following quote:

Wives who cook and
Wash the dishes
Should be granted
These Three Wishes
A grateful mate,
a well-kissed cheek
And a restaurant dinner
once a week!

Ahh the charming sexual politics of the 1960s.

Knowing what I know now, it would have been cool to bring the big camera and really document some of this stuff. But I have some snapshots and of course my memories.

Those Reeces Cookies

ReecesCookiesThis recipe is another payment in the “family cookbook” series. I’ve been collecting recipes for years and I publish and share them on this blog. A few years ago, I started designating some as “family recipes.” To garner this status the recipe must have been cooked by us at least a handful of times and judged to be superior in every way.

My efforts redoubled when a few months ago, my then-five-year-old daughter asked me how she would know how to cook all of her favorite things when she left for home. I was pleased that she asked the question and that even at her age, she has a special connection to cooking with us. It makes me feel like I’m doing my job right, that’s for sure.

These cookies were found on the internets (probably pinterest) and they are something else. They are in most ways a normal chocolate chip cookie, but the batter contains both peanut butter and pudding mix and that seems to make them a bit softer and more tender than your average chocolate chip cookie and very very tasty, especially with milk.

Those Reeces Cookies

adapted from Sweet Pea’s Kitchen

Ingredients

  • 2 1/4 C all purpose flour
  • 1 t baking soda
  • 1/2 t salt
  • 1 3.4 oz box instant vanilla pudding mix
  • 3/4 C unsalted butter, softened
  • 1/2 C creamy peanut butter
  • 1/2 C sugar
  • 1/2 C brown sugar
  • 2 lg eggs
  • 1 t vanilla extract
  • 1 T honey
  • 1 C Reece’s Pieces candy
  • 1/2 C chocolate chips

Heat oven to 350 and prepare two cookie sheets. Original instructions use parchment paper, but I don’t find this necessary. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt and pudding mix. In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together butter, sugars and peanut butter until smooth. Add the eggs one at a time, making sure they are thoroughly combined after both additions. Add the honey and vanilla extract and scrape down the sides of the bowl if necessary. On low speed, add the flour and mix to combine. Again, scrape the sides of the bowl if necessary. Add Reece’s Pieces and chocolate chips and mix to combine.

Roll dough 1.5 inch balls and place a couple of inches apart on your cookie sheets. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes. Cookies will be starting to look just a little brown on top, but go ahead and take them out and let them cool on the cookie sheets for a couple of minutes and they will set. You don’t want to over cook them or they can become dry. VERY important!

They are incredibly wonderful with milk. mmmmmm

Friday Favorites

headbandsFavorite buy: take a look at these cute headbands I bought for Tabby from this great Etsy shop. Can’t wait ’til they arrive!

winedispenserFavorite Crazy Item: Check out this utterly bizarre wine dispenser. I love wine, but err … probably not that much!

srirachacaramelcornFavorite Sweet Thang: Sriracha caramel corn! Salty, sweet and SPICY. MMMM

summerpassportFavorite Great Idea: Summer passport! Figure out what you want to do this summer, fill a small notebook and get to stamping that guy!

tocaFavorite App: Toca Boca makes cool kids apps – tea parties, clothing design, hair cutting. Good clean creative fun!

17leonardFavorite Day Dream: Vintage 17′ Leocraft Camper. Already sold, otherwise there might just have been an impromptu road trip to Canada for me to purchase. Seriously, love that yellow!!!

bnsmacFavorite Savory Delight: Butternut Squash Mac ‘n’ Cheese with Caramelized Onions, Bacon and Apple – a mouthful in more ways than one!

54321workoutFavorite Workout: Did this 5-4-3-2-1 workout on Tuesday. A nice mix of cardio and body-weight workout.

mapmagnets

Favorite Craftiness: Make Your Own Map Magnets – pretty sure the kids need these, right??

amishcinnbreadFavorite Breakfast Nom: Amish Cinnamon Bread … I think I could choke a piece of this down.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Working It in More Ways than One

2013-04-04 22.17.37 Tonight I had a new experience in multitasking and it was awesome. We had a busy evening because swimming doesn’t end for another week and soccer started up this week so we are in OVERLAP. Not my fave. We didn’t get home until after seven and we ate dinner and did the normal household managing stuff.

After the kids headed to bed, I had some stuff to do and I also wanted to get a workout in. The work I needed to do first was mostly reading … PDFs, white papers, and the like. So I decided to read and hit the treadmill at the same time. I pumped my running playlist and walked along at a nice clip at a good incline. I made notes using the voice recorder (it mutes my music while I blather) as I went along and whenever a particularly good song came on, I took a break to sprint.

It was definitely a good use of my time, but the mental clarity and creative energy I felt was off the charts. I always feel so mentally clear and effervescent during and after a run and this was even better because it was directed at my specific task.

I think I want a treadmill in my office. Wonder how badly I’d bother my coworkers.

March in Instagrams

 

Mar2013 I am still really loving this Instagram 365 project. It is so fun to see all these colorful photos one after the other. And dang the kids are cute!!

Favorite Ben Photo: Ben at Subway in his jimjams with Daddy (6)
Favorite Tabby Photo: love T’s 80’s hair (18)
Other favorite Photo: love the one of the skis – that was one hard secret to keep! (7)

Continue reading “March in Instagrams”