Notes from ShellyCentral

I'm always so tired at bedtime!

I'm so tired.
I think a reason I'm not posting so often anymore (and there are truly many reasons) is I wait till bedtime and by then I'm so tired the task seems daunting and I think it would be better just to go to sleep. Perhaps finding a different time during the day to post would be a good idea. I remember back in the day before blogging when I kept my online journal at the groovegarden.com, I would wake up early in the morning and post. That was good. I might try that, if I can make myself.

I've had a fantastic couple days. Yesterday my boyfriend came over and we did lots of stuff. Around dinner time we were sitting in the car trying to decide where to eat for dinner and I got a text from my bff Debra.

"This day was crazy. I wish you lived here so you could go to dinner with me."

What perfect timing.
So Alan and I drove into KC, having a great time listening to music and chatting on the way. Then we had a fun dinner with Debra followed by another good time in the car on the way home. It was perfect timing and my favorite kind of impromptu fun. Hooray.

Today I had even more fun with my boyfriend.
It was a busy day of running around. We had to take Daisy to the groomer early in the day. We bought a dozen donughts and brought them home to the family. A little later we picked up a bunch of photo prints of Alan's at the Target. Even later we headed to pick up the dog from the groomers. She wasn't ready so Alan had to drop me at Jane's, pick up the dog, and then come back for me at Jane's. We had a couple more hours during which we went to pick up an olden days super fancy stereo vcr that originally sold for 700 dollars at a PX in Germany but Alan got for 6 bucks. Soon after that we had to say goodbye so I could get ready because Debra was in my town and when she finished with her business she picked me up and took me to a super lovely dinner at Tellers.

She dropped me off a couple hours later and I let Hannah fill me in on her day. I watched her play Just Dance 3 (thanks Santa!) for a couple songs and then, well, here I am. Sleepy in the bed with the clean and fresh smelling only dog. It's time for some Magician's Nephew and sweet sleepy time. I have some ideas of some things I want to write tomorrow, but we'll see.

Listening

I've been listening to music all night.
I got some cds for christmas, and then I decided I needed to download some mp3 cds that are on sale for 5 bucks at Amazon right now. I think Zac Brown Band is my new favorite band. I might even have a huge gigantic crush on Zac Brown. I haven't decided yet, but it's possible. He is kinda my type.

So it's the week between Christmas and New Years. Danny always takes this week off work so it always seems like a long extended holiday. And since we started celebrating Christmas early at our house this year, it really seems like a long extended holiday. Which means I'm getting kind of bored. I did a handful of chores today because they still demand to be done despite the long extended holiday, but mostly I've been slacking. Playing with Christmas presents. Stuff like that. Today I did some planning for New Year's Eve. The three of us are going to stay home and each invite a guest. We'll watch a movie, then the year in review and then, of course, Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin, because who's funnier than them? Nobody.

I made a big long list of all the food I wanted to fix. Hannah read it and reminded me we weren't having a party for 50. True. I let her mark off about half the things. We're left with chili and my grandma's beer balls, cheese and crackers, some stuff to fry up in the fryer, chips, salsa and guacamole. I think that's it. With only 6 of us it's probably still too much. However, Danny declared too much food is never a bad thing, so I guess it's all good!

Tomorrow I'm planning to take a look at next year and think about some of the things I want to make happen. Posting here more often is certainly one of them. As is more organization in general. Art Journaling again and posting more about Project Life. I need a trip or two of course (I'd like to go to Chicago and visit my son). I have a whole vague list of things in my head.

One habit I for sure want to continue is listening to books as I fall asleep. I was in the midst of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, but it got too creepy and scary and sad, so I have abandoned it for bedtime listening. Instead I started The Mgaician's Nephew (CS Lewis). I remember loving it, but not too many details so it's a fun story to doze off to. Being read to sleep is one of the best things ever, and should not be reserved for children. I highly recommend it.

10 bits of Christmas Love

10 things I am in love with right now:

* Christmas
* My family
* Puppies in the other room
* A handful of awesome friends
* Having a baby in the family
* Warm slippers
* Cookies!
* Turkey sandwiches for lunch tomorrow
* All the presents waiting under the tree at home
* My pooch Daisy

right now

wearing: my pjs
company: hannah and daisy
thinking: sometimes laying down in my bed is the best feeling ever
watching: the wizard of oz
busy: downloading 89 pictures of my niece's first birthday party
worrying: the hunger games movie will be really bad
wishing: i were camping in the colorado summer time with my cousin angie and our barbies
counting down: to our christmas on thursday. so many presents under the tree!
disliking: the weather
missing: so many parts of my family
planning: to go to bed

Cookie Mania

I have just made 15 thousand cookies.
Ok, not really, but it feels like it.

By the time it was all over, I had made at least one batch of the following:

Sugar Cookies
Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
Nutella Cookies
Playdough Cookies
Peanut Butter Cookies
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
NoBake Oatmeal Drop Cookies
Covered Pretzels
Snickerdoodles
Peppermint Twists
... I think that's it.

The other day I loaded up on supplies.

Yesterday I cleaned off the counters and started the roast on a chair in the corner of the dining room because I needed all of the kitchen for cookies. I wouldn't have ideally have cooked the roast on cookie day, but it was now or never.

Next I started making the dough for cookies that needed to be refridgerated before they were baked.

Hannah certainly enjoyed the chocolate crinkle cookie dough.

The famed playdough cookies in the mixer.

Peanut butter cookies, for my momma.

Oatmeal chocolate chip.

A table full of cookies!

Mmmm, chocolate crinkle cookies... Hannah named them something like "winter dirt and snow cookies".

The days efforts, all bagged up.

This morning I started all over again.

I didn't take as many pictures today. I was tired, and missing my helper. I didn't get photos of the plates piled high with today's efforts. But I did get a couple shots of the cookies all bagged and tagged up.

There are still a few things I hoped to do that I didn't. Decorate the sugar cookies and make some gingerbread families for example. And bake tiny loaves of banana bread. But man, I am worn out and I have baked enough. I think.

 

The internet is dangerous.

I keep not writing anything, and that's not very good. I'm blaming it all on Pintrest.
I was so proud of myself for so long. I'd read people mention how addictive it is and how much time they wished they weren't spending on Pintrest and I'd think oh good. I'll never check that out and I'll save myself a lot of wasted time. But then I got an invite while I was weak, and bored, and thinking the internet wasn't really doing enough to entertain me. So I signed up.

Dangerous.

Want to see my boards? I know you do. You can here. But be careful and don't say you weren't warned. 

I've also been catching all up in my Project Life. I wasn't that far behind, but there are plenty of little spots here and there that were waiting for some help. I've been searching for interesting things to fill in empty spots and filling out a lot of jouraling cards that I either left blank or just scribbled a post it for.

I was in the middle of that when the UPS man stopped outside of our house. Everyone was excited. Daisy barked and barked and Hannah rushed down from upstairs to check it out. But she was soon disappointed. It was my new Project Life for 2012! Clementine edition! I wanted to open it right away but Hannah strongly suggested I put it under the tree. Alan called about then so I asked his opinion and he definitely thought it should go under the tree so I reluctantly let Hannah shove it under with the rest of the presents. Now I really can't wait till Christmas. You can still see it on the table here though.

Tomorrow we're making cookies. I have big hopes, but I'm not sure how many we'll actually get through. I'm taking the camera to the kitchen though so you'll see.

Daisy is really chasing something in her sleep. Go Daisy! I hope she gets it.

Playdough Cookies

 When I was very young, my mom would make theese cookies. To me, they looked and smelled exactly like playdough. They were my favorites.

 

1 pack (3 oz) fruit flavored gelatin

1 cup powdered sugar

1 cup butter, softened

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350.
Reserve 1 tablespoon gelatin for the glaze.
Mix remaining gelatin, powdered sugar and butter.
Stir in flour and salt.
Shape dough into 1 inch balls. Place about 2 inches apart on ungreased cookies sheet.
Bake until set but not brown, 8 to 10 minutes.
Cool slightly, remove from cookie sheet. Cool completely.

Colorful Glaze

Mix reserved 1 tablespoon gelatin and 3 tablespoons hot water. Let stand 5 minutes. Stir in 2 cups powdered sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla unitl smooth and of desired consistency. Dip tops of cookies into glaze.

 

before the oven

after the oven

Here are my two tips:

I think the reicpe is way too dry so I add a tablespoon or so of milk.

If you use an off brand of gelatin, sometimes the entire pack is only one tablespoon. I had to just guess at how much to leave out for the glaze.

It's warm under the covers.

Even in the frozen of winter, sometimes a nice shower is the best thing in the world. Especially if you can crawl into bed right after. That's what I think anyway.

The weekend is almost over. It's been about the regular amount of ups and downs. I wish it were longer, of course, although as I've pointed out before I'm not sure why weekends are really that different from week days for me. They just seem to be.

The Great Room Switching of 2011 is pretty much finished. Alan came over Wednesday night to do all the heavy lifting, as well as dis/assembling. I did the vacuuming. Danny did the snakes nests of cables and Hannah did most of the back and forth. Both rooms are starting to look pretty good. I took some pictures of the in progress but they're still on my camera. Why does it seem like such a chore to move the pictures to the computer? I wish my camera had wifi. How lazy is that.

There are megaliths on the television. I've seen and touched them. Just saying.

So tonight I retried the playdough cookies and they were a success! Not perfect, but still plenty delish. And fun. I said somewhere else they taste like childhood to me. Mmmm... sugary childhood. I'm going to post the recipe and stuff tomorrow. Or maybe Monday. I'm going to my boyfriend's tomorrow so probably not.

Yesterday I caught up leaps in my Project Life project. I hadn't printed pictures in way too long. Over two days I chomped the corners off 140 photos. No kidding. I sitll have about 5 photos to add, and way too many journaling cards, but I'm going to finish right on time which is a giant achievement, I think. I have so often not kept up with so many things. But this big 52 week project I've managed. Go me I guess. Again, photos are on the camera instead of the computer so you'll see those some other day as well.
I took it to therapy with me last night. I thought it would be a good show and tell, and a great way too look back on my year. There were so many thing's I would have forgotten if there weren't a note or a photo about them in project life. There were so many family get togethers and celebrations. There were funny stories I would have never remembered. We had visitors I loved and of course there are 4 weeks of Europe! Graduation and Prom and leaving to drive for Hannah. And lots of dog pictures I'm glad I captured.

Hooray for Project Life, right? It's so worth it, and much easier than it may seem. Even if you only a couple pages a month and don't write anything on the cards I bet it's still way worth it. Check it out if you want.

This one's long.

My friend Debra wants me to write a long blog post, but man I'm tired.

Hannah is in the middle of switching her room with Danny's study. I think I've mentioned it. It's kind of taking forever and in the mean time, she's been sleeping down here on my couch. I don't mind her sleeping here, but she messes up my evening teevee, wanting to watch a lot of creepy shows I don't like. Plus she wants to stay up later than me with the teevee on. I don't mind so much because it's easy, maybe easier, for me to sleep with the teevee on, but the shows she wants to watch are loud and creepy. I end up having to be kinda cranky with her (although other parents might just call it being firm) and I don't like it. Tomorrow night she might be sleeping on the couch upstairs.

I think I just need to go do something. Something. I don't know what but something that makes me feel like I've accomplished a lot. I'm feeling cranky and frustrated.

Part of that is just the winter. It was 16 degrees when we went to the grocery store this morning. Tonight's low is going to be 11. It's so winter. And I know, it's December, it should be winter. But the fall kept lasting on and on so the winter weather now is kind of a shock. I was so cold all day today. I'm all layered up in ugly frumpy clothes in many layers, the furnace is set way too high, and I'm still cold. I hate it. At least it was sunny today. Sunny is good. Sunny helps. But winter still sucks hard.

I made some cookies today that Failed! I haven't failed at cookies for a long time. I was trying out the playdough cookies. Well they're not actually playdough cookies, but that's what I call them for reasons I hope I explain some day when I'm not so tired. They were way too hard and crumbly. They stayed in a ball and didn't flatten. They were just dry and yuck. I would have tried them again tonight but I used up some of the supplies I needed so I guess I'll have to wait.

I have a cookie dilemma, actually. Kind of. I want to make a bunch of cookies to divide up and give to a bunch of people. Back in the olden days, when life was much more fun because my mom and sisters didn't live hours away, we'd get together in the middle of December and baked up dozens and dozens of cookies. Cookie marathons, Hannah called them. They were very fun. But now they live far away and we don't ever do it. Megan told me I should just come down and spend the night and we'd have a couple cookie days down there. And I'm for it, mostly. But it's 5 hours in the car, and more than a tank of gas, which really adds up especially this time a year. So I just don't know. It's kind of frustrating. I want to do it, I just don't want to have to go so far away to do it.

I finished listening to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire last night. Here's the one thing I have to say about it. When Voldemort has Harry in the graveyard at the end, and they're doing the spell to bring his body back, one of the things they need is the blood of an enemy taken against the enemy's will. So why didn't Harry just yell out "I give it freely!" or some such thing? If it wasn't taken against his will the spell wouldn't have worked and he would have foiled the whole thing. Hannah says it's because Harry was in pain and freaked out and just saw his friend get killed and all that, but I say I'm just more clever than JK Rowling.

I think I have to go to sleep now. It's getting to that point when it kind of hurts to stay awake.

Parental Guidance

Danny: Do you remember the story of the boy who cried wolf?

Hannah: Yes.

Danny: Do you remember the moral of the story?

Hannah: Not to lie?

Danny: No. To tell a slightly different lie every time.