2011

Welcome 2011!  2010 was really a pretty bad year, so I'm not all that sorry to see it go.  Sometimes it is hard to be optimistic.  But today, I pledge to believe that 2011 will be better.  There are great things in store for me and my family. 

Besides, today it was 11:11 am on 1/1/11. 

And I got to use my new pie bird, which I read about here, and felt that everyone needed (especially me). So I found it here and am very pleased with the results.

Saturday afternoons

I love Saturday afternoons when I don't have 72 million things to do.  When I have a day like that, I do fun things like this.....

Not too bad for a first try.....

Grandma's chocolate chip cookie secret!

Well my mom has always made the best chocolate chip cookies in the world and I have never been able to duplicate them--no matter how hard I've tried (mine always turn out looking a little bit like cat barf--actually a lot like cat barf--but that is another story). When we were visiting at Christmas Jessica wanted to make chocolate chip cookies and Grandma pulled out her recipe. I was skeptical; but they turned out perfectly--beautiful and delicious--and not a bit like cat barf!

So come to find out I had been using her recipe correctly, but I wasn't greasing the pans with shortening--and I think that is the trick! Yesterday Michael wanted to make chocolate chip cookies and so I told him to call Grandma and get her recipe and do them her way.


In no time at all (thanks to the help of my lovely new red kitchen aid mixer)

Michael had perfect, beautiful, non-cat barfy cookies!

After all these years, such a simple secret......