Peace and Prosperity

I got a thank-you note and a pointer to this blogpost: http://practical-homeschooling.org/2008/12/the-resistant-child/ It's always good to know someone has gained peace and fun from things I've written, but it's sad for me to go to a less radical site and see that people are so at odds with their children. There's nothing for me to do but keep doing what I'm doing, though.

Holly got her first paycheck last night. I went with her so she could deposit some in savings and cash some out. When she worked her lucrative babysitting job last year she was paid in cash (often in ones because the dad was a DJ and paid her with his tip money). This new one was a corporate real check. She and Marty have gone Christmas shopping, and he will take her to work afterwards, and go to his Thursday roleplaying session.

I'm feeling jumpy and unsettled, and am just using that energy to do little things I've been putting off—things that don't take long. It's kind of a nervous nesting feeling, like I should stay home and gather, or daub, or fortify. Like some cave-mom instinct I can't read. I'm trying to feel it rather than ignore it. It seems winter-related. Maybe changing sheets would satisfy it some.

Bizcochitos

This year's first batch is done, and I thought about how I'd like to describe it to people who aren't from New Mexico. The word is pronounced beece-co-CHEE-toas(t) (I can't think how else to show "-tos" to have an s and not a z sound at the end, but the first syllable rhymes with "peace" and the last sounds like "toast" without the "t"). Yeah, that's all true, but here's something easier: Say BiscoCheetos but say it like the Frito Bandito. There y'go. Bizcochitos are the state cookie of New Mexico (since 1989).



I've had this recipe since the late 1970's, and I'm going to describe the way I've come to make them. There's a printable recipe with more details at SandraDodd.com/bizcochitos.

1½ cups sugar
1 pound (2 cups) lard
6 cups sifted flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoons anise seed
2 eggs beaten
¼ cup brandy

Cinnamon-sugar

Measure the brandy out into a small container and add the anise seeds. Cream together lard and sugar until smooth. Add beaten egg, brandy and anise seed.

In a separate large bowl, mix the baking powder and salt into the flour. Combine. If it's too stiff to hold together, add a little more brandy. If it's too sticky, add a little more flour.

Roll about ¼" thick and cut with cookie cutters. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.

Bake on ungreased cookie sheets at 350° F for ten to fifteen minutes (until the bottom is slightly browned).

A little bit of snow

People who don't live where it snows see the dramatic and artsy snow photos. They don't get to see what a tiny snow does. This was snow after rain, so where it's wet, the snowflakes can melt into the water. There's snow on the roof in the background. That's the north side of the house. Surfaces that collect a lot of heat (concrete) will melt snow first. Wood, plastic and plants will collect it early. Fence wire and string collect snow, and it can pile up high on something narrow if there's no breeze.



Here's a bale of straw, and snow on two bare branches above it.



On chrysanthemum and strawberry plants.



Snow isn't always beautiful. I'm almost always glad to see it, but it's not always Christmas-card snow. It does somewhat water the yard, but it can be dangerous too (for walking and driving). Sometimes, in the desert, it doesn't water the yard because it evaporates instead of melting, but there's usually *some* moisture kept, and it doesn't run downhill like rainwater does.

Holly was just called in to work. Marty's watching The Office (American, on a Netflix deal through XBox 360) Keith came home early so we could pick his motorcycle up from the shop where they rebuilt the engine. I put it on my charge card so I can get Amazon credit. I'm listening to The Blue Sky Boys, farting around on the computer and doing a load of laundry. That sounds terribly non-productive, so I'm going to get up and go make Christmas cookies!

Marty, pretzels, rainbow, dog

The one on the left with it combed to the side was not the serious version. With it just combed back and falling naturally, I liked this haircut but Marty didn't, so it was made "finger long" (just a 1" soft all over, pretty much, with the neck shaved) just before he went to work, but I didn't take another photo (yet).

Here are last night's pretzels. Too fat. Advice welcome. My guess is we used too much yeast and didn't make the ropes of dough thin enough. They tasted good, though. We used egg white and water to glaze, and for the salt to stick to.



I don't know if this will show well, but we have a crystal in the kitchen window that makes prismatic rainbows all over the place when the sun is right, and Holly was standing with rainbow on her face that matched her shirt. Behind her is the library (the room above the garage), which opens off the kitchen.



And the last bit of photographic record of the past many hours is the frame of a dog statue being created at the High Ridge Theater. There are two or three dog movies coming out, and they're building a dog, out of PVC pipe, cardboard boxes and chicken wire. I don't know what they plan to put on the outside. It's right on the carpet, so something that's not messy, I presume. They're building a cardboard archway over the ticket-taking station, too. (I don't expect it will look like cardboard when they're done.)



And here's me, looking into the eye of my camera, pondering what's what. And I finally figured out how to get the photos directly into the computer! "Directly" isn't the best of terms for it, but the HP import software that came with the printer can see the camera. The operating system itself doesn't, and the disk that came with the camera doesn't know what to do with a Mac, and vice versa. But the camera's USB presence has been adopted by the HP Photosmart Studio, and that's good enough.

Christmas Meme, Mimi (shut your mouth, it's Christmas)

...you're with that yuppie scum (my favorite line from "Rent")

I lifted this (including most of the red and greenness) from Frank who got it from from Holly. It's the Christmas Meme.

Twelve Things of Christmas

1. Real tree or artificial? Not artificial tree. Last year we had a real one, but this year we have another person and more furniture, and the kids preferred my illusionish tree anyway. It's not an artificial tree, but it's not a real tree. We've used it four or five times before. I described it on this blog in 2005. Click the tree for more info on the tree you click. (It doesn't work for all trees, and oh yeah—that's not a tree anyway.)

2. When do you put up the tree? Second week of December, give or take a week.

3. When do you take down the tree? Soon after New Year's when I'm lucky.

4. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Some of one and some of another, and sometimes cloth. Depends on the gift.

5. When do you start Christmas shopping? October.

6. Who is the hardest person to buy for? Me, probably.

7. Easiest person to buy for? Holly.

8. Angel on top of the tree, or star? Star. Two cardboard stars fastened together on the top half, open on the bottom, covered in foil paper, many years old. Homemade star. (Only in years of real trees.)

9. What is the worst Christmas gift you ever got? A microwave, because I don't think appliances should be Christmas gifts for moms. Appliances should be the everyday offerings of the supplicants who want their clothes washed and their food cooked and their dishes washed. It was a cool microwave, but it should've come out the day it was bought and been just a thang.

10. What is the best gift you received as a child? Tricycle.

(Frank's books looked quite like my books. Perhaps those were generic-ish photos, or perhaps I have generic-ish books.)

11. What is your favorite food to eat at Christmas time? Bizcochitos. I haven't made any for a few years. I've been buying them at Garcia's up the street, but I think I will make some soon. They take anise seeds, and if you're making your own they can have brandy. When I was little I used to see them very often made in the shapes of card spots (diamond, heart, spade, club), and I looked and looked for cookie cutters like that. Apparently they were common in grocery stores in the 1950's, but I didn't find any until just a couple of years ago, in an antique shoppish indoor fleamarket place. Woohoo! So this year, I think. And lard. They'll be little bundles of deadly sin with cinnamon and sugar on the top.

I lifted that photo because most of what I found on google was Not Good. There's something very particular in northern New Mexico, and when I've made some I'll take photos and replace that photo and remove this note and that will be like Animal Farm, except that with Wayback Machine you can find THIS note that says I was going to remove it. Wow. Cosmic. Time travel really IS a mess!

After writing this post, I found some cupcakes on Neopets that have directly to do with all this. Card spot cupcakes:

12. What do you want for Christmas this year? Having just gotten a new phone, I'll be lucky if I get anything else, but what I'm really hoping for is that all my kids will like what I got them.


Here's an old-time Friday Fill-In, from last year. The blog owner's dad was in the hospital last week, and maybe there won't be a Friday fill-in this week, so I've brought #51 from last year.

1. Snow makes regular things beautiful.

2. I'm looking forward to my oldest, Kirby, visiting in January, and most of the Sorooshian family, too!

3. Dark chocolate is the best gift ever!

4. One of my favorite old tv shows is WKRP.

5. I'm done with non-recovering alcoholics.

6. The most enjoyable thing around the holidays is The MUSIC!

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to learning more about my camera phone, tomorrow my plans include a movie with Holly (if she's not working) and Sunday, I want to gather up all the little piles for the thrift store that are started around the house, take them in, and while I'm there look at some cloth (maybe yard goods, maybe bedspreads or tablecloths, maybe skirts or dresses with lots of cloth).

New Phones

Marty and I got new phones today. It was quite an ordeal, reading all the options before we went, looking things up, asking for advice, deciding this way and that way. Sheesh... I'm excited but exhausted, and I have a steep learning curve here. I was familiar with my little Gilligan's-Island-playing phone without a camera, but now I have a camera that's also a phone. I got a "Motozine," a Motorola ZN5 and then Marty and I went to Blake's to sit and eat and see what we could figure out.


Mine works! (Marty's works too, but he sent it to other people than to me—a photo of me holding my camera with a photo of Marty on it.)

I'm so tired, and hours and HOURS of phone thinking, looking, talking, trying... I remember when the kids were little and they would be more tired after a load of thinking and learning than from physical activity. I feel like that.

Neopets and the Sky (unrelated)

This is a big Neopets day/month. I know a couple of families just started playing recently, so in case you didn't know, every day in December there are gifts (and points some days) at the advent calendar:
http://www.neopets.com/winter/adventcalendar.phtml

You might want to bookmark that for a month.

And once a month (that would be today, again, or anytime during the month) there's a treat and some points here:
http://www.neopets.com/freebies/index.phtml


Here's what the sky looked like yesterday afternoon. It was pretty impressive. Most of the sky was clear but there was one BIG cloud over the mountains—not touching them at all.


click to enlarge