Originally Posted:
Monday, December 11, 2006
3:05:00 PM CST
Feeling Frustrated
Hearing Students pacing outside my office door in search of HELP!!!!
Mom, Kelly and I entered a baking contest with hopes of winning the grand prize, the macdaddy of kitchen appliances, a KitchenAid Mixer. We even had a strategy. Of course we had a strategy, we were in it to win it! We had a cookie for each category, thus increasing our chances. You have to understand that I'm the only baker in the family. My sister can cook well and I can bake well. My Mom, on the other hand, is best at storming around the kitchen making a mess and talking to herself about ingredients. For them, this was definitely one of those "we love you enough to bake for you" moments. For me, this was definitely a "it's the thought that counts moments." It took Mom two batches of bar cookies to get a good entry. No one knows what she did to the first batch, but they were awful (she would even say they were awful). So, we moved onto a different recipe and had much greater success. I baked two types: chocolate pepper cut-out cookies, and gnache filled pecan sandies. Kelly made Mexican wedding cakes and stacked them to look like snowmen. Mom and Kelly delivered them to the nursing home that was hosting the contest on Friday and we waited all day to hear the news. Saturday morning I got a phone call that my pecan sandies won their category and Kelly's snowmen won her category, but someone else took the grand prize. That didn't matter to me! The contest was so fun and watching Mom "bake" was well worth all the effort. I laughed the entire time we were in the kitchen that weekend. We got prizes that I didn't know we would be awarded with such as cookie sheets, a cutters and a KitchenAid coffee been grinder. That was a big surprise! And, I know this is silly, but it felt good to do something for people in a nursing home. All the cookies go to the residents.
Chistmas lights--- For years we've been hearing about the "fantastic display" Christmas Lake Village in Santa Claus, IN puts on each year. For the past few years it has been impossible for me to go because the tour weekend falls on the weekend before finals and I'm always in Bowling Green. This year I decided to make time for it and we headed up north for the evening. Honestly, I wasn't overly impressed. The houses in the Village had no more lights or decorations than the average, decorated house in Evansville. The difference was that most streets had a theme (ie: Houses on Shepard Lane had wooden cut-out sheep "roaming" all over thier lawns with wooden cut-out shepards watching their flocks). Not all the houses were lit up. Personally, I think that if you live in Christmas Lake Village, it should be in the neighborhood bylaws that you have to light up or somehow decorate for Christmas. Hello! It's CHRISTMAS and you are in CHRISTMAS Lake Village. Put some twinkle on the lawn. That's all I'm saying.
Back in Evansville, we stopped at the famous Oregon Street house on the way home. I'm pretty sure you can see this house from outter space when the power is on. Each year the "display" changes slightly. This year the owner has made the leap from plastic cartoon forms to the gigantic blow-up characters. I miss the plastic scenes he set up. Now, all the plastic figures are cooped up in a chicken wire encased shelf system lining the side of the yard. Seriously, the three wise men, the Virgin Mary, Joseph, Frosty, Santa and all the other vintage plastic yard ornaments are locked up in a chicken wire jail. That bummed me out. I'm rationalzing his decision by convincing myself that the owner is protecting them so no one will steal or damage them. Across the street the "cartoon animal graveyard" as we used to call it has even been replaced by the blow-ups. That was the funniest sight to me. It totally looked like a graveyard because all the plastic figurines of Snoopy and Pooh and more Frostys and Santas were lined up and spaced just like tombstones in a cemetary.
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