Weird Stuff Around My House

That’s what I’m calling my post because I couldn’t think of another name. These things aren’t necessarily weird, mind you. But they are around my house, so there. Oh, and there’s cookies if you wait around until the end of my babbling. First, we have this gigantoid praying mantis that had me thinking of some crap-ass science fiction that my brother forced me to watch on a lazy Sunday afternoon maybe 25 years ago. One of my worst memories was being made to watch something called “Terror in the Jungle” about a boy who was taken by cannibals and just as they were about to sacrifice him to the god of whatever, the kid’s stuffed white tiger comes to life and slaughters the whole tribe. My brother was famous for making me watch things like “Kung-Fu Theater” or “Grateful Dead at the Fillmore East” every Sunday. And by making me watch things I mean he would sit on me for about two hours. Jerk.

Next up, we have the most disgusting spider I have ever seen. Why? Because it was guarding my mail when I knew there were two more discs of “Entourage, Season 4” in there from my Netflix. God, was I pissed. My husband kept telling me to get a broom and sweep him away but I was afraid of hurting him. How stupid, right?

Now we have something that I have waited for for years…humming birds. Why, you ask? Well, a million years ago, while visiting my brother in Colorado, the house where he was living had a hummingbird feeder hanging out off the eaves of the front porch. While we were all standing around outside talking, about 6 birds came to feed off this thing. It was extremely cool. While in Maine last month for my family reunions, my Aunt Joan (pronounced Joanne, I swear) had a hummingbird feeder suctioned to one of her windows and they came to slurp nectar while we sat around watching. Then about two weeks ago, while sitting in Olivia’s playroom listening to her push the same annoying buttons over and over again on some ridiculous toy she got for her birthday that seemingly has no other purpose except to irritate the ever loving shit out of the parents who have to suffer through it, i saw hummingbirds in my back yard. I had no idea that we got them in this area. What did I do? Why I went to the Foster and Smith website and ordered myself an assload of outdoorsy shit including a butterfly house, a butterfly feeder, a bat house, and of course, a hummingbird feeder and some nectar. It only took a week until they came a flying my way to feed. Yay! I hope that all didn’t just make me sound REALLY gay. Oh well.

In this next photo we have what will be the equivalent to whatever made Van Gogh cut off his own ear: A drum set  for a two year old. What kind of evil jerkface buys one of these things for a toddler? Oh wait, that would be own husband, on Ebay again without telling me. “Look honey! I won this pink drum set for Olivia!” I wanted to bury him in the back yard. No one will notice, I told myself. He won’t be missed, I’m sure of it. The lovely irony is that she keeps waking him up with it every morning. Sucka!!!

As stated in my previous post, I will be slowly making my way through an ebook posted on Hannah Kaminsky’s blog that you can purchase for five bucks. She’s the author of “My Sweet Vegan,” an obviously vegan dessert cookbook. Duh. I’m not going to post the recipe here. If you want it, pay for it cheapo. The girl’s putting herself through college, help her out. You can part with five bucks. The new Alanis cd will just have to wait another week. Here are a few pictures of me making the “Steel Cut Oatmeal Cookies.” She said they would be a great breakfast treat but they didn’t even last until bedtime in my house.

Here’s the oatmeal I made for the cookies. It took half an hour to cook. Steel cuts oats look weird, fyi. And while they were cooking, there was a weird greenish looking discharge oozing off the top of the oats and onto the sides of my pan. I should have taken a picture. It reminded of something they might show you pictures of in high school health class, seriously. “This is what an STD looks like! Don’t have sex, kids!”

These are the dried apples required for the recipe. I could have gone out and bought two bags at four bucks each, or I could have just peeled, chopped, and dried the pile of apples on my counter. Which is what I did. About two hours at two hundred degrees, in case you were wondering. Don’t forget to spray your baking sheet with no stick. Good times.

I made a batch and a half of these and I got twelve giant cookies out of this recipe. In her regular sized recipe she says she got twelve cookies. Hmm…what did I do wrong? Were they too big? IS there such a thing? I did use my three ounce ice cream scoop to dole out the batter. Oh well, they were fantastic nonetheless!! And now they all live in our bellies!!

She also states that you can use whatever dried fruit you happen to have lying around. If you have to be one of those weird people who like raisins with your oatmeal cookie, then go crazy with it. One thing I would like to point out: you cannot tell this is oatmeal. It doesn’t have the texture of a regular oatmeal cookie. You know what I mean- the giant oat that sometimes you just wish weren’t there. It was a more smooth, more moist cookie. Just better, in this baker’s opinion.

This is my middle child Abbey plowing through her third cookie. She loved them. “Do we really have to wait for breakfast to eat these?” Pay no attention to the fact that her glasses are missing an arm. We’re getting that fixed This week. They broke while she was at Six Flags Ohio with her best friend Taylor. Oops! And she wanted me to point out that her hair doesn’t usually look this…odd. Get a good look at her, folks. Someday, she’s going to cure cancer. Or at least solve all my foot problems. Abbey the podiatrist. I like it.

Next time I will do the “peanut butter bombshell blondies.” I actually already made them but they turned out awful so I’m going to redo them because one of about eight things could have gone wrong. Sometimes I like to think I know better than the people who write recipe books. I don’t. I mean, they tasted delicious, they were just kinda undercooked and mushy. I’ll get it right, I swear! Plus, I bought the rootbeer extract to make the rootbeer pudding I swore I’d never make. Turns out my friend Robert really wants me to make it. Sigh…

See you next time!!