365 Days of Gratitude

Okay . . . I accept the challenge!

Thank you to Laurie at Bare Hands:Practical Life Strategies for Women

Books! Books! Books!

So as I was watching our daughter in a nail-biting playoffs game in volleyball yesterday, our son sat deeply engrossed in a book about Matthew Henson getting to the North Pole.  Our son was completely oblivious to the crowd around him, the game on the court and even the occasional ball that narrowly missed him on his close-to-the-sidelines bench!

A Dad of another player is in management at our local Chapters and asked, "Does he always read like that?"  My response: "Yes!  Thankfully!"  What followed was an interesting discussion about books vs tablets, Kobo eReaders, Kindles, etc. !  He shared the fact that Chapters book sales went UP last year instead of the expected down with the onslaught of e-books!

I was pleased to read this article by Michael Hyatt this morning.  He succinctly makes many of my points for me!!

Happy Australia Day!

ANZAC Biscuits

Our favourite ANZAC Biscuits (Cookies) Recipe:

1 cup quick oats

¾ cup desiccated coconut

1 cup flour

1 cup sugar

125 g (4 oz) butter

2 tbsp golden syrup

½ tsp baking soda

1 tbsp boiling water

Preheat oven to 300 F (150 C).

Mix oats, flour, sugar and coconut together.

Melt syrup and butter together.

Mix soda with boiling water and add to melted butter and syrup

Add to dry ingredients.

Place 1 tablespoonfuls of mixture on greased tray or parchment paper (allow room for spreading).

Bake for 20 minutes.

Loosen while warm; cool on trays.

(Makes about 35).

Thoughtful Thursday

Children desperately need to know – and to hear in ways they understand and remember – that they’re loved and valued by mom and dad.

-Paul Smally

Chocolate Chip Slab Cookies

Sometimes we need baking and we need it now!  Depending on my mood, making cookies may not be the best choice as baking cookies requires patience, time-keeping and precision, none of which are my strong points on the days that end in 'y'. Thus . . . mixing up one bowl of ingredients, smearing it into one lightly greased pan and then baking it . . . becomes a marvelous option!

With no further ado, I present my version of chocolate-chip-cookies-that-don't-have-to-be-dropped-by-teaspoon-onto-parchment-paper-lined-tray-and-then-baked-while-being-timed-so-as-to-not-overcook.

A forgiving, easygoing chocolate chip slab cookie:

Chocolate Chip Slab (Cookies)

  

1 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups flour

1 cup chocolate chips

Cream butter and sugar together.  Beat thoroughly, as this is ‘the secret’ to this recipe!   Add vanilla and flour.  Mix well.  Add chocolate chips and mix again.

Dump the mix into a lightly greased cookie sheet with sides and pat down into pan. 

Bake at 185 C for 25 minutes-ish (when it is light brown around the edges and set in the middle!)

Let cool slightly before slicing into bars.

Try to avoid eating too many in one setting.

Celebrate how easy that was! J

Why I never get to bed early enough . . .

Dad & Mom were sitting in the family room in the quiet of the evening after the kids were in bed.  Mom was writing a quick email to her cousin on a laptop.  Dad was answering emails on his phone.  Dad said, “You should be getting to bed, its getting late!” Mom replied with a sigh, “Yes, I’m later than I’d planned on! I’ll just finish this up and then I’ll head to bed.”

Mom signed off the email, pressed send, checked 4 messages that had just come in – deleted two, flagged one and replied to one with a two sentence answer.  She got up off the couch, picked up two books from the floor and put them back on the bookshelf, put away the chess game that the kids had finished earlier, folded up a blanket and put 4 pieces into the ongoing puzzle on the coffee table.  She picked up the newspapers and scattered fliers as well as a pair of shoes and carried them all to the mudroom – shoes onto the shoe shelf and papers into the recycling bin.  This reminded her that tomorrow was garbage day – has to be out on the curb by 8 a.m. – so she made a quick run through the house emptying bins and brought the bags, as well as the kitchen compost bucket, to the back door for the morning.

                                                        

She went to the kitchen and set out the lunch bags for the next day, putting in the non-perishable items and rinsing out a thermos and three water bottles that had been missed earlier.  She noticed that the dishwasher hadn’t been run yet, so filled it with soap and turned it on.  She started to get the coffee maker ready for the morning but discovered someone had used the last of the ground coffee so quickly ground some more.  While she was doing this, she was thinking about the next day and realized she needed to take meat out of the freezer to thaw so she could put it in the crock pot in the morning, so that meant another quick trip to the garage to the freezer.  As she put the meat into the kitchen sink she noticed the table hadn’t been set for breakfast – “Whose job was that anyway? I’ll have to check the schedule on the fridge and remind the tribe in the morning about the inconvenience to others when one shirks one’s responsibility!” – so she put out dishes and cutlery.  She put some wet clothes in the dryer, put another load in the washing machine, quickly ironed two shirts that would be needed in the morning and sewed on a loose button.

As she headed upstairs to the bathroom she went past the phone desk and wrote a note to call Grandma first thing in the morning to find out the exact time she needed to be picked up so to get to her medical appointment on time.  Then Mom signed two school forms that had been left by the phone – not that anyone had remembered to tell about them, though! - and counted out some change for school popcorn orders that were due the next day. She signed a birthday card for her father-in-law, addressed the envelope and then rummaged in the dreaded ‘everything drawer’ for a stamp.  She made a quick “To Do” list for the morning and started a grocery list. 

She picked up the miscellaneous items that had been left on the bottom three steps and carried them upstairs, stopping here and there to put them all away. Finally making it to the bathroom, she changed, washed her face, put on moisturizer, brushed and flossed her teeth and combed out her hair.

When Dad heard the toilet flush, he called up the stairs, “I thought you were going to bed?”

“Almost there!” Mom replied!

She made a quick trip back downstairs with one last bit of rubbish she had missed earlier and a basket of laundry.  She made sure the cat was out of the mudroom, put some water in the dog’s bowl in the garage and checked all the doors were locked.  Then she looked in on each of the kids, hung up a wet towel, scooped some Lego out of the way in the boys’ room, turned out a bedside lamp and put away the book off a pillow, hung up a shirt, threw some dirty laundry into the hamper, and told the oldest one to get to bed and finish the math in the morning!

In her room, she set out her clothes for tomorrow and set an alarm.  She made a note of two more things that needed to be added to the “To Do” list in the morning.  She read a chapter in her Bible, said her prayers and climbed into bed.

It was about then that Dad put down his phone.

“I’m going to bed,” he announced, even though no one was there to hear! 

And he did.