I know it’s jeeeeest about getting to panic time for the holiday season, at least for us craftsters who planned on hand-whittling the state birds for each second cousin this year. But if you could all take a moment to think back in time, to those days before you swore off the shopping mall after getting in a fist fight with your sister over Tickle Me Mickey or whatever that thing is; before you stopped speaking with your in-laws over holiday schedule disputes; before you got too drunk at the office Winter Festival party and embarassed yourself again. Way back to a day called Thanksgiving. Ah, weren’t things easier then?
Tag Archives: domesticmacgyver
Back to the November: Thanksgiving Recap
9 DecThe Yellow Kitchen Curtain: My Descent into Domestic Madness
11 Nov“Sometimes I think there are a great many women behind, and sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast and her crawling shakes it all over…” - The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
It was 1 AM on Sunday, November 7. But really it was 12 AM…or 2 AM. The time change always screws me up. So there I was, awake in bed,waiting for my husband-to-be to return from a late-night band gig, and that’s when-as the late great Shel Silverstein would say–the Whatifs crawled inside my ear. What if the dandelion wine we’re serving at our first Thanksgiving is awful? What if the duct-taped rearview mirror on our car falls off? I settled on: What if I left the coffee maker on at work and the building is currently burning down? Yep, that should sufficiently keep me up for the rest of the night.
After googling “Can a Mr. Coffee burn a building down?” (you can find pretty much whatever answer you want to find) for a bit, I decided to put my anxiety about becoming an accidental arsonist to good use by making some cocoa almonds, a delicious snack I saw in a cookbook that I’ve forgotten the title of (but I’ve added the recipe below). However, as I was standing in my well-lit kitchen at 2 AM (or 1 AM or 3 AM), I noticed we had no curtain on our kitchen window and, of course, immediately began to worry that some creep was watching me coat my nuts in chocolate. Well, it’s only 2 AM (or 1 AM or 3 AM), never too late to make curtains! This way it would make an interesting police report when they arrested me for burning my workplace down: “The suspect was found humming to Patsy Cline and sewing a long curtain to hang next to her oven, presumably so that she could then set her own apartment on fire.”
You Wanna Be My Second?: Trusty Food Substitutions
9 OctDanny Zuko was Kenickie’s backup driver at Thunder Road and won. John Kimble was the sub in Kindergarten Cop and look how much ass he kicked. And Sister Mary Clarence showed us that you don’t even have to be a real nun to fill Lauryn Hill with the light of day (check the rhyyyyyme!) in Sister Act II. Substitutes are doin’ it for themselves.
In my opinion, the same goes for food substitutions. Many times, my tastebuds are bigger than my wallet and I find that the recipes I clipped from various cookbooks and television shows don’t really fit my budget. Or I’d have to buy an ingredient that I’ll only use 2 tablespoons of and then have to waste the rest because I won’t bother to find another recipe to use it in. Or I’m super hungry and I don’t want to run to the store to get one little old ingredient. Broke. Careless. Impatient. What’s new?
It’s at this moment that my eyes light up…because I’ve opened the fridge…and found a round of substitutes that I can recruit to round out my meal/dessert. Bring in the alternates!, I holler. Boyfriend and possibly the neighbors downstairs shake their heads. She’s at it again.
Paper Bag Writer: TV Lunches
16 Sep
When I was wee, I usually spent my early autumn evenings getting kicked out of the various rooms in my home for various annoying-little-sister atrocities like singing, whining, “I’m telling”, etc. I’d be exiled from both bedrooms where my three older sisters were practicing their marching band instruments, talking on the phone, or dying each other’s hair. Banned from the back porch where my brother constructed intricate Lego metropolises. And shooed out of the dining room so that my father could pay bills without being serenaded with a Patti LaBelle medley or a scene from Gypsy (because it’s weird to have your daughter sing to you in the voice of a vaudeville stripper).
I Still Know What You Made This Summer: Dandelion Wine Part 2
6 Jul
Ann-ie. Back again. Check it to wreck it. Let’s begin.
When we last left our tub of hissing raisins and yeast it was just one more smelly bucket sittin’ on a table. But this was The Little Bucket That Could. Ferment, that is. And ferment it did. Leaving me and my beau with some engorged raisins, some muck, and, hopefully, some booze.
Here’s what we did in the second stage of Wine’n, not to be confused with regular Whinin’, which is what we did after we read that we couldn’t drink it for six months.
I Wasn’t in Rehab: What I’ve Been Doing
22 JunOk, I’ve been gone awhile. Just for your peace of mind, I wasn’t hospitalized or taken in on suspicious drug charges. I moved. Actually, I moved twice. And switched jobs, and had panic attacks, and made $200 from a garage sale!, and painted…and painted…and painted the new place. But no excuses here. I know I haven’t written, I haven’t called, but I promise I’ve been thinking about you. So grab a cup of whatever it is you’re drinking these days and let’s have a one-sided convo about just what I’ve been up to these past weeks.
Get your Dander Up! Dandelion Wine: Part One
18 May“If you had your way you’d pass a law to abolish all the little jobs, the little things. But then you’d leave yourself nothing to do between the big jobs and you’d have a devil of a time thinking up things to do so you wouldn’t go crazy. Instead of that, why not let nature show you a few things? Cutting grass and pulling weeds can be a way of life, son.” -from Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
Spring! And haven’t we had a lovely one so far? Whenever the weather starts getting warmer like this, I always think of school days, those last afternoons of the year when it seemed like everyone, students and teachers alike, were all just waiting it out until summer vacation. The hallways smelled different, thicker, and it was harder to concentrate with the sounds and smells of someone mowing the lawn coming in from the open windows. And most of all, I think of the day that came every year, the day I got off of the bus and my whole yard had turned yellow with dandelions.
A Future So Bright: Little Golden Lamp
13 MarThis post is dedicated to all my lovely nieces and nephews, including Baby Still-In-The-Oven. I love you very much. Love, Your Favorite Aunt who dedicates posts to you and makes thoughtful homemade gifts and is the coolest and funniest and who will probably help you get away with something your parents wouldn’t approve of when you’re older… Favorite. Me. Tops.
As all the aunts and uncles out there know, the role of Favorite Relative is a coveted one. It takes a serious and complicated combination of charm, candy, and guilt to secure the spot.
In my family, Favorite Aunt is a constant crusade and I’ll be the first to admit it can get dirty. I’ve secretly cut bigger slices of birthday cake, started whisper-campaigns about my sisters being “stinky” or “ucky”, and read bedtime stories until my mouth was so parched I could barely eek out the words: “Now…who’s …your…favorite?”
Nary a holiday has gone by without a niece of nephew stuck in a dining room chair, eyes darting from face to face to face to face to face while we each remind him or her how wonderful we are. Will their loyalties hold? Will they remember the pop bottle rocket you made with them last summer when they’re holding this spring’s sidewalk chalk in their grimy little hands? How quickly they forget. Oh, how quickly they forget.
And They Crumble in your Hand: Dead Leaf Deco Extravaganza
8 Nov
Ever looked at the ground of your local park? It’s not just for dirty needles and goose feces anymore. This time of year, in fact, you can find more household decorations than the aisle of jars with ironic phrases painted on them at Hobby Lobby. Plus, you don’t have to battle the disgruntled employees with the tin buttons that read, “I’d Rather Be Felting” (I made that up…craft joke).
Off Topic: My Craft Room
11 Oct
Dedicated to my mom for getting me The House That Had Enough when I was wee.
Okay, my craft “closet”. I can’t really do any crafting inside of it because it’s a little pre-Hogwarts Harry Potter closet underneath the building’s staircase and when my landlord comes bustling down the stairs it sounds like two parts scary thunderstorm and one part shoot-out scene from The Departed. Not ideal for needle crafts or hot glue projects. No sir.
