Friday, December 29, 2006

She's Just Too Smucking Cute!!



(I've started Lisey's Story, by Stephen King - so Smucking is a new word to add to my vocabulary. I like it - sounds like Smuckers Jam, so it's a SWEET swear!!)

I find it really hard to get good pictures of my cats. It's like their energy and essence just can't be captured on film or in pixels.

But these are close - Abby is too hyper usually, so I try to catch her when she is sleeping.

Abby has the BEST tummy. It's firm, like a barrel - and covered in white curly fur. She has no shame - readily rolls over for long tummy rubbing sessions. For cats, she's very easy going about that - they usually don't like it. But I have had her since she was 7 weeks old, and right from the beginning, I made a point of it. That way, she is much more cooperative at the vet - they often have to find ways to get her to stop purring during exams. But that is much easier to deal with than a cat who wants to eat your hand off at the wrist!

Holiday Baking



It's been years since Lisa and I were able to pool our resources and just bake like fools for the holidays. Well, this year, my oven conveniently quit. Go figure - the damn thing is 20 years old. And Mark won't buy a new one. Had to wait until a new pilot was shipped out so he could fix it. So, I packed up my ingredients and recipes and pans and racks and hauled my ass over to Townsend after work on Friday the 15th and didn't get home until Sunday evening.

By the time we were done, Lisa had goody trays for 23 deliveries. And I got to bring home a big bucket o'nummies for Mark.

Let me see if I can list all the stuff we did:

  1. 7 Layer Bars
  2. Peanut Blossoms
  3. Peanut Butter Fudge
  4. Chocolate Pizzelle
  5. Peppermint / White Chocolate Bark
  6. Dark Chocolate / White Chocolate / Almond Bark
  7. Peppermint Brownies
  8. Nutella Peanut Ravioli
  9. Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
  10. Oatmeal Cranberry Nut Cookies
  11. Lemon Tartlets
  12. Pecan Tartlets
  13. Coconut Raspberry Tarts
  14. Special K Peanut Butter Cookies
  15. Lemon Poppyseed Loaves
  16. Pumpkin Cranberry Loaves
  17. Almond Something Loaves (I forget what else was in there!!)
  18. Decorated Sugar Cookies


Gail was in for the weekend too, so she helped decorate the sugar cookies and kept us company while we baked and fried and melted and stirred and and and.

Jess called while we were working- so had to get a pic of Lisa talking to her.



This is the daSilva Christmas tree - Lisa is seriously considering keeping it up until Jess comes home.

This is the final result - it's hard to believe that all that work came down to this. But it was worth it - and had a great weekend making mudpies with Lisa. We don't get to spend enough time together.