Tea With Stephanie

I had promised Devin a batch of chocolate chip cookies over the weekend. When I called to discuss what specifically he wanted we talked about various alternatives like orange chocolate chip cookies that I make. Devin suggested mint but did not know if I had a recipe. Well I have been baking enough varieties just off from the original recipe that it is not that difficult to make something up. Luckily they turned out. Here is Devin’s new chocolate chip cookie recipe.

Mint Chocolate Chip cookies

½ cup butter flavored shortening

½ cup butter

½ cup sugar

½ cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon peppermint extract

4-5 drops of green food coloring

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon baking soda

2 cups flour

1 ½ cups chocolate chips

Cream butter and shortening with the sugars. Add eggs one at a time and beating well after each. Add vanilla and peppermint extracts. Add in green food coloring if desired.

Mix dry ingredients together and add to the creamy mixture. Can add up to 1/4 cup more flour if needed. Stir in chocolate chips.

Using a small cookie scoop or spoon drop by spoonfuls onto parchment paper covered cookie sheets.

Bake 375 oven about 7 minutes using the small scoop, or until golden brown around edges and a bit on top.

The green tint is just not really showing up in that photo.

The children both seemed to enjoy the Bento lunch. Honestly in some ways I found it easier to make and get ready than the standard lunch. I think part of that was just that it was fun and I had stuff for Bento. I did not have everything needed for the standard sandwich, cookie, carrots, and some sort of cracker/chip lunch.

Treanna has Hello Kitty stuff enough for 2 different days. She is quite happy with the sheer amount of pinkness she has.

Alaric however is using other things. He liked the size of his sister’s boxes but could NOT tolerate the Hello Kitty. Not that I blame him. We have tried it with the sandwich keeper containers from Tupperware and those so far have worked out pretty well. However after looking online I could not really find a box that he really liked that was not a lot more money than I was prepared to spend. So as a trial I bought one of the HK boxes in blue and tried taking off the HK part. It worked suprisingly well. With a little fine wet/dry sandpaper and running water I managed to get the character off the top with only a little effort. After it had dried I used some colored permanent markers and made a small turtle design on the top. He was quite pleased with it when he saw it Friday morning.

So as you can see they are interesting to look at a good size and hold a lot of food. The ones on Friday held baby carrots, extra roast beef, rice, roast beef stars and cheese stars with some olives for color on the rice for the top layer. The bottom layer held lemon jello, green grapes, watermelon circles, and vanilla sugar wafer cookies. They had a little plastic spoon for the jello and a small pick to eat the fruit with. The children say they have had plenty of time to finish and have not gotten teased at all. I like it as somehow it seems easier to get a good balance of foods into them. I have been liking them enough that I even went and bought me a green hello kitty bento box since it was only a dollar. I figured having an easy way to pack me an appropriate lunch couldn’t be all bad either. I am still waiting for the interesting container I got for myself to come from  Tupperware but then I will have 2 different containers for myself for lunches.

Tomorrow is the first day of school, my darling’s birthday and the day things really get back into the routines of the majority of the year.

We have been attempting to get back on schedule for several weeks but things keep interfering. Overall I am proud of the progress we have made. I have the kids mostly ready. We have all the required school supplies, we have checked their clothes and picked up the few things they needed. Now of course we have to pack it all up and get it into the backpacks to head off to school. We have even come up with the plan for lunches.

Lunch for the kids at school has been a huge conflict between T and I for the last several years. She wants to have a salad or something different than just a sandwich. Well we have tried several different things and honestly nothing has worked. Last week while picking up something else I saw some Hello Kitty Obento/Bento containers at the dollar store. No I really have no clue where I learned about Bento and what it is. T and A both read about it in a Highlights magazine earlier this year. Well after thinking about it, talking about it with Devin and even eating lunch out at a Japanese restaurant we decided to go ahead and pick up the containers and try it. So I picked up enough for 2 different days so we always have a clean one. I then picked up a few things to make the packing of it easier and quicker (like precooked mini sausages!) and we made some rice. A was not enthusiastic about it at all and said he would stick with the sandwich. Well since I wanted to practice and try this out I made him one as a “trial”. They went over very well. Both are very excited about it and this is almost a scary thing that could easily turn into an obsession. But I told the kids that this is a treat and we HAVE to get it packed and in the fridge the night before as I refuse to put them together in the morning.  If they don’t get done we can always fall back on the basic sandwich lunch. Tomorrow of course is the real test. Can they eat it in the designated time allowed? Will they get teased by their classmates? Or will as we suspect they set yet another trend for the school and eventually the town? Kind of funny but us fixing a challenge or problem has turned into a trend at school in the past so it is a concern.

I am writing this blog post on my regular desktop computer. I have a good start to things being back in their places. To be sure things are upgraded and I still have many more programs and things to get set up. For some odd reason my calendar and contacts did not transfer well. I don’t want to lose them off my handheld so am holding off a sync until I figure that out.

In addition I was finally able to get my organic strawberries. The store has been out the last few times I tried to get them. So with a rain check in hand I bought 4 pounds of organic strawberries. Last night they were had with Tillamook oregan strawberry ice cream and dark chocolate syrup. This morning they accompanied crisp waffles with a light dusting of powdered sugar. I am so glad I discovered that my egg slicer would slice strawberries, it makes nicer slices than I could ever do on my own. The strawberry slices looked quite lovely on the waffles dusted with the powdered sugar. Of course to wash it down I made a single mug of Irish Breakfast with a splash of milk and a dash of sugar.

A friend recently gave me some very yummy jams and jellies and I made scones earlier in the week to try them out. Very tasty indeed. I currently only opened the peach and cherry jams but they were wonderful. Also in the basket was some blackberry fizz concentrate. I have been having it all afternoon with some lemon-lime seltzer and it is very tasty and interesting. I think I will like it very much. The other thing of note in the basket was some apple walnut chutney. I like a lunch I have had at a couple of tearooms called a “ploughman’s lunch” which consists of a cheese thingy, a cold meat pie, some crusty bread, some chutney and a green salad. I would love to do this for myself for lunch I just don’t know where to get the cheese thingy. I currently cannot even remember what it is called. I could probably eat this daily for a week or 2 before getting tired of it or running out chutney.

For the final little update on the chair saga. All 5 of my school type chairs now have upholstered seats. After picking up sanding discs for the sander and a large pile of paint samples we made a decision. I shall sand all the chairs and then primer them. Then we shall paint them in Laura Ashley paint in a lovely light beigish/brown color called Wicker Chair. I could not locate a sample of said color online or I would share it. I now have a grand total of 1 chair sanded and ready to be primered. I am continuing the search for a better dining room table though one of my wonderful sisters is going to give me one that would be perfect to sand and paint to go with the chairs.

I am currently sick with a nasty cough and cold. Luckily Alaric got over it mostly and also got over his double ear infections. Amazing how that curtails your activities to have a sick child.

 The week before Spring Break, which started Monday the 9th, he missed the majority of the week of school since he had a fever. By the end of the week he had seen the doctor 3 times and was worse by Saturday than he had been Wednesday. However we changed directions a bit and he was much better by Sunday Night. His cough was worse but not enough that I felt we had to curtail a long planned visit to cousins. So we went down to Olympia and enjoyed a 2 day visit with their cousins. They had just got a trampoline so they got to play out on that a bit and watched a few movies they had not seen yet. I watched the Kingdom of Heaven with my sister and it was alright, not the greatest, but parts of it were neat. I also learned to make lemon curd which was way easier than I thought it would be. We went down because Devin was flying to Denver. So we dropped him off at the airport and then picked him up on our way back.

Thursday we stayed home, but Friday we went to a friend’s house and had a little tea party. It was neat to see how much her little girl had grown since our last visit. She had also just gotten all her china from her parents so we got to use her Royal Albert Moss Rose pattern which was very lovely. I made garlic lime chicken wraps, while she made a salad and a wonderfully moist and yummy vanilla cake. She told me she uses a mixture of half butter and half canola oil which she finds makes a moister cake. Saturday was just a stay at home day. I did some paperwork, sorted another box or 2 and um other stuff I don’t remember.

Today however I made Lemon Poppy Seed muffins with a little bit of lemon curd in the middle. They turned out marvelous and I am definitely planning on repeating them again. I am also considering making them in orange. I also dragged the entire pile of stuff for the bulk trash pickup out to the road. Devin helped with the really large items (like the couch, which I had to pay a little fee for!). I now have a very large and distinguished pile out there. It only needs to have the rest of the larger sticks and to fill the yard waste bin along with regular garbage day stuff to be done. My carport now has a great deal more room. Whenever we do bulk trash pickup it amazes me just how much ends up getting put out. I am now considering going through the house to find more to put out.

Over all I am feeling better. Still sick but now it feels mostly like a cold. The kids are mostly better as well just needing extra sleep. I slept most of Thursday and that seemed to help as well.

I did some kitchen stuff this weekend but it was a slow process. I made little mini raspberry tarts. I made several batches of them. They seemed to get eaten up rather quickly.

Our friend Nick finally got into his apartment and has been spending most of the weekend moving in. It will be a nice place and he is still really close by so we can still see him often. Now of course I need to make cupcakes or cake for an upcoming celebration.

I did a few other things like got a couple of packages mailed off on Friday. These have been needing to get mailed off for months in some cases and I finally got it done. I still have a giant 60+lb box that will need to go out this week but I will need help as it is HEAVY!

The other cool things happened yesterday. I was on my email and a couple of things came through on freecycle I was interested so I responded. Well I got them both! I got an older working serger very similar to the one I first learned on. Plus I got a large bag and a small box of yarn so that I can do some more knitting and crocheting as well as teach Treanna. Her and I have already done several little lessons. So far she can cast on great but cannot seem to get the whole knit a row thing down. Every time I check on her she has undone the entire thing. We will keep working on it, I have faith in her.

My plans for the week include cleaning up the branches and debris from the yard as well as cleaning out the carport if the weather cooperates. Otherwise I am just hoping to go to the Flower and Garden show this coming week or weekend. Devin really wants to take me, which makes me VERY happy. Unfortunately Devin has a long week as he has a technology conference to attend in downtown Seattle. This is only the first of much stuff happening between now and May.  

Today was a rather productive day. I finished all the laundry and there was a lot! I also managed to keep the kitchen mostly clean. I did a few other chores. The big icky one I did was clean the trap for the upstairs bathroom sink. Not sure I really want to do that ever again. I did not quite figure out how to reattach the stopper though. I also talked to a couple of friends as well.

We also had a meeting about Alaric at school. We were very pleased to see that according to all the guidelines and testing he is right in the middle for most everything! A few above especially academic wise. What this means is that he changes status at school and no longer has an IEP overseen by the special education consultant. Believe me school can be very complicated with special needs. He will continue to receive most of the services he now gets but they will all be coordinated by the teacher. We are not unhappy with the change as we have been expecting it. The one thing that suprised me the most is that he scored well above average in the social situation testing where they ask what someone should do or say in a given situation. I didn' t quite realize just how well he was internalizing it. So he rocks and we are pleased with his progress. I like happy meetings.

Oh we watched "Be Cool" last night the sequel to "Get Shorty". It was suprisingly good even if several of the casting choices were suprising to realize just who that person was. It was worth watching.

Tonight I made pizza for dinner and was pleased with how it turned out. I have noticed that if I have at least half the flour be the whole wheat pastry flour, the crust turns out better. Not sure why but I am inevitably happier with the half and half crust. For lunch I had picked up a box of Annie Chun's Pad Thai Cuisine meal kit. It had found it in the natural food section and decided to give it a try. I added a bit of cut up chicken breast, some eggs, and some bean sprouts. It turned out very yummy and I have half of it left for tomorrow. I think I am going to try picking up at least 1 of the others each grocery trip and try them all.  

As I am typing this Devin and I are finishing off our 11th anniversary. We have been married now for 11 years. Not bad at all considering we married 3 weeks after we met! Many people would not have even given us 11 weeks yet alone 11 years.

Last night after dinner we headed back up to the Outlet Mall in Marysville without the kids for a small date. Devin needed to pick up my present from there and I wanted to go back into the Royal Albert store. So while I spent plenty of time browsing and looking at the store Devin picked up my present. I had just finished looking through a pile of plates and picked out 4 plates to match the wonderful cups I got for my birthday when Devin came in. He agreed that buying the plates was a good idea and then had me turn around and hold up my hair. I really had no clues as to what he bought me for our anniversary. I of course was fairly practical and had bought him a cordless 18v drill set with 2 batteries and other cool things like a flashlight. Well he put a necklace on me. Of course I could not even see it, so my first priority was finding a mirror. This is what I saw:

It is a gorgeous delicate cross with Amethyst and Tanzanite stones. It is just lovely and I have been wearing it ever since.

After we finished there we stopped by the casino to look at it. Left shortly because after Vegas it was terribly disappointing and way too smoky.

We then decided to go see a movie. We went down to Alderwood and went to the new giant theaters there. It was ok but the stuff before the movie tried too hard and was way too tied into television. The movie "Because I said so" was excellent and very funny in places. There were several scenes that I could really identify with and the food was gorgeous.

Today we had a late start and I made us breakfast in bed using the new plates with matching cups. It was quite lovely and the big pot of Black Orange Spice tea was the perfect thing to wake up with. Later we left and went to Seattle to go to the Episcopal Bookstore where we picked up bibles for ourselves as well. We have been needing to get personal bibles for some time now and just made it part of our anniversary. After the bookstore we went to Edmonds and took the ferry to Kingston. This time we had the kids with us and wanted to share the crepes with them. By the time we were all done and home it was a bit on the late side so they were very tired. However they seemed to enjoy the day out with us.  

So Happy Anniversary Darling! 

It smells like cinnamon buns and chocolate chip cookies.  I needed some sort of roll but was out of white sugar. I had a recipe from an online friend for cinnamon buns that used brown sugar. So I started the dough during dinner and let it rise. Nick ended up getting some white sugar so I could make chocolate chip cookies. So I made those while waiting for the dough to rise. While I was still baking the cookies I rolled out and put the cinnamon buns into the pans. They had finished rising for the second time about the time I finished baking the chocolate chip cookies. Luckily my wonderful little sister Becca called and talked to me while I was making everything because she loves me.

We had some company over the weekend as there was a local SCA event. We are conveniently located to the fairgrounds and have warmth and comfortable beds. We usually have someone who asks to stay every year during the event. This year I tried something different so that my living room was not majorly disrupted. Since Nick is still staying in the very tiny room that has yet to be converted into tiny guest quarters. So instead I put them up in Treanna's room after bribing the kids to share their room for the weekend. I have been wanting to try out Treanna's trundle bed and see how difficult it was to turn it into a king size bed. After a bit of trial and error I discovered that it was super easy and will definitely remember that for the future. The company even said that it was fairly comfortable and they slept well. Now if I could just squeeze something like that into the tiny guest room it would be awesome.

Evaluating how I did on my personal goals for January and I am really pleased. I made the vast majority of our meals from scratch, I kept up on laundry, I had time to make extra goodies, I made decisions and small progress on continued decluttering, and my kitchen was clean the majority of the month. February I am still trying to decide what my personal goals are.

I did try following a pattern from my book Killer Tea Cosies. I want to try knitting a basic tea cozy and after I had gotten half of it all the way done discovered too many dropped stitches and that it was not big enough because my yarn was not the right kind. So I undid the entire thing and will try finding a different pattern to try again.

I have also made an effort to pull down my January Victoria magazines and spend some time reading them. Last week I ran across a recipe for orange poppy seed bread that sounded yummy. I ended up picking up what I needed and made 2 loaves. It was really good. That same day I made Garlic Chicken and Lemon pie from the British Country Living but that was a flop with the family. I enjoyed it but no one else did. I took the second pan to the potluck at church on Sunday and everyone raved about it.

I have 2 lovely primroses on my counter next to my kitchen right now. They are both double blossomed primroses and they are just gorgeous and the flowers are very ruffly! 
 

Or at least this one wasn't. I had a nice quiet day at home alone. Did laundry and made chocolate chip cookies. Of course I made dinner too. I had to clean the kitchen and the fridge.  Before I could make cookies I also needed to clean out the oven a bit.

 I also checked out a band I had heard on the radio while scanning stations on my way home. It was a group called Abney Park. I actually liked some of the music so have been grooving to them on and off all day. One of the things I like the best about them is their "look" and costumes. Of course their look is very Steampunk which is most likely why I like it.

I also vacuumed and finished cleaning out my Mazda. For Christmas I had received a stereo and speakers for it. Our friend Nick put it in for me and also ended up needing to put in a replacement antennae. We finally got it all put back together and working this past weekend. So I now have a stereo in the car! Yeah!! So I cleaned it out and vacuumed it inside today. It looks really nice. I also helped Nick a bit with his newest Chevy. He just bought it and of course needed to replace a few things on it. I didn't realize just how long it has been since I worked on a car with someone. It was kind of fun. I now know approximately how difficult it will be to replace my windshield wiper core when it goes.

I spent some quality time with some of my January Victoria magazines as well today. I noticed a few different things on this read through. One of the things I noticed was a short note about a french fashion doll exhibit and was pleased to remember that I had seen that in person when it was here locally a couple of years ago with Treanna's class. 

I went and picked up more medicine today as well as received my prescriptions in the mail. I have been pleased to note after reviewing my blog as well as my notes that I am obviously doing better on the new stuff my doctor put me on. Interesting to me to see the subtle changes I didn't even notice at first. I really do think my energy levels are up enough I am having an easier time keeping up the house and the rest of my routines.

Tomorrow I am hoping to spend some time with my friend S, make a more involved dinner, and pick up the armchairs I am planning on getting for Devin's office.