I’m pretty sure most people would agree this wasn’t the Easter we planned on for 2020. Everyone talked about the Roaring ’20s but I seriously doubt this Coronavirus is what they had in mind. Honestly, truth be told, this is probably the Easter I don’t care to remember. Not because I want to forget the true reason for this season. In fact, Jesus is what is getting us through this. Him and God. Otherwise, this would suck a lot more than it does. I love that a lot of churches were broadcasting Easter Church services online because we’re not allowed to congregate at Church right now.
But Easter with my family this year could have gone better. I seriously think I’ll just leave it at that.
At least the Easter Bunny was able to make it through to our house. Whew!!
What made it “perfect” was the fact that the little said that she loved this day and couldn’t wait until next Easter. That right there and Jesus are the true reason for this! (more…)
Here while back, I came across a recipe for Pigu. What the heck is Pigu I wondered? Well, basically it is a little dough like thing filled with romano cheese. You start out by making the dough much like noodles, but I almost think it comes out tasting more like bread than a noodle dough. Basically, it is like an Italian Gougères.
Okay, I’ll bite (for you)… what is a Gougères? It is a choux pastry flavored with cheese (usually Gruyère), then usually filled with a savory filling.
So, we have dough, check.
We have cheese, check.
Well, it’s like an Italian Gougères, correct? We’re going to go with it and run! (more…)
Do you remember last fall when I discussed the Sugar Cookie Challenge? It might have even been late last summer. Well, I’m here to tell you, it was going well… and then it wasn’t. I knew it was kind of a long shot to do 300 dozen cookies, but I was willing to give it a shot. I think I actually forgot to blog a few of the different batches. I’ll go back and make sure, and if I didn’t, I’ll add them. It may not be that important but it is so fun to look back at the years on this blog and see things. Things I had otherwise forgotten… like the post on wedding dress shopping.
So where does the title fall in? Easy… When you are going along, selling dozens of cookies and then all at once BAM! cookie sales stop. You begin to wonder what happened. Then when you very seldom have repeat customers, you begin to question things again.
Were the cookies not good? I did create my own recipe. Did they not meet or exceed people’s expectations? I’m not sure. Do I just suck? Maybe. So much self-doubt creeps in. It is enough to make a person question everything. I mentioned the other day that I used to be the total optimist just like Sue Heck (the character from The Middle), but after being put down and called naive your whole life, it starts to wear on you.
New Sugar Cookies
The week before Easter I decided I was going to make some sugar cookies. It really stemmed from this whole blog. Explain? I’m glad you asked! Well, I was looking back through Easter posts on the blog looking for recipes we had used in years past. I stumbled across a post where Tbug and I decorated sugar cookies way back when. It was actually a kit I bought from the good ol’ Walmart store. The cookies were hard. Who knows how long the icing had been in the package. But it was super easy and super fun!
I decided I needed to do something like that with Abug. But the Walmart store didn’t have those kits the day I went there. So that meant I needed to make my own sugar cookies to decorate. (more…)
Yey! Easter has come (and gone!). This year we made a trip to my aunt and uncles in southern Oklahoma for Easter. It is a 5 1/2 hour trip down, so we left Friday, celebrated Easter (with dinner) on Saturday and drove home on Sunday. Luckily this was our year to have Tbug with us too! Woot woot!
We weren’t able to get Tbug until something like 1:30 on Friday and my dad wasn’t able to get off work until closer to 3ish so by the time we got out of there, it was closer to 4 or 5. I can’t quite remember but does it really matter?
On the drive down I listened to the book, The Time of My Life by Patrick Swayze and his wife Lisa Niemi. I can’t read in a car. I get car sick just sitting in one if I’m in the back seat, so reading is totally out of the question. But Audible to the rescue! It wasn’t a total loss, yey! I’ll have to do a “book report” on that in the coming days. So totally worth reading (or in my case, listening to).
We stopped in Oklahoma City for dinner. Technically Norman at a restaurant called Salt Grass. So totally YUM! Oh and don’t worry, I sent my friend Camille a picture of the water tower. I didn’t forget her on my way through… although I never got a response. In the words of Stephanie Tanner, How Rude! haha.
We got into AC & UB’s close to 11 pm. Abug told UB she was going to get up the next morning at 7 am and do chores with him. (more…)
One of my absolute favorite things to do is to cook. I’m pretty calm, cool, and collected when I’m in the kitchen, even under semi stressful situations. So let me paint this picture. Do you see the rolls above? They look pretty good, right? Well, they didn’t always look that way. Oh no…
We celebrated Easter this year with my aunt and uncle down at their house in Oklahoma. By the way, I LOVE my aunt’s kitchen. If someone wants to grant me a wish, I want her kitchen please! Anyway… I was going to make the rolls on Thursday before we went down on Friday, but AC told me to use her kitchen. Probably best, because trying to travel with bread wouldn’t have been all that easy.
So I woke up Saturday morning (we did Easter on Saturday since we had to travel home on Sunday) and started in on the rolls. I chose Pioneer Woman’s Clover Leaf Rolls from her Thanksgiving episode. It’s basically the same dough she uses for her cinnamon rolls. And I absolutely LOVE that dough recipe.
Everything was going according to schedule. Milk, Sugar, and oil on the stove to heat up just below boiling point. Cool off. Add Yeast. Dump mixture into flour, let rise for about an hour. Pull off in walnut sized chunks. Place three to a muffin cup. Let rise second time. Bake. Eat. Enjoy. Yum!
Or so I thought. AC ran out of flour in her jar so I yanked a bag out of the freezer. Mistake potential number 1. Then I spent a little time measuring it while my milk mixture was cooling. When I tested the mixture, it seemed a little cooler than normal. Mistake potential number 2. When I added the milk/yeast mixture to the cold flour, placed a teatowel over it, and went on about my business. I’m sure I allowed them to rise way over an hour because I forgot to set a timer for myself or make note of when I set them aside. (more…)
One tradition I really wanted to keep is getting pictures with Santa and the Easter Bunny at the respective holidays. So far Abug still hates the Easter Bunny. This year Tbug happened to be with us when we went to see the Easter Bunny. She’s old enough I wasn’t going to make her get in the picture, as you may notice from how she’s dressed (just regular clothes) but Abug threw such a fit that we conned Tbug to be in the photo to keep Abug happy. We never did get Abug to smile, but this isn’t bad I guess….
Mom bought Easter cookie cutters and asked that I make her some Sugar Cookies to take to work. This is what she got. Not bad I guess, right? Please tell me they’re good 😀.
I have always wanted to be that mom that decorates the house up for every holiday, etc etc. I fall short most days. I’m not sure there is time for that when you’re in grad school! I was lucky to remember that it was Easter weekend. Friday I studied for round 2 of comps and by the end of the day I was totally fried. I face planted on a bench and laid in the sun doing absolutely nothing. Oh wait… that was on Saturday, see I couldn’t even keep my days straight. I swear, Grad school is fun. Someone told me that if you’re working on your PhD and you’re married, you’ll probably be divorced before you graduate. Sadly I think I could see that although I’m not anywhere near being divorced right now. But if a PhD program is worse than a masters (which it has to be) then wow!
Okay I’m done rambling. Easter I took a bit of a break. I got up Sunday morning and we went to Church. It was Easter. It was the day before Comps. It all sounded good!
When we left church, it was time to go to my parents house. Abug had fallen asleep on our way there so I got her in the house and laid down on the couch with her and took a short snooze until I passed her off to hubby. It’s fun to have baby snuggles/snoozes.
The Easter Bunny visited our house!! Instead of a basket, she got a sand bucket and shovel. How did the bunny know? Plus a Football playing bunny and a train set. She was absolutely excited. Wow, how much fun could this have been at Christmas, the excitedness! She opened the basket and played with the boys while mommy and daddy got ready, then she got ready and off to church we headed.
After church we went to my parents house where of course my parents were (duh!), my aunt and uncle came, my grandma came and so did my mother in law. Hubby and I were responsible for the corn casserole since we have the corn casserole bowl. AC & UB were responsible for dessert. Grandma was responsible for rolls. Memaw brought flowers and candy :). Mom made hubby deviled eggs, Mom made my potato casserole, the rolls were for dad (strawberry jam was for hubby), the corn was for hubby and UB, the carrots were for mom and AC. This was totally our Easter 🙂 The ham was a Christmas present from UJ & Reneè
While we were putting food out on the table, Abug was playing with new Easter presents and entertaining us all. After food, it was time for dessert! AC got this dessert from a bakery place in Ada, Oklahoma. She said that the Carrot cake was even better the next day.
And after dessert, it’s nap time!
Hope you all had a wonderful and Happy Easter! Remember the real reason for the season… The tomb was empty, Jesus has Risen!
I had a major #bloggerfail for Easter! Holy Cow. We’re talking no pictures hardly at all. Seriously. Can’t really tell you why other than…. um…. we didn’t. I didn’t get pictures of the cake. The cake was good though.
No family pictures. No food pictures. um…. I was a slacker! #bloggerfail
So leading up to Easter (which yes I know the true reason for the day) I posted this picture on my facebook for the fun of it. This just cracks me up. I can’t help it.
I also posted a few jokes because well, here lately I’ve been on a joke posting kick. Again, no reason I just like them 🙂
A man is driving along a highway and sees a rabbit jump out across the middle of the road. He swerves to avoid hitting it, but unfortunately the rabbit jumps right in front of the car. The driver, a sensitive man as well as an animal lover, pulls over and gets out to see what has become of the rabbit. Much to his dismay, the rabbit is the Easter Bunny, and he is DEAD.
The driver feels so awful that he begins to cry. A beautiful blonde woman driving down the highway sees a man crying on the side of the road and pulls over.
She steps out of the car and asks the man what’s wrong.
“I feel terrible,” ! he explains, “I accidentally hit the Easter Bunny with my car and KILLED HIM.”
The blonde says,”Don’t worry.” She runs to her car and pulls out a spray can. She walks over to the limp, dead Easter Bunny, bends down, and sprays the contents onto him.
The Easter Bunny jumps up, waves its paw at the two of them and hops off down the road. Ten feet away he stops, turns around and waves again, he hops down the road another 10 feet, turns and waves, hops another ten feet, turns and waves, and repeats this again and again and again and again, until he hops out of sight.
The man is astonished. He runs over to the woman and demands, “What is in that can? What did you spray on the Easter Bunny ?”
The woman turns the can around so that the man can read the label. It says..
(Are you ready for this?) (You know you’re gonna be sorry) (Last chance) (OK, here it is)
It says, “Hair Spray Restores life to dead hair, and adds permanent wave.”
Happy Easter!!
And the other Easter joke I posted last week was:
How did the soggy rabbit dry himself?
With a hair dryer
We got up early and went to Church and then headed to my parents house. When grandma got there she said that the Easter Bunny had been to her house and had left goodies for all of us. Have you ever had Lindor truffles? They’re awesome. My fave is the red and the blue.
Then mom came through and said the Easter Bunny had stopped at her house too. Boy we must have been bad because the Easter bunny didn’t visit our house. #fail
For Easter Dinner we had Ham, twice baked potato casserole, corn, Grandma’s homemade rolls and strawberry jam, and for dessert we had Tbug’s Strawberry Cake she made.
Then later in the afternoon we went to Sunday Night Dinner and had it potluck style. We took our Potato Casserole! YUM! It was all gone by the end of the meal and I almost didn’t get any. Crazy! And there was Easter.
I hope you all had a fabulous Easter and sadly it seems as the years go by, it is becoming less and less of a celebrated holiday, does anyone else get that feeling?
