Today is my daughter, Hilary’s, birthday. Just wanted to take a minute to wish her an especially Happy Birthday, just because I’m her Mom, and just because I can.
This picture is a blast from the past for my girls. Hilary’s about a year old here, and her big sister, Naomi, was always helping to take care of her. Ironically, now they work together and get along just fine.
Happy B-Day Hilly!! Wishing you wonderful things for the year ahead.
Since we have a plethora of lemons around here, from our lemon/lime tree, I have been searching for new cookie recipes to try out on the cookie lovers at my house. Last week I tried out this easy recipe for lemon poppy-seed cookies, from the Martha Stewart website. I did add an additional cup of flour from the original recipe, as the dough was extremely sticky. This was a trial run for this recipe, and they turned out ever so delicious. I will definitely be adding these to my cookie recipe arsenal.
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Bring lemon juice to a simmer in a small saucepan medium heat; cook until reduced by half. Add 1 stick butter; stir until melted.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.
3. Cream remaining stick butter and 1 cup sugar. Mix in egg and lemon butter. Mix until pale, about 3 minutes.
4. Mix in vanilla and 2 teaspoons zest. Mix in flour mixture and poppy seeds.
5. In a small bowl, stir together remaining 1/2 cup sugar and 1½ teaspoons zest.
6. Roll spoonfuls of dough into 1½-inch balls or use your favorite cookie scoop; roll them in sugar mixture. Place 2 inches apart on baking sheets.
7. Press each with the flat end of a glass dipped in sugar mixture until ¼ inch thick. Sprinkle with extra poppy seeds.(This is optional)
8. Bake until just browned around bottom edges, 10 to 11 minutes. Transfer to wire racks; let cool completely. Makes about 30 cookies. Store in an airtight container up to 1 week.
This cookie is like a little, lemon shortbread. It has definitely gotten better with age, and oddly enough we still have a few left in the cookie container. Amazing! This is a great recipe to make to send to long distance loved ones, or for your favorite Travel Guy to take with him on his next trip. Come on over and pick some lemons from our tree and try out the recipe. Next on my lemon cookie list will be good ‘ol Lemon Squares. Happy baking everyone!
The ladies in our family have a private group page on Facebook called, Renee’s Revelers. We started this page to just to encourage one another, have a place to vent, or throw out random ideas and questions. One of the topics that comes up frequently in our discussions online is – How do you stay focused on your “To-Do” list or lists (in my case) without letting yourself get sidetracked?
At dictionary.com the actual definition of sidetracked is: to move or distract from the main subject or course. I have my “To-Do” list with all of my main “subjects” or items to get accomplished for the day. Yet inevitably I only get one or two of them done due to the “sidetrack” factor. My daughter and I were joking with each other about this over the weekend. I was thinking to myself, I should count how many times each day or in a given period of time that I get sidetracked. Maybe if I knew the number of times I get sidetracked it would help to focus on the main items I’m trying to get finished for the day. I haven’t decided if I’m going to do that yet. I may throw that idea up for discussion with my “Revelers” group.
Here’s a couple of my “sidetrack” areas that always seem to veer me off of my main course on any given day.
#1 The Housecleaning sidetrack factor is a big one. This is the one my daughter and I joke about all of the time. She does my weekly cleaning and I am always teasing her about getting sidetracked.
You’ve probably done this. You’re in the middle of cleaning up a bathroom or bedroom when you suddenly look up and your rummaging through some closet shelves in another room. Sidetracked!
Your putting away the dishes from your dishwasher, and then the next thing you know your cleaning off some pantry shelves. Sidetracked!!
#2 Or how about the sidetrack factor when you’re on the computer. You get on the computer to pay some bills, and before you know you’re reading the latest posts from your favorite bloggers -Sidetracked! Still have to finish paying the bills. Focus, focus get yourself back on the track.
#3 My favorite sidetrack situation to talk about is when you’re trying to get things done around the house, Either just some cleaning or a little DIY project and you get sidetracked by jumping on the computer. You know, just to look something up and see how it’s done. Then half an hour later you try to go back to what you were originally doing.
Or how about those times when you get so seriously sidetracked that you forget what you were initially working on. Yikes, Super-Sidetracked. That’s the moment when you need someone to give you a shout who says, “hey, whatcha working on?”
Do you get sidetracked easily? Is it just me? How do you get yourself back on track to finish what you were doing? How ‘s your To-do list working for you?
Happy Monday everyone – I’m off to work on a DIY project. Hopefully I’ll make it to the kitchen counter without any distractions!
This past weekend Travel Man and I decided it would be a good time to knock some items off of our “Things to get done Around the House” list. I don’t really call this list our “Honey-Do” list, because a lot of times we work on the list together. Especially if it is something I don’t really know how to do, or want to learn to do.
On this particular Saturday, Travel Man was putting up a ceiling medallion in our bedroom around the ceiling fan. This required the power to the electric circuit in our bedroom to be turned off. The circuits in our house are just a bit quirky, and on the electrical panel some of our circuits were labeled and some were not. This issue of course has now been corrected.
We formed a little family assembly line so that when the power to our bedroom was off, I yelled to our daughter whether or not the power was cut, and she relayed the message to Travel Man outside. A little back note here; our ceiling fan can run with or without the light on. I did not have the light turned on when we started this relay process. Travel Man had gone through almost all of the circuits or more before we, or should I say, I realized that it would be easier if I had the light turned on to tell when the power was cut. We went through the entire electrical panel, and back to the very first circuit before the power was cut. Ooopsy doodle, I should have turned the light on much, much sooner. It would have saved my guy the trouble of flipping all of the switches in the entire panel.
After we were all done just getting the power shut off, the ceiling medallion was in place and the power was back on, I said, “Hey, we actually re-booted the house today!” I’m pretty sure Travel Man laughed at that one, and told me I should write a blog post about our adventure. So I did.
Many times, the time that Travel Man and I spend around the house together is limited. Sometimes we choose to focus on the house , and make the most of that time and get a few needed repairs done. Other times we don’t worry about the fixes around the house and we just focus on us spending some time together. That’s when we usually go to Disneyland to do some serious people watching.
How’s your “Things to get done around the House” list going? What’s the last thing in your house that got repaired or updated?
This post has been linked to the GRAND Social linky
Yes it’s a few days after Valentine’s Day, but I wanted to share our sweet dessert with you all. Travel Man was lucky enough to be home for this Valentine’s Day, and cooked me a great dinner that included steak, shrimp, au gratin potatoes, and green beans. A yummy treat. The food was great, and I’m sure tasted so good because I took a back seat in the kitchen. Travel Man made the dinner, and I made the dessert. A great team effort.
Our dessert was some brownies I baked from a box mix. I watched the pan carefully while it was baking because I wanted the brownies to turn out extra ooey and gooey. And they did. I made these in the morning right after breakfast so they had plenty of time to be completely cooled.
For serving, I dug out my little heart-shaped cookie cutter and sculpted the brownies that you see here on the plates. Then we added some creamy, delicious, french vanilla ice cream, and enjoyed a sweet dessert feast. Just a simple little dessert made with love, and lots of chocolatey goodness.
Did you bake any special treats for your Valentine?
