Five little girls

My daughter is going to give birth to her fifth daughter sometime next March. Tentively the name of the new little one is going to be Pearl Lee. This inspired the following:

First June was born and we had lots of fun
For she is little girl number one

Then Robyn was born and we yelled "Yahoo!"
For she is little girl number two

Then Ivory was born and we shouted with glee,
For she is little girl number three

Then Daisy was born and we said "There's MORE?"
For she is little girl number four.

We hardly can wait for Pearl to arrive
For she is little girl number five.

There's June Michelle and Robyn Chalae
Ivory Elaine and Daisy Mae
Oops - Daisy GRACE, please pardon me
And now there will be little Pearl Lee.

Not in the same class as Shakespeare or Wordsworth, but it was fun to write.

With the best of Intentions

My husband is an organizer. There is nothing that delights his soul as much as pigeonholing things into separate and distinct categories. In our medicine closet we have items labeled "Strong pain relievers", "Medium pain relievers", and "Mild Pain Relievers". Our DVDs are in alphabetical order. Our books are in categories, and the fiction books are in alphabetical order (by author).
However, I came home this morning to find that his latest project is the kitchen. He has totally reorganized where all the foodstuffs are kept. He did this years ago and put all the things that I use on a daily basis so high up that I couldn't reach them. I had to reorganize everything. This time he feels that he has conquered that particular problem, and is very proud of what he has done.
I guess I appreciate all the time and effort he is putting in, but although my foodstuffs may not have been that well organized, at least I knew where to find everything. Now - it's going to be a hunt every time I need something. You see, my husband doesn't do any of the cooking.
Our house needs so much work - so many things that need to be gone through and gotten rid of, etc. I find myself a bit baffled on why he felt the kitchen needed to be tackled next. Maybe it's because he doesn't really want to go through HIS things. It's so much easier to organize other people's items.
Oh well, he means well . . .

Saying

While going through my cross-stitch patterns, I came across the following saying, and thought it was very funny. I thought I'd share it with you

WE. THE WILLING,
LED BY THE UNKNOWING,
ARE DOING THE IMPOSSIBLE
FOR THE UNGRATEFUL.
WE HAVE DONE SO MUCH
WITH SO LITTLE
FOR SO LONG,
WE ARE NOW QUALIFIED
TO DO ANYTHING
WITH NOTHING!

I can relate!

Winning isn't everything

This year has been a particularly good one for our family at the Puyallup Fair. My older daughter, Miranda, got a third place for her cross-stitch. My younger daughter, Maleen, got first place for her cross-stitch as well as 'best in division' and 'Grand Champion'. Pretty good, huh?
I didn't have a cross-stitch entry this year as I am still slaving away on the birth announcement for granddaughter number four. However, I felt a little empty not having something in the fair. I happened to notice that there was a contest for original recipes for Ghirardelli Chocolate and wondered if that would be something I could enter.
I have been making a lot of quiche lately, which leaves me with lots of egg whites. Therefore I have also been making a lot of meringue cookies. I thought I could probably come up with something chocolate and meringuey that wouldn't be too bad. And I was right.
I got rave reviews at home for my chocolate chip meringue cookies. I thought they were pretty good myself. They appear like hard meringue cookies, but they are really soft inside. I made a fresh batch Monday morning and went off to the fair in the afternoon, well armed with hope and a container full of cookies.
There were 31 entries and 3 judges. They divided them up into 10 per judge (well - 11 for one judge), and then each judge would choose their four favorite, and the other judges would sample them, and out of those 12 there would be three winners chosen. My cookies were in the group judged by the professional taster. The other two judges wrote food columns for various newspapers.
Miranda, Bill and I were all watching as she sampled my cookies, and she appeared to really like them. She smiled and laughed and made comments about them (but we were too far away to hear what she said). It took a long, long time for the judges to get through their entries, but we were full of hope when my cookies were one of the 12 taken up for the final judging.
This judging took a little longer than they thought it would because there was a tie for third place. Finally they announced the three winners, and I have to admit that I was quite disappointed than none of the three were me.
However, when Bill went up to retrieve the leftover cookies and the container, two of the three judges just raved over the cookies and how good they were. They said that it was hard to resist eating more of them, and that they are 'dangerous' cookies. My recipe was taken off and copied for the judges and the support staff. The support staff asked Bill if we would be willing to leave the rest of the cookies so they could have some too (since they hadn't taken part in the tasting). As far as we could see, nobody else was asked to leave extras.
It was taking so long to get our judging sheet back that I went up to join Bill just as the professional judge came back over to the table. She told me how much she loved the cookies and hinted that she would have given me first place if it had been up to her. She was also taking one of the cookies home with her!
When I finally got my judging sheet back I found that I had gotten 40 out of 40 points for taste and chocolateness; 15 out of 20 points for appearance; 30 out of 30 points for Originality and Creativity; and 10 out of 10 points for Ease of Preparation. Darn - if they had just looked a little prettier!
The judge's comments were "Very surprising soft center. Very tasty cookie. I loved every bite! Can I have another? Also love that you provided something gluten free!"
So I didn't win anything, but I have the knowledge that I created a quality cookie that was thoroughly and honestly enjoyed. And actually, that is the most important part. Although we signed a waiver saying that Ghirardelli officially owns the recipe now, I see no harm in sharing it. So if you are interested, here it is:

Heavenly Chocolate Meltaways

4 eggs white
dash salt
1 tsp. vanilla
1 TB Da Vinci Gourmet White Chocolate Syrup
1 cup sugar
1 TB Ghirardelli Sweet Ground Chocolate
1 11.5 oz bag Ghiaradelli 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate Chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line 2 cookie sheet with clean brown wrapping paper or aluminum foil.
In metal or glass bowl whip eggs whites until foamy. Add salt, vanilla and white chocolate syrup. Beat until soft peaks form. Add the sugar gradually while still beating. Continue to whip until stiff peaks form. Reduce mixer speed and add ground chocolate. Mix thoroughly.
Fold in chocolate chips. Drop the batter in teaspoonfuls onto the cookie sheets. They do not spread to they can be placed fairly close to each other.
Place cookies in oven. Wait until the heat has returned to 375 degrees and then turn the oven off. Do not reopen the oven. Leave the cookies in the oven for at least 1 1/2 hours. (They can be left in as long as you want, actually)
Once removed from the oven, allow them to thoroughly cool before removing them carefully from the cookie sheet. Those that are not immediately devoured should be stored in an air-tight container.
Makes about 40 cookies.
Enjoy!

You think YOUR job is bad?

Last night was my first night back to work since we set up the Wii and today my Wii fit age is 53. Going to work aged me 20 years!

The Fountain of Youth

I am 58 years old. In fact, next month I'll be 59. In other words, I'm getting up there.
While we were in Utah visiting our youngest daughter and her family, we were introduced to the Nintendo Wii - in particular the Wii Fit. All of us had great fun creating our "Miis" and playing some of the fitness games.
Part of the program is an assessment of what shape you're in (including BMI and weight), and then it tells you your 'Wii fit age'. Mine was 53, which I thought was pretty good. Actually I'm very impressed with the program. It keeps track of how much you 'work out' with it, and as you progress it unlocks new games (or higher levels of current games) to keep your interest going.
After we got home I decided to use some of our Income Tax refund to get our own Wii. I have always had trouble motivating myself to exercise, and everyone in our family could stand to lose a little weight.
Sunday night we got our new Wii hooked up. We didn't want to actually play any games (it being the Sabbath), but we did do the body test. Bill (who is 62) has a Wii fit age of 63. Tim (who is 12) was 15, and I was right on target at 58.
Monday, while Tim was at school, I put in half an hour on the Wii. I had the top score in every game I played (the advantage of being first!). I did the body test again when I was done, and my Wii age had dropped to 43. Overnight I had lost 15 years!
Naturally when Tim got home he broke most of my records (but not all of them!) He was pretty cocky about how well he had done on the ski jump, but he couldn't match me in deep breathing. I also still hold the record for tightrope walking.
Today I put in another half hour. I set records in some games Tim hasn't played yet (like the Hula Hoops), found some games that my records are hopelessly behind his, other games where I am barely behind him, and a couple where I regained the lead - most notably the ski jump!
When I did my Body test, my Wii fit age had dropped to 33!! That's 25 years in two days. Do you think I can get down to 0?

Dr. Seuss?

At work we have a lot of acronyms for the messages we turn out to clients. One of these is 'YISO', which means 'yeast isolated'. We recently got an email asking us to change all of the "YISO's" to "MISO's" which means "mold isolated". At least that's what I thought. But when I reread the email I realized that we weren't supposed to change the YISO's to MISO's, but the FISO's to MISO's. (FISO is 'fungus isolated). So I mistakenly changed the YISO's to MISO's instead of changing the FISO's to MISO's, so I had to change the MISO's back to FISO's before I could change the FISO's to MISO's.

Don't even get me started on Tweedle Beetles!

What were the odds?

The other night at work I decided to buy something out of one of the vending machines. I don't do this very often because 1) Their prices are way too high and 2) It's junk food that I shouldn't be eating anyway. However, if I have been having an extremely rough night, sometimes I will 'treat' myself to a goodie from the machine.

All I had were dollar bills, but the machine accepts those. After looking over many less-than-tempting items, I decided to get the package of two Reese's peanut butter cups. I slipped my dollar in, punched the appropriate buttons, and watched the little bar turn to release my cups. Only it didn't! The edge of the package caught on the rotating bar and it didn't fall.

I tried banging on the machine, but I'm not very strong and the machine didn't budge an inch. 'OK', I thought, 'I'll buy a second one for tomorrow night'. So in went another dollar, and the bar did it's little spiral thing. The first set of cups fell quite satisfactorily, but the second one stuck. I couldn't believe it!

Well, they say the third time is the charm, so I reluctantly slid in another dollar and watched the same performance all over again - right down to the last set of peanut butter cups not falling. By now I had decided that the vending machine people had set this up! I had put in three dollars and only received two products.

Feeling extremely frustrated, my eye was caught by a bag of Doritos up on the top row. 'Just the thing for the drive home in the morning' was my thought. When I'm really tired, eating is the only thing that will keep me awake (no wonder I look the way I do!). So in went another dollar, and I'll be darned if the Dorito's didn't fall against the glass in such a way that they didn't fall down. Now I had TWO items that I had paid for that were still up inside the bowels of the machine.

By now my mutterings had attracted attention from a couple in the break room, and the male half came over to use his macho power to save the day. He banged and pushed and shoved, but nothing happened. Being a glutton for punishment, I put in ANOTHER dollar bill and pushed the Dorita chips button. Down came the first bag, but the second one stuck. This was beginning to remind me of a farce.

Macho Man did his thing again, and finally (finally!) the second bag of chips fell down. However, it was obvious that the peanut butter cups weren't going to budge. His better half innocently suggested that maybe I should buy another set of peanut butter cups to make it fall (duh - why didn't I think of that?). She obviously didn't notice that there were already two sets of peanut butter cups down in the bottom of the machine waiting for me to retrieve them.

However, I didn't want to seem churlish, and they had helped me get my second bag of chips, so in went another dollar, another rotation, and to my astonishment and amazement, both sets of peanut butter cups made an awkward tumble out of their wombs and fell. I had succeeded!

When I opened up the bottom of the machine to retrieve all my loot (two bags of chips and FOUR sets of peanut butter cups) I discovered there was also a package of beef sausages there. Apparently it had been stuck from an earlier purchase by somebody else, and came loose when the machine was being banged around to get my chips.

However, the glee that one usually feels when one gets something totally free was a bit tarnished by the fact that I had just sacrificed 6 of my dollar bills to get 2 items that I wanted - and at an exorbitant price. Personally, I think the vending machine company won. I wonder if those things stick on purpose . . .