This time, I baked for us

It was inedible.  Seriously.

It all started with some cheap supplies.  Which would explain a lot.  The Retail Giant and the 99 Cent Store were good places to shop for those.  Only the cheapest for my family.

I enlisted The Redhead for this one.  We mixed one and a half cups of cinnamon.  And yes, I meant cups.  And one cup of applesauce.  

The Redhead enjoyed playing in the mess.  But after a while, it was hard on the hands, so I eventually took over.

And after all of that hard work...it wasn't even edible.

Someone defaced our beauties!

I forgot to poke some holes in them, so I took them out, but the mat was slippery, and flipped.  And all those little lovelies were places they weren't supposed to be.  Some of them fell apart.  Luckily, the dough was still soft, so they had a bit of a do-over.  A second chance.

Much better.

Just wait until those babies are on our tree!

I also did some more baking.  For us.

And thanks to Raley's for having 4 pounds of oranges for $2.49.  They were so yummy.  I hated that after I was finished with them, they too were inedible.  Bummer.

Then, after making two batches of inedibles, it was time to make something we could eat.  Mister Man had been dropping notorious hints for Snickerdoodles.

But I had another item in mind for Monday.  Mini cupcakes.

The frosting wasn't sure it wanted to behave.

But after thirty minutes more, it cooperated.  I'm not sure what its problem was.

I stole two for The Redhead since she didn't get to taste them.  I highly doubt the Snickerdoodles will make it past Mister Man's office.  But as unusually cold as Sacramento has been this weekend, playing in the oven was a good use of my time.  And it's going to be a beautiful use of my time here shortly.

After today, I really needed some chocolate

I had my Christmas cards all ready to go.  I typed up my newsletter at least last week.  They were just waiting to be printed, folded and left for the postman.  I didn't want to mail them out too soon, but I wanted to mail them out early enough so people would remember we moved.


So it was time to print out that novel of a newsletter.  Four pages.  Two pages, front and back.  I've never typed up that much before!  I'm telling you now, I better never have the need to type that much again.  At least in a holiday letter.  But it was time to finally get these things out, regardless.


Nice thought.  Really.  Makes sense to me.



My printer had another idea.  Apparently he was hungry.  Famished, even.



I wrestled what I believed to be at least 15 pieces of printed paper out of him, in pieces.  Lots of tugging and crying going on.  Some screaming.  Sorry, Neighbors.  I punched the printer.  Hard.  Five times.  And then, curious if I had exaggerated, I went and counted the remains of the paper.  TWENTY FOUR.  Twenty four pieces of paper.  Printed paper.  Wasted!  And don't even get me started how on how long this took.  You really don't want to know.


I was beyond livid.  Beyond.  But I continued on through the desert, convinced I'd get to paradise eventually.



47 pieces of paper.  More screaming.  I even screamed once, "WHAT DO YOU HAVE AGAINST CHRISTMAS?!"  Yes, Neighbors, that was me.  And yeah, that came out of my mouth, screaming and punching inanimate objects.  My hand ended up purple.


I'm a scary person.


The death toll kept rising, so did my blood pressure.  Which fortunately, I have low blood pressure, so maybe it could use the help.  I needed some Valium, something fierce.  And a mallet.

I needed some self control.



And finally, it spit out all of it, all the while claiming it needed more ink.


Well, if you hadn't made me print out so many extras...



The last printer that wronged me also chose Christmastime to be naughty.  It also ended up with my foot through it and kicked across the front room.  It's safe to assume I have a wee bit of a temper.  Latent hostilities?  Quite possibly.  Anger issues, aplenty. 




So it's time to start looking into a new printer.  It was also time to finish out my first week of baking, this time seeking help of the Pinterestese.  Or at least, finally trying something I pinned a long time ago.


There were soooooooo many textures.

 I won't lie and tell you this was completely therapeutic and relaxing.  I was still high strung from the War of the Printer.  I accidentally put the cocoa in the pan with the melting butter, instead of with the dry goods.  I had to throw that batch out, which killed me.  There was also a bit of a disagreement with Mister Man for coming in and putting dirty dishes in my work space as I was simultaneously making cookies and dinner.  He didn't see what the big deal was.  I thought he was playing with fire.

Ahhhh....chocolate.

But after taste testing these beauties and going through all these photos, I do feel like I just returned from therapy.  Well, if I actually went to therapy.


Who needs therapy?  I have chocolate.


And by the way, they taste like moist, lovely brownies.  Like a pan of brownies and some s'mores had a baby.  I'm so glad Mister Man is taking these to work.


I would eat these in a day.


Mmmmm....chocolate.

In case you're just sitting around, waiting to see what day four brings....

It brought back a classic.

The Mexican Wedding cookie, which for whatever reason is also known as a Christmas cookie.  Personally,  I think they taste like powdered sugared biscuits.  But I was looking forward to playing with powdered sugar.  Like I'm a toddler.

But I couldn't just make them like the normal version.  I left out the nuts.  Which probably spoiled their ethnicity. Sorry!

And then I went and tainted the powdered sugar with some greenery.

But it was too much fun.  And they needed some sparkle.

 And day four is ready for tomorrow.  By the way, I didn't know until I asked Mister Man "do you even like those?" that he does indeed.  In fact, they're one of his favorite cookies.  Well, that's a plus.  Another bonus?  I cleaned up the kitchen so quickly, it's like it never happened.