always do the test strip

My hair is brassier than a marching band. ugh. I can't win. Either I pay through the nose for hair color, I live with the hair of a 45 year old, or I walk around like an advertisement for John Philips Sousa.

My plan is to not leave the house for a week, and then use temporary color until I can use permanent and get this ugly color gone. Either that or just cut my hair to match Steve's. The longer couples are married, the more they look alike, right?

You're going to love me today

I really don't have anything to say today, so I'm going to post a recipe that everybody asks me for. It's not my recipe, but I make it often. Yes, it's a cookie. This stuff is so good, I actually ran across a woman who seems to be making a living selling them over the internet. You can choose milk or dark chocolate and pay her an astronomical sum for six cookies. Granted, these are expensive to make, but not that expensive. Plan on a pan costing you just over $5, depending on the price of butter in your area. The measurements are a bit strange because they were converted from metric, so there's lots of "generous" in the recipe. Don't worry about it. It's ok for the measurements to be a bit inexact; this recipe has the latitude for it. The original recipe calls for golden superfine sugar, but since that's pretty impossible to find in the middle of nowhere, I substitute brown sugar with very good results.

Chocolate Carmel Shortbread (aka Twix cookies):
1 cup butter
generous 2 cups flour
generous 1/2 cup light brown sugar
12 oz chocolate, either milk or dark depending on your taste

caramel:
3/4 c butter
generous 1/2 cup light brown sugar
3 T light corn syrup
1 can (14oz) sweetened condensed milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. If you want, line the bottom of a 9x13 pan with parchment paper. (I never do. it just protects your pan from the knife and makes it slightly easier to get the cookies out.) Process the sugar, butter, and flour in a food processor until it starts to bind together. (stand mixer will work fine) Press into the prepared pan and level the top. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until golden.

while the crust is baking, make the caramel. Place the caramel ingredients in a heavy bottomed pan. Heat gently until the sugar has melted (I use medium heat.) Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 6-8 minutes, stirring, until very thick. Pour over shortbread and let chill in the refrigerator for 2 hours or until firm.

Melt the chocolate and let cool, then spread over the caramel. Let chill in the refrigerator for 2 hours, or until set. These are easier to cut if they are at room temperature, so you can let them sit out for a bit before you cut them. Once the chocolate is set, they don't really need to be refrigerated any more. Be sure to cut them into small pieces because it's a very rich cookie. I usually do 42 (6x8) small cookies.

If you didn't get the phone joke:

I present . . . Ma na me na, from the Muppet Show:

click the arrow twice to get it to play.

Where's my award?

For mother of the year.

I've been trying to potty train Libby lately, in my own not so into this way. I hate all the laundry that happens with potty training. Those first few weeks, when there's never a successful trip for days and days, there's a lot. So, I just put my kid in underwear and skip the pants. (Keep the shirts, those usually aren't affected.) This means that Libby thinks pants don't go with underwear.

The other day we had someone coming over but I didn't want to stop the potty training and go back to pullups. I tried to put pants over the panties and she had a massive breakdown. I tried hiding the panties in the pants and that only worked for one clothes change. She wanted the pants but not the underwear. After the third change, I gave in.

That's right. I let my two year old go comando. Can I have my award now?

Doesn't it just figure?

Just when I was really getting into my exercise routine, the school district decided to redo the track. It does need it. It's over 20 years old now and the rubber is pretty packed down, so I totally understand them doing it. In the meantime though, my routine is screwed up. Matt isn't big enough to keep up on the streets and Rilla isn't ready to walk four miles. I'm not quite ready to leave Sarah in charge during the day for longer than half an hour or so.

There is another track in the area, but last time I was there the bleachers had boards with rusty nails under it and I couldn't keep the kids out. Not exactly the safest play environment. We'll see. maybe they cleaned up. I will probably try it this week to see.

Anyway, I'm just venting. It's annoying. But there you go. I hope the track construction goes quickly. I'm sure it will be really nice when it's done and after I've managed to gain back the five pounds I've lost.

Doing the Obvious Joke

Yesterday I bought a new cordless phone system. The system part means there were three handsets. It's a pretty cool phone with some cool features and I got it for $40 on clearance. (I know! good deal, huh?)

Our favorite feature is the intercom. It's the sort of thing I always felt phones should be able to do. Ever since I was a little girl, I've believed you should be able to talk to the person on the other phone in the same house. It's just an obvious thing that apparently the phone people didn't agree with (or couldn't do) until these multiple handset systems.

So naturally, now that we have an "intercom," we're totally playing with it. The kids begged to play with it and they begged me to call them for dinner by calling the family room phone, which is a perfectly naturally request since I called them to lunch that way. Joshua even felt I should announce bedtime through the phones even though everyone had already been informed it was bedtime.

Steve, however, had to play the obvious joke. The first thing he did when he learned about the intercom feature was to call the basement phone. Sarah answered.

"Ma-na-me-na" said Steve and he hung up.

We watched way too much Muppet Show on Sunday.

Apparently, I'm Scary

Steve just called me from work to ask a question on behalf of one of his patients. She wanted to know which book Anne Shirley got married in. I, of course, had the answer to that. I could also answer which book she got engaged during and generally spouted my Anne knowledge to show off a bit. (I named a daughter Marilla, who was not named after Marilla Cuthbert, but rather Anne's daughter Marilla who doesn't appear until book 6. I know a bit about the subject.)

"that's just scary," he responded.

"Oh really? What Styx album had "Lady" on it?"

"ummmmmmm . . . ."

"I'm not buying it. You know. Who sang lead? What year was it released?"

"1975 . . . But it's not the same."

It's exactly the same. We're all scary about our passions.