1. This weekend.

Ok, I know I haven't posted anything in a while. I get it. A blog has to be updated pretty often--otherwise the blog's readers (hello, Kathy) become frustrated. So, it's time to get cracking (or crackin') again.

Matilda is ready for this to be done...also for me to throw her sparkle ball.

I've spent most of this evening compiling a Halloween playlist (Marilyn Manson: Sweet Dreams, Julee Cruise: Falling, Nick Cave: Red Right Hand, The Misfits: Monster Mash, Screamin' Jay Hawkins: I Put a Spell on You, The Cramps: I Was a Teenage Werewolf, Nouvelle Vague: Bela Lugosi's Dead. It's all coming together now.) and rearranging the furniture in my living room. Yes, the construction mess is nearing completion.  Well, I hope it is. See? The wall is painted. The outlet doesn't work, and I discovered that the light fixture (removed from the ceiling like a month and a half ago) is also broken, but I will console myself with this completed structure. I will put things in front of it. What's the other half of the room look like? Oh, I'll show you. Right this second.

So many piles.

Yikes, right?  Perhaps tomorrow I'll move some of this somewhere. Perhaps.


But before I started in on this project, I pulled out the old Dumont cookbook. Why? The plan was to make cookies, and then to call Catherine and tell her I was making cookies. So she'd know I have cookies and be jealous. Duh. Well, guess who was waiting for me when I opened that cookbook. My pal Drusilla Friedly. She knows her cookies, and I trust her implicitly (and honestly, most of that trust is generated by her name). So, here's her recipe for:

The "special" is cream of tartar. Or do you have a better guess?

Special Chocolate Chip Cookies

by Drusilla Friedly

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

1 cup butter (softened)

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla

2 1/4 cups flour

2 tsp. cream of tartar

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 cup chopped pecan nuts (as opposed to just pecans)

1 (6 oz.) pkg of real chocolate chips (I used an extra dark chocolate candy bar, broken into pieces)

Mix the first 5 ingredients well. Sift the flour (like I'd ever sift anything), cream of tartar, salt, and baking soda together. Mix well. Add the real chocolate chips and nuts. Drop by sugared spoon (Wait. What? I didn't do that. I don't even remember reading that.) and shape ball on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes, or until browned.

Note: If dough is too thin, add a wee (her emphasis) bit more flour so cookies don't spread so while baking. 

Perfect!

Would you believe I'm eating one right now? If you said, "No, I do not believe that."-- you are, in fact, correct. I laid a trap for you and you almost fell into it.  I have the hiccups, for the second time today, and have been alternating between drinking massive amounts of water and holding my breath. So, I am not currently eating a cookie...though I would like to eat one. Soon...very soon.  

This happened at lunch today.

This has nothing to do with my post. I want to go on vacation. I'm cold, but I'm too cheap to turn on the heat. Being cold makes me think of the Blue Lagoon. I want to go in there again, naked public showers be damned!  I want to go on vacation again. I knit a great hat and scarf and mittens for Iceland. That was my tie in sentence. This post involves knitting. Sigh.

My new order of yarn arrived. I've become a big fan of this local gem. I have been picking knitpicks for a few months now, and I just learned the other day that it is based out of Vancouver, WA!  Anyway, I placed a rather large yarn/needle order last week, and a lovely knitpicks box was waiting for me at the door.  It was like Christmas but with fiber, and dye, and potential.  What am I saying? All Christmas' at the Nicolai house have fiber, dye, and potential. Duh. We're crafty.

Delicious fibers!

This was going to be a nice picture. The blurry cat signifies movement.

Then there were two.

The other cat that looks the same! 

Genevieve isn't messing around. She's all about sitting in boxes.

Unfortunately for her, Peanut is also into cardboard.

Kitten is bad ALL THE TIME!

This is the part where Genevieve pulls a Mel Gibson. I'm talking about Braveheart Mel Gibson not "sugar-tits" Mel Gibson. Bink was released, and if she could talk she would yell, "FREEEEEEEDDDDDOOOOOOMMMMMMMM!!!!!"

After all these happenings, I made Toy Story 3 shaped Macaroni and Cheese. Now that I think about it, I was living 5-year-old Catherine's dream come true:  crafts, cats, and m & c!

I do not approve.

What exactly is this? And why is it mucking up my nostalgia trip?

No they didn't.

To be human again? No.
Belle reading Romeo and Juliet to the Beast? No.


This wasn't included in the original movie for a reason, Disney people. And that reason is that this sequence is stupid and unnecessary. Booooooooo.


And it makes me very grouchy. Thanks a lot, Disney jerks.
Booo.

Be. My. Guest.

"Beast, drawing the curtains aside, would walk in and talk so pleasantly that she soon lost much of her fear of him."

Tomorrow night, I will be watching Beauty and the Beast. Yes, it has been released from THE DISNEY VAULT. And I won't make the same mistake I made with The Little Mermaid. I will not rest until it is in my possession.


If you have some time to kill (and of course you do {because you're reading this}), you should do the following things:


1) Go to the Disney Store. This website features, in equal parts, items that leave me giddy and terrified. This is, for me, the essence of Disney.

2) Start following crazymissdaisy on youtube. She is from Denmark; she has a Disney doll collection; she makes some of the best Disney tribute videos around. Do not dispute me on this one. Just allow yourself to fall in love with Disney Girls Say: SHUT UP.

She's so bad!

Penelope aka "kits" aka "Peanut" will not leave me alone. I have loads of reading to do, but she won't have any of it. She is only about playing and cuddling and stealing my highlighters, pens, and post-its to play with. She also keeps getting into trouble and beating up Genevieve (aka Binks). I documented some of her recent bad activities.

Apparently now the fridge is the place to play.
Yes, our fridge is in a closet.

I'm trying to read and she is intent on getting my attention.

This blur is Peanut jumping into her house.

In said house.

Real-time kitten action.

Stock photo that shows how bad she is all the time.

Towanda!

I have too many green tomatoes. The growing season has not been kind to our nine tomato plants. I made the decision on behalf of the household to pick all the tomatoes last Thursday. My plan is to ripen them in little lunch bags in the windows.

Sooo many tomatoes!

It really was Thursday...

I already had a few ripe tomatoes. Please see exhibit A. I was already able to successfully ripen a green tomato using the lunch bag approach. Please see exhibit B.

Exhibit A.

Exhibit B

I washed and dried all the tomatoes and packed little tomato lunches for all my tomato children (That's what it felt like at least). Then I lined the windows with lunch bags. Some of them are already starting to ripen. 

Tomato lunches.

"Look at them friend green tomatoes!"