Month: December 2008

The secret ingredient revealed

So this weekend-yesterday, actually-I baked banana bread and chocolate chip cookies. From scratch! I know. I’ll wait while the rest of you pick yourself up off the floor.

Actually, I like baking, as long as it’s not too complicated. Meals I’m pretty meh about. I mean, all that work, and it’s gone within thirty minutes, except for the mess. With baking, you can enjoy your efforts for at least twenty four hours or so, give or take.

Also, I cleared the clutter reorganized the kitchen, which makes it nice to bake in these days.

Miss B was all excited to help me bake cookies. Ever since I baked oatmeal raisin cookies with Andrew (a recipe from his Family and Consumer Science class), she wanted to bake her own cookies.

I was telling her something my mom told me about baking chocolate chip cookies-because cookies, along with 80s pop music, is cross-generational. Instead of butter, use shortening for better texture.

Miss B: What’s shortening?
Me: It’s fat.

A bit later, Bob wandered through and Miss B exclaimed:

Daddy! I know the secret to Mommy’s cookies and I’m not telling anyone at school. It’s a secret recipe and it’s FAT!

Now, doesn’t that sound appealing? I suppose I should be relieved she’s not telling her entire school that the secret ingredient is fat.

Here’s my whole point to this baking and cooking thing: why go all Martha Stuart when you can make your offspring ecstatically happy with a bag of Nestlé’s toll house morsels?

And fat. Don’t want to forget the secret ingredient.

Baby, it’s cold outside

The reason: It really is cold outside.

Why this particular version? Because nothing says Christmas like Zooey Deschanel singing in the shower and Will Ferrell in an elf costume?

Actually, it has to do with Andrew. The movie came out in 2003, when he was seven and Miss B was one. In the trailer, a little baby crawls into Santa’s sack, and then is spirited back to the North Pole.

He hated that trailer, hated the idea that the little baby was taken away from its family. He worried that Kyra would wake up on Christmas Eve, crawl into the living room, and the same thing might happen to her.

However, in the movie, the baby is an orphan and ends up being raised as an elf at the North Pole. Andrew enjoys the movie now and it’s pretty cute. Okay, so it’s not It’s a Wonderful Life, I still think casting Ed Asner as Santa is genius.

My (zero) hero

Last weekend, Andrew went with his Boy Scout troop (or at least some of them) on a winter survival camp out. Yes, that’s right. It’s winter. And after building shelters, they slept outside.

Not only that, but it dipped below zero. This is not cause for alarm, but celebration, because now he has his Zero Hero badge.

That’s right. Here in Minnesota, we reward people for sleeping outside in sub-zero temperatures. Not only that, we call it fun.

This, however, is the aftermath:

zerohero

After the camp out.

It should be noted that the cat did not actually exert herself. She took a nap anyway.

And the beat goes on

So, yesterday, Miss B and Bob came back from Home Depot. On the ride home, Kyra discovered a new song on the radio. Bob said, “Tell Mommy what you heard.” And Miss B sang:

Girls just want to have some fun!

That’s right. Cyndi Lauper was playing, specifically, this:

Girls Just Want to Have Fun (link only, I can’t embed it).

Check out the awesome choreography at the 1:30 mark. They dont’ make videos like that anymore. Because she enjoyed that so much, I introduced her to the Go-Go’s:

She really liked this one. Once Bob left the room, we danced around like Belinda Carlisle, which isn’t all that difficult but isn’t something you necessarily want others to see. All that was missing were the off-the-shoulder sweatshirts, leggings, and giant earrings.

Ah, 80s pop music–bridging generations.

Now all I have to do is write the book

So, I was cruising around Amazon the other day, looking for YA books and other things to add to my wish list when I came across Jessica’s Guide to Dating on the Dark Side.

I have to tell you, I was totally excited. I thought, hey maybe we should contact the author about doing a little cross-promotion. Now, you’re probably wondering why I’d think that about a vampire book. Well, at first glance, I didn’t see a vampire book. I saw this:

Jessica’s Guide to Dating on the Dork Side

Sad, but true. Although I still think that would fit into the Geek Girl milieu. (Bet you didn’t know there was a Geek Girl milieu; I didn’t either until I wrote that sentence.)

So. No cross-promo op there. (Still, it sounds like a fun book and the cover is gorgeous.)

That being said, I’m mulling over Dating of the Dork Side as an idea. So, I totally have dibs on it.

But it got me thinking about funny (and long) titles for books that may or may not exist (yet). The other title I came up with was:

I Suck: Memoir of a Teenage Vampire (or How I Took a Bite out of the Varsity Football Team, Bled the Student Council Dry, and Got the Girl)

I have dibs on this on this as well. I’m totally writing it someday. After I finish that Millionaire Boss’s Amnesic Virgin’s Secret Baby book I’m planning to write.

Anyone else have a title? Extra points if you can include, in no particular order: zombies, secret babies, vampires, secret vampire babies, memory loss, memory loss involving werewolves, zombie cheerleaders, vampiric millionaire bosses.

Five questions you might ask my agent

If, you know, you were curious about her move from one agency to another. They were curious over at the Guide to Literary Agents editor’s blog:

Five Questions

Go on and have a read. I’ll be here when you get back. Well, actually, I probably won’t be; I’ll be eating my peanut butter and raspberry preserves sandwich for lunch. But you know what I mean.