Queen B

Archive for the ‘Badass Ideas’ Category

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I lost my days

In Badass Ideas, Stick a fork in it! on December 26, 2009 at 11:32 am

See what happens when I get a couple of days off?  I don’t know what day it is!  I posted that video on Friday and then realized that it was FRIDAY.  As in Flashback Friday.  So I guess you’ll have to flash back only one day with that one.  Sorry, folks!

Well…. I made it through the holidays.  It was questionable there for a bit.  I go into overload at about the 50th baked good.  It was quite a blow when I lost every stinking thing that I baked last Saturday.  EVERY. THING.  Just to give you an idea, I threw away 30 qty. 1/2 loaves of baked goods.  Yes.  Thirty.  OK, Thirty-ish.  I lost count.  Thankfully, I recovered, but my baking confidence was seriously damaged.  To the point where I am afraid people are at this very moment spitting a bite of my banana bread directly into the garbage can, it’s so bad. Everything in them might have sucked.  I ended up baking a lot, and it should have been worth it when I had home baked baskets of goodies for all my loved ones on Christmas Eve.  Hopefully they tasted good, because at some point there were no more taste test loaves or time to do so.  It really is the thought that counts, right?  My babysitter told her mom (my boss at work) that I was crazy.  She said “Have you seen those baskets?  There’s a ton of them!  And she hasn’t even started baking!”  Little did she know that I had certainly HAD started, and failed.  And failed, and failed, and failed.  Oh, and that her mom tells me when she says I’m crazy.  Ahem!

It ended up I made 12 loaves of banana bread (successful bread, not the stuff I threw away), 10 loaves of carrot bread, and 10 loaves of apple bread.  The apple is my favorite, the carrot is new, and the banana is from a nut bread recipe that I’ve used forever and I just add banana.  I don’t know if it would be any good at all as a straight nut bread because I’ve NEVER made straight nut bread.  I also made 8 or 10 rounds of glazed almond (and I have the tiny burns to prove it), one big pan of toffee, 8 batches (by batch I mean of dough, not pans) of peanut butter cookies, 3 batches of chocolate chip cookie bars (totally mundane, I know, but my dad loves these), and 8 batches of snickerdoodles.  The snickerdoodle is our new favorite cookie in the Frank house.  I retained for home use or threw away banana bread, cornbread, and beer bread.  Over the top amounts.  On Christmas morning I made one more batch of apple bread for brunch in 2 regular sized loaves just for eating since I gave everything away and kept nothing for myself.  My husband made everything look pretty and Christmas-y for gifting.  Every loaf is wrapped in butcher paper and ribbon, The cookies are tucked into little paper bags of red and green, and the candy nestled into little PLASTIC Christmas candy bags.  Grrrr.  There aren’t many choices though, because the nuts have butter in them and will not tolerate a paper bag presentation.

Christmas Baskets

It’s exhausting just looking at all of it again.  Seriously cute though, right?

Here’s the glazed almond recipe just for kicks:

1/2 cup of sugar

1 cup of raw almonds

2 tablespoons butter

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Combine the butter, sugar, and almonds in a skillet, and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until the almonds are covered and the sugar is melted and amber color.  Turn off the heat, add the vanilla, and stir quickly to combine.  Pour candy onto a piece of foil, sprinkle lightly with sea salt, and allow to harden.  Break into small clusters and watch it disappear!

Glazed Almonds

It’s a completely simple recipe, right?  Deceptively simple for how wonderful these are when completed.  Here are my tips on the almonds:

  1. Wear long sleeves, and a glove on the stirring hand.
  2. Do NOT double the batches.  It’s tempting, I know.  Don’t.
  3. Use a WOODEN spoon for stirring.  I prefer a flat ended spoon for ease of pushing it around for even cooking.
  4. Keep stirring, even when your arm falls asleep.
  5. Do not put your heat too high.  Or too low.  I can’t help you here, you just have to figure it out.
  6. A face mask?  Maybe… if you don’t like tiny burns on your face.
  7. Yes, keep stirring.
  8. They aren’t done until the sugar mixture is all translucent and amber color, no cloudy sugar.  Look at all the nuts, because clumps of sugar will try to hide.
  9. Pause before you add the vanilla, to allow the sugar to fill all holes your spoon may have made or it will spit like the Dickens!
  10. If you haven’t already been wearing one, put a glove on the stirring hand BEFORE you add the vanilla.  It will still spit.  Yes, you let the sugar fill the hole.  It will still spit.
  11. This can be dangerous candy to make.  Make your children leave the kitchen.
  12. If you hear a loud pop, protect your face!
  13. Do not put the foil directly on a pine table.  It can and will cause any knots in your table to release sap.
  14. Have your foil ready BEFORE you start cooking the sugar.
  15. Seriously, reconsider the face mask.  Especially if you have slow reflexes.
  16. The process is much faster in a hot pan after the first batch, plan accordingly.
  17. This is really hot, please be careful.  Melted sugar is capable of some SERIOUS burns if not handled with care.  It’s a melted solid, it’s sticky, and it’s extremely hot.  A lethal combination.

Reconsidering the nuts?  Naaah, I didn’t think so.  Those tips are from years of experience in making this wonderful concoction.  I’m only half joking about the face mask.  I will say that once you get into the groove and know what you’re in for, they are really delicious and possibly worth the pain and suffering.  If you wear the mask, they’re cake.  Let me know what you think.

If this snow lets up, we’re off to the Science and Industry Museum today.  I love the snow, so I don’t know what I’m hoping for.  It’s a tie right now between hunkering down with the kids at home and watching it come down, or seeing the Green Home at the museum before they remodel it.  I hope you have a great big ol’ pile of a great weekend, everybody!

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Called it macaroni

In Badass Ideas, Nothing to it but to do it on November 15, 2009 at 12:53 am

So much fun tonight.  While we were out today, the hubby bought a bunch of feathers.  He wanted to make a new hat feather for the pork pie that the kids got him for his birthday.  

So together we sat at the kitchen table this evening and made hat feathers of every imaginable color combination.  Illini pride colors, halloween colors, holiday colors, autumnal colors, spring colors… you name it, we put it together.  Wanna see?  You got it…

Fun night with feathers   The polka dotted one is professionally made.   

Cool hat feathers   Novices!!!

Pretty hat feathers

So this was our first try, but between the four of us we came up with some really kick ass hat feathers.  A strange way to spend a Saturday night, but well worth the effort.  We need to get some new tape, because the black that we bought wasn’t good, so we had to make do with some blue stuff that we just happened to have around.  The next round won’t have the blue tape and they’ll look better, although you can’t see any of the tape when they’re on the hat, anyhow.  Not what I intended to do tonight, but so glad we did with hat season coming!

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Friday feature

In Badass Ideas, Flashback Friday on November 13, 2009 at 9:01 am

In case you didn’t know, I have updated the Becky Babe photo gallery on the home page with a few new photos from the archives.  It’s slow going, mostly because the old photos in my possession have all been added to equally old photo albums.  Funny thing about those old albums, they just don’t want to give up the photos in their clutches.  Every photo I scan is a time sucking process of delicate extraction in an attempt to tear the photo page and not the photo.  Let me tell you that there are razors involved.  A serious process. It scares me.  There are sections of photographs which have already turned really red, whether from the book, the photo paper, or the processing.  Its such an upsetting sight when your memories on film are so obviously not going to last.  Oh, and whoever thought that a disc camera was a worthwhile endeavor?  Ugh.

So while I’m attempting to extricate my photographs from their books, I have decided that maybe it would be cool to show some of my favorites to you people.  Because I like you.  Because it isn’t ALWAYS all about me.  So since Friday so cleverly starts with the same letter as flashback, and I love to look back…. Flashback Friday begins.

I don’t believe in saving the best for last, so please feast your eyes on my favorite chick of all time.  Circa I don’t know when.  This is one of my top three favorite pictures of the mamacita.  Just beautiful.

Is she bad-ass or what?  I love this woman.

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I forgot to tell you

In Badass Ideas on November 6, 2009 at 9:02 am

I never gave you the skinny on Jess’ butternut squash recipe, did I?  It was divine!  I loved it, and I took some to work for my boss and she loved it too.  Loved it.  I ate it all.  Don’t know what I’m talking about?  Find the recipe here.  And don’t let that be the only recipe of hers that you take a look at.  She has a nice variety of easy (looking, at least when she’s doing it) and delicious recipes on her blog.  Delicious I tell you.

In addition, she lives an enviable life out there on the best coast that’s always able to provide an interesting read.  And I know her, which can only look good for me.  Heh.

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Lovely

In Badass Ideas, Big time stuff, The little roomies on September 23, 2009 at 9:56 pm

You know, Lovely was only supposed to be the “working title” for this blog entry.  I typed a wonderfully amusing 248 word post and then somehow deleted it in its entirety.  This has given a whole new meaning to the title because it was the first thing out of my mouth (after the F word, of course) when the little box full of words went blank.  Now, of course, I feel that I have to use the title to the best of my abilities since I don’t want to lose that, too.  Luckily I use that word a lot, and in many contexts as you will soon see.

To that end, I have to tell you that I dislike Oprah.  I had to put it out there.  I think it’s the pairing of extreme wealth with heavily advertised do-gooding and a pinch of the “anyone could do this” attitude.  I don’t like it.  I especially don’t like it when Op talks about her lifestyle and acts like its so normal.  My ABSOLUTE least favorite is when she said that my bedroom is my sanctuary.  Really?  Like she would know.  Because without the cleaning crew to do the dirty work, the landscapers to do the yard work, the personal chef to cook for me, the tutors to work on homework with my children, handlers to maintain the animals, the assistants to do my errands, and scads of employees to jump when I give them my angry look or snap my fingers, or a mansion with a bedroom the size of… oh, I don’t know… my entire house for that matter, I don’t have time to do anything more than SLEEP in my bedroom.  I don’t believe that my sanctuary would be so dusty, either, to be honest.  In addition, I don’t have room for the requisite chaise lounge (which may be required when furnishing a sanctuary) on which my interior decorator would so purposefully place a cashmere throw seemingly nonchalantly across the arm of for those “quiet times” when I read and reflect.  Hear this Op:

  1. If you can find some quiet in this house for me I’ll open mouth kiss you.
  2. I only read when it is somehow involved in multi-tasking such as while CC is showering.  Have you ever had to yell while reading to a child?  If that doesn’t prove how precious time is around here I don’t know exactly what will.
  3. Reading at the third grade level doesn’t exactly get me into the Book Club.
  4. I can’t afford the cashmere I would feel good about buying.  Have you heard about what cheap cashmere is doing to China?  It affects us all.
  5. Reflecting involves remembering all the things I forgot to do during the day, and occurs between the time my head hits the pillow and thirty seconds later when I have fallen asleep.
  6. I don’t have Nate Burkas on hand to make everything all pretty and sparkly and wonderful for me, because I live in the real world.

I think that my main reason for disliking Oprah, as if that weren’t enough, is the fact that she TOOK OVER my favorite book of all time.  The Color Purple by Alice Walker was a great book.  Oprah got a moderately small part in the movie (and even I will admit that she did a great job with it, you’re welcome Oprah!), and wrapped her whole career around it.  It irritates me.  I can let it go, really I can.  Just give me a minute.  Alright, I’m over it.  I have no plans to see the show though, ok?  

As much as I am holding a grudge against the Op, I will watch on occasion, just to use her for her connections. This proves how much I do like very much and admire Maya Angelou.  If I happen to catch wind that Maya will be on, I will watch, even though the Op is still on the stage, interrupting every chance she gets with HER take on things.  It’s been a while since the last time I’ve seen Maya, and I do admit that I was thinking she was selling out a bit when she started the whole Hallmark greeting cards line.  She’s awesome enough that I have forgiven her for it already, and I’m sure she can feel the difference.  

I thought of Maya yesterday morning at breakfast, when I looked at my daughter’s face.  You may be surprised to know that I think of Maya quite often.  It’s a bit strange, even to me.  Maya said to me once, via Harpo studios, to light up when your child walks into the room so they will see their importance and worth reflected on your face, and they will in turn learn to see their own worth and value themselves.  It’s something I carry around with me and I try to follow that advice often, although sometimes I do better than others.  I think that it is a profound and important message, and I want my children to have a good sense of self worth that fosters self respect.  When CC caught my eye at the breakfast table, I channeled my inner Maya, gave her a big smile, and told her she looked absolutely lovely today.  If I could bottle the sunshine that came back to me from her face from that simple gesture I could sell it for millions.  

And then Maya and I could be neighbors, and maybe then I could have a bedroom sanctuary.  I’m not making any promises, but I might consider letting her bring Oprah over for tea sometime.  That would be lovely.

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Toad soup

In Badass Ideas, Serious Fun, The little roomies on September 8, 2009 at 7:03 pm

Toad soup

Sometimes a picture can speak a thousand words.  My little CC had her best day ever on Monday, and as if you couldn’t guess, it’s because we had a toad hunt, of course!  As you can see, she has 10, count ‘em T.E.N. toads in this little box.  Little itty bitty baby toads, each one smaller than the next.  Each has a name, and all have been relocated from McHenry to my yard in Algonquin so as to increase the toad population in our neck of the woods.  Currently we have only two toads residing on our property named Toadie and Santa (according to CC, but they all look alike to me, so it’s all a guess at this point).  By introducing these additional ten toads, we are hoping to increase the number of suitable mates for Toadie and Santa and increase the number of toads available for capture at any given moment when CC gets the urge.  Get it?  I want you to know each and every one of those little toads peed on me, and all 12 refuse to take up residence in the toad house.

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Where's my pumpkin?

In Badass Ideas on September 1, 2009 at 5:33 pm

My husband has always called me a tree hugger.  Always and forever he teases me.  Well, I figure it’s high time I start acting like one, and he’s going to regret making fun of me one of these days.

I have lots of things I’d love to do to change things around here, but I have to remember to take baby steps.  I’m a jump in with both feet and then freak out because I’m in quicksand kinda girl.  I am making a conscious effort not to be that kind of girl.  Nothing wrong with being ambitious, but sustainability is the key, and I am realizing that I can’t change everything overnight and expect it to stick.  Smaller bites really do work better for the whole family.  The added bonus is that it allows me to really focus all of my nagging on one thing at a time, like directing sunlight through a magnifying glass.  That’s right, my wrath is like sunlight.  You don’t even realize it’s damaged your eyes until you’ve already looked into it and it’s too late. My poor family.

Anyhow, my most recent irritation is paper use around here.  I’ve been looking around and taking note for a while.  I think about how much I recycle, and how much is just waste.  I find myself glaring every time I see someone reach for a paper towel in my house, not to mention being too lazy to wash a damn plate that you need to use a paper one, and paper napkins?  Don’t even go there.  I would give anything if my son would stop taking a paper bag lunch everyday, but that also involves plastic bags which is a much, much bigger problem.  See, this is where I can get ahead of myself.  Baby steps…  So I say to my roomie in my most nonchalant voice the other day “I think that we waste too much paper.  I was just thinking that I’d like to cut down on that… Oh LOOK!!  Fiesta cloth napkins, on clearance!!”  Ok, maybe it was the other way around, napkins first and then the reasoning behind why I needed to buy them.  Lets not split hairs.  The point is that I bought them so that I could cut down on paper waste, and he actually went along!!  He was blinded by my brightness, I’m sure.  

So there are maybe a couple of MINOR problems with my plan.

  • They require washing, which I don’t mind, but sometimes it worries me that you fix up one area and mess up another.  Yes, it saves on paper but uses water, and detergent.  Should I really worry about this?
  • They require ironing.  WHAT?!  Yes, REQUIRE.  Trust me, I tried folding them without ironing and it didn’t work.  As I was ironing them, I was thinking about people who iron their socks and underwear and realized that I now fit in a category of people I previously judged as crazy.  I don’t even iron my clothes, so this is completely ridiculous.
  • My kids are afraid to use them.  They don’t want to get them dirty!  Seriously.  What the hell?!  What did I just wash AND iron them for if not to use them?  
  • They’re so pretty maybe I don’t want my kids to use them.  So what?

So currently we have no paper napkins, and no paper plates but plenty of cloth napkins and a whole stack of really colorful plates.  The napkins are washed, and ironed, and just waiting for some action.  I guess only time that will tell if this endeavor will be worth it, or if it just adds like three extra things to my Cinderelly list that’s already a mile long.

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We’re live people

In Badass Ideas, Big time stuff, Nothing to it but to do it on August 27, 2009 at 1:56 pm

It is with great excitement and enthusiasm that I am now posting on my freshly minted blog design site for the first time! It went live this morning while I was actually still sleeping, because my designer and friend Leanne is an early bird whereas I am of course a night owl.  Way to wake up much too early, Leanne!  And thanks for answering my million emails so quickly this morning (well, morning to me, anyhow) when I’m pretty much certain I was totally a distraction to you.

I also wanted to say thank you **so much** and send love to the THREE of you who were checking me out while I was still using that free Word Press theme that was completely adequate and enabled me to think aloud online while I pondered the idea of blogging, and while Leanne worked tirelessly to make everything turn out just right on the final pie-in-the-eye design I had poorly described to her.  Heh.  Again, sorry about that Leanne, but you can’t hit a baby.

Maybe someday a fourth person will read this and wonder how they have ever gotten through life without checking which color mug comes next.  I say to you, fourth person (and you first three too, actually) to go directly to Leanne’s site and get yourself one!  It’s good.  It’s really, really good.

***Update… this post now makes no sense at all, because I have moved my blog to the hosted version of wordpress and did not take the design with me.  Don’t ask.***

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Saturday night at the show

In Badass Ideas on August 8, 2009 at 11:58 pm

Holy frijoles batman!!

I had THE BEST time tonight. You have no idea!!! A GF from work, or should I say genius girlfriend from work, had an outdoor movie party tonight and I was lucky enough to be invited with my fam. What a riot!! Here’s how it went down. We packed ourselves, our folding chairs, a stadium blanket, a cooler full of cocktails, some bug spray…. o God, don’t forget the bug spray…. some flashlights for the kids, and a lighted frisbee into the mini-van and headed over to her house. Spread out the blanket, applied bug spray, sat back in the chairs, enjoyed the free popcorn our host was so gracious to provide, cracked a couple of cold ones and watched a flick under the stars!! AWESOME!!  The kids even went over to check out a toad at the neighbors house somewhere in there.  When was the last time that happened at the movie house, eh?!  The breezes were blowing, the stars were shining, and we are now contemplating buying a projector so that we can have our own backyard movie parties in the future because it was seriously too cool to not do it again!!! This is how cool: I watched Bride Wars…. and actually enjoyed it. Like we were discussing it at the end as if it was a quality film or something!  That is love, people, because you have to admit that from the trailer Bride Wars looked like a chick flick in the lamest possible way. They were actually showing a double feature tonight, Bride Wars followed by Obsessed, but the kids were afraid of the Obsessed movie and so we had to leave. I don’t like those kinds of movies, in addition to not caring much for Beyonce, and I was actually disappointed that we couldn’t stay to watch it!

 Know this:  if you get an invite to an open air movie viewing at the Frank house in the future, it is a good time waiting to happen. Grab your stuff and head on over.  The head roomie plans on doing this in a BIG way and I absolutely cannot wait!


Do your part, big or small

In Badass Ideas, Nothing to it but to do it on August 8, 2009 at 12:03 am

Have you tried Freecycle? Well, if you haven’t, you certainly should. I’ve been using Freecycle for a few years now, and it’s one of my favorite ways to recycle things I don’t want and receive obscure things that I wish I had. Or quite possibly acquire things I didn’t even know I wanted or needed!!! I am a huge proponent of using what you have, recycling, gifting, and donating. However, sometimes you have something that you can’t really donate, and you don’t think it could be recycled but it still has some life in it and you don’t know anyone who wants it. We all have stuff like that, right? Like this, for instance:

 

Seriously hideous IMO, but someone else loved it!

Seriously hideous IMO, but someone else loved it!

 

 

That’s right! Someone wants this!

 This is how Freecycle works for those of you who aren’t “IN THE KNOW.” I use that term very loosely. You find a group for your local area by visiting www.freecycle.org . It’s completely up to you whether it’s the group around where you live, where you work, or where your boyfriend’s apartment is at, where you spend all of your time anyways. You apply to be accepted to the group of your choice. There are moderators for every group who volunteer their time (just because they care and want to do good, so be nice to them at all times!!) and once you apply it will take anywhere from 30 seconds to a day to be accepted. They are generally pretty darned quick. Once you’re in, you’ll receive all sorts of emails about etiquette and what items are acceptable or not and how to go about the business of getting rid of (or acquiring more) stuff! Read and do as you are told. You can be booted if you show poor behavior. There are general guidelines under the Freecycle umbrella, but each group is a bit different so be certain to read up on the particulars of the specific group, especially if you are interested in being a member of multiple groups.

 Once you’ve done your homework, put something out there! It can be large or small, but you have to make offerings. Well, you don’t HAVE to, but what kind of group would it be if everyone was just trolling to get stuff and never gave anything away? Besides, you know there’s too much in that front hall closet, anyhow. You will be shocked and amazed at how many people would just love, love, love to have whatever it is you’re getting rid of! Select your favorite candidate and set up a time/place for the person to pick it up and suddenly you’ve just utilized the easiest way to cut the clutter and keep stuff out of the landfill, simultaneously!

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