This is the story of why I couldn’t order our Chinese food before I left for work.

Brace yourself – it’s quite the epic story. Worth telling, nonetheless.

Next Thursday, we’re having the Mad Hatter’s Simply Maddening Tea Party at my library in celebration of the new Alice in Wonderland movie. The teens are quite excited, & as such, on Tuesday we went shopping for all the various things you need to put on a fabulous teen program. After picking up some sundry items from Target, we went to Hot Topic to get some prizes – buttons & keychains, etc. It’s always fun talking to the people who work there, now that I am no longer they’re target demographic. I mentioned we were having the party, & they say hey! You should bring us some flyers, & we’ll put them out here!

Awesome.

Yesterday, Wednesday, my co-worker Steve & I attended a meeting at one of our branch locations. I offered to drive, since I don’t always have the car (my fiance & I share one), & often bum rides off Steve. I took along some flyers with me, so we could drop them off at the mall on our way back. We also made a quick stop at a local used paperback bookstore – hey, we are librarians, after all. There was an issue with the door (I drive a rather old car), but in the end we realized that the seatbelt was simply caught & thus the door could actually be shut completely.

Then we go to the mall, stop & Hot Topic & drop off the flyers. Eventually, we make it back to the library – at which point Steve realizes he doesn’t have his car key.

Which was the only copy.

Uh-oh.

And so the calls begin – first to the library branch where the meeting was held, then to the used paperback store, & then Hot Topic. They mention that although they’ve found a random cell phone, they have, in fact, not found a key. Steve calls his wife & the car dealer to see how they can go about getting a new key, since it’s one of those fancy programmable ones with a chip (don’t you just love technology?!), & we look everywhere. The parking lot, the library lost & found, in & around my car, etc. We try to see if maybe he somehow left it in his car, but we don’t see it.

Le sigh. It seems to have disappeared.

I mention that although it wasn’t in the used paperback store, perhaps it fell out when we were fussing with the door in the parking lot? It’s a long shot, but there’s a chance. As it’s already starting to get dark, we head off immediately.

Steve digs around a little more in the car while he’s in the passenger side, & that’s when he spots it. There’s an evil little place between the middle… armrest/random stuff holder thing & the passenger seat. I lost my engagement ring in this evil little place once, & our iPod constantly falls down there. I personally believe gravity has an extra-strong hold in this vortex of doom, but I’ve no rock solid evidence to back this up. Someday, my 2000 Saturn LS will become the centerpiece in a vast scientific experiment with earth-shattering ramifications, just you wait.

Anyways – back to the story. Much relief is felt by both parties, & I take Steve back to the library so he can drive home in his car.

I proceed to the post office to mail off a few things, as people are wont to do at such a place. Then I reach into my purse to call Sam to see if he’d like Chinese for dinner & if so I’ll also call them to place our order for sesame chicken & two egg rolls.

My phone is not there.

Now, before we can proceed, we must rewind to the beginning of the story, to my visit to Hot Topic the previous day, when we were picking up prizes for the Mad Hatter’s Simply Maddening Tea Party. You see, as I was paying & the nice guy with the flyer idea was trying to remember how to perform a tax exempt transaction, my (very small but perfect!) purse was knocked off the counter. My wallet fell out, & I, assuming that was all, proceeded to sign the receipt & left.

Hot Topic totally had my phone. That’d fallen out along with my wallet when my purse hit the ground. & I would’ve never known if that evil little vortex hadn’t swallowed Steve’s key, thus requiring Steve to call Hot Topic.

Funny how things work, isn’t it?

So after this realization, I drive to Hot Topic, & ask for my badly cracked (but still usable!) phone back. They told me they only called Japan twice, but had otherwise kept my phone safe. Silly Hot Topic employees. Of course, my phone had no more juice left, & so I couldn’t call for Chinese until I got home & could use Sam’s phone. Which is exactly what I did – sesame chicken & two egg rolls.

So that’s the story of why I couldn’t order Chinese food until after I got home. I think I’ll remember this for ages.

One of my absolute favorite things about the holidays is cookies. Ironically, I don’t really care for all that many cookies – gingerbread and chocolate chip are really the only ones I can’t do without (and are the ones I’m making this holiday), but a sugar cookie, peanut butter crisscross, or chocolate crinkle have been known to be dunked into my hot chocolate on occasion. My mom has a tasty recipe for date pinwheels (which I’ve yet to snag), but that small list contains probably the only cookies I’d ever want. I often flip through cookie cookbooks, wondering at the tasty variety within, but always put them down. I know that honestly, I’ll probably never want to make any others – every time I bite into a snickerdoodle, I always think gee, I could be eating a sugar cookie.

There are other confections synonymous to the holidays that I enjoy, but I’ve got to tell you, I’m more than happy to pay someone else to make peanut brittle, popcorn balls, buckeyes, & pumpkin roll. My mom makes the best nut roll, which I suppose I’ll need to learn to make one of these days (I just don’t have much patience for anything that needs time to rise), but this Christmas, I’m only making two cookies & one trifle. For gingerbread, I use Martha Stewart’s Gingerbead People recipe – they come out just perfect; chewy & soft. I skip the icing & just add a few mini chocolate chips for eyes & buttons, & toss some sugar on them before they bake. I always make a least a few batches of my chocolate chip cookies, to my fiance’s & father’s delight.

One thing I’ve noticed while baking this year is that although I love doing it, & your own cookies always taste better than anyone else’s, baking is really rather expensive! Beyond the pantry basics like flour, sugar, eggs, & vanilla, once you pick up the walnuts, chocolate chips, ginger, & molasses, just making two kinds of cookies easily makes them at least $10 each to make. Now, both recipes make quite a lot, but still – no wonder bakeries charge so much for a dozen cookies!

I’ve been thinking about the baking for a little while now, especially the timeline. I was on vacation last week, so I could’ve easily spent a day or two flour-covered in the kitchen. But if I did that, the cookies would already be a week old (or older) by the time Christmas rolled around, & I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not eat stale cookies whilst digging into my stocking. I decided that I’d wait until this week to make them, & so this morning I mixed up two batches of gingerbread dough to chill while at work. Now, I swear I’ve been picking up extra stuff at the store for at least the last month – more flour, an extra bag of sugar (just in case!), chocolate chips, brown sugar, etc. I took stock of what I had, & what I needed, & I was certain I had everything.

Then I was short a 1/4 cup of molasses, & had to run to the store – because checking the “quick substitutions” chart in the back of my Better Homes & Gardens cookbook said that a swap for molasses was honey, and yep… I’m out of honey, too. (Go ahead, Mom. You can laugh. Just don’t forget to pick me up some honey before I see you on Thursday!)

So I’m back from the store, having picked up the cream cheese I also forgot I needed for the recipe below, & I’m down to the last step – adding flour. Someday, I’d like a shiny KitchenAid mixer. One that can handle two batches of gingerbread goup turning into dough with the addition of the final cup of flour. As any recent college graduate of the 21st century can tell you, there’s a lot of debt – & so a shiny KitchenAid mixer is as out of the question as a new car. I had (note the past tense) a cheap $20 hand mixer.

It gave out during when I added the final cup of flour. Six cups proved to be its kryptonite, & it could mix no more. Thankfully, I possess reasonably okay upper body strength & was able to stir the rest of it by hand with a wooden spoon, but still. The chocolate chip cookies ought to be interesting to make by hand! Luckily though, I did discover that one can whip cream with a blender, & so was spared a half hour of whisking.

This year I’ll also be making the No Ordinary Trifle originally from Wet Noodle Posse for our department party. It’s pretty simple to make, & always recieves rave reviews. I’ve often heard that every girl needs a trademark dessert, & I think this one might be mine. You’ll need several bowls, but it’s totally worth the clean-up. Here’s the recipe with my alterations:

What you’ll need:
» Trifle dish or other clear glass bowl, although any bowl will do (I use a small clear punch bowl!)
» ~1lb sliced strawberries, fresh or frozen
» 1lb cream cheese, softened
» 1/2 cup sugar
» 1/3 cup orange juice
» 3 cups whipping cream
» 1 boxed pound cake (although I suppose you could make this from scratch if you’d like!)
» 1 bag chocolate chips (I use dark chocolate), grated into tiny bits (using a blender or food processor, or by hand!)

How to do it:
01) Bake the pound cake according to package instructions. With the bowl that I use to serve mine in, I just bake it in a medium round casserole. Works perfectly!
02) While cake is cooling, make your whipping cream. You can whip it up with a mixer, a blender, a food processor, or by hand!
03) Combine the softened cream cheese with the sugar. Fold into whipped cream.
04) If you have any juice from the thawing strawberries, toss it with the orange juice.
05) Once the cake is cool, slice it three times, or into smaller chunks for three layers.
06) Layer the trifle, beginning with a layer of pound cake. Sprinkle the orange juice on top (it’ll soak into the pound cake), then strawberries (push some against the edges for a pretty look), chocolate, & whipped cream. Keep going as you’d like, but make the top three layers pound cake, whipped cream, & then chocolate. Have fun with it!

So, what are you making? Any family traditions you must make? New recipes you’re going to try out? Tell me all about it?

Well, hello there! I do exist! Sorry for abandoning the blog for over a month – I honestly can’t believe it’s been that long! It was a particularly bad time to be AWOL, as my wee little blog was linked to over at Lillyella. People have been visiting, but the content has been stagnant – oops!

How is everyone? The past month for me was incredibly busy, & at times even more stressful. The New Moon Party that I hosted last Thursday was an absolute blast, but I really overbooked myself with little projects for it. I decompaged 200+ Scrabble tiles with book covers, cut out over 50 trees (we turned the hallway into Forks – it looked amazing, which was harder than you’d expect – I didn’t want it to look like a Christmas tree farm, you know?), created a Powerpoint trivia game, cut out stencils for t-shirts… oh, my to-do list seemed to grow each day. But now that it’s all over, I should have some energy (& time) left over to play over here!

It’s finally the holidays (I can feel it in my bones & no, that’s not just the cold!), even though some stores wanted us to start thinking about icicles in September (seriously corporate America? Can’t I enjoy the crunchy leaves first?). How do I know? Well, four things have come to pass:

01) Starbucks is carrying their yummy gingerbread loaf, & I’ve had my first slice.
02) There’s a rather large crate of clementines sitting on my counter,
03) Right next to the heaping mound of mixed-nuts-in-the-shell that I’ve been happily cracking open all week, & finally,
04) Pomegrante juice has stained my fingers. & my counter. & one of my white camisoles (never fails).

To celebrate the season, which I love so much, the snow is falling here at Simply Sunshine. I’m so looking forward to diving back into blogging – I have so many things to share with you! Here’s to a less hectic December!

Bonus prize for those who’ve read this far: I loved that weird game Ski Free. I never knew this, & was thus always eaten by the monster. Thanks to Nikki for the link!

I’m horribly distracted this week, & for that I apologize. Tomorrow will still be “Fantastic Friday,” but I’m afraid that I won’t be able to find my voice or organize my thoughts very well for anything else. You see, on Monday I find out whether or not my position at work with be terminated. & even if I do get to keep my job, some of my collegues’ positions will be terminated, so it’s going to be a tough day/week/while no matter what happens. Our library, thanks to new funding issues, is re-organizing & we’ve all been dreading September 14 for weeks. As anyone who has been around me knows, I hate not knowing, so this time is especially trying for me.

At the moment, I should be excited, because today I’m going to be honored by the Ohio Library Council, but with this huge gloomy cloud hanging over everything, it’s hard to show such enthusiasm. Truth be told, if I do lose my job I’ll not be terribly upset – somehow we’ll make it through, & I’ve plenty of things to occupy my time (someday I’ll set up that etsy shop). But to watch Ohio libraries, once seen as the mightiest in the nation, ripped apart thanks to dark economic times & idiotic decisions is unbelieveably sad.

So, to brighten your day as well as mine, here are some gorgeous autumn photographs I found. Autumn is by far my favorite season, & the colors are just beginning poke through the green around here. Enjoy!

I read this concept today, & immediately it hit home. I feel like I’ve been living in a state of flux lately; the list of books I’d like to read keeps growing, but I haven’t finished a book in weeks. My to-do lists are getting things added, but of late it’s rare when something gets taken off. I could go on & on about all the things I haven’t been doing, but the truth remains the same: I’m waiting for something. An event, an occasion, something to signal the start of something big. But why? I’m 26, I have my master’s, I’ve found the love of my life, & I have a pretty clear idea of the things I’d like to accomplish. What could I possibly be waiting for?

Today is September 3. How did that happen? Have I really let another summer; another year slip by without finishing Jonathon Strange & Mr Norrell? Have I still not set-up my etsy shop? Are the posts over here still not tagged correctly? What could I possibly be filling my time with? I’m not saying I don’t enjoy the life I have, but I’m letting time slip by. It’s time to get living; to fill my life with meaningful experiences. Who’s with me?