Remember the "My First Car" Meme?

John over at My First Car has been bugging me for pictures ever since he asked if he could share the story of "Mr. Valiant". Well, I found some. They're over here (scroll to the bottom) if you want to see nerdy Nancy at age 18. And if the link to the portable TV isn't working, try this one.

Loose Woman Brownies

Slutty Brownies - or, as Alan calls them, Floozy Brownies. These are currently making the rounds on the interwebz, and the recipe I saw consisted of chocolate cookie mix spread in the bottom of a 9” x 13” pan topped with a layer of Oreos and those topped by a brownie mix and baked.

They looked interesting, but it just made SO MANY. I thought they’d be better made from scratch as did everyone else and their brother. I also thought they might work baked in muffin tins. Today while I was at a Big Box Store I saw “snack size” mixes and thought I could give a small batch a try.

I used Betty Crocker snack Chocolate Chip Cooke Mix and Duncan Hines Snack Size Chewy Fudge Brownie Mix because those were my only snack size choices.

I got out 12 cupcake liners and lined some muffin tins. I made the cookie mix according to directions and added a little extra water so the dough wasn’t so stiff. I added about a tablespoon of dough to each liner (it made 10) and then pressed it down with an Oreo and left the Oreo on top. Then I mixed up the brownie mix and added another tablespoon to the top of each cookie. This left a little brownie mix left over, so the last two muffin cups were filled with a tablespoon of brownie mix, then an Oreo, and then another tablespoon of brownie mix.

These were baked for about 15 minutes. Make sure you DO NOT over-bake them. The brownie should be gooey, and the cookie on the bottom will still be soft.

I thought they were good. Not ZOMG AWESOME TO DIE FOR BEST THING EVAR! Personally, I found them to be neither fish, nor fowl, nor good red meat (metaphorically speaking). I’d rather have Toll House Cookies (made from the 1930’s recipe, thank-you-very-much) or chewy gooey brownies on their own. I don’t see that the Oreo adds much … but the snack-sized mixes make a reasonable amount, the cupcake liners are good portion control, and they will take care of that craving for sweets you’ve got.

I know, I know.

I am LONG overdue for a post. But it’s not like I’ve been sitting around all this time. Well, not much.

This spring, I decided I needed a new camp bed. My prototype had a couple of issues, and I thought I could improve upon my design.  So I sat down with a pencil and an index card and played around with some numbers, taught Sweet Daughter how to select lumber, and then went and cut it all according to the number while visiting my sister with the table saw. I also cut down my original camp bed for SD to use. And managed to leave the headboard behind. Sigh.

I got a good start on it in April, hoping to have it done in time for the Petersburg event, but that didn’t happen.  With SD’s help, I got it put together.

And painted.

And it worked. By having three support panels instead of two, it’s easier to pack and transport. The prototype needed one simple adjustment – one of the side boards had warped, and I needed to adjust some of the hardware to account for that. It made me cringe to not have it all square and plumb and stuff, but it works. As my brother-in-law said, “Working code trumps all theory.”

Having two bedsteads in the tent makes for a narrow aisle up the middle, but there is a ton of storage under them. And if it rains, I don’t have to worry about drying out wet bedding. No, they are not accurate, but if you happen to seem from outside the tent, they pass. And they’re a heck of a lot better that a cot from a Dead-Animal-Head-on-the-Wall store.

The Barracks

Then there was a trip to Ft. Frederick at the end of June for the 50^th Anniversary of the Brigade of the American Revolution. There weren’t as many participants as I was expecting, but it was a lovely relaxing weekend. Well, except for having to haul our gear into and out of the fort. And for where my leather shoes slipped on the dew-slicked wooden steps and I slid down a few on my shins (yes, I was holding on to the railing), but I got ice on the shins, and ingested some rum punch and felt better.

Breakfast

Salmungundi for lunch with fresh raspberries, beef, chicken, oranges, hardboiled eggs, mixed greens, oranges, fried chicken skin and I've forgotten the rest.

The view from the top of the fort shortly before slipping on the stairs.

The view from camp after slipping on the stairs.

I finished another gown for SD.

Tired girls.

Gate

Then it was off to the beach for a week with my sisters, which is another post. And I am starting on an insanely ambitious sewing project that is already overcome by mission creep that I refuse to jinx by typing it all out. Maybe I'll post pictures as bits get finished. I need it done by Columbus Day weekend.

More as I come up for air ...

Thoroughly assimilated

I went to Kohl’s yesterday to spend some “Kohl’s Cash”, use a 20% off coupon, oh, and another $15 in cash cards. I figured I buy something I wouldn’t ordinarily get for myself. An impractical dress, or high-thread-count sheets, or an expensive piece of cookware, but I kept striking out. The dress that I sort of liked didn’t fit, the bedding was the wrong color, the cookware just wasn’t what I was looking for, and so on.

Frustrated to the point of tears (I really wanted a pretty dress that would magically make me look 10 years younger and 20 lbs. lighter … I don’t know what the problem was), I grabbed something useful and headed out the door.

Shorter Half listened to my brief explanation of the unsuccessful trip. “So what did you end up getting?” he asked. I showed him the package and he burst out laughing.

My $4.19 set of kitchen knives.

Subconscious at work … buying more blades.

“I have become what I beheld”

When I started hanging out and reading gun blogs, I’d notice the posts about knives and other stabbity things, and think “Well isn’t that nice. Another pocket knife. How many does a person need? What’s up with that?”

My dad used to carry what he called a “pen knife”. It was just a regular old folding pocket knife with either some wood or horn on the handle. I’m sure he used it for more, but I primarily remember him using it for sharpening pencils, opening envelopes and for slicing up apples and other things he wasn’t supposed to bite into because of his dentures.

Michael W. (Cutler to the Stars!) had a box of blades he’d acquired over the years and offered one to me. I chose a small Leatherman and threw it in my purse. I don’t think I’ve ever used anything other than the scissors, and that was mostly to cut tags and labels from recent purchases. I tried carrying around a little folding knife in my jeans pocket on the weekends and promptly lost it as it popped out of the stupid shallow pockets when I sat down. No great loss.

Then Shorter Half gave me a little Gerber Paraframe.  It had a clip on it so it stayed put when I clipped it to my pocket. It would ride around in my pocket for the weekend, used once in a while, like when I opened a recalcitrant package at a baby shower, or for sharpening a pencil.  Or so I thought.

Then I misplaced the Paraframe and my world collapsed a little bit. Dang, I had no idea how often I’d been using that knife while gardening. Or opening letters. Or cutting thread or yarn. Or just opening just about anything purchased in the toy department that has a zillion clips and wires and just plain crap involved in the packaging. I found my hand reaching down for the non-existent knife a lot more than I ever remember using one. After mourning for a week, I made a list of what I didn’t like about the Paraframe – namely that it took two hands to open. So I hopped over to Brownell’s and make a selection. I looked for something with assisted opening, was small, didn’t have “tactical” in the name, had a clip, and was under $30.

Somehow, without knowing it, I have become assimilated. I have become what I beheld. And two hours after the knife from Brownell’s arrived, I found the Paraframe. Clearly, my subconscious is working overtime getting me to buy more blades.

 

Kid Shoot I, 2012

I don’t know who ordered the weather, but dang. It was perfect. In the 70’s with warm sun and a cool breeze.  Broken Andy brought an inflatable bouncy thing which was a stroke of genius as far as letting kids (especially the ones that traveled more than 10 miles) work off some energy before settling down to break things with pellets.

JB Miller brought a box of clays and wire coat hangers and did some wire origami magic and made a cool hanging clay holder thing that I didn’t get any pictures of. This, along with some balloons, some hanging soda cans, some soda cans on a ledge, and a couple of store-bought reactive targets made up “the range’.

There were 11 adults, all told and 10 kids. 6 of the kids belonged to gunnie-type parents, and 4 were classmates of Sweet Daughter’s. Michael W. (Cutler to the Stars) started things off by letting the kids handle a tomato and note the resemblance to their own selves – a skin covering firm, yet kind of squishy insides. Then he promptly shot it with a pellet pistol and showed them the damage and explained that shooting a person would do the same thing, so don’t do it.

"Ve have veys of making you talk ..."

The kids came and went on the range, taking turns with a grown-up helping them out, and playing on the swing set and sandbox when they weren’t waiting. It seemed to go really well, and I don’t think there was a kid there that didn’t have a grin of accomplishment at one point or another. 

The adults got their chance as well, and I may have another mom hooked on the idea of shooting. After getting the hang of the pellet rifle, she pointed at my pistol and asked if she could shoot that as well. I explained that there wasn’t a safe place in my little yard to do so, but that there was talk of getting a “Mom Shoot” together for beginners and she should really come to that. I kept a calm and neutral tone, but inwardly I was jumping up and don’t clapping my hands yelling “WE’VE GOT ANOTHER ONE!!!”

Then there was the food. Oh, my goodness, the food. Everybody brought stuff. There were burgers and hot dogs. Michael W. took Vidalia onions, quartered them and wrapped them in bacon, secured with a toothpick. And then he grilled them over low heat.

Before

After

Mr. A Girl brought deviled eggs and cupcakes. There was pumpkin crunch. There was rainbow Jell-O. And for party favors, there were little chocolate revolvers.

But guess who the one kid was who didn’t shoot? Sweet Daughter. After everyone except JB Miller and his lovely wife had left, she said “HEY! You didn’t call me up to shoot!” I replied that she never asked to shoot, and I wasn’t going to have her perform like a trained monkey if she wasn’t interested. JB graciously donated his leftover clays and high-tech hangers and she had at it.

All in all, I think it was a successful event. The kids were all well behaved and considering that there was a wide range of ages, all interacted very well with each other. The adults seemed to enjoy the afternoon almost as much as the kids did.

In the lessons learned section, I think having activities other than shooting for the kids to do was key. While we had a ratio of almost one kid per adult (an it seemed to work well), but I think it would work with fewer adults. Reactive targets are the only way to go, and I think the ones that make some noise (plink, pop, crack) as well as visibly changing form when hit were the most popular. We had hand wipes down on the firing line to use after handling pellets. We had plenty of inexpensive shooting glasses to pass around. We had name tags. While I was still riding a wave of adrenaline that evening I said I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Two days later, I don't think my opinion has changed.

The 20th Anniversary

… of my 29th birthday.

Sweet Daughter gave me a Cold Steel Magnum Kukri Machete, in tacti-kewl black with the 17" blade (now with 20% more Mall Ninja!) Ostensibly, it’s for keeping the vine-covered slope between the yard and the road cleared, but I think it will come in handy for a visual aid once she’s dating.

“Hi, Mrs. R. Is SD home?”

“Yes, she’ll be down in just a minute.”

(With SD not being there to divert him yet, his attention will be drawn to the Cold Steel Magnum Kukri Machete with some of the black paint missing, a few dents in the 17" blade, but still with 20% more Mall Ninja! positioned across my lap.)

“Um, ma’am, can I help you with that?”

“No thank you. I’m just cleaning the blood off the blade before it does any damage.”