Easter bunny

Look at what I made for Easter! Under all that toasted coconut "fur" lies a a thick layer of cream cheese frosting and a homemade dark chocolate cake. Yum!

Calling all cooks

We're creating a community cookbook filled to the brim with the best recipes from the best cooks we know - and that includes you! I think. If you somehow manage to burn water then no, not you.

Anyhoo, the theme of the cookbook is a year of weeknight recipes for the whole family. With your help we'll have 260 main dish recipes and separate sections for starters, side dishes and desserts for mixing & matching. And in support of Meatless Mondays, we're planning to include 52 vegetarian main dish recipes. Between leftovers and eating out, you'll have a complete year of meals at your fingertips! All the profits from the sale of these cookbooks will be donated to the American Cancer Society through our Relay for Life team.

If you have a recipe to submit, email me for the form. All recipes need to be submitted by April 15th. Oh, and each recipe in the book will include the name of the submitter so you'll finally be published!

We are also including advertising in our cookbook with prices starting at $40. Email me for more info on that as well.

If all goes well, the books will be ready to purchase in June. Wish us luck! I can't wait to try all of these tasty dishes.

An open letter to moms who bring sick kids to public places

Dear moron fellow mom,

I understand how difficult it is to stick around the house with a sick toddler. Believe me, I do. We've suffered through 2 bouts of croup and the chicken pox in the last 18 months. But the rest of us aren't interested in attending whatever snot-filled germ party your kid is hosting. When I take my kid to a play gym, I expect the other children are healthy. And that their parents are abiding by the simple posted health rules (also known as common sense). So if your kid is sick, for the love of all that is holy, stay home.

Thanks to you I haven't smelled...well, anything in the past week. My right ear is completely plugged. Snot is being manufactured at record-setting rates. And I sound like a four-pack-a-day smoker. Oh and my kid and hubby are suffering with the same bug. Our house may require professional fumigation and disinfection when this stupid cold finally ends.

But hey, if it's more convenient for you to get out of the house and play among innocent children, by all means, don't let me stop you. It's obviously all about you. But be forewarned. The next time my kid has even a slightly runny nose, I'm letting him lick your car door handle.

Cheers,
Lori

Only in my dreams

I don't normally remember my dreams but this week I woke up two mornings in a row from vivid dreams. And frankly, you don't need to be Freud to interpret these. See what you think:

In the first dream we were trying to get ready to go on vacation. But for some reason I could not get the hubby moving and the kid was still asleep. So I'm running around packing and getting everything ready while the hubby saunters over to pour some coffee, plops in the chair and turns on the news. Finally I look up the itinerary, glance at the clock and shout "THE PLANE IS TAKING OFF RIGHT NOW, we missed it." The next thing I remember is being in the car heading to the airport with the whole family and as I'm on hold to reschedule our flight, I realize I forgot the special items I purchased for the trip. And with that, I woke up feeling incredibly frustrated.

Admittedly, I'm usually the one getting everything packed and organizing all the details so that part is very real. But the bottom line is that I'm in desperate need for a vacation. Like NOW.

The second dream takes place in a swimming pool. I'm holding onto the side of the pool while Ian and Jeff are playing in the water to my left. I look up and see an adorable, chunky little infant girl with whispy brown hair sitting on the edge of the pool to my right facing away from me. As I comment on how cute her roly poly legs are, she tumbles backwards into the pool and I catch her just before she reaches the surface. I plop her back on the side and give a raised eyebrow look at her grandfather who is sitting in a lounge chair a few feet away. He shrugs and doesn't move. I watch her out of the corner of my eye and a few minutes later she tumbles into the pool again but this time sinks right to the bottom of the 30 foot area. (That's right, a 30 feet deep pool.) I take a few deep breaths and struggle to the bottom pulling myself along the wall. I grab her in a manner of seconds and quickly surface. I signal the lifeguard who runs over and asks if the baby needs CPR. I check her breathing and pulse and say yes. The young lifeguard struggles to remember how to do infant CPR so quickly I grab her, sit her up and pat her on the back. She spits up and starts to breathe. And again, I wake up. Oh and despite all the detail in the dream, I never saw her face.

Now we are in the pool waiting to adopt our 3rd child so this dream doesn't exactly require deep analysis, does it?

So I think we've discovered three important things:
1) I'm in need of a vacation asap.
2) I'm ready for that baby asap.
3) I'm just not that creative in my dreams.

Another reason not to google medical stuff

When I was a teenager, I decided to become a vegetarian. My mom says I'm just another casualty of the Bambi generation. I say meat is just yucky. Yucky to think about and yucky tasting. I realize there are many who don't share my opinion and since I don't push my choice on them, I ask that they simply return the favor. It's a kind of don't ask-don't tell dietary policy. Ironically I married an avid fisherman who later took up the hobby of hunting. Suffice it to say that opposites attract. Anyhoo, I'm a devoted veg who occasionally dabbles in a vegan diet.

"The point?" you ask.

After my unfortunate kitchen accident, they applied a substance called Gelfoam to stop the bleeding. They noted that it would fall off on it's own after a few days. Here it is a week later and trust me when I tell you that despite my best efforts the stuff is still stuck like glue. So I did a bit of internet research (always a bad idea) and found this: "Gelfoam...is a water-insoluble, off-white, nonelastic, porous, pliable product prepared from purified pork Skin Gelatin USP granules..."

I am flipping mainlining pig parts. And it doesn't want to come off. Welcome to a vegetarian's worse nightmare.

Mundane details

I've been getting more spam comments than real comments on my blogs of late so it's time to add a bit of security. I think that last lull in posts worked as a sort of spam lure. For now I'm enabling word verification but should this trend continue I'll have to disallow anonymous comments. (Sorry Mom.) Why must those pesky spammers ruin it for everyone else?

Sadly, that's all the writing inspiration I can muster at the moment. I'm trying to get back on the blogging wagon but topics are alluding me. So if you have any writing prompts to offer, don't hesitate to share them.

Say it with a song

I love musical theater. I know that some people think it's odd to watch a song and dance number peppered between dialogue. Personally, I prefer it. In fact, I think the world would be a better place if all good and bad news would be communicated through song. Need to fire someone at work? Follow it with a song for the ultimate tension breaker. Getting engaged? Profess your love with a heartfelt ballad. Heck even my son won't clean up his toys until we start one of the clean up songs. Clearly my 2 year old understands the impact of a well timed song.

This morning as I was preparing brunch for some friends, I managed to slice off the tip of my finger along with the core of the apple. (Stupid Rachael Ray apple coring suggestion.) The hubby put my fingertip on ice (along with the piece of apple it rested upon) and I hopped in the car to visit urgent care. After waiting 10 minutes for it to open, I calmly completed the requisite paperwork and then waited with a rag around my bloody finger for another 20 minutes. Finally I was escorted back to a room with unprecedented nonchalance. The nurse took my temperature, checked my pulse and took my blood pressure before even looking at my finger. She handed me gauze to replace the bloody rag and told me a doctor would be right in. True to her word, a doctor rushed in before the door even closed. Apparently he "loves to sew" and was eager to get started. He was sorely disappointed that I hadn't hacked off a larger chunk because there just wasn't enough to sew back on. He explained that he was trained in c-sections (I immediately crossed my legs) and didn't get the chance to sew very often. He threw around words like "cauterize" and "infection" before delegating the work to someone else. That someone else arrived to apply the dressing with remarkable force and I was finally free to go with my ET looking appendage.

Okay, how are these first two paragraphs related? It's simple. A girl sitting in a waiting room clutching her hand in a bloody rag for 20 minutes while the other earache and sniffles patients gawk practically screams for a "Rent"-esque song. And a doctor who loves to sew and is disappointed with my wound cries out for a number straight out of "Spamalot." And of course I could have used an upbeat "25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" song when the receptionist, nurse, doctor and someone else each asked me if I cut my finger while making breakfast. It's 9am people, of course I cut it making breakfast. I'm not out chopping wood this early after all.

Clearly life would simply be more tasty if strategically seasoned with music.