Posts Tagged ‘holiday baking’
Cookies Aplenty
The morning after Cyndie’s two days of unadulterated Christmas cookie baking dawns with the results neatly packaged for distribution.
My blood sugar is probably still out of whack after sampling way too many varieties over the weekend. Niece, Althea, and son, Julian, showed up to contribute their energies to the effort yesterday, keeping the festive feeling in full swing.
The head baker decided to repackage the entire inventory before beginning the extra effort of cleaning up a mess that a multi-day baking extravaganza creates.
With that epic effort behind her, it’s out of the kitchen and into the horse chores. Our schedule got doubled up today with a planned visit from the farrier happening on the same day as an unexpected delivery of hay bales that will need to be stacked in the shed.
There will be no rest for the weary.
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Getting Near
Christmas! The big gift-giving, family-seeing, holiday-partying extravaganza that just happens to coincide with a day on the Christian religious event calendar is only ten days away! Ho, ho, ho.
Cyndie and I have watched two holiday movies in two nights this weekend and she is currently on day two of her cookie-baking blitz. I am pleased to be able to report that she is getting near that elusive point of feeling fully recovered from the illness that has befuddled her, sapped her energy, and imposed a splitting headache for about a week now.
I am less happy to admit that my willpower to resist over-sampling the sweets coming out of her double oven has been weaker than I remember since recognizing I suffer from becoming easily addicted to sugar in my diet.
“Be gone from me, cravings!”
I’d spend more time outside to get away from the aroma of cookies fresh from the oven, except the frozen glaze covering the land has made it dangerously slippery, especially when attached by leash to a dog that doesn’t care whether it’s icy or not.
I had finally assembled the lower half of my winter “spacesuit” so that I could jump into my boots and pull up the overalls like a firefighter answering the bell when the temperatures moderated, and now I’ve been romping about outside, spacesuit-free.
We’ve enlisted the help of some horse-care volunteers through the rescue organization This Old Horse to cover evening feedings for a few days to give me a break from this spell of solo duty on the ranch. There is no reason to rush Cyndie back into dealing with the elements again while she continues to make her way to full health, as far as she can get anyway on the continuum of what full health is for her.
Ten days, folks. The six-year-old me is getting as excited as possible for being stuck inside a 65-year-old ever-more-Grinch-like party pooper. (For the record: In my opinion, Christmas decorations are the most make-work hassle current society has ever manifested.)
Have a holly jolly next ten days, everyone!
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Calories Galore
How sweet it is. Even though I had been duly warned, there were several instances yesterday when more than the recommended number of cookies found their way into my mouth. Cyndie was a machine of efficiency, cranking out non-stop cookie magic.
She accomplished a heroic achievement. According to the television advertisements I saw during NFL games, I should reward her with a car, diamond jewelry, and expensive perfume for Christmas. Or beer. Or bundled insurance.
By the end of the day, Cyndie needed to get off her feet to control swelling in her ankle. That didn’t stop her from continuing to work on her holiday treats.
She wrapped homemade caramels while watching an episode of “All Creatures Great and Small” on her laptop.
Julian and Elysa stopped by and did their part to reduce the overload by taking home a platter of cookies each. While Julian was here, we tried tinkering with the software for our driveway surveillance camera. We made some progress so that it seemed to be working to ping my phone when a vehicle arrived.
Unfortunately, it also began pinging me even when there was no vehicle. The camera that cried wolf.
I will need to spend a lot more time tweaking the software settings, of which there are many, including a numerical adjustment of the sensitivity.
It will give me something to do while I’m continuing to taste-test Cyndie’s baking results.
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Sweet Anticipation
This is one of those times when any words I could assemble into descriptive sentences would pale compared to a simple photo to depict the sweet anticipation when Cyndie begins to prepare for her seasonal baking extravaganza.
When the cookie tins come out, and huge bags of baking flower, sugar, flats of eggs, and tubs of butter show up from the grocery run, I know it is time to dig out my excessive calorie warning.
The house is decorated, lights are on, purchased gifts are being delivered by all the acronyms (USPS/FEDEX/UPS), and songs of the season keep popping up.
The only thing missing is a hint that ours might be a white Christmas this year. There’s still a little over two weeks to go, but forecasts don’t sound promising in that regard. At this advancing stage of my maturity, a lack of snow bothers me a lot less than it did in the past.
The problem I keep needing to cope with is that our frozen mornings feel so dang cold compared to the warm afternoons we have been enjoying the past few weeks. The back and forth is more taxing on my body than when it just gets cold and stays that way for months. Or should that be, more taxing on my mind? Probably both.
Asher decided to do his best to contribute to the festive decorations Cyndie has been putting up in every available space of our house.
The snuffle mat Cyndie created out of a sink mat became a colorful spread of fabric and plastic shards this morning. It worked well while it lasted. I suppose Asher was just making sure none of his food nuggets had gotten lodged between the plastic and the felt strips.
He has no clue about the smells he is about to be smothered with from Cyndie’s kitchen this weekend. I have no idea whether it will compare to the animal scent trails he freaks out over on our walks around the property. Given the intensity of Cyndie’s Christmas cookie-baking process, I suspect the sweet aromas from the house will have all the wildlife in the vicinity at risk of spiking their blood sugar simply by smelling it.
Don’t worry about me, though. I’ll survive. It hasn’t killed me yet in the past [mumble-mumble] years.
Now, where is that special excessive sugar warning that needs to be re-issued…?
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Single Week
Less than a week, actually. The holiday season is long but the actual day of Christmas is just a single day and it is now six days away. I am also down to a single week left commuting to the day-job. Three days, actually. It feels like a lot is happening that will hopefully lead up to a period when not much needs to happen, for the rest of my life.
For the last six months, I have only been commuting to the far side of the Twin Cities three days a week. I am already aware of the complexity of noticing what day it is when Saturdays and Sundays become blurred with Fridays and Mondays. When seven days a week all require the same attention from me, I will join the throngs of others who are in the phase of life when every day is simply “today” and not so distinguishable from all the others.
Yesterday was Cyndie’s Christmas Cookie baking day. I failed to provide much warning but the post I created in 2017 is still very applicable. Check out: Advance Warning.
Cyndie invited helpers to contribute to the extravaganza. They captured and shared some images of the frivolity…
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Cookies galore are being shared far and wide. For reference, if you ever have a chance to help Cyndie in the kitchen, you will be stocked with plenty of goodies upon your departure.
Despite this being the second Christmas season under the pandemic, glad tidings and good cheer still shine through.
Merry Christmas, everyone! Enjoy this last week.
I know that I will.
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Baking Therapy
After surgery, most people opt for physical therapy to aid in healing and recovery. This weekend Cyndie appeared to be working on reclaiming her former knee strength by way of baking Christmas cookies of almost every variety. With the COVID-19 pandemic decimating innumerable facets of what we consider normalcy this year, I am awestruck over Cyndie’s motivation to carry on her massive holiday baking tradition without the usual support staff of friends or extended family.
To do it all alone is wildly impressive. To do it alone on a painful wounded knee is rather beyond the call of duty if I do say so myself.
The sum total of my assistance involved taking full responsibility for animal chores, which I was doing anyway so she wouldn’t have to walk more than she already does around the house.
I couldn’t even maintain my reputation as a taste-tester. The batches were coming out of the oven too fast to keep up. I think I exceeded my self-inflicted strict ration of ingested sugar simply by breathing in the smell of fresh warm cookies all day long.
I just didn’t have the gastrointestinal stamina to pound that many test tastes in such a short span of time.
I am curious to find out how the baking therapy worked out for her knee on the day after. She has a follow-up appointment today with the surgeon to check on progress. I wonder if he might suggest eating fresh-baked holiday cookies to help her deal with the residual pain of the excavated bone behind her knee.
It would, at the very least, be easier than working upright in the kitchen all day…
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Early Light
While the intense winter storm that moved out of Texas is pummeling the Carolinas and Virginia this morning, our region is bathed in calm. The air was so quiet this morning, I felt compelled to open the gate in the paddock by delicately palming the chains to avoid the usual clatter of metal on metal, while I was whispering greetings of love to the horses.
It was a perfectly brisk winter morning, but not biting cold. The chickens put in extra energy to balance on one foot, picking up the other and tucking it in their feathers to protect from the frozen tundra. The horses had frost on their whiskers, but otherwise look completely acclimated to the season of long nights.
They are contentedly munching on morning rations in that image, while the first rays of sunshine begin to paint their sides with a promise of warmth to come.
Hello, sun!
Our day will be filled with holiday projects, Cyndie in the kitchen, baking so many varieties of Christmas cookies it makes me dizzy with visions of sugar. I will be in the shop, putting sandpaper to wood, between making appearances in the house to be sociable with our kids and other family and friends who have expressed intention of showing up to be present for the great holiday bake-athon.
Every cookie I can convince them to take home with them will be one less for me to avoid.
The fire is radiating in the fireplace and the colored lights are on the tree.
Bring on the day!
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Relative Something 