Jus Jokin'

Up my sleeve

I've been holdin this card for quite some time.
Somebody's gotta do it.

Live Simply

I recently fell in love with a new fragrance...I thought I just had to have it, but it was way out of my price range...I thought about it and thought about it and tried to justify the indulgence. Then this happened...and now I'm usin' Bounce.
Have a blessed New Year everyone!
May your joys be plenty.
Love,
Lurlene

Shift Key

Shift Key

I Got Rhythm

Gingerbread Goddess

VerDell says it's important to put the daily musin's from the Book of Lurlene here on the Mustard.  I usually jus post'um on FaceBook, but she worries that one day FB will just melt away...and somehow things will be safer on Mustard.  I don't see her logic, but I don't like to fret her.

Her Bubba gave her a new torch for Christmas, she's been wantin to do some weldin and such, but she is beside herself because there's oxygen and acetylene canisters sittin down in the basement.  VerDell worries too much; there's a 1935 gas furnace down there that I figure will blow before her tanks...but she picks and chooses what bothers her. 

It bothers me that I can't stop eatin' cookies...and that no matter how hard I try, I can't loose not one pound of flesh in the Winter.  It dawned on me that that just wasn't natural.  We're all programed to store fat in the winter.  That bein' rationalized, I felt better about my muffin top...until spring.


  

A Christmas Toddy from the Crowbar

Don't drive after you drink this okay?

 Ingredients
4 cups (unsweetened) apple cider
1 cup cranberry juice
1 cup tequila (or more if you're not flyin or drivin afterwards)
1/4 cup triple sec
3 cinnamon sticks, a few cloves if you like (I like)
Lime slices for garnish'

Heat cider and cranberry juice with cinnamon sticks and cloves until hot. (do not let boil)
Remove from heat. 
Stir in tequila and liqueur. 
Serve in mugs. Garnish with lime. 

Find a place that gives you peace
put your feet up and enjoy

Merry Christmas everyone!

Love Buck, Lurlene and Mojo (the crow)

Starlite…Star Bright…Worst Cookies I baked all night

I don’t know why I continue to do it; IT bein’ to try and use peppermint in a cookie.  I don’t even like peppermint except for its medicinal value after havin a big ole El’ Camino Platter at our favorite cheap Mexican restaurant.  Starlites, are right there by the cash register for a darn good reason. 

Thing is, after my Daddy quit smokin, he used to keep a bag of Starlight Peppermints in the drawer by his bedside.  He’d read and chomp on candy until it drove my Momma crazy.  Come morning there would be nothing but “star-wraps” on the floor and the Siamese (cat) twins, Star and Light, would be tossin’um in the air and havin a good ole time skiddlin that cellophane all around the room.   There was no way you could sneak up on Daddy’s side of the bed… that’s for sure. 

I don’t know,  maybe that’s why I always look at’um, the bag of Starlites, maybe it goes deeper than I’m willin to admit. But be that as it may; for the last couple of years, I’ve tried, without success I might add, to incorporate Starlites or Junior Mints (another one of his favorites)  into the Annual Bellevue Super Club Cookie Swap.  (See Fightin’ Cookies from last year’s post for details).  I guess I rationalize that after one of those big heavy Christmas dinners a little mint might be just what the doctor ordered.  Plus I like to stand out…a bad habit…standin out for all the wrong reasons.   

But let me tell you about the looser cookies. 

Warning:  Inappropriate and graphic images are about to be created that might negatively affect your ability to enjoy peppermints and or cookies.  

The first year I was really excited to make a “hidden cookie” which is basically, a cookie cooked inside a cookie.  It called for Mint Thins…like the Girl Scouts sell, and sugar cookie dough.  Roll out the sugar cookie dough, put the Thin Mint inside and then top with another sugar cookie, pinch the edges and bake.  Well, that was fine except the sugar cookie spread out to be about the size of a grapefruit and the cookie “inside” remained intact, lookin more like my Grandma’s pacemaker snuggled next to her “you knows” than anything you would want to eat.   Judge ruled,  "Not purdy, growths should not be ingested."

Then, there was the Junior Mint fiasco, basically a “thumb-print” cookie filled with a Junior Mint.   These turned out lookin more like reindeer turds than anything you would want to eat. “Reindeer squirts on a rock” Buck said.  Worse than “not purdy”; voted most likely to confused with a butt-hole." 

Then there was a “rolled cookie” that some say was by far my worst; they called it Santa’s Pecker.  I’m not gonna even go into this one even though you have been forewarned regarding the graphic content.  Did I mention it was also rolled in coconut.  A Fuzzy Santa’s Pecker!    

With all those bad experiences, “why” I ask you, would I even attempt to make yet another peppermint cookie?  It boggles the mind, but needless to say…I did.  This year’s version involved crushing a bag of Starlites with a hammer or using a food processor.  Now let me just say, if you do use your food processor, make sure, very sure, it is completely dry prior to putting the Starlites in.  Otherwise, you got yourself a pink sticky, slick, mess of mint in the bottom.  So, the hammer is lookin good to me right now, but I warn you,  don’t hammer on your granite counter-top,  granite shards look a lot like peppermint splinters…but don’t melt.  I’m jus sayin. 

Another way to approach this is to just put the Starlites in a bag and hit them, on a cutting board, with a hammer.  Oh, and take the cellophane off, it takes too much time to pick it out even though it does melt when baked.  It can’t be good for you.  Another thing,  make sure the pieces are not too big because you know when you chew peppermints and they stick to the back side of your molars…yeah, they do that in a cookie too.  

All that bein’ said, this year I ended up with seventy two of the little Starlite buggers.  While the first batch was too big and the second was too soft, the third batch turned out just right.  And you know,  the cookie judge probably isn’t gonna like’um but I feel pretty sure, my Daddy would.  So, that bein’ said.

Starlite

Star bright

Last peppermint cookie I make tonight

I wish I may, I wish I might

Dream of my Daddy on Cookie Night!

Christmas - 1981

Merry Christmas Cookie Monster!

The Perfect Pine Cone

To an outsider, it may sound like a rude and callous event, most definitely not in the spirit of the Season of Light; but for the three who taught in elementary schools, it was simply a release in every connotation of the word.  

While we can’t remember just when the first Pine cone party took place it went without saying that it was always on the eve of the last day of school prior to Christmas, or as is now deemed more politically correct, “Winter Holiday”.

Except for Lurlene and Lushious, the remaining Two-Bits were all teachers and while bein’ a teacher in an off month is not easy,  it goes without sayin’ that in December, second graders hopped up on cookies and peppermint sticks, sugar plum fairy dust and Santa are more like ping pong balls than anything human. 

 

But that bein' said, on the last day of school, as tradition would have it, each Two-Bit- Teena-Teacher was honored with a display of Winter Holiday appreciation.  Their desks runneth over with tokens of gratitude that almost inevitably had, “To or For Teacher” engraved, stitched, etched, or on occasion actually burned onto its surface.    It was as if a teacher couldn’t appreciate that which didn’t have her profession or even more perplexing, an apple emblazoned on it.  Now I ask you, when was the last time you received a gift (Mom’s excluded) that was addressed to your profession?   Exactly....point made.

But be that as it may, it came to pass that on the eve of the last day of school, the Two-Bit Teachers would “re-wrap” selected gifts and we; the rude, heartless and yet celebratory, would draw numbers as in a “Thieves Christmas/Winter Holiday” Gift Exchange.  The competition (fueled by a few good margaritas) was fierce and at times raucous as we fought more for the most re-usable gift bag  that must, by rule, (and there were many)  go with the “stolen/selected” gift.    It is also important to add that also included in this Devil's mess were a few well selected items that each of us knew the other would covet, sharpening both our sense of selection and our deduction skills.

And so it was that I;  number 3 on round 3 and frustrated because all the good bags were gone, selected a little bundle of what appeared to be discarded tissue paper.  Only the single piece of green curly ribbon indicated that there may be more to this hapless bundle than met the eye.  The translucent white paper gave way easily to expose a single brown pine cone, unadorned by glitter or faux snow. It was simply, a perfect pine cone.

For just a moment the laughter and the cajoling stopped and each of us felt something akin to a spark that in turn ignited a greater light that seemed to fill the room and our heart.  No one remembered receiving that pine cone, nor did they remember rewrapping it during the confusion that was typical of the last day of school before Christmas/Winter Holiday.  

But there it was, a perfect and simple reminder that in this whirlwind that has become Christmas/Winter Holiday, this season that has been altered to seduce us into wanting instead of giving, getting instead of receiving, there are still wonders and miracles about us…unadorned and waiting to be found.   

I know I speak on behalf of the Two-Bit-Teena’s and all of us here in The Friendly Village in hoping that you find yours during this season of Christmas/Winter Holiday/Hanukkah/Solstice/Diwali/Yule/Sadeh/Koleda and so on.  

Love and Light

Lurlene

Note:  The Pine cone Party tradition continues and has morphed into a “Jingle Bell Swap”.  It remains irreverent and raucous requiring a “game on attitude” a cunning strategy and at least one Whitman’s Christmas Sampler.