Fantastic Four

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! With a nod to the fourth day of Kara's blogging challenge, here are four things that reminded me of the season today.

1. Icicles - The extreme weather we have been having has left strings of ice glimmering everywhere you look. Our trash bin's lid now resembles a work of art. Take that, LED lights.
2. Snickerdoodles - I am not a chef; I am not a cook; I am not a baker. I'll put it to you this way: I do not like kitchens. I do not like food getting on my hands. I do not like messing with little apparatuses such as candy thermometers or (shoot me now) mixers. To this day, I will not use one of those giant connected-bowl-type mixers. They look like they could take off a hand or two, or a small child's head. If I use anything that whirs, I use a hand-mixer, and I keep it on power level one when at all possible. But in honor of my brother's Christmas break, and in trying to look like a real live homeschool blogger yesterday and today, I decided to bake cookies. And not ones from a cake mix. I made Snickerdoodles using a recipe from my little brother's coveted 1001 Cookies book. It took me about two times longer than the suggested prep time, but the (hand) mixer did not kill me, and the cookies turned out almost normal. They were quite puffy, which we attributed to my mistake of using baking powder instead of soda. However, Master Chef Robert checked over the instructions again and affirmed that I was correct in using powder; that is indeed what The Book had called for. Still, I don't really see the point of spending that much time making something that is only going to make me fat.
3. Friends - I got to see two good, old friends today -- and three good, old friends if you count my brother. The coming-home-from-school carpool is always a nice group to meet up with again.
4. Sweatpants - Okay, sweatpants go seriously wonderfully with snow days, and they definitely remind me of Christmastime. I guess I am breaking from my real live homeschool blogger streak right now, but you really should get a pair of sweatpants if you don't already have one. Wearing them is enough to make you sing fa-la-la-la-la.