Beautiful Morning

::whispers:: Merry Christmas, world. I hope your morning is as wonderfully peaceful and blissful as mine.

Crispmas Truffles

Since I've been back in Texas and since I don't have a job yet, that kind of makes me a stay at wife.
So to be the good, productive kind of trophy wife, I did some laundry, cleaned, and best of all, I made some Christmas sweets for my bread winning husband's work buddies.
I call them Crispmas Truffles. (they started out as crispy balls but that sounds a tad inappropriate)

(oh and if you know the actual name of these goodies, do me a favor, and don't steal my thunder, mmmkay?)

I made a test batch yesterday and they went over fantastically, except that they were really rich. So I figured I should make them smaller so you could eat more than one and there would be more to go around on Christmas eve.
80 billion crispy balls later and I'm so tired of the things I could shoot someone.
So I'm going to share my joy with you all.

Ingredients:
(this makes between 20- and 40-something, depending on how small you make them)

1 cup creamy peanut butter
2 cups confectioners sugar
1 stick of butter
1 cup rice krispies
12 oz chocolate
Two handfuls of white chocolate drops (optional)



Mix powdered sugar, peanut butter, and butter in a bowl.



Now, sounds easy enough, right? Yeah...maybe if you have a handmixer.
We don't.
So I tried with a spoon. That took ten days til forever and my arm was tired after five minutes.
I tried with a wisker. FAIL. All the goop got stuck up in there and then it took an extra twenty minutes just getting it back into the bowl.



My solution? Just reach down in there and grab a big ol' handful. It was actually a lot of fun. Except for the whole peanut butter under your finger nails thing. That kind of sucked.
But it got the job done. This is what it should look like.



So then you mix in your crispies. The recipe calls for a cup but I put a little extra in there to make my mixture a little more crispy and a little less peanut buttery.
Then roll it up into little balls. I made mine about the size of bouncy balls or a little smaller.



Pop your little balls (tee hee) in the freezer for 30 minutes to an hour. When they're pretty solid, you're ready for dipping in the chocolate.

Take your chocolate and melt it down. I used the bark chocolate the first time and chocolate drops the second time and they worked pretty much the same. The only difference was the bark stuff dried and hardened quicker. Good for the already dipped balls. Not so good for the person trying to dip the undipped balls, but can't because the damn chocolate is cooling too quickly!
So yeah, now you dip the balls in chocolate.



I used toothpicks to dip because the hole left was hardly noticeable. I used a spoon to spead the chocolate all over. I'm sure there's a better and easier method, but that worked ok for me.
My big problem was that I made so many, the peanut butter would start to soften and sweat. You can't dip sweaty balls. (Bahahaha! Ok sorry, I couldn't help it.) Seriously though, I had to keep stopping and putting them back in the freezer because when I went to dip them, they'd fall apart.
When I was done dipping one tray I put it in the fridge so the chocolate would harden while I worked on the other one.

Finally, I took some white chocolate drops, melted them, colored one handful green and another handful red and just drizzled it over the top.



(I'm not a very good drizzler, if you couldn't tell. I tend to over-drizzle.)

So there you go. Crispmas truffles. Best enjoyed chilled with a glass of milk!
(Fat free milk since you'll be getting your month's worth of fat from the first bite of one of these puppies.)

Enjoy! And if you come up with a better way to make them, don't tell me. I'll just be mad that I wasted the four hours it took me to make them today.


(just kidding - I want to know so maybe it won't take as long next time!)

I'm home!

And it feels fantastic! It's always hard to leave my grandparents, but Joe was very sweet and we had a lot of fun on the drive to Texas.

The night before we left we went out to eat as a treat from my mom. The food was mediocre but you could write on the table!
(So we left the terrible waitress a little message)










And their margaritas were amazing!



And might I add, humongous!!
It was a nice little "last hoorah" in Vicksburg.
The next day we slept in, Momma made a delicious breakfast, and we visited until we just decided it was time to leave.
Like I said, it's always hard to say goodbye to Papaw and Grandma, so Joe cheered me up on the way out of town.

We made a quick stop at The Lion's Den once we crossed the bridge, just for funsies. ;)

The rest of the trip, we laughed, we ate Subway and we stopped where we wanted to stop, when we wanted to. We didn't get home until about two, but neither of us really cared.

I'm just so happy to be back with Joe.

He completes me.



And every once in a while he's a willing participant in my goofy antics.

I love you baby and I'm so glad to be back.

Christmas Carol Confusion

Call me blonde if you will, but there are a few holiday tunes that I just don't get...





Like Jingle Bells. "Bells on bob tail ring"
What the hell is a bob tail? Surely they don't mean a small wild cat is running around with bells on.


Can someone tell me what figgy pudding is? And more importantly why haven't I gotten to eat any of it??
I used to think they said "piggy pudding" and was totally grossed out, but I like figs...



Fum....fum.....fum.....need I say more?



Ok seriously? "O Christmas tree, thy leaves are so unchanging"?
Oooooh, they must have had a plastic tree like Joe and I do.
Because let me tell you something. The leaves on the trees WE used to get DEFINITELY changed. In about a day.
Sure, it's great to have the new, Christmasy pine smell while you're putting festive ornaments on branches still damp from snow with some yuletide favorite playing in the background.
The next day, you got a nekkid stick and a pile of brown needles.

Life never asked me what I wanted...

Sometimes things just don't work out the way you want them to, despite your best efforts. Despite hoping and praying. Despite begging, pleading, groveling, or working your butt off.

When Joe and I first started talking about playing grown-ups (AKA getting married, having babies, etc) I told him I wanted to have our first baby within a year of us getting married.
I said that after THIS apartment, we'd have a real house. Then it was the next and the next.
I told Joe that this house I'm sitting in right now was going to be IT. It was going to be our dream house.
But you know what, lovely readers? None of that worked out the way I thought it would, the way I wanted it to.
We just recently bought a Dodge from a friend of ours. Really, Joe bought it. He always had the more consistant and better paying job, so he made all the payments. So when he'd say it was HIS truck, I'd say, "That's ok. I'M going to buy my own vehicle and it's going to be a Nissan Xterra and it's going to be fairly new with four doors so whenever we have our baby, it'll have plenty of room." I was determined. Nothing was going to stand in my way.
I just got off the phone with Joe. He says there's a guy he works with that's selling his '89 Camaro for $1,000. All it needs is a new clutch.
And do you know what I said? I said that sounds awesome. I said it would be great. A two door, no back seat, possibly going to die in a few years, stick shift for gosh sakes, That Joe would have to pay for since I'm currently jobless and broke, great??
Why the hell would I say that?
For the same reason I'm moving to Texas in one short week to go live with Joe's dad, which if you remember, I said I would never do, just a few weeks ago.
Now, we might not even buy this car and we could find a place to live within a week and this whole talk might just all be moot. But let me tell
you something folks, if I've learned nothing else, I've learned to be willing to put what I want or what I thought I had to have aside and take what life's going to give me.

Because really, life probably knows better than I do.

That's why, despite Jillian's momma's best efforts to keep her daughter cooking, she came into this world at 24 weeks. That's why, despite possibly thousands of people's prayers for this little girl, despite the prayers of the two people who loved her most, she still left us.
I don't know what's right about a mother burying her daughter. I don't think I know of anything more wrong than that.
But I do know there has to be something.

Life doesn't ask you what you want, it just gives you what you're meant to have.

Little Miss Jillian, I think, was meant to reach to many people all over the world. I think she was meant to teach us all a lesson. She did her job, momma. I pray that you can someday find peace in that.

The word "fart" just doesn't cover it

I think the darkest and deepest pit of hell where all things evil and putrid reside is in my dog's butt. I'm scared to turn on the heater for fear of an explosion. If someone reads this, send help. And many gas masks.




"who me?"

Good Grief

I just realized I'm wearing my pants backwards.
Oh what the people at KFC must have thour of me.

Like mother, like daughter.

My mother and I have had a lion's share of problems. There's no denying that.
But for all the bad things, she's still undoubtedly my mother (no matter how that makes me feel) and we've definitely had times that I rank up with my top memories.
Some of my favorites were of afternoons when she'd pick me up from school and when we got home, we'd open all the windows and blast "boot scootin' boogie" while cleaning the house top to bottom.
Or that time we wrecked the entire apartment, running from each other in a water gun battle to the death.
Or like today, when we perused the local Fred's.



What can I say? We know how to have a good time.
In a dollar store.

Mommy's Love Bug

I love me some Dallas.
(please don't make fun of my make-upless fat face or my unwashed hair)

Oops!

I forgot to add that you can enter to win the Dyson (although you shouldn't, so I have more of a chance to win) at babyrabies.com

Dear Jill...

I've been a good girl all year and I regularly read your awesome blog, Baby Rabies. I would really like a Dyson for Christmas, would you like to see why?




Because my dogs think it's fun to do this.

Yours Truly,

Mrs. S

Priceless

Papaw bitches at Grandma for not going the right direction on grocery store motor wheelchair.

Grandma runs over Papaw's foot.


Doesn't she look proud of herself?

Ok I'll say it...

I'm already smitten with BlogPressLite. I don't have to pay for it AND I can post pictures! How great is that??
So be prepared...I may have some delicious new pictures waiting just around the corner!

Testing!

So I'm trying out some apps I got to see how they work for posting on the blog. The hope is that I'll find one I like and then I can hook yall up with some pictures!