Oatmeal cookies & tulips

Hot damn, it's been a minute since I last did a blog post.  Things are finally slowing down - which can be a good thing or bad depending on how bored I get....I've finished with school (hurray!) getting my Masters completed in under a year and to top it off got it with honors.  The poor Midwest got slammed by one winter storm after another and with the kooky names the Weather Channel has been handing out it's been stranger than usual.  Khan, Nemo, Q...you know.  The regular ilk of winter storms.

Our poor cocker spaniel looks like a raving maniac by the end of winter.  I say this as he's rolling amuck on the office floor the red hair a mop of sneezes, grunts and general happy.  The cats remain unimpressed.

What I'm impressed about is the fact that I bought 25lbs of flour for $9 at the local market!  I know...not the craziest thing to get all worked up about but as someone that easily goes through 5lbs in two weeks it means a lot.  And I'm picky about my flours.  Tuesdays/Wednesdays usually means fresh bread and I'm getting the art of tortilla and roti making down to encourage dreams of pitas.  Mmm...pitas...

The accumulation of such flour encouraged a batch of oatmeal cookies, they've barely lasted the night.  For some reason they keep defying gravity and land into my hand...only to be nom'd upon.  They should know better.  And while I'm not an original fan of oatmeal - I prefer chocolate chip - this recipe is damn fine in my opinion.  The mix didn't seem to hold together at first, but the brown sugar and apple syrup (I'm even pickier about syrups) coalesced into a nice chewy cookie.  DB has mentioned that when these are gone they shall need replacing.  You know, to fill in the 'void' in the cookie tub.

I'm watching you...just like I have to watch the cornbread pan....

Anybody plant bulbs this last fall?  Or even have any in the ground for more than one season?  As for us: the tulips are sprouting!  All about the yard, I see the tips of tulips breaking ground - even in places where I thought I retrieved them for relocation (makes a mental note to mark those for later removal).  So I'm expecting a wash of red, white, purple, and black this spring along with the multi-hued crocus as their delicate flowers are already blooming.  Overwintering in the back porch, the strawberries swear it's early summer with the new foliage peaking through as the lemon plant has three little baby lemons.  Overall, I'm ready for spring and summer.

Daydreaming of Spring

After my last post we got a decent blanket of snow (by decent I mean barely an inch), which only lasted until that following morning.  A for effort I guess.  However, the temperatures did drop quite a bit making me finally pull out the puffy winter jacket.  Bundled up like that kid from A Christmas Story, my boyfriend and I ventured out into the world to check out the New Year sales.  First stop the local nursery.  The place is practically empty.  There's glitter from the Christmas decorations everywhere as if an ornament exploded.  The shelves only house the leftover stuff that 80% clearance cannot get rid of.  While tucked away into a dark corner are the rakes, shovels, fertilizers, everything that speaks of *gasp* SPRING!

But there is some hope...Near one of the registers they had boxes of grow your own mushroom kits as well as mini starter kits for slow growing herbs like parsley, dill and chives.  I eyeballed the mushroom kit.  My family loves mushrooms.  Whenever the 8oz packs are on sale for a $1 I grab an armful.  Otherwise, we don't have mushrooms.  I'm frugal like that and really don't like spending out of season prices for fruits and veggies. Yet, I didn't get the mushroom kit only because the things in the box are alive and I didn't want to risk killing the poor things since we had more errands to run.  9 degree weather can't be good for them...Maybe next weekend.

What I did order this week were....*drum roll please*...citrus plants.  You're probably thinking but you live in zone 5 you crazy lady, do you know how cold it gets?  Why yes I do, thank you.  But here's the genius: they're potted and they were only $9 a pop through Michigan Bulb.  So I ordered orange, lime and lemon as well as a few Sweet William and petunia plants just to bump my order up to $40 to qualify for the order $40 spend $20 deal.  Last year, I made the goal to get mini citrus trees and this year I'm following through.  I'm looking forward to this little experiment.  Our summers are toasty and humid so the trees can hang out in the backyard while soaking up the rays.  In the wintertime, we have plant lights taking over the dining room so they should be fine in the house.  Needless to say I'm excited.

That's all I have for the Wednesday's post, stay tuned for Sunday!