Lazy Friday

I have a sore throat. I got it from Peabody. She is on the mend. Everyone else seems to be fine. Even Eric is only a little congested despite Peabody suddenly sneezing right into his open mouth the other day as he was talking to her. He certainly seems to have a strong immune system since he rarely gets sick. I can't remember the last time I caught a cold or even had a sore throat so I shouldn't complain. It's a good day to lounge around and watch "Leave It To Beaver" on Netflix. Or, you know, write out all the words that I don't want to actually say because speaking hurts.

At the peak of Peabody's congestion she was up for a couple of hours in the middle of the night. I turned on the tv so she could watch Netflix but on PBS there was an old tv special from the 50s or 60s: a production of "The Night Before Christmas," as well as a telling of the birth of Christ featuring marionettes. Peabody was fascinated and when she saw the manger in the stable, she sat straight up and said excitedly, "Honey, that is Jesus! That is God." Smarty pants!

Random confession: the other day I was looking at Fiestaware online and started thinking about all that I already have (a LOT.) As I mentally went through it I realized I hadn't seen my pedestal bowl in a while. Hmm. I looked on the hutch where it belongs. Not there. I looked inside the buffet. Not there. I looked in the kitchen cabinets. Not there. I tried to remember when I saw it last. I thought I used it to take food to some kind of get-together. But when? Church fellowship? Family party? I couldn't remember. I thought about it off and on all day. Maybe someone took it home to wash it and then accidentally put it away with their own things, or cleaned it but just hadn't gotten around to returning it ... not that anyone else is guilty of doing what I do. *ahem* How could it be missing for so long that I forgot when the last time was that I saw it? I finally decided that I would post on Facebook: "Has anyone seen this bowl?" with a picture. Except I didn't think I had a picture of it. I guessed I'd have to find one online. I would do it once I finished post-dinner kitchen clean-up. I loaded the dishwasher. I washed pots and pans. I wiped off counters and stove. I went to the table to wash it off too, folding up placements to shake out, moving the bowl to clean under it ... wait, what? The missing bowl! Right on the table ... in the living room ... full of fake gourds and pears and apples ... where's it's been for over a month ... oh yeah. Whew, good thing I didn't post about it on Facebook! Then everyone would know how dumb I am! I'll just blog about it instead. Ha.

Anyway, while I was looking online I found some pieces I haven't seen before. I love this oval baking dish:

www.kohls.com

and this covered casserole dish:

www.kohls.com

and this dutch oven:

www.kohls.com

and these demitasse cups! I saw them in a store. They are teeny tiny and adorable:

www.kohls.com

and this baking dish:

www.kohls.com

 and these!:

www.dinnerwareusa.com

I have LOTS and LOTS of Fiesta. I certainly don't need any more -- while we use it daily we don't use all of it (though I love the teacups for my coffee and recently started using the saucers that go with them) and I simply have no more room for it. It's fun to look at and dream of a big kitchen full of Fiestaware, though.

Another random confession: we have a pet gate across the kitchen doorway to keep Mama Dog out of the rest of the house. But even when we let her out the gate stays up ... because it keeps Peabody out of the kitchen.
 
For Thanksgiving I wanted to make some bread that my mom and her mom traditionally make for holidays (we call it monkey bread, though it's not the cinnamon and sugary pull-apart kind.) The day before Thanksgiving I realized that I didn't have any flour so Eric braved the grocery store for me ... but he bought self-rising flour. I didn't end up making the rolls after all and wondered what in the world to make with self-rising flour. I'd never used it before. Of course Google had the answer:
2 cups self-rising flour
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 cup milk
Preheat oven to 425. Mix all ingredients together. (I like to let it sit for about five minutes to fluff up a bit.) Drop by spoonful onto baking sheet. Bake for 12-15 minutes. Makes 9 large biscuits.
I saw the same recipe with slight variations in several places. Some called them biscuits, some rolls, some muffins which were actually baked in a muffin tin. To me they are most like biscuits. I made them again yesterday and added shredded cheese!

Sort of unrelated, I tried a recipe for no-rise pizza dough, too. The first time I made it with regular flour and while it was pretty good it seemed a little bland. The second time I tried it all I had to use was self-rising flour and, remembering that the first batch was bland, added some salt. I didn't realize that self-rising flour already has salt in it -- that was some salty pizza crust! Reminded me of when I was a girl and I made pancakes from scratch. I misread the recipe and put in four teaspoons of salt instead of 1/4 teaspoon. Bless his heart, Pops ate a few bites then nicely asked me if it would hurt my feelings if he didn't finish his pancake. Ha!

When I'm going to cook or wash dishes, I will watch something on Netflix on my Nook. Often the volume isn't loud enough to be heard over running water so I'll turn on the closed captioning. I was watching a British show about German-occupied France during World War 2 -- I guess the British accent with French and German words thrown in was too much for the captioning and there were several incorrect words. My favorite was when kubelwagen kept being captioned as "cool blue wagon." Those Nazis and their cool blue wagons.

Christmastime is here. We've started listening to Christmas music and watching Christmas movies. Peabody asks to watch Charlie Brown almost every day, and I'm already sick of listening to Barney Christmas episodes. I have a Disney singalong video from when I was a kid that I turned on for Peabody the other day. Every time a song ended she would call me: "Honey! It's over!" I'd assure her there was more, so she'd watch the next song and call me again: "Honey! It's over!" We watched Elf the other night. My favorite part is when Buddy is trying to get onto the escalator. As the scene approaches I start laughing in anticipation and by the time it's over I'm laughing so hard I'm crying and my stomach hurts. I've probably seen the movie ten times but it's just as funny to me every.single.time. I'm sure we'll watch it again over the next month. We are slowly acquiring a nice little collection of really classic holiday movies like Christmas in Connecticut and Holiday Inn and The Shop Around the Corner. We'll go through them all but some we usually watch more than once, like White Christmas and The Man Who Came to Dinner.

If I'm feeling better I might have Eric bring down the bins of Christmas stuff this weekend so we can decorate! For once I'm looking forward to it.

Last confession: it's after lunch and I'm still in my pajamas. If I wait a little longer I can shower and just put on clean pjs, right? Right.