It's been quiet* Chez Quinlan, save for the sounds of teeny, tiny sneezes and equally teeny, tiny coughs. But we've survived it. That's right, we've survived our first cold. And we did surprisingly well. Gracie still managed to get some sleep, which is amazing, because when her mother has a cold, she needs no less than three pillows propping up her stuffy head, two NyQuil, a big ol' cup of Neo Citron, and half a tub of Vicks in order to slumber while sick. Gracie? She had none of these luxuries, although I set the box of NyQuil on her dresser to see if it would have a placebo effect.
Aww, baby's first cold! Another milestone to add to the baby book!
Having escaped the first cold with very little to complain about, Gracie so kindly decided I needed more fodder for my blog and obliged yesterday by napping for no more than 15 minutes at a time. Until her late afternoon feeding that is, when she decided to conk out in my arms for a solid two hours, knowing I wouldn't have the guts to put her down. Thank goodness I have many, many episodes of Ellen on the PVR. Fearing a similar scenario today (which CANNOT happen because today is new moms' group day - the one day I get to see other people, and I NEED Gracie to be semi-pleasant while we discuss Victoria Beckham's new collection) I laid Gracie down for her morning nap and was rewarded with a chorus of screams. And grunts. Gracie never screams when I lay her down, so I figured the suspiciously clean diapers of the past day and a half had something to do with the screams and the grunts, and swooped in with the Ovol. Having calmed her enough to coax some of the elixir down her gullet, I approached her with the eye dropper, and dropped some Ovol in her eye. Oh, that's not what an eye dropper is meant for? Whoops, silly me! Don't worry. Gracie reinforced that lesson with piercing screams the likes of which I look forward to hearing again next week when I take her for her immunizations. After exhausting herself with all of that screaming however, she's been sawing logs for a solid hour and a half so far. New moms' here we come!
Shelby *That's a total lie. It has not been quiet. Gracie has found her volume button, and her cute coos and babbling sounds have turned into shrieks. Not unhappy shrieks, just shrieks-for-the-sake-of-shrieking shrieks. Is this just a phase?!
I really made Blogger mad with my not so kind comments yesterday. Now it won't show me my Reader of all the other blogs I religiously follow, nor will it allow me to obsessively pore over my stats page. I can't believe it's still letting me write a post. I'm off to buy it some flowers to try and make amends . . .
While we routinely wake up to weather like this (just last Saturday was the latest storm), I know that spring will come eventually. It may be time for summer when it arrives, but still, I know it will come at some point. You only have to look to this past September when summer arrived for about a week to know that I'm right. So while the weather here may not follow conventional time lines, you can create a spring like feeling by baking up a batch of these award winning bites of sunshine that I found on Pinterest. They turned out crinkly just like the picture showed, and are perfectly tart and chewy-crisp. I LOVED them. No surprise they took the top prize at LDS Living Magazine's website, a site I have to admit I would never have been exposed to if not for Pinterest.
½ cup butter, softened 1 cup granulated sugar ½ teaspoon vanilla extract 1 whole egg 1 teaspoon lemon zest 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice ¼ teaspoon salt ¼ teaspoon baking powder ⅛ teaspoon baking soda 1½ cups all-purpose flour ½ cup powdered sugar
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly spray cookie sheets with non stick spray and set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Whip in vanilla, egg, lemon zest, and juice. Scrape sides and mix again.
3. Stir in all dry ingredients slowly until just combined, excluding the powdered sugar. Scrape sides of bowl and mix again briefly.
4. Pour powdered sugar onto a large plate. Roll a heaping teaspoon of dough into a ball and roll in powdered sugar. Place on baking sheet and repeat with remaining dough.
5. Bake for 9-11 minutes or until bottoms begin to barely brown and cookies look matte (not melty or shiny). Remove from oven and cool cookies about 3 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.
Jimmy turned his cookies into what he calls a "chip-wich", even though there are no chips in these cookies. I would have made mine a chip-wich too, if he could've found Pinochio's Royal Vanilla ice cream for me to sandwich in between. Alas he could not, and came home instead with cocnut ice cream. Blech. He said it was good, so if you go for coconut, you might like to try it. I'll wait until I can get my vanilla. Meanwhile, Ellen has issued a pregnancy dance dare to all expectant mothers who should really be dancing for two. She wants them sent in for mothers' day. Should I do it? I don't know if I can compete with this guy.
Well, even though I sent this picture into Ellen, she hasn't shown it yet. And now I know why. The picture I sent can't compete with this one.
Jimmy has been surprisingly quiet lately. I think he's lying low after my awesome April Fool's trick. I don't possess the sharp wit nor love for teasing others that Jimmy does, so when I get him, it is a momentous occasion. I can't believe I haven't gloated about it publicly via internet yet. Perhaps tomorrow. And sadly, there has been no long lasting solution found for his hair dilemma. The people haven't spoken loudly enough. Which makes me wonder if the people are really as interested in his hair, clothing, and witty quips as he thinks they are. A quick visit to my blog stats page confirms that the post about my hair racked up 96 page views, while the post about his bad hair had a paltry 36 views. Hmmm. I guess the people have spoken. To be fair, another perusal of my blog's stats revealed that people have found my blog through Google searches such as "different ways to wear my hair for school" and "short pixie cut" which could explain the extra page views my hair has garnered. Although, there have been a couple of searches for "3 2 1 buzzcut" and inexplicably "buzzcut stripes" that have led a reader or two to Jimmy's hair post. Anyways, I should really stop procrastinating and start dinner. I hope leftover and re-heated apple tarts from Nana's Easter dinner are okay with Jimmy. That's all I have the energy for. Until next time,
Shelby
Why did this topic come up, you ask? I've been thinking about having some family pictures taken after bébé arrives, something casual, maybe the three of us walking around downtown, and I thought an old fashioned pram would be the perfect prop for such a shoot. But where to get one? It's a good thing research is my favourite pass time. I'll let you know what I find. Leaping on to a completely different train of thought, you might have guessed that I like watching The Ellen Show. I also follow Ellen on Twitter. For Classic Joke Monday, Ellen will re-tweet your joke if she thinks it's funny enough. Last week I tweeted this one to her: What did the buffalo say when his son left for college? Bi-son. It didn't get a re-tweet. Next Monday I'm gonna try this one: What did the French chicken say when it stubbed its toe? Oeuf. Here in Canada, this one should get laughs because we are bilingual, but I'm worried an American audience might not get it. It's still pretty funny though. Just in case my jokes don't cause Ellen to recognize my sense of humour, I'm hoping this picture might.
I sent it in for her "What's Wrong with These Photos?" segment. I wonder what kind of joke she would make about it if she chooses to show it? I don't know how she couldn't choose it. It's pretty funny. Follow me now to another unrelated topic: Jimmy's new fashion feature here on Chez Quinlan. Generally speaking, I'm not very sharp in the morning, so as he was walking out to the garage this morning, I said, "Have a good day. You look really nice," remembering only as the words left my mouth that I should have had my camera at the ready! Thankfully, I didn't miss much yesterday as Mondays tend to be a laid back day for him as he's usually tired after traveling on the weekend. If I could I would capture his outfit from today upon his return home this evening, but by that time he'll have changed into his workout clothes, which are not in the least bit fashionable. So maybe tomorrow I'll remember to get the job done in the am. And the last unrelated thought for the day: remember the fashion shoot I promised last week? Well it happened, and it was the longest yet. I'm still editing the photos. Unfortunately, my art director doesn't have the steadiest hand, and she was working with new equipment (namely my iPhone) which isn't very forgiving. Here's a sneak peek. More to come later this week, certainment!
