Tuesday, January 1, 2019

The Busy Messy Day -- Cookies First!

Well....speaking of laughing at getting caught...I've had a busy messy day and I shouldn't have had a belly laugh at my friends expense.  My friend got caught several times in her nightgown by visiting family and unexpected neighbors and about the third time it happened I had a good laugh.

This day started with baking a batch of cookies BEFORE getting on the computer.  A rarity.  Computer usually comes on FIRST.

I got dressed but pinned my hair up without looking in the mirror.  Then it happened, twice.

The neighbor girl, newly moved in next door, whom I've only met a couple of times, knocked on the sliding glass door.  There is no hiding in this house.  If someone comes to the sliding glass door, they step up on the deck and look right into the house, across the family room, over the divider, and into the kitchen.

Well, I had 2 loads of laundry out, one sitting in the rocker, another on the love seat.  The table was covered with church program paraphernalia, and the kitchen was distressed with supper fixings and the remnants of cookie baking.  I sucked it up, smiled, waved her in (my hands were busy with the mixer), then cleared a spot for her at the table.  We had a fun lovely chat.  From the German shop where she worked she'd brought me a tea strainer and a bag of tealeaves eggnog flavored.  She's so young and so lively!  

She left.  I made oatmeal raisin cookies.  Yes, it was Darling Hubby's favorite.   They were delicious.  I should know, I ate a few.  When cooled they were dropped into baggies and sorted for 6 cookie tins.

I'd just about finished the third recipe of cookies, this time Snicker Doodles, when I decided I needed to fold those baskets of laundry.  It's a good excuse to sit down for a minute.  There they sat in folded neat piles, heavy duty electrical cord strung through the family room to the space heater,  (we ran out of wood for the woodstove) and a pile of oddball stuff on the steps to go up, and the same messes in the kitchen.  Ah, but, the house smells good with cinnamon on the cookies, and meat in the crockpot, when what to my wondering and totally astonished eyes should appear at the sliding glass door but our oldest neighbors.

Not only have they lived two doors down the longest in this area, but they are in their 80s!!!!  

There they were, the pair, a bit stooped, in their winter coats, standing on my deck, looking down watching the cat wind around their legs, and smilingly holding a tin can of their own.  They'd brought us a gift of homemade peanut brittle! 

So, shamefaced me, still with pinned up hair, dust on my belly, insisted they come in out of the rain while I moved the laundry stacks to the computer chair, and had them sit on the love seat and the rocker.  He didn't want to come in further due to his wet shoes.

Please!
 
This house in no shrine; it's seen so many trails of wet sloppy fall leaves, puddles of melting dirty snow, and grease globs from the barn, that wet shoes will never be noted!  

They stayed!  Yay!

We exchanged tins.  We exchanged news and fun tidbits.  And after making sure they weren't diabetic or didn't have peanut allergies, I also offered them right from the oven warm Snicker Doodles.  He nodded his head in pleasure and I could hear her murmuring,  "Ummmm."

I was hospitable.  I was the conversation hostess.  I was the baker letting them enjoy a guilty pleasure. 

I was being punished for laughing at my friend!  I was wishing I had turned on the computer to get those morning prods from a website to spruce up the house and this ol' bod before starting a project.  

Seriously, though, it was all fun.  I truly enjoyed my morning company.  Despite everything that went awry, it was delightful..

Shall I add the finale? Son Ian showed up and we made potato salad for his work's Christmas pitch-in the next day.   No, I don't have a recipe.  Spencer knows how to make my sloppy joes, and now Ian knows how to make my potato salad, all without a recipe.  We had to add relish, a squirt of mustard, and dollops of mayonnaise because at first taste he said, "dry" and looked at me with a quizzing, squinted one eye.

Several times did I get caught, yet what unexpected pleasures;  a full fun day but oh so messy.  

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