Easy Bake Oven for boys too

A while back Will and his older brother Christian said, "Girls get everything!"
I know first-hand that is not true, but I sympathized with them when they explained they meant cool stuff .... like the Easy Bake Oven.
A trip through the toy section with the boys recently revealed the oven comes in a sea-foam green color. I had thought it was pink. Has it ever been pink?
I showed Will the oven and he perked up but then scoffed saying it wasn't blue enough, and there was a girl on the box.
Nonsense.
Boys can bake too.
So I told my mom and she bought him the oven for his birthday, which was earlier this month. Will is 9.
The "appliance" is still operated with one standard 100-watt light bulb - a bulb that CANNOT be long life, soft white or high efficiency - that really narrows it down!
I bought a pack of daylight bulbs.
Yesterday we baked two pans of brownies.
Will allowed his brothers to participate. The boys stirred the 1 1/2 teaspoons of water into the mix and "poured" it into the pan, which had been sprayed with non-stick spray.
The directions said to bake the brownies for 8 minutes. Maybe that daylight light bulb isn't as strong as a good old-fashioned regular 100 watt bulb. But since they apparently don't make those anymore the brownies went back in the oven for a few more minutes.
Now boys are not as attentive as girls and while the brownies baked they continued their horseplay in the living room building a fort using blankets draped across the sofa and loveseat.
When I announced the treats were done, not really to my liking - they were still gooey - they fussed and I caved and they wolfed down the first pan.
I doubled the cook time on the second pan and that seemed to help. The boys shared that pan with their dad at dinner. Mind you the round pans have a diameter of 3 1/2 inches and they cut the brownie into fourths so everyone got a bite.
I cleaned up and put the oven away thinking "Will really didn't enjoy that."
Today I read his Christmas list - which he revised after we baked the brownies - and he wants an Easy Bake Frosting Pen!

Rap sheet

It's unusual for me to post two blogs in one day but I just have to share this with you.
The boys stayed overnight at David's parents' house last night (see previous blog). Lee, in addition to a portfolio of several new drawings, came home with a rap sheet on his brothers today (see image).

Translated:

mom and dad
christian hit me in the nose
with a baseball
will gave me a sidewalk burn
christian dragged my face in the
grass
From Lee

God Bless Us, Everyone!

We celebrated our wedding anniversary this weekend, and for the 11th time it was during the famous Ohio State vs. Michigan football weekend!
We were married on a Friday late afternoon (so as to not interfere with the huge game on Saturday) in Mt. Ephraim, Noble County, at the United Methodist Church there, just around the bend from my late mother (Sandra Ellen Watson McDonald) homestead and across the road from the cemetery where she's buried.
More than a decade and three kids later, David and I are still learning how to raise a family. It's hard. We know we are blessed and we are glad our God is a forgiving God.
We had a nice dinner out on Saturday without the boys. They stayed overnight at grandma and grandpa's.
This morning I went Christmas shopping - online!
This afternoon we collected the children and went to the movie theatre in Zanesville (closest stadium seating theatre around) to see Disney's A Christmas Carol with Jim Carrey (his first role in a Disney film).
Carrey stars in a multitude of roles including Ebenezer Scrooge as a young, middle-aged and old man and three of the ghosts who haunt Scrooge.
We saw the 3-D version and it was awesome!
David said he wanted to reach out and catch the snowflakes.
The boys looked so cute in their 3-D glasses. Lee is pictured here in his pair. He is going to draw a picture of Scrooge which I will post after he's finished.
What a nice kickoff to the holiday season.
God Bless Us, Everyone!

Courthouse holiday light show

The Guernsey County Courthouse holiday light show started running Thursday night and we've seen it twice already. We went back tonight to get some video to share and capture Lee conducting the "orchestra" and in this case "the choir" which he did last night too. An added element of excitement tonight was the cop car that zoomed up the Parkway. My kids love the light show. So do I. It's a great tourism tool for our tiny town. It brings bus loads of visitors to Cambridge in November and December. Oh, and did I mention the light show is secondary to the Dickens Victorian Village. But I'm not so much a fan of these heavily-clothed mannequins as I am the light show extravaganza. Unfortunately our camera (Nikon CoolPixL3) doesn't take very good video (video removed due to poor quality). Lee is conducting all the while but you can hardly see him there on the left. For more on Dickens and the light show, visit downtowncambridge.com

E-mail address

I've created a new e-mail address to allow readers to send correspondence. You can check out my profile and send an e-mail from that page under CONTACT, or add me to your address book: justasooprday@outlook.com.

Scents

The 10 year old said it smelled like Christmas the other day.
It was cold outside and the furnace, which had kicked on a few days earlier, was running around the clock.
I remarked at Christian’s association of the cool outdoors and warm house and apparently some other comforting smells.
Likewise, his 8-year-old-brother a couple of months ago told me, “You smell like Aunt Peggy.”
I was taken back and shocked at his Will's senses.
My aunt, Peggy Ruppel, died unexpectedly at age 55 this past April and I brought home some of her favorite perfume “Opium” that I had not worn until the day Will said I smelled like her.
At that moment we all remembered Peggy and it was sad but comforting that something so simple like a smell could incite a fond memory.
Maybe I get emotional when it comes to the senses.
So many smells trigger certain places and certain times.
My grandmother Ruth McDonald wore - more often than not - a perfume by Evyan launched in 1945 called “White Shoulders.” Grandma’s been gone for 20 years now but I still smell her occasionally like when that woman pushed her cart by mine at Riesbeck’s the other day.
My grandmother Janice Watson’s signature scent is “Youth Dew” by Estee Lauder. She smells wonderful, and always will.
What I really wish is that I could bottle the way Grandma Watson’s 1800s farmhouse smells – like radiant gas heat mixed with clean laundry, hot tea and orange slices.
Bedrooms and bathrooms each have their own radiant floor heaters. There are fireplaces aglow in the office, parlor and living room. In the kitchen at least one burner is continually lit on the gas stovetop. And so in the wintertime the house envelopes me with its warm historic smell that will always be remembered as grandma’s house.
I loved the way the house I grew up in smelled too, which is a compliment to my mother, Judy McDonald given she had four children and a husband and all of their smells to deal with. Mom and a lot of her friends used Claire Burke Original room freshener. It contains roses, lavender and spice mixed with patchouli and vetiver. For a while Kroger marketed a spray air freshener that rivaled Burke’s trademark scent and I remember grocery shopping with mom and stocking up on canisters.
I have an affection for patchouli and enjoy wearing perfumes containing this mint that originated in East India and yields a fragrant oil. I’m always checking out Bath & Body Works latest scents to see if they contain patchouli.
I started wearing a new fragrance this week called Angel by Thierry Mugler, which contains patchouli.
I love the smell of Gerber’s Grins and Giggles Oatmeal Baby Wash, which we’ve been using for 10 years, since Christian was born.
This scent is no longer manufactured but I bought nearly a case of it at Odd Lots this past summer because I just can’t let it go.

We have maybe 12 bottles left.
Smells are like music they take you back to different times in your life and for a little while you remember ....

Best reads ever

I’ve just finished a wonderful book I want to share called “the Package” by Glenn Crabtree.
I won’t give the story away but this 2008 novel is about being lost and finding real joy, which is only possible through our Heavenly Father.
It is near the top of my Top 11 list.
Few books incite emotion in me so great that I cry real tears.
This is one of them.
This book blows “The Shack” out of the water.
Find a copy, read it and and share!

My Top 11 reads of all time:

1. Desperate Passage: The Donner Party’s Perilous Journey West by Ethan Rarick
2. The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher
3. Can’t Wait to Get to Heaven by Fannie Flagg
4. The Package by Glenn Crabtree
5. Night by Elie Wiesel
6. The Minds of Billy Milligan by Daniel Keyes
7. Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews
8. Under the Lake by Stuart Woods
9. Perfect Victim by Christine McGuire & Carla Norton
10. Light on Snow by Anita Shreve
11. The Shades by Betty Brock


The Shades, published in the early 1970s, was possibly the first chapter book I read of my own free will.
I think I bought it at a book fair at Caldwell Elementary School on the hill on North Street.
It might have been third grade.
I still have this tattered paperback now wrapped in Saran Wrap and tucked away.
Since having children I’ve purchased three copies of the book, long out of print, online so each of my three sons can have their own copy.
I shared my excitement about The Shades with the oldest boy a couple of years ago.
He hasn’t touched it.
That’s OK. He’s finding his own way through books.
And he’s loving it.
Christian just turned 10 and has read several of the Harry Potter and Chronicles of Narnia novels already and is on a Goosebumps kick right now.
I am a proud momma that so far at least one of the children has taken after me and his father and enjoys reading for pleasure.
Anyone who has any good adult reads up their sleeve, please send me a note.