Picture Day!

Today Joslyn had picture day at school. She said she wanted her hair straight and wanted to wear a dress. She did not have a dress that was clean (don't worry, I'm doing laundry while typing), so we went with a cute grey shirt from Forever 21....did you know that they had a little girls section? She wore it with sparkly grey tights and a lace purple skirt...I know you can only see her shirt in the picture, but she looked cute! I also straightened her hair :)

While walking up to the classroom, I asked her how she was planning on smiling...she smiled her fake pose smile, and I said "looks great!" She said "remember how you said that I have a fake smile when I'm taking a picture? Well, is it that smile?" Ugh! Breaks my heart! I made her feel insecure, less than perfect...me! Her mom, the one who is supposed to assure her that she is beautiful and enough! So I told her, "you look beautiful, no matter how you smile! When I said that before, it was because when I see you smile naturally through joy or excitement, it makes my heart swell. It's infectious and it makes people want to be around you, so they can feel that joy too! This smile is just as beautiful...it's just that you are thinking about smiling, so it is missing that joy! Try thinking of something funny or something that makes you happy and then smile. If it comes out forced, I will still love it and show it to everyone!" With that she gave me one of her glorious smiles and said "Mom, I love you!"

No T.V. Week!!!

This last Saturday my beloved husband came home with a wonderful idea....a fast from television. What a great thought....we have abstained from the tube for a day or two before, but have not committed to a whole week! So you can imagine my excitement at the mention of the opportunity to BLOG about something new, besides my failed cooking:)

He talked about a week, a few weeks...a MONTH! Whoa, hold on there...let's just start with a week! I started making a "mind" list, we can do some pinterest crafts, we can go for walks, we can swim, go to the beach, cook together, read...the list was getting so long!

On Sunday, I was home alone while the kids were hanging out with their Dad. I was continuing my Dawson's Creek marathon on Netflix, when my family walked in the door shouting "ooh, NO T.V., Mom!" What?!? Now mind you, I was not cheating, because I was unaware of our start date. So imagine your husband turning off the T.V., just about the moment when Joey was going to kiss Dawson for the first time!!! I was floored and totally agitated!

I really loved the idea of no T.V., but I HATE when someone tells me what to do! There is something in me that just boils and turns rebellious at the thought of being told what to do. So I did the obvious and reasonable thing....I ignored him for the night!

I Tried....

Today I tried to make salted caramels! Yum! I found this great recipe on America's Test Kitchen. The picture looked like just what I was looking for....I wanted to do a homemade gift for Joslyn's teacher to wrap up Teacher Appreciation Week.

It looks like it will be an epic fail!!!

Here are some pictures from my process:

This is the vanilla bean that I massacred to get the wonderfully rich scented vanilla "caviar"! Needless to say I did not get a picture of the process...the seeds were flying everywhere.

This is the creamy foam, just before I took it off the heat.

Here is the beginning of the boiling sugar, water, corn syrup mixture.

This the part where I was supposed to watch and not look away. The part that every recipe cautions you to not do anything else. Instead I was taking pictures....and trying to remember what "amber colored" actually would look like!

This color happened almost immediately and of course, as I was letting it sit to pour the cream mixture...this was smelling a bit like I had burned it!

I scraped out the mixture into my vintage casserole dish. My mantra at this point was "It's supposed to look like this....it's supposed to smell like this, Right?!?

Well after letting my ugly caramels (that smelled like smoke) cool for 2 hours...it was gooey to the touch and tasted just as bad as it smelled.







The moral of the story is; don't take pictures while cooking sugar, be sure to have a candy thermometer and not one that registers only to 225 degrees and failures lead to successes...Right?