Cooking is not for sissies.

The holidays have come and gone for the year of 2009. And yet, it has taken me this long to write about my cookie catastrophe. I think it has to do with the fact that I wanted to forget all about cookies and baking for a while. So, as an ode to Christmas 2009, I give you my two cents on why I do not enjoy cooking:

Christmas is here and 'tis the season for traditions. and family. and lots and lots of food. I love all of these things and so does the husband. And it's a good thing because between the two of us we have a lot of family, traditions and tons of opportunities to stuff ourselves beyond stretchy pant status.

Since this is our first married Christmas together, the husband and I thought it would be nice to start a few traditions and maybe reignite the fire on some old and forgotten traditions. The husband insisted that we make Christmas cookies and even recruited his sister and mother to join in on "the fun".

I feel I must tell you that I am not one to volunteer to be in the kitchen. Unless it involves cutting myself a nice slice of some chocolately dessert, I don't offer my services in the cooking department. The husband however, refuses to accept that I am not a domesticated cooking, cleaning, nurturing queen of her castle type. He is constantly coming home with new recipes that he wants to try out and perfecting the recipes we do have. And although I do not share his passion for cooking and just being in the kitchen in general, I try to enjoy the time I get to spend cooking with the husband.

So, needless to say, when I heard this idea of his that the husband undoubtedly deems as brilliant - I was skeptical. But, being the loving wife that I am, or at least try to be, I thought "how hard can it be?"

I imagined this scene: The husband and I are in the kitchen side by side mixing butter, flour, sugar. Cookie dough is made and we then move on to rolling the dough into perfectly uniform balls of sugary goodness. The dough is rolled and is put onto cookie sheets to be baked. And we’re done. Simple. Team Work. Hugs and Kisses.

Ha.

Little did I know the reality of the amount of work it actually takes to make Christmas cookies. The scenario I imagined is not at all how it actually played out.

First, we couldn’t just start making cookies, because we didn’t know how many cookies we needed to make. We had to make a list of our friends and family members that we wanted to give cookies to. Not only did we have to make a list of people, we had to decide how many of each kind of cookie each person would get. We also had to gather this information from the husband’s sister and mother who would also be handing out cookies.

Once we decided how many cookies we actually needed to make, we had to go get all the ingredients we need. Because Lord knows we don’t have pounds and pounds of sugar, flour, butter and all the other ingredients it actually takes to make cookies.

Ok, at this point I get a little worried. This is already a lot more work than I pictured. But I troop on, go with the flow and retain high hopes that the rest is the easy part.

Ha.

Making the cookie dough was actually fairly simple. We had all the ingredients, then mixed and put into gallon sized bags to store until it was time to actually bake the cookies.

Now comes the fun part. Making the cookies. It was during this stage of the process where I realized the husband likes to take on a certain role in the kitchen. He likes to state how things should be done and then sit back while I do them. Right. This was cause for much tension and bickering. This became particularly challenging when it came time to bake. Apparently one must bake all cookies at exactly 10 minutes. Why 10 minutes? Because the husband has it set in his mind that if the cookies bake even a second longer than 10 minutes they are inevitably ruined.

Baking all the cookies took about 4 hours in the kitchen. Two days in a row. And not only did we make cookies, but we made peppermint bark as well. This was the hardest one, because the white chocolate had to be heated up and poured over the milk chocolate very quickly and I always got in the way or didn’t do it fast enough.

This is how the peppermint is supposed to look. Ours were not so lucky. The milk chocolate and white chocolate ended up mixing and the result was marble peppermint bark.

At this point I was singing happy songs in my head. Yay we’re done!

Ha.

We then had to wrap all the cookies with cling wrap decorated with Christmasy pictures. And then we had to go over to the husband’s moms where we were going to combine all our cookies and package them to be handed out that weekend.

When we got to the husband’s moms house chaos hit. First of all, she wasn’t even home. Secondly, she only had about 2 dozen cookies baked. Thirdly, none of these were wrapped in cling wrap like we had agreed upon. What the hell. When she did get home the husband, sister, mom-in-law and myself all went to work baking and wrapping. This is when I realized where the husband gets his kitchen etiquette. The husband’s mom like to tell everyone else what to do, leave and go next door to grandma’s, come back and tell us how we did this wrong or need to do this too, leave and go to grandma’s…

Needless to say, we got to the mom-in-laws house at 4 and did not leave until 8:45pm. The husband and I had not eaten and I am not a happy person when I my stomach is empty and angry at me for not feeding it.

Cooking is a lot of work. too much work.

I don’t know that I will agree to baking cookies again next year.

I don't know what this world has come to.

It's raining. Really hard. I don't know if you know but I hate the rain. This is why I choose to live in southern California. Sunshine and temperate climate of about 70 degrees 99% of the time.

It's actually raining so hard that there are tornado warnings. What the hell. Tornado warnings. And only in Orange County, how lovely. Not only do I live in California because there is hardly any rain, but also because we don't have things like tornadoes.

The actual tornado that is threatening my life at this very moment.


I feel like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz and at any moment my house will be swept off into a different dimension. And I don't like the thought of that. Mostly because I'm quite comfortable with my life how it is and throwing me into a different world where there are talking robots and lions and flying monkeys doesn't sound so great.

Possibly the worst thing about California and the rain is that people in California don't know how to deal with the rain. At the slightest sprinkling of water falling from the sky every news station announces a storm watch. Also, people in southern California don't know how to drive in the rain. They either drive like nothing has changed (which means at least 15 mph over the speed limit) or they drive about 5 mph. Does anybody else see a problem with this?

Rain is also very wet. And this presents a problem when I don't want to get wet. I like to stay dry unless a) I am in the shower or bath or b) if I am swimming in a swimming pool. Stepping outside after I've already had my shower, put on clean clothes and done my hair only to be soaked and left looking like a drowned rat does not please me.

Basically I want more sunshine and less rain so I can go outside without fear of horrible California drivers and my hair turning into limp, wavy wet hair.

It's Overrated

Babies.

Such a daunting word. An even more intense experience. Don’t get me wrong. I love kids. Always have. That’s why I work with them for a living. But to make that leap to actually committing to have some of your own is a big step.

It’s not like determining which Starbucks coffee to get or deciding what hair style and color I’m going to try out next.

Neither of which I don’t take lightly mind you. Every time I’m at Starbucks I have to think about what I want: hot or cold. Sugary or coffeey. Tall or Venti. Same with the hair salon. Brown or blonde. (red was nixed a while ago by the husband) Bangs or no. Trim or cut. (The irony of it all is I always end up getting the same thing. Venti skinny vanilla latte and brown with dark blonde highlights, trim as little as possible, long layers.) But I’m off topic.

Babies on the other hand is HUGE. Like I am going to get bored of my child within 24 hours because it’s one of those fad things, like beanie babies? Or can we even afford a kid? (Do I want to afford a kid?)

It sounds bad I know. Ever since the husband and I got engaged the first question was when is the wedding and the second was when is the baby due. People, give me a break!

So for a good year a half now, people have been bombarding me with baby questions. Especially since the husband and I are apparently at that age where baby making is at its best. It seems like everywhere we turn somebody is trying to get pregnant, is pregnant, or has had a baby recently. All our friends and family have been sucked into the conspiracy that now is the time to make a happy little family. gag me now.

So babies has been on the brain because everyone else is suffocating me with babies this and pregnancy that.

It was even more apparent when the husband and I were at the mall recently. Everywhere we turned there was a pregnant woman. The lady who helped us pick out a jacket for my mom? Pregnant. The woman trying to find me bronze shoes for a wedding? Pregnant. It got so bad that the husband actually told me to hold my breath while we passed pregnant ladies because we didn’t want me catching ‘the disease’. Like swine flu. Like somehow getting pregnant involves air borne pathogens. (Imagine how disgusting it would be for teeny tiny sperm to be floating through the air being sucked in through your nasal passage down into your lady parts.) Yes, this is how much babies freak me out.

It got even worst. For a week straight I had pregnancy dreams. I don’t remember the whole of the dreams, but in every single one I was pregnant and the husband either had no clue or was off dying somewhere because what in the hell were we thinking, having kids?!?! As it turns out, the husband’s sister is pregnant. When I found this out the dreams stopped. Thank god.

It’s gotten so bad that every month I swear I must be pregnant. I randomly forget to take one pill right at 7:00 and my whole world comes crashing down and I’m all scared of what might be forming inside of me. This past month I started eating like a cow. No matter how normal this behavior is right before I go on my period I was convinced that I was pregnant. The husband likes to toy with my head too. His actual text conversation with his sister went like this:

Sister: Ask your wife if she’s had any dreams about what I’m having (boy or girl)

Husband: She said no more dreams but she’s eating like a pig… what the hell does that mean?

Sister: That you don’t feed her enough… or she is pregnant!

Husband: Or it’s that happy, refreshing, soothing so you can rest time of the month where I can go worry free that no one threw water on her like a gremlin!

(FYI the husband is referring to the old 80's movie Gremlins. In the movie, if water is dumped on the gremlin he spawns into a million different gremlins. His worry is that I will spawn a million little gremlin-esk babies.)

Sister: haha, oh yea, that too.

No joke this is his actual conversation. (I looked up his texts in his phone.)

I would really love for the baby questions to cease and my life to go back to being all about me… and the husband I guess.


If I ever do this I give you permission to shoot me.

Wide Open Spaces

The husband and I recently moved into a new home. The neighborhood is brand new. Actually parts of it are still being built. Because the neighborhood is new tons of solicitors come door to door selling all sorts of things.

We have had numerous Brinks Security system people come to the door. Along with people selling window coverings, realtors trying to sell your house that you’ve only lived in for a matter of months, Jehovah Witness… anything you can think of I’ve seen them and had to talk to them within weeks of moving in.

And it’s always an inconvenience. The conversation is always a battle. Sure it starts out nice. Mr. Solicitor politely greets you as Ma’am and asks how your day is going. You automatically say good, thank you (while in your head thinking it was good until you came knocking on my door). Then it starts.

Well I work for *blabbity blah* (because who cares who they work for or what nifty thing they have to sell, I don’t want it) and do you have a security system? Because you never can be too careful these days and I am selling mine for 500 million dollars, which is a really good deal and if you sign up now I can give you free installation and then we will put this dandy sign in your patio saying you have security and then you will never ever have to worry about your property being vandalized or someone trying to break into your home because….

And I’m stuck. Because it’s rude to interrupt no matter how badly I want to. And I can’t get a word in edge wise and I know I’m starting to have a glazed over look creep across my face but it’s all I can do to keep from slamming the door in Mr. Solicitors face.

Ugh. This is why I don’t answer the door.

However, the husband likes to keep the front door open to get a breeze and because he “needs fresh air”. With a roll of my eyes I agree to prop the front door open. It just so happened that one day, our front door was wide open. I was grading papers on the floor in the living room and the husband was fiddling around doing something or other in the kitchen.

All of a sudden the husband ducks behind the island. I’m talking secret agent, pouncing to the ground, tumbling out of harms way just in the knick of time.



I start laughing because I think he’s a retard and I can’t imagine why he is ducking behind the island in the kitchen. Until I hear the “hello?” at the front door.

Yes, that’s right. The husband completely ducked in the kitchen and left me to deal with the solicitor now standing at our wide opened front door. How thoughtful of him.

I no longer agree to keep the front door open to get a breeze. Or fresh air.