My mom took me out shopping for my birthday. I had a choice to be responsible and let her get me clothes for subbing or going shopping and spend the money on things I normally wouldn't have the opportunity to buy. I did think about it for a couple days and I chose to have fun and shop. I still have the clothes I student taught in and I am sure they will be just as good for subbing.
We spent the early afternoon shopping and talking and it was really nice. I really enjoy shopping without my family sometimes. Okay most of the time with my husband. He is not fun to shop with. His goal is to spend no money and get out of the store as fast as possible. This is usually opposite of my goal. Not that I go out of my way to spend money, but I accept that money is designed to be spent. While I do try to keep cost down, I accept that in order to function money will have to spent and things will have to bought.
I even left the stores with money left over, that's right! I bought some decorations for Thanksgiving. I hosted Thanksgiving Dinner last year and did such a wonderful job that I get to host it again this year. I told my mom, with a smile on my face, if I had know that last year I wouldn't have tried so hard.
Then I came home and checked Facebook. I thought I might have found a friend from long ago and I did. He had messaged me back and we started catching up on Facebook. That lasted for a few minutes then I gave him my phone number and he called. When I heard his voice it brought back so many memories from when I lived in Kentucky. We were neighbors and became fast friends. So many nights we stayed up late and talked and dreamed. It is funny how some memories can be so clear after almost twenty years that it almost seems like they happened just last week.
Talking with him was just as easy as it was. Ever since I moved away I had wondered about him. We met before internet was an everyday tool. I am not a good letter writer, actually I have no trouble writing the letters, it is getting them to the post office and mailing them that I have trouble with. I don't remember if we tried to stay in touch with phone calls or not. We lost track of each other but we never forgot each other. Over the years we both thought of each other often.
When we finally said goodbye to each other my children had discovered the cookie mix that I had bought earlier in the day. We decided to make the cookies before bed and got out the ingredients. B set everything up on the counter top and P got the butter and eggs out of the refrigerator. I put the butter in the bowl and P handed me the egg. It felt oddly cold and a bit off. I pondered out loud that it would be funny if the egg was frozen. Surprise!
I demonstrated how I could hit the egg hard on the countertop and the shell cracked but no liquid came out. (Can you see where this is going? I couldn't.) I turned around and walked to the garbage to toss out the offending egg. My son said he wanted to try and before I could say "NO!" he smashed the egg on the countertop. The egg he used was not frozen. The egg was crushed and shell mixed with egg white and yolk went all over the kitchen. Of course P and B thought it was hysterical.
Clean up was another ordeal. We haven't even started making the cookies yet. I thought using a box mix would be less work, oh well. Of course the phone range, it was Daddy. At least I could have him bring home more eggs. While cleaning up the children discovered another egg that wasn't frozen. Silly me I thought that there would be less mess as they cleaned not more. Somehow cleaning up two eggs used up most of a roll of paper towels. I would have preferred them to use less paper towels, but I have to admit that together they did clean up all evidence of the great egg explosion and we waited patiently for Daddy to bring us more eggs.
Daddy brought us more eggs and we had no more explosions. We all took turns mixing the dough. P and B didn't think adding just butter and 1 egg to the mix would make a batter, they kept trying to add water. After a few turns they noticed that it was more dough like and then finally I mushed it all together with my hands and my daughter was sure it was magic. Of course it was after all her Mommy is a Kitchen Witch.
The mix came with pumpkin shaped cookie cutters, luckily two, and they took turns with each of them. Together they made 16 cookies, okay 17 I had to eat the odd one. We put them in the oven and they waited somewhat patiently for them to be done. It took some convincing to get them to let the cookies cool down when I took them out of the oven.
Once they were cool I put some orange icing (it also came with the mix, all for $1.99) in the center of each cookie and gave each one a knife. They frosted eight cookies each and decorated them with some green and black icing. They were all ready to eat them when I managed to get a few quick photos. I think they are finally ready to help Mommy with Christmas cookies this year.
The day ended with no arguments between my soon to be ex and myself. He was surprisingly happy all day. I'm not used to a day with so much good happening, but I will take it. My friend and I are back in touch, the kids ate cookies and I got flowers. Happiness is a day full of fun and friends even if some egg explodes all over the place.
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