Experiment #13: Homemade powdered sugar

Routine and organization do NOT come naturally to me (stop laughing, Dad).

Somehow (magic?) my professional life is really scarily organized and planned and detailed. But most of the rest of the time, my modus operandi is:

Why plan? Just improvise! It will probably be good enough. It may even be better than if you had planned.

I like to tell Nick that this is called being spontaneous, but we both know the truth. It's just too much work for me to get my brain in the right mindset to plan ahead (translation: I'm lazy).

Some (ok, most) times, my attempts are colossal failures. But then I hit the jackpot and my "spontaneity" is validated. A shining example happened whilst making the candy I described in my last post.

The facts:
It was 4:57pm and I was halfway through a recipe for candy hearts that needed to be made for Nora's Valentine's Day party the following morning. No dinner cooking (was dinner even planned? nope.). Three hungry kids who were sneaking tastes of aforementioned candy in process. I walked over and opened the container holding our powdered sugar, only to realize that instead of the 2lbs of powdered sugar required, there was a scant 3/4 lb staring sassily up at me. What to do?

Option 1: Panic, abandon the project, leaving child in distressed puddle of tears on the floor & me with the inevitable task of creating valentines at 11pm.

Option 2: Call a friend and hope they are home and have 1.25 pounds of powdered sugar just sitting around. If they do, bundle up three hungry, sticky kids and shlep them over to gather the powdered sugar.

Option 3: Google "homemade powdered sugar" and hope.

I took my chances on Option 3.

Experiment #12: Homemade Conversation Hearts

Our "conversation" Japanese flower blossoms

Well, hello again. I thought with the pending holiday that it would be a good time to start my virtual conversation up again with my aptly chosen DIY project. Clever me.

So with that, Happy almost-Valentine’s Day! I almost made this post in enough time to be useful on the holiday. As I don't yet have Christmas cards out from 2011, I consider this an vast improvement. 

And Happy Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years, for that matter. Since that’s how long it’s been since I last posted. Good grief.

No excuses. I’ve just been attempting to rediscover some form of balance in my life again. And put a lot of miles on the car. A lot. We managed to travel close to 8000 miles through 9 states on several amazing (but not relaxing) trips to visit friends and family. All five of us. Three carseats. In a Toyota Camry. Oh yeah. But that’s another story for another time.

Today, we’re talking about talking. And candy.

Over the past year I have fallen back in love with Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. Much like The Cosby Show, Little Women has a whole new level of awesomeness when you revisit it as a parent. Hilarious anecdotes disguised as fiction along with brilliant nuggets of timeless wisdom that previously flitted way, way over my head. And FYI, I’m fairly positive that Cliff Huxtable’s character was based almost entirely on my dad. It’s kind of eerie, actually. But I digress.