Chocolat

Those of you who know me personally know that I L O V E anything of the cacao origin. It is the nectar of the gods and came straight from heaven. I have decided to to pass along this information to you in hopes that you will find as much pleasure in desserts as I have.

And since my motto is, "The fatter the people are around me, the skinnier I appear", I have decided to share with you a secret which up until this point has not been revealed.

The secret is that I happen to know all of the greatest desserts in town and I am going to share them with you.

But first, this reminds me of a story...

When I was in high school, my dad and I went shopping at the mall. The man can out-shop any woman I know! We took a much-needed break and decided to get a treat at Mrs. Fields. I got the walnut chocolate chip brownie. I also inherited my love is sweet things from my dad also.

We sat down at the small bistro style table just next to the store to enjoy our little treats. I was about the insert the first bite of my delicious brownie into my open mouth when my dad said, "Honey, are you actually going to eat that brownie, or are you going to just smash it on the sides of your hips?" (Don't you worry; I get even)

I ate the brownie and decided to wear it proudly. As I have worn many other delicious desserts around town. Here they are rated accordingly:

10. Carmel Apple dessert at Biaggi's at the Gateway-and I don't typically like apple desserts

9. Chocolate Gelato at the Olive Garden -very light and nice

8. Carrot Cake at Market Street on the East side

7. Macaroni Grill chocolate cake (tastes very homemade)

6. Molten Chocolate Cake at Chili's

5. Tuxedo cheesecake (more like fudge cake) at Cheesecake Factory

4. The Great Wall of Chocolate at P.F. Changs

3. Godiva Chocolate Brownie sundae at Cheesecake Factory

2. Black Out Cake at Cheesecake Factory (what can I say? They get what desserts are about)

1....The huge Banana Split at Leatherbys with their homemade ice cream! Clearly half the size of my five year old child.

Maybe next week, we'll talk Mexican food.......

Tally Me Banana

We just got Tye a new bed. I decided to sell the bunk beds so I listed them in the local paper. A young mom came with two small kids to buy them. She brought her father to help carry them out and load them up.

We took off the top bunk and in unison, three voices gasped aloud! Behind the top bunk was something that looked like the biggest booger the world had ever seen!

As I zoomed in to get a closer look, I recognized by the texture that it was in fact, a banana. Some of the horror went away, but only a little bit.

A very old banana, sans peel that had begun to petrify after its slow descent down my wall. It was outlined by a slight oil stain pressed into the pretty powder blue paint to which it clung.

I was horrified but I tried to laugh it off.

As soon as the young mother left with the bunk beds, I called Tye and Erika up to the bedroom to show them the banana.

"Eywwww thick!" Erika said with a crinkled nose.

Tye just stood there with his mouth open, "I think I remember eating a banana one time in my bed. A long time ago...cause I haven't liked bananas for at least a couple of years."

Yep, Tye, that would be the one!

"Well, you should thee the bananath in my room!" Erika proclaimed.

"What?" I asked. "Why are there bananas in your room Erika?"

I followed Erika to her bedroom where in the corner of her room stood a giant Barbie castle that had been there for at least a couple years. It was too awkward to take down and store so we just left up and vacuumed around it.

She lifted up the corner of the castle ever so slowly to reveal just the edge of a black, shriveled peel of a banana. I took over and tried to pry the castle from the carpet but the banana had changed texture and turned into something that had resembled fruit leather. It was matted into the carpet and on the side where the castle was; shiny and smooth. It had totally morphed into something unlike a banana at all!

I fumed. Then, finally got a pair of scissors and began clipping the fruit-leather-like banana away from the carpet, one twisted carpet piece at at time.

"Is there anything else I should know about as long as I am up here cleaning this?"

To which Tye replied, "You'll be fine as long as you don't look under Erika's bed!" (The findings under the bed could be another blog...)

I have since declared the premises to be a non-banana establishment and...the inmates had to do extra chores.

...daylight come and I wanna go home.

6.5 inches in length

Dear God, It's Me Amy

The other day we were driving in the car, just the kids and I. We like to have longs talks in the car. Sometimes they are philosophical, sometimes funny, sometimes sad. But all are sure very entertaining.

We were talking about our bodies. This is always a fun topic of conversation with kids. Erika wanted to know how she and Tye were made inside my stomach. I avoiding the whole talk about procreation and just went right to the gestational part of it.

"That is thoe cute that I uthed to be a little egg!" Erika said in her little lisp.
"Do I have little egg daughters inside me now too?"

We talked about the placenta and blood and oxygen supply and cutting the cord when the baby is born so it can breath.

Erika asked where I got my training so my body would know how to do all of that stuff since it sounded so hard. I explained to her that our bodies just know what to do. We don't have to tell them. Our heart knows what to do, our stomach knows what to do, our brain does, everything! And when it is making a baby, it just knows because that is how God made our bodies.

Tye said, "Wow, mom. If God knew how to make all of that and make the earth and make everything in it, it's like he is the most amazing scientist ever!"

To which Erika replied, "He's not a scientist dummy, he's the artist of people!"

"Shut up Erika!" said Tye


Interesting, I thought...both very true indeed.

Speaking of God...

The other day we were talking about churches and all different kinds of churches. I explained how they are the House of the Lord. Of course I was referring to their holiness.

Erika's response: "I can't believe that God has been living just right down the street from us all this time and I have not even seen him ONE time!"

Fish Tales

I was lying on the couch today with my face in the sun resting. My eyes were closed, I was enjoying the quiet afternoon when out of nowhere, there was a strange and terrible stench. I opened my eyes to see my daughter hovering over my shoulder, her mouth right next to my nose with the most terrible smelling breath ever!

"Erika, what have you been eating?"

"Well..." says Erika, "I decided to share a can of tuna with the cats".

I despise tuna and never buy it the stuff. I was sure there was no tuna in the pantry.

"Honey, we don't have any tuna." I said

"Yes we do. I found some in the pantry." she replied.

I thought for a second and then my heart broke as I realized the only thing in the cupboard that resembled tuna was a can of wet turkey giblet and fish cat food.

"Oh my gosh!" I said, "Was it good?"


"It was yummy!" she said and then she skipped off into the family room.

A Week With the Freaks

So we started the week out with a holiday. It was Civil Rights Day or as we older folks know it, Martin Luther King Day.

My kids came home from school Friday with pictures of a black man they had learned about in school. Erika's was especially nice since she opted for the "one and only" shade of black Crayola crayon and did the whole face dark black except for the lips. For those, she chose the brightest red ever! It was a stunning rendition of Dr. King looking very distinguished in "drag".

Tuesday-We got a new cat a few months ago. Tye insists on taking her to bed every night and he shuts his door so she can't get out. He learned his lesson when he got to school on Tuesday. He came home and announced that Faatima (Tima, the cat) had pooped in his backpack that was on the closet floor. The backpack and the cat's poop went to school Tuesday with Tye. See, I would have been checking the bottom of my shoe all day...

Wednesday I picked up my new glasses since I will be returning back to school soon. I showed them to Tye that afternoon and he said, "Mom, please don't wear them! I'm begging you! This kid I know at school got glasses and ever sine then, his hair went bad and turned ugly!" I'm thinking I've got nothing to lose...

Wednesday night I bought the world's best sugar cookies. I have been on a 500 calorie a day diet for a few weeks and I thought I would just have one little bite of Erika's cookie. As soon as it hit my mouth, I demolished the rest of the large cookie in regular "cookie monster style" complete with the crumbs flying, sound effects and fingers trembling, in three seconds flat.

I proceeded to eat two more cookies that night, each four inches in diameter. I had a cookie for breakfast today and I when I realized they were gone (all eight of them) I went and bought more. I will be back on the diet again tomorrow, after I have eaten every last crumb.

This reminds me of a story....

I decided to have a house keeper come in a start cleaning my house. I decided I would not waste my time cleaning before the cleaning lady came and would suffer all embarassment of what she might find.

She pulled out my couch in the family room to vaccuum. Listed below are the items found shoved behind the couch:

• 26 single sides of the orea cookie minus the frosting which had been licked off each one
• 9 spoons
• 4 forks
• 6 empty Capri Sun pouches
• Approximately two packages of Ramen noodles with the seasoning powder sprinkled all over the noodles in attempt to create a yummy snack only to find disappointment
• Four Dolly Madison Chocolate Donut Gems with the waxy chocolate coating carefully nibbled off of each one leaving the dry crusted corpse of a donut
• One sweaty, oily, hard, shriveled piece of bologna dating at least back to the Mesopotamian Era
• A completely petrified black banana peel with 1/4 of the banana left at the bottom, also black and petrified. Oh, the sticker was still on it, lovely!
• A pair of scissors??????????? And some blonde hair....Hmmmm....
• A kitchen glass with the smoothie that I made her this last summer, still in the glass. I guess she didn't like the smoothie. This would explain the fruit flies we had a while back
• A plate with ranch dressing and ketchup dried on and the partial remains of one chicken nugget also from the Mesopotamian Era
• The whole bag of deli sliced mesquite turkey totally crusty and gross dated from September sometime.
• Some dry catfood
• A mousetrap
• pencil
• two pair of little girl panties
• Several pages of homework, crumpled, and clearly not finished or ever returned to school
• My giant butcher knife
• Wrappers and trash from various snacks and candy

Needless to say the culprit was easily identified. Before her sentencing, she was asked what she had to say for herself. Her reply, "Well, I guess that is what you get for sleeping in so much in the morning."