Two-Ingredient Fudge

I saw this recipe on Facebook recently. I'd heard of fudge using two ingredients, but I've never tried it. I was pretty skeptical, but it was super easy and the fudge turned out great. All you do is put a bag of chocolate chips into a microwave-safe dish along with a small can of sweetened condensed milk. Microwave for about 3 minutes, and then remove and stir until blended. Then I stuck it in the fridge and left it there overnight. It started to firm up right away, so you could chill it for less time. The picture below was taken right before I cut it into squares.

My family loved it and is already asking me to make more. I don't know if I like it more or less than traditional fudge, but it sure was easy. Fudge in three minutes = awesome.

Pumpkin Spice Balls

I saw a recipe on Facebook for a 2-ingredient muffin. I figured Thanksgiving morning would be a good time to give it a try. All you do is mix a box of spice cake mix with a small can of pumpkin. Then you bake it at 350 degrees for about 12-14 minutes. I made mine in mini muffin tins, so I got 36 muffins out of this. They came out like little balls, almost resembling donut holes. I think they were called pumpkin muffins, but I'm calling mine Pumpkin Spice Balls instead.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Dandelion

This is another book I found at the thrift store recently. I love rummaging around our local Salvation Army. Most of the children's books are a quarter each. Soft covers used to be a dime, but I think they've started charging a quarter for most of them now. Anyway, I got this book at 50% off, so technically it was only 12.5 cents. Not bad for a 1977 hardcover, don't you think?

Dandelion is very excited to be invited to Jennifer Giraffe's tea party. Although the party is a "come as you are" event, Dandelion spruces himself up to the nines — he gets his hair washed and styled, he gets his nails done, he gets some fancy new duds to wear, and he even brings flowers. The only problem is — he's made such drastic changes to his appearance that Jennifer doesn't recognize him and won't let him into her party. Poor Dandelion. How will he manage to get to the party? Will his friends recognize him? Will they accept him for who he really is?

I love this book. I love books with great messages. It seems nowadays publishers steer clear of picture books with moral lessons. Not all do that, but some do. I've seen it posted directly on publishers' submission guidelines. I suppose they feel parents don't want their children to be preached at while reading a story. I understand that, but I don't think it's always a bad thing. I think it's good to let children know they don't need fancy hairstyles or expensive clothes to be accepted or liked better. We live in a day and age where kids are growing up so much faster. I guess maybe that's why I cherish these older picture books so much. 

The Rain Puddle

I came across this wonderful, old picture book at the local thrift store recently. The Rain Puddle was written by Adelaide Holl and was illustrated by Roger Duvoisin. After searching Amazon, I see there are various copies of this book put out by different publishers in different years. The copy I have is from 1965 and was published by Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co. So, in other words, this book is as old as I am — yikes.

Red Hen is pecking away when she comes across a rain puddle. Looking into the water, she's alarmed to see another red hen looking right back at her. Fearing her feathered friend has fallen into the water, she summons the help of a turkey. The turkey goes to see for himself, and sure enough, he's just as alarmed to see that a turkey has fallen into the water. And so it goes ... one-by-one, all the farm animals check out the puddle, only to see a new animal has fallen in. It isn't long before the entire barnyard is in hysterics thinking the puddle is filled with stranded animals. Just when everyone is about to totally lose it ... the sun comes out.

It's a cute book. I love these old ones, so I'm always thrilled to come across them, especially when I buy them for a quarter. This time I really got a bargain — books were 50% off.

My Boys

I took these photos of Nathan and Neil the other day. We homeschool, and even though some homeschool groups do school pictures, I like to do them myself. I wasn't sure what theme to go with this year. In the past, we've done Hawaiian shirts, plaid shirts, denim jackets, and so forth. I thought about hats this year, but decided on ties at the last minute. I think they turned out pretty good. Nicole said they looked like little businessmen. 

Thank you all for your comments on my blog post below this one. They mean a lot to me. I don't know why, but writing that all down and putting it out for people to see really helped. I will get through this, and I just want to say thank you for all the comments I received here, on Facebook, Twitter, and even Instagram. I have some really awesome friends. Thank you.

Barbapapa?

Does anyone have this book or is familiar with it? I stumbled across this 1970 hard cover edition at the thrift store recently. I didn't think much of it, but I like books from that time period, so I bought it. It cost me a whole quarter. I took it home, read it, and then was surprised how cute it was. I decided to do a little sleuthing around, only to learn that the book was part of a series that began in France in the 1970s.

If you would like to learn more about Barbapapa, click here for what Wikipedia says. There is also a Barbapapa website that gives more information, but I don't think you can buy the books directly from there. Click here to check out the website.

I knew nothing about this book series, character, or even that there were cartoons and comic books created. Some of my friends were familiar with it, and one of them says she still has her copy of the book. That's pretty cool. The copy I have has a 1970 copyright, but I don't think it's a first edition.

I don't want to give out too much of the story — just in case you want to check it out for yourself — but it is basically about this blob-like thing that was supposedly born a family's garden. He grew and grew, but became too big for the family to keep, so he gets moved around from place to place. That's all I'll say, but I will add it has a happy ending. That's good. I always love happy endings.

RIP, sweet Kitty.