(no subject)

[the_rck]

I was expecting to have two extra kids today, but the younger of the two had asthma issues overnight, and their mother decided to stay home with them today. I don't know at this point if they'll be coming tomorrow. I hope so because Cordelia will have an easier time of it if she has somebody to play with.

The Girl Scout meeting went okay. I mostly stood around being useless, but I was there as the required second adult. We talked about cookie sales first. We have until 11 January to sell. Cordelia doesn't care much about cookie sales. She enjoys the things the troop does with the money, but she's not at all motivated to sell. After that, the troop leader taught the girls to finger knit. She had a more complicated craft in mind, but just getting the girls started with finger knitting was as far as it went.

Scott managed to get his mother's Christmas present. He also went to the library and did the grocery shopping. He didn't get around to wrapping my present, so I'm going to have to retreat to bedroom for a while so that he can wrap it. He also has to figure out a way to find a present for Cordelia to give me. He dropped the ball on that one, and it's too late to order something off of my wishlist (which is mostly obscure CDs).

I should have left the butter out overnight to soften. I can't get started with my baking until it's soft enough to mix easily. I could, I suppose, start with the recipe that calls for margarine, but I want to do the butter recipe first because it needs a little bit of powdered sugar. The margarine recipe needs a lot. I only bought enough for the margarine recipe, but I figure I can spare a tablespoon or so from that. I didn't want to buy extra powdered sugar because it goes bad so easily (Well, not precisely bad-- The cornstarch in it picks up odors and flavors from the air and gets kind of nasty).

I want to try to get Cordelia to help me with the food preparations. She's old enough to learn how this works, and baking is enough fun to possibly hold her attention. I'm just not sure she's awake right now. I told her she could go back to bed when I found out the other kids weren't coming, and she retreated to her room without eating breakfast. Her light was still on the last I checked, though.

Comments

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

This is obviously too late to do any good for today's plans, but might be helpful for future baking. It is possible to soften butter in the microwave. You can get soft-but-not-melted if you have one with an adjustable power setting you can put on low for 15 or 30 seconds at a time.

[the_rck]

Thanks for the tip!