Rings of Shame

Who doesn't love changing out the shower curtain and/or liner?

This girl.
It has always been one of my least favorite things, but a girls gotta do right?

One evening our liner was particularly eewie. As we preparing for the nightly bath process with the little one, I thought, "Why not? It'll be quick." (Insert ominous music here.)

The offending rings.

I attempted to open ring one. Nope. Ring two, nope. Now, I am fully aware that my upper body strength may be....lacking, but there was no pulling these suckers open.

Hubbs was nearby and saw my struggles. With puffed out chest and all his cowboy swagger, he entered the bathroom with a drawl stating, "Step aside little lady." I believe if he'd had a hat, it would have been tipped.

Ring one....nope.

As the perspiration began beading on his brow, the rings refused to budge. Hubbs stalked out of the bathroom mumbling about tools.

At this point I put the little one in the tub and began the bath time process, complete with soapy hair horns and sudsy tickles. Once we entered the 'swim like a fishy' phase Hubbs arrived with an assortment of pliers, screwdrivers and whatnot.

As he moved through his arsenal the rings chuckled and tittered, but did not open. Then suddenly with a snap and crack white plastic went flying and I believe some colorful words were uttered. The little one picked up a crescent shaped piece, handed it to me and said, "Oh no." At that point Hubbs exited the bathroom, we wrapped up bath and bedtime leaving the fresh and un-hung liner in the bathroom folded in a corner.

The next morning I jumped in the shower. As I was showering I glanced up at the stubborn rings. Pulled at ring two and....nope. (Remember that ring one was gone.) But then, I looked...a small opening on one side of the ring. I gingerly grasped the ring and pulled in separate directions, sliding the ring apart.

Click, open.

When Hubbs came to see what excitement was causing howls of laughter at 6:00 a.m. I explained what happened. I believe there may have been more curse words.

Pinterest Success: August 2013

Success: Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Smore's Bars

In my effort this year to try at least one Pinterest find a month, I've had some successes and some definitely NOT successes.  I'm working on catching up on some of those with posts on how the recipes went and my information on what worked and what didn't work.

Yesterday, I was preparing for a girls barbecue (with the boys and kiddos) and found this delicious looking recipe. When I saw online that folks were referring to Saturday as national Smore's day, I knew this was a great fit for the get-together.

When following the pin for the recipe, I discovered Shelly and her full blog, Cookies & Cups.  ALL of her recipes look amazing, but this one still sang to me.  For the full recipe visit her blog here: COOKIES & CUPS. She pulled the recipe from a book, Peanut Butter Comfort...by Averie Sunshine.

When we all cut into the bars after the delicious barbecue - wow.  They were so good. The recipe is right though - be sure they're chilled or they are REALLY hard to deal with.  All the gooey-deliciousness makes a huge mess.

Step one is the cookie dough.  I used a tube of cookie dough.  One whole tube lined the bottom nicely.  I didn't roll it out with a rolling pin, just squished with my hands.  Step two is the Hershey bars. Figuring cutting the bars later would be tougher, I broke them all up individually rather than using them as whole bars. It looked pretty neat too. (And no, Hershey didn't pay me anything to show off their logos like this. I just thought it was neat.)

Next was the peanut butter (yum), followed by the crumbled graham crackers.  I used a little more than a 1/2 cup and made the crumbs myself.  In fact, my little one made them by squishing, smashing and pounding on a big baggie of graham crackers.  It was pretty fun to watch.

When the recipe said it was hard to spread the fluff, they were NOT kidding. I ended up just emptying the entire jar and then trying to spread it together a bit. Still tough, but it worked in the end.

Last layer is more cookie dough..I used a break and bake package for this layer and just laid it out on floured parchment paper and squished with my hands. I should have used a bit more flour though, so I ended up having to scrape it off in chunks and spread a bit more on the top, but it all worked out.

It baked up a bit and I should have used a bigger pan, but oh my it looked amazing. Couldn't wait to break into!

Please share some of your Pinterest successes and fails too.  I'm a huge fan of the site, but it certainly does force one to balance all the pieces - work, mom, wife, amazing cook, pastry chef and all the rest.

Pinterest Fail: April 2013

FAIL: Sugar Cookie Cups

Yeah, not so much.

To celebrate my Dad's birthday, among other things, I was trying to make the sugar cookie cups with plans to fill them with some pudding and then some chocolate chips and/or butterscotch chips.

I found an option on Pinterest that seemed to be a great way to make said cups.  No, just no.

The image on Pinterest was this.

A lovely block of steps to achieve the perfect sugar cookie cups.

It did not work.

I used the heating temp for the cookies based on the package, so perhaps that was my error.
I cooked them for about 8 minutes and when I opened the oven I found the following.  Not good.

I scraped, and scraped, and scraped and put all the pieces into a travel container and poured in some chocolate chips, peanut butter chips and then when I presented it to dear old Dad, added some whipped cream.

Ah well...if you know of a better way to make cookie cups, please pass it along!




This post is part of an effort in 2013 to do at least one Pinterest project a month. I'm very behind in posting - but here's my experiences so far!