Sock Talk: Poetry Monday

 

Poetry Monday's once a week.

I bet you know which day.

I don't participate every time,

But today I've come out to play.

My friends assign each week a theme,

Socks is what they chose.

Now it's up to all of us,

to put our thoughts into prose.

 

 

Sock Talk

I've written about socks before, 

in fact, a time or two.

Today I'll tell you 'bout them,

(and I'll end with something new).

Once I wrote a poem 'bout

their disappearing act.

It's always in the laundry and,

oh, how I tried to fight back.

What would drive me crazy?

I'm as organized as can be.

PurDude? He'd grab just any two,

as you can clearly see.

Don't leave out my other son,

he's more than happy to wear,

footwear that's more hole than sock,

(much to his mom's despair).

In The Love Theory I even wrote,

shocking though it may seem,

about sock, ran away with fork,

"love is love" (not food) was the theme.

 

Blackberry Cream Cheese Muffins

 

Me? I'm at my happiest,

when going sockless, though.

"Unless," PurDude says, "it's because,

you've broken where they go."

 

 

 

 

Wait!

Read more poetry, 

you're not through.

Some talented writers

are in this crew:

 

On the Border

Messymimi's Meanderings 

Mother Owl 

 

Blackberry Cream  Cheese Muffins         

                                                       ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 cups flour

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup oil

3 oz cream cheese, softened

1 egg

3/4 cup milk

6 oz fresh blackberries, quartered

3 TBSP cinnamon baking chips

1 TBSP sugar

1/4 tsp cinnamon

Directions:
*Grease or add liners to the wells of a 12 well muffin tin. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

*In a bowl, mix together the brown sugar, flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

*In a separate bowl, whisk together the oil, cream cheese, egg, and milk.

*Add the wet ingredients to the dry, and mix just until incorporated, don't over mix. Fold in the blackberries and cinnamon baking chips.

*Divide into the 12 muffin liners. Mix together the sugar and cinnamon, and sprinkle over the tops.

*Bake for 20 minutes, or until the center of the top springs back to the touch. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes before removing.

Reboot: September Monthly Poetry Group

 

 

 

 

Last Friday of the month is for

Monthly Poetry Group to rhyme.

Diane, Mimi, and I take turns,

"Reboot" is the theme this time.

 

As usual, today I'll try,

a poem to write . . . or fudge.

Whether I'm successful or not,

you get to be the judge.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reboot

The elderly man was worried,

forgetting things all the time.

Keeping track of belongings,

was a daily mountain to climb.

 

The more he thought about it,

felt his brain needed a reboot.

He'd always had a great memory,

now he felt like an old coot.

 

He'd play his daily word games,

Phrazle, Wordle, more than one.

Keeping his brain exercised,

could actually be quite fun.

 

And since his wife had passed away,

there was more for him to do.

But it kept his mind occupied,

there's value in that too.

On this particular morning,

memory really getting him down,

"I'll do errands, pick up muffins,

might be good to go into town."

 

Bananas Foster Muffins

 

 

 

Went into a few different stores,

glad to put his troubles aside.

One last store he entered, 

the selection kept him occupied. 

When from behind he heard it,

"Reboot?" someone had asked.

His memory? How could they know?

Wanted to get out of there . . . and fast.

"Reboot?" This time he turned around,

the questioner's eyes to meet.

Realized the salesman was looking,

not at his head, but his feet.

 

Before you go, stop by these blogs for more Collections poetry:

 

On the Border

Messymimi's Meanderings

 

 

Bananas Foster Muffins        

                                                                                      ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
1 TBSP butter

1 banana

1 TBSP cookie butter (speculoos)

1 TBSP spiced rum

6 TBSP oil

2 TBSP cookie butter

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 egg

3/4 cup buttermilk

1/3 cup banana yogurt

2 cups flour

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

 

3 TBSP caramel sauce

Directions:
*Grease the top of a 12 well muffin tin and either grease or add liners to the wells. Preheat oven to 400 degrees

*Slice the banana into about 1/2 inch slices. Cut each slice in quarters.

*Heat the butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add the banana. Cook, stirring now and then, for 2 minutes. Mix in 1 TBSP cookie butter and the rum. Stir for one more minute, remove from heat, and set aside.

*Whisk together the oil, remaining cookie butter, and brown sugar. Once incorporated, whisk in the egg, buttermilk, and yogurt.

*Separately, mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

*Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and gently whisk together. Fill the muffin cups with the batter.

*Bake for 10 minutes. Remove the muffin tin from the oven, but leave the oven on. Quickly spoon the banana mixture onto the tops of the muffins. Return to the oven and bake for another 8 minutes.

*Leave in the muffin tin for 5 minutes, remove, drizzle with the caramel sauce and allow to cool.

The Bug, Key Correlation: Fly on the Wall

 

 Welcome to a monthly Fly on the Wall group post. Today 3 bloggers are inviting you to catch a glimpse of what you’d see if you were a fly on the wall in our homes. Come on in and buzz around my house. At the end of my post you’ll find links to this month’s other participants’ posts.

It was just a few weeks ago, Friday July 1st, the start of the long weekend, when Hubs came up from the basement.

 

Hubs: College Boy is heading over here from work. They told him he could leave at 4:00.

Me: That's great, I'm sure he's thrilled.

Hubs: Well, it wasn't just him, they told everyone to leave at 4:00.

Me (yes, rolling my eyes): Good thing you clarified that.

Duh.

 

 

 

College Boy opens the front door, hears me yelling and calls out to me:

College Boy: Hey, Mom, you watching the Red Sox again?
Me: No, I'm yelling at your dad, if you must know.

Wonder why he didn't stay for dinner. . .

 

Speaking of the Sox, Hubs and I were watching a game last week. The best pitcher who, due to injuries, was only pitching in his second game was on the mound. He pitched, the batter hit the ball, and the ball hit the pitcher, going 106 mph hitting the pitcher's finger.

The announcers were, of course, announcing, when I burst out laughing.

Hubs (angrily): What are you laughing at? That isn't funny at all.

Me: The announcers.

Hubs: What? The announcers are explaining that we're losing our best pitcher. Again. 

Me: I know, but . . .

Hubs: And he's hurt, did you see how hard he got hit?
Me: Yes, but did you hear what the announcers called the injury?
Hubs: No, what did they say?
Me: They said his misplaced his finger.

Hubs: And he did.

Me: It may be broken, it may be dislocated, it may be displaced, but I'm pretty sure that guy's finger has not been misplaced.

 

 

 

Later on, during the same game:

Announcer: Our update on the Red Sox pitcher is that he has a fractured finger.

Hubs: Oh, good.

Me: Good? He has a fractured finger.

Hubs: Better than if it were broken.

Me (looking at him, eyes as big as saucers): {{blink, blink}}

 

I'm sitting in the den, working on my laptop, when the air conditioning comes on and I hear a clicking noise. It seems to be coming from a floor vent.

Hubs comes down and is going to go to work when I tell him about the noise. He goes over to look:

Hubs: Oh, yeah, I hear it. Looks like there's a bug in there.

Me: A bug??

Hubs: Yeah, that's what it looks like.

Me: How will you get it out?
Hubs: I'll have to look at it tonight, see if I can get this grate out of the floor.

OK, I can see where this is going, and I don't like it. I'm not sitting here all day knowing there's a bug in the grate in the floor. So I sneak over to the laundry room, grab his car keys, and sit back down. He stands up from examining the grate, walks over, grabs his briefcase and goes to find his keys.

Hubs: I can't find the car keys. I wonder what I did with them.

Me (standing up and walking over to the grate): Oh, I think they're down in the grate . . .

Hubs isn't one for taking hints, but he did figure out what it was going to take for him to be able to go to work.

And as soon as he got the bug out? His keys miraculously appeared on the key holder in the laundry room.

Apparently there's some kind of correlation between bug extraction and key appearance. Who knew?

 

 

PurDude called one night last week, and we had a nice conversation. We touch base with a text each day, but I like hearing his voice.

 

Hubs, not a fan of what I'd been watching, was downstairs putzing around in the man cave. When I was done talking to PurDude, I brought Hubs my phone.

I came back upstairs, went to the bathroom, took the muffins out of the pan, grabbed my laptop to make some notes on the recipe, sat down to watch TV, and realized my cell phone wasn't on the table and started to search.

I've got my ass in the air and my head under the couch when Hubs comes upstairs to hand me my cell phone.

Oh yeah, now I remember . . .

Giant Blueberry White Chocolate Chip Muffins

College Boy walked in and he really did not look good.

 

Me: Are you OK? 

College Boy: I'm really not feeling well.

Me: Why don't you go upstairs and lay down?

 

College Boy runs to the bathroom, comes back, runs to the bathroom, comes back.

 

Me: What's going on? 

College Boy: I'm feeling nauseous. 

 

He gets part way upstairs when I hear him running down. All of this goes through my mind in about 3 seconds: he's not going to make it to the bathroom, I need something he can get sick in, I have old rusted bakeware I keep in the pantry (don't ask me why, I don't know), I need to grab something.

 

I run into the pantry, grab the first old bakeware thing I can get my hands on, run, meeting him halfway to the bathroom, and hand him a muffin tin.

 

Great. Just great.

 

 

There is some small animal leaving turd pellets out front by the stairs. We have to go out in the morning and sweep them off. We hadn't yet this morning.

College Boy: I think I'm going to go out front and get some fresh air.

Me: Some little animal is leaving turd pellets by the front steps, we haven't swept them off yet, be sure you don't sit in them.

Well, seems he's feeling well enough to roll his eyes.

College Boy: Well, if I can't sit in the turds, I guess there's no reason to go out there.

Sarcasm, a clear indication someone's feeling better.

 

 

It had been a day, and it was only just past noon. I'm in the den, rooting around in the liquor cabinet, when Hubs comes in the room.

 

Me (kinda yelling): I'M HAVING A COCKTAIL.

 

Hubs doesn't say a word.

 

Me (still yelling): BECAUSE I CAN!

 

Didn't see him again until dinner time. I wonder why. 

 

About 1/2 hour later, the phone rings.

 

Neighbor: Umm . . . Karen?

Me: Yes?

Neighbor: Do you know your grown son is laying on the concrete by your front door?

Me: Yes. Doesn't yours?

 

 

 

Now click on the links below for a peek into some other homes:

Menopausal Mother 

The Diary of an Alzheimer's Caregiver

 

Giant Blueberry White Chocolate Chip Muffins

                                                                       ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
1/2 cup oil

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 egg

5 oz vanilla Greek yogurt

3/4 cup milk

2 cups flour + 1 TBSP

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1 cup fresh blueberries

1/2 cup white chocolate chips

 

Directions:
*Grease the top of a 12 well muffin tin and either grease or add liners to the wells. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

*Set aside 36 blueberries.

*Whisk together the oil and brown sugar. Once incorporated, whisk in the egg, yogurt, and milk. 

*Separately, mix 2 cups of the flour, the baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon.

*Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and gently whisk together.

*Gently coat the blueberries not set aside and the white chocolate chips with the remaining 1 TBSP flour. Fold into the batter.

*Fill the muffin cups with the batter. Top each muffin with 3 of the reserved blueberries.

*Bake for 20 minutes, or until the center springs back to the touch. Cool in the muffin pan for 10 minutes before popping out of the pan.

 

 

Big Game Huntress

 

Covid has brought out another side in all of us, for many, a dark side. 

 

Wait! Don't leave! 

 

I'm not talking about our reaction the virus itself, whether or not we acknowledge it and understand the threat it poses, we've already shown our true colors in that respect. I'm talking about those new activities we've been forced to come up with over the past 10 or 11 months due to the restrictions we're under, and while we've been unable to do much of what had been an underappreciated part of our everyday life. You know, those new activities we've had to embrace that have become a form self-preservation, like binge watching Schitt'$ Creek (guilty), sport eating (yes, sadly, I've come to see that's a thing), and avoiding spending every second in the same room with our spouse (or is that just me?).

We're writing, we're reading, we're playing online games, we're driving our kids crazy with incessant sharing of memes we think are funny but they don't, we're spending an inordinate amount of time on grocery websites finding their funny mistakes and adding foods to our cart that we know we won't end up ordering. You know, that kinda stuff.

But me? I took up hunting. Big game hunting, no less. Yes, I am officially a huntress. Committed. Locked and loaded. Stalking my prey.

Why? How? Who brought out this dark side of me?

It started with something I'm sure you're familiar with if you read this blog regularly (and you should, you know, it only takes about 5 minutes twice a week) or follow my Baking In A Tornado FB page (pretty please, with sugar and a cherry on top). The something that precipitated my deep dive into the world of armed pursuit was as innocent as having my son coming home (safely) in November after my not having seen him for a year. While he was here, he mentioned that he was trying to get the new Play Station 5, but it was impossible, stock was low, scalper bots were buying them all the minute they came available, and since he was going to be stuck home alone once he returned to Colorado in December, he would love to have one. Always seeing the glass half empty, he was resigned to not getting one in the near (or, due to the limited stock and infrequent availability, distant) future.

Anyway, we had a great month, spending so much time together. We talked, we laughed, I got a little more than one word answers to my questions, I made all of his favorite foods (even sent him home with frozen meals) and I tried out some new recipe ideas on him.

 

Scotcharoo Mini Muffins

But way too quickly that month came to an end. And I was left here with Johnny and Moira (not complaining), a grocery cart full of items to delete, one less taste tester, and the Covid numbers still escalating.

 

Hmmm . . . what to do . . . what to do . . . I really needed a new hobby. Or something.

 

And then it hit me. I would hunt. Now hunting is a blood sport, not something I've ever embraced, but desperate times call for desperate measures, it seems. And one sad, lonely, day after he had left in December, I found myself entertaining the concept of the unthinkable.

 

Here's the true silver lining. I was fully engaged. It was all encompassing, time consuming, I had so much to learn. I had to use patience (not something I've ever been known for), my wiles, my concentration. Hell, I even put my insomnia to good use, turns out night time is optimal for surveillance. I began to stalk those pursuing the same quarry, learning their tactics. I followed hunters on twitter, discovered that I wasn't above using their intel where provided, and incorporating it into the genesis of a strategy of my own. 

The prey was elusive and hundreds of thousands (literally) of people were after it. But I would not give up. Turns out I'm ruthless, tenacious, unrelenting. Who knew? Well, OK, my mom. But I was packing heat, hot on the trail of my quarry. And in a time when we've lost control of so much, I was empowered, determined.

 

So did I, before the end of hunting season (or ever, as the case may be), actually pull the trigger on my loaded credit card to bag that elusive Play Station 5? Well, turns out that isn't the point. It's not the claim, it's the game (a sentiment with which my son would vehemently disagree, btw).

 

Here's something we did agree on: the laughs along the way? No credit card needed, those were priceless.

 

Post of someone I don't know but had started following on twitter (along with 105,000 other people looking for a PS5):

 

Desperate Facebook conversation with a friend who only works at Target part time, and neither in the state where I live nor where PurDude lives:

 

 

One of the most fun phone conversations I've had with PurDude in a long time:

PurDude: Hello.

Me: Hi honey, I think I got one.

PurDude: One what?
Me: A PS5.

PurDude: I think you need to get some sleep.

Me: I really think I got one.

PurDude: That's almost impossible right now.

Me: I know, they sell out the minute they go on sale or the website crashes, but I think I got one. I was stuck in a loop waiting on Boulder so I opened another tab and tried for Longmont.

PurDude: OK, and what makes you think you got one?
Me: This:

 

Big game, bagged.

Scotcharoo Mini Muffins   

                                                          ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe


Ingredients:

1/4 cup chocolate chips

1/2 cup Rice Krispies cereal

 

2 TBSP peanut butter

1 TBSP canola oil

3 TBSP butterscotch chips

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 TBSP butterscotch schnapps (can omit)

1/2 cup milk

1 egg

1 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

 

Directions:

*Cover a small tray with parchment paper.

*In a microwave safe bowl, melt chocolate chips until smooth when stirred. Gently mix in the cereal. Spoon into 24 small balls onto the parchment paper, then place in the freezer for an hour.

*Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease 24 mini muffin wells. Remove chocolate/cereal balls from the freezer.

*In a microwave safe bowl, melt the peanut butter, canola oil and butterscotch chips at 10 second intervals just until smooth when stirred. Whisk in the brown sugar, vanilla, butterscotch schnapps (if using), and milk. Once incorporated, whisk in the egg, then mix in the flour and baking powder. 

*Divide the batter into the mini muffin wells. Top each with a chocolate/cereal ball and press down just slightly.

*Bake for 12 - 15 minutes or until they spring back to the touch. Allow to cool in the tins for 10 minutes before removing to cool completely.