Karma on Fire: Secret Subject Swap

Welcome a Secret Subject Swap. This month 8 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts. Read through mine and at the bottom you’ll find links to all of today’s other Secret Subject participants.

My subject is: That time Karma did a fantastic job.
It was submitted by: Tamara of Part-Time Working Hockey Mom.

This is the story of something that happened many years ago. It was a pivotal time in parenthood for me, a very difficult time, made just a tiny bit easier by Karma.

My house had always been a place where kids congregated. We had the basement set up for them where there was a huge TV and game systems, a pool table, a card table, an arcade game, a refrigerator stocked with drinks and a bathroom down there too. Any kids here at dinner time either ate or got a ride home And, of course, there were baked goods. Always there were baked goods.

German Chocolate Brownies

There were lots of kids in and out of the house. Skateboards lined the driveway. It was a fun time. But there were issues too. The most difficult for me was when I needed to sever a relationship between one of my boys and someone they considered a friend. It had happened once before in our former home, the final straw with this particular child was when he, in our backyard, pulled down his pants and mooned our Mormon neighbors. 

There was a situation that was coming to a head again when my older son was in elementary school. It was weighing heavy because Sydney, the friend's mom had been a pretty good friend of mine. In fact, since she and her husband worked and had trouble making arrangements for her son Taylor on Wednesdays when our elementary schools let out early, I had been bringing him home with us. Every week.

It started with her other son Skipper who was 5 years old. He was a bully, even at that age. My younger son had played with him now and then but that ended. When we were all together, like at sports, it did become a problem, though. I remember one time in particular when our older kids were at a baseball practice and the younger ones were playing. I looked back to see her Skipper going after the others with a stick. Now I admit I was too much of a helicopter mom, but she was too much of a free ranger. You know the type, kid does something dangerous and her reaction would be "well, boys will be boys". Refusing to stop her son, I had to pull mine away. Honestly, even if she didn't care whether her son poked a kid in the eye with a stick, I was angry. I care for her older son every week, could she not make a concession for me?

Those kinds of situations continued. I let them slide but was definitely resentful. The next episode forced my hand. My older son was playing at her house and she'd left her 3rd son, a teenager, to babysit. When I called the house I couldn't get an answer. Ever. Whenever he "babysat", he'd be in the basement, there was no supervision at all.  

Back at home my son told me that they'd played in the garage and out in a nearby field. It was some time later that it came out that Taylor had matches in the garage. It was incredibly difficult telling my son he could no longer play there. He was angry and blamed me. He even blamed himself for telling me. The whole situation sucked, but I had to make a stand for safety and I did. It was also pretty much the end of my relationship with Sydney.

A few weeks later I was talking with a friend, Missy. Missy has a son who was friends with both mine and Taylor. Her son had stopped going over to Taylor's house some time ago, but she never really told me why and I never pushed it. She did know why I'd stopped my son from going over there, and she knew Sydney and I were not in touch. 

On that particular day, Missy wanted to know if I had heard the news about 5 year old Skipper. No, I hadn't. What did he do, poke some poor kid with a stick? No, actually, he'd set Sydney's kitchen floor on fire.

Now I'm not one to gloat. After all, Karma would probably catch up with me if I did. But I'm hoping Miss Karma will forgive me that little (OK, big) smirk of satisfaction.

Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swap posts. Sit back, grab a cup, and check them all out. See you there:

Cognitive Script
The Lieber Family Blog
The Bergham Chronicles 

Southern Belle Charm
The Blogging 911
 Part-Time Working Hockey Mom  
Climaxed 

German Chocolate Brownies

                                                              ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe


Ingredients:

3/4 cup sweetened coconut flakes
1/2 cup pecans
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup milk
1 box (3.5 oz) Almond Joy Pudding mix 
Your favorite brownie recipe or 1 box Dark Chocolate Brownie mix and the ingredients specified on the box
4 oz cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup powdered sugar


Directions:
*Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spread the coconut flakes on a baking sheet and the pecans on another. Place in the oven and bake until they just barely start to brown. Remove immediately and set aside to cool.
*Whisk together the heavy cream, milk and the pudding mix. Set aside.
*Prepare the brownies and bake in a 9 X 13 pan. Cool completely.
*Beat the cream cheese, powdered sugar and the heavy cream/pudding mix. Spread over the cooled brownies. 
*Chop the pecans. Mix together the toasted coconut and pecans. Sprinkle over the top of the cream cheese layer of the brownies. 

Going Green

I truly hope I don't lose readers because of this post. The title is not to be misleading, really it isn't. It's just that, well, there's green and then there's green.

I do recycle. You'd think everyone would but I look up and down my street on trash day and don't see as many recycle bins as I'd like to. I shut off lights obsessively, in fact, don't take extra long showers, reuse bags . . . I try to do my part for the environment.

I say all this in hopes of mollifying those who came here thinking the environment was the subject of this post. No, it's not THE environment I'm hoping to impact, it's MY environment.

I've written many posts lately about the horrendous streak of luck I've been having. In fact, the latest post was just this past Friday when I wrote about my dishwasher going rogue. It's 11 days until St. Patrick's Day and in hopes of trading in the cloud I'm obviously standing under for the pot of gold at the end of that rainbow, I'm embracing the green, going full in. 

Chocolate Mint Cookie Pops

So here it is, the why and how for going green, crossing my fingers, looking for four leaf clovers, chasing rainbows and putting all of my hope and prayers in the luck of (becoming) the Irish:

The why:
*At this point I've got nothing to lose. And I mean that literally. I've pretty much recently placed everything I own, some twice (dishwasher and coffeemaker, I'm looking at you).

*Green is the color of money. And if my bad luck doesn't change I won't have any left (another reason to covet those coins at the end of the rainbow).

The how:
*I am, coincidentally, the size of a Leprechaun. Green hat, spiffy buckled shoes and just watch my luck change.

*There once was a woman from Cork,
made her beef stew 'stead with pork.
"You're daft" husband said,
made twirl signs by his head,
Till she poked his fat arm with her fork. 

Got that one covered, I can limerick with the best of them.

*Four leaf clovers are good luck and I'm great at finding them. This one came from the park near our house.

What? That's not a four leaf clover? Sorry, my bad. Bet it's good luck anyway though. Well, unless you're the police. You're not, right? Crap, I may need a lawyer. Anyone know a lawyer? An Irish one preferably, I'll need their good luck.

*Another way I'll fit right in with my lucky Irish friends, I've already got the gift 'o the gab. In fact, it's often said I'm one of few people who can consistently make a short story long (see above four leaf clover story if you want proof).

*Never really understood it but apparently I'm expected to kiss the Blarney Stone. Not questioning, mind you, if that's what it takes, I'll do it. 

Unfortunately I don't know which stone the Blarney Stone is. Just to be safe, I'll start at my house and kiss them all. If you happen to drive by me and see my face to the sidewalk and my arse in the air, move right along, I'm just fulfilling my honorary Irish obligations.

*Every March I make my Crockpot Beer Infused New England Boiled Dinner recipe and Pistachio Soda Bread recipe. So if I don't have actual Irish blood, at least I've earned my points for trying. But if all else fails, there's the green beer. I don't even like beer (oops, did I just lose my Irish cred?). But if my luck doesn't change, I'll be in the closest Irish pub drowning my sorrows with the best of them. 

Decision made, I'm going green. Wish me luck!

Chocolate Mint Cookie Pops     
                                    ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

NOTE: You can make these pops with lollipop sticks or you can just make them as balls without the sticks.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups chocolate mint cookie crumbs
1/2 cup vanilla wafer cookie crumbs
6 oz cream cheese, softened
7 oz package spearmint leaves candies (15 - 18 candies)
1/4 cup green colored sugar
8 oz package, green candy melts
2 oz white candy melts 

Directions:
*Beat the cream cheese with both of the cookie crumbs. Divide evenly into the same number of pieces as you have candy.
*Push a lollipop stick about halfway up into each candy. Form a ball around each candy with a segment of the cookie mixture, completely encasing the candy inside. Put these pops into the freezer for an hour.
*Place the colored sugar into a dish.

*Melt the candy melts together according to package directions. Dip each pop into the melted candy up to the stick. Allow excess to drip off. Dip top in the colored sugar and place onto a piece of parchment paper to set. Store in a sealed container in the refrigerator.

On Day Four I Kissed the Installers

A week ago Thursday my heart broke. It was the bad luck streak I was hoping to break, but it was my heart instead. That was the night I went into the kitchen and stepped in a puddle on my wood floor. The dishwasher, another appliance in a long line lately, had turned on me, decided to go rogue.

If you follow my blog or my FB page, you know that I've had a very long streak of bad luck. It started last summer and has not let up at all. We've replaced items big and small. As big as the heating and air conditioning unit and as small as the coffee maker. In between was my car, Hubs' cell phone, our washing machine, the blender, Hubs' car tires, PurDude's car battery . . . yes a long list of bad, bad, bad, bad (did I mention bad) luck. 

But this dishwasher. This broke me. Not only was the wood floor in the kitchen prep area swollen with water, but when I walked into the kitchen eating area much later, I found another puddle. The water had ruined the cabinetry behind the dishwasher and the floor back there was buckling.

I was told by my FB friends that I should contact my insurance company about the floor, which we're doing, but I was not happy about the hit to my checkbook fixing the dishwasher was going to take. Silly me, had I even known . . .

The next morning I called a serviceman who was a member of the business association my husband belongs to, they tend to give us a break. He warned me that if it's the pump and motor it won't be worth fixing. I was sure that wasn't it, this thing isn't even 3 years old. 

I was so confident I'd have a dishwasher that night that I put on a pot of Crockpot Beef Chili and I even baked Creme de Menthe White Brownies. I piled all of the dirty pots and pans and utensils in the sink to stick in the dishwasher once it was fixed.

Creme de Menthe White Brownies

Thirty seconds after the repairman arrived he left with $100 of my money. I'm not even sure why he came in, I could have thrown the check at him as he drove by. But he did stick a flashlight under the dishwasher, declared the pump and motor corroded, and even took an extra two seconds to tell me that it's extremely common. Dishwashers are now made disposable, three to five years is the average.

So day one found me debating washing and drying pretty much every dish and pan and utensil I own (and possibly a few I don't) by hand, or just throwing them all out and starting over. With all the unexpected bills we've had lately, looks like I'd be washing and washing and washing. I'm not sure that what I was doing registered though, all that kept going through my head was "that dishwasher's not even three years old. How can that be, it's not even three years old?" 

Hubs keying in immediately to my frustration and panic, leaving work immediately on a mission to buy a new dishwasher. He made the mistake of trying to discuss what I wanted but when I screamed into my cell phone (which now only works on "speaker" and drops calls on a whim) "who gives a damn what features it has, we'll be throwing it in the trash in a few years" he decided he'd just pick one himself and pay what it takes to have it delivered the next morning.

Day two: still angry and upset, I piled the breakfast and coffee dishes in the sink, planning to have them in my new dishwasher within a few hours. Delivery was between 10 am and noon. Bless you Hubs, you're a miracle worker.

After pulling out the old dishwasher, the installers gave me the bad news, it was soaking wet in there. The wood flooring, the cabinetry, everything. I needed to set up a fan and dry it out. They left my new dishwasher by the pantry and promised to be back on Monday. Monday? That's like 3 days from now. . .

By the end of day two my hands had two settings; wrinkly prune and dry and cracked. Not a pretty look. We did have small paper plates but that's it. We used them for breakfast and lunch but they weren't big enough for dinner and I certainly couldn't use them to cook in. Take out and buying larger paper plates was out, it was snowing and sleeting, expected to do so all weekend. Of course.

Day three found me looking longingly at the dishwasher sitting by the pantry. I wrapped my arms around its bulky middle and whispered in its ear "I love you, I want you, I need you." 

I tried to convince my Husband that it was Yom Kippur, but dammit he knows the day of fasting is in September.

By evening I was sitting on the now bumpy kitchen floor, blowing into that empty hole in the cabinetry with every last ounce of breath I had, just in case the fan needed some help. Because, come hell (which I'd been going through) or high water (been there, done that too), that dishwasher was going to be operational the next morning. 

On day four I kissed the installers.

Fortunately they hooked that sucker up anyway.

Creme de Menthe White Brownies       
                                    ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
3/4 cup white chocolate chips
1 stick butter
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 eggs, room temperature
1 cup flour
3/4 cup creme de menthe baking chips

OPT: 1 cup heavy cream
        1/4 cup powdered sugar
        2 TBSP Creme de Menthe liqueur

Directions:
*Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9 X 13 baking pan.
*Melt together the white chocolate chips and butter in the microwave.
*Whisk in the vanilla followed by the sugar, then the eggs, and then the flour. Once incorporated, fold in the baking chips. Spread evenly into the baking pan.
*Bake for about 25 minutes or until they are browned and completely set. Remove from oven and cool completely before slicing.
*For the Creme de Menthe Whipped Cream: beat the heavy cream and powdered sugar until soft peaks form. Add the Creme de Menthe liqueur and beat until stiff peaks hold. Spoon or pipe over the brownies when serving.