in which our heroine puts that sh*t on everything.

(heh. I've been eating a lot of chicken with Frank's RedHot for dinner lately.)

well, the first round of cookies is done.

this year I decided to make gingerbread cookies and sugar cookies, with some kind of icing and decoration on them.

the gingerbread recipe is a good one, I think, but the cookies did not turn out flavorful enough for me. whether that's from using store-bought spices or the amounts not being enough, I'm not sure. I'm going to try adding another half-measurement of each spice to the dough I make tonight.

also, the directions said to chill the dough for an hour, but it was still a big pain to work with. since I think the consistency ended up just fine in the final product, I'm going to keep the dough in the refrigerator for two hours this time, and maybe work with smaller batches at a time.

the sugar cookie recipe is very basic and I don't think it makes the cookies sweet enough, but with the icing on them, they should be fine. the same chilling time changes will apply to this dough as well.

the cookie cutters are cute, but they were hard to get out of the sticky dough. if the added time in the refrigerator doesn't solve that, maybe I will try a light coating of flour inside the cutters.

and the icing. dear god.

I decided to try royal icing for these cookies since it's supposed to harden well. the usual way to make it (apparently) is cold water, egg whites and confectioner's sugar. initially I was going to make it with meringue powder instead of egg whites (I cannot remember the reasoning behind this decision), but then I discovered that you can't just walk into your average grocery store and buy meringue powder. apparently it is sold at party stores and craft stores and wherever specialty baking stuff is also sold. whatever, I don't have the time or desire to hunt it down, so I went with egg whites.

however, I thought I was so smart when I picked up a carton of egg whites as opposed to separating them from the yolks of actual eggs. I got the carton home and that's when I noticed on the side that due to however it's processed, it's not good to use for meringues, presumably because normal use would require them to be cooked. I looked at the recipe I had and it said that if there were concerns about salmonella, the egg whites could be mixed with a third of the sugar needed and microwave it to 160º before adding the rest of the sugar. so I stood by the microwave with a meat thermometer (I know, wtf! but I don't own one for candy and they both measure temperature, so I figured it was fine enough), heating the mixture for thirty seconds at a time and then seeing if it was hot enough. it looked very much like meringue when I was finished heating it, but I beat it into oblivion with the rest of the sugar.

what I probably should have done is sifted the sugar in and used my mixer to beat the icing, but since I did neither of those things, the sugar was lumpy and the icing ridiculously sticky. it's supposed to harden overnight (...that's what she said...), but I looked at it this morning and it's still sticky.

I divided the icing into small batches and added some food coloring to each (I think this part turned out just fine!). I did sugar cookie wreaths in green, bells in red, and what I think were supposed to be doves in blue (it sounds strange but it looks kinda cool). I put non-colored icing on the sugar cookie candle shapes and shook peppermint-flavored sparkling sugar on top. the other cookies got, respectively, red nonpariels, green nonpariels, and rainbow sprinkles. I couldn't find any of the silver balls that I wanted to use (apparently those shouldn't be eaten, but whatever). by the time I was done with the sugar cookies, I just didn't have the energy to do the gingerbread, so they are still plain.

I don't think the icing was the consistency to be put through the decorator gun, but maybe I can work with that on the next batch, because I really want to use this new toy! I also added a drop of vanilla to the icing, and I think I liked that.

the cookies turned out ugly but tasty. maybe I'll take some pictures when I do this next round today.

(edit: I went to Evil Walmart at lunch and, surprise surprise, found meringue powder! so I'll be trying that tonight, with the vanilla added because supposedly the icing made this way doesn't taste as good. I also got some more sparkling sugar and some gold and silver glazes, plus one of those little offset spatulas to help spread the icing better. I was using the back of a spoon, with less-than-sexy results.)

in which our heroine does not understand the fascination with Manolo Blahniks.

I went and bought my cookie baking-and-decorating paraphernalia this morning and the ingredients at the store on the way home. I plan to be all bakey bakey this weekend! yay!

I feel sort of like today kicked my ass, but I'm not sure why. general sense of doom, I suppose.

I do have things that I want to write about, but I have thus far failed to get into the right frame of mind to put them into the journal. I'm lame, I know. but my wrist (sprained in September, if you'll recall) has been acting up lately and I have been spending less time online and more time having Sex and the City marathons. I desperately need the sixth season (both parts) and the movie. both are wonderful and it's truly tragic that I do not own those DVDs.

anyway. bed now. I hope to sleep late. which reminds me: I'd better go feed the cats so that I have a better chance of that happening.

in which our heroine prepares to get her bake on.

I'm being a total lazy punk ass about the cards so far. I'm sure I'll be bored enough at some point this weekend to crank them out. go to my last post and give me your address if you haven't already.

I'm still feeling yucky, dizzy and all that, but I think it'll get better soon. I've finally got all my pills again after a good week or so without.

it's so damn humid in Atlanta lately, with all this rain. I'm dying in my upstairs apartment, with my hormonal issues that are bad when things are normal and worse when they are not. I put lotion on earlier, and since I'm now sweating, it's not really absorbed so much as made me feel greasy and icky. I'm not going to bother changing the flannel sheets for something cooler, since it's supposed to be back in autumn/winter-ish temperatures again on Monday. so it's just a few more nights of sleeping in very little clothing under no covers and waking up with my hair damp from sweat. fabulous!

on the bright side, I believe I will be making gingerbread and/or sugar cookies to take to my brother's house next weekend. I have this idea that I want to make the cookies look all cute, so I intend to go to Bed Bath & Beyond tomorrow for cookie cutters and a dessert decorator (one of my co-workers is a big fan of the one I linked). I have a coupon for 20% off my entire purchase, so I'm going to use it! I hope to get started baking this weekend sometime.

and now...bed!

in which our heroine says "happy holidays, f*ckers".

this morning on Facebook, one of my friends (a guy I know from high school days, who was a friend of a friend) had the following status message:

<friend> says CHRISTMAS not holiday.

I felt a rant coming, and I posted this comment in reply:

I find it extremely arrogant when people think their way is the only, true way. whether "merry Christmas" or "happy holidays" or simply "have a nice day", why not just say "you too" and appreciate the spirit in which it was intended, rather than getting bent out of shape over something that's, let's face it, a non-issue?

and I really got pissed off about it. this is one more example of some believers (unfortunately the ugly-bile-spewing loud ones) making their entire religion look bad.

you guys know that I am very much an advocate of "believe what you want, but don't push those beliefs on others". insisting that Christmas is the only holiday being celebrated during this time of the year is not only arrogant, it's, of course, factually incorrect. and to insist that your holiday is the only one that should be recognized, when people of faiths OLDER THAN YOURS are not acting similarly assholish, is despicable and embarrassing to the less moronic followers of said religion. you sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting "lalalalala" and refusing to accept these things as facts does not actually make them untrue.

I am not a Christian. I say that I do not celebrate Christmas, I go along with Christmas because it's just less of a hassle in my family to do that. but if someone tells me "merry Christmas", I am polite enough to wish them the same and go on with life. it's similar to being told "have a nice day" by a cashier at the end of a transaction. if you're actually having a crappy day, does it detract from the intended sentiment? no. it's just what you say. one could even argue that saying "happy holidays" or "have a nice day" is completely meaningless (like asking someone "how are you?" when really you're just being polite by asking or filling time on a customer service call or something). I don't see why it's so damn difficult to just say "you too" without getting tangled up in semantics and taking it as a personal attack on your practiced faith.

I see statements like "happy holidays", or the more religious versions, simply as kindness. and really, in the world we're currently living in, shouldn't we accept kindness when and where it is given? shouldn't we just...be more accepting?

in which our heroine posts quickly before bed.

today I received gifts from two of my friends. the gifts were sweet and thoughtful and, in the case of one, delicious, and in another, hilariously awesome.

note to self: do not dose the cardboard scratcher with catnip before bed. the cats will go demented.

in which our heroine answers the question that no one else bothered to answer.

well, I said I'd post about how the poor economy is affecting my life, so here goes.

things are hard for me during the best of times. while I love my job, it doesn't pay all that much. but right now...

I work for a small, local, family-owned company. we've been doing okay, but only just okay. business through the summer was good, it started to dwindle in the fall, and in the past two months it's been very depressing. we'll come in on a Monday to find seventy orders, when normally at this time of year (the last-minute party invitation shoppers, et cetera) we'd have double that and we'd be pushing hard to get out on time. (I remember working a decent amount of overtime last holiday season, completely willingly, since the extra money was so needed.) I came in today to fifteen orders. fifteen orders between 3:30 p.m. yesterday and 7:30 a.m. today. that's terrible. things do slow down some by the end of the week, but normally we'd have at least sixty.

we used to be the top search result on Google for "invitations". maybe we have stopped paying Google for that, but I've noticed that now we're not even on the first page of results. I wonder how much of our business slump is related to that, and how much is just plain old "this economy stinks and not many people have money to blow on unnecessary things".

we're running as lean as we can without (for the most part) sacrificing productivity. the owners let one of the IT guys go and cut all the part-time employees' hours. in my department, when we've run out of our own work to do, we try to help other departments, but some days we just have to leave early. this, of course, affects my paycheck. those early afternoons really do add up to a good chunk of money that I don't see, which just stretches things even more. I've thought about looking for a second job, but there's really nothing out there.

between that and all this stupid fraud stuff I'm dealing with at my bank, I have zero free cash. absolutely none. example: I posted last weekend about having to suddenly pay the power company a bunch of money. that left me with, seriously, fourteen dollars to my name for a week and a half. so far I've used five bucks for gas (and I'm already running on empty again), about six bucks has been used to feed the cats and myself (do you know how hard it is to feed yourself for several days on three dollars? I'm eating pasta for days), and the other three bucks is being reserved probably for Monday morning, so I can stop at a gas station on the way to work...that is, if I can make it to a gas station. I've barely been eating anything at home, because I put off grocery shopping for as long as I could -- I've been eating whatever is available at work. there's always a ton of stuff there, but it's all junk food (for example, I've had brownies for breakfast two days in a row because one of the owners brought them in and I ran out of oatmeal and couldn't replace it).

there have been, so far, two holiday parties given by co-workers that I've been invited to. one was last night, and one was the previous Thursday. when the invitations first got posted, I said I'd go to both. at the time, I had a tiny bit of spending money, enough to buy a couple of small gifts for charity (both hosts were collecting for one of our local charities and I really wanted to give to that) and an ornament for the exchange yesterday. but after all this, I skipped out on both and felt horrible about it. I ended up saying I wasn't feeling well for both nights (which really isn't too far from the truth; the stress is hell on my stomach) because I didn't think it was appropriate to show up empty-handed and I was too embarrassed to admit that I couldn't afford to participate. the first host said she missed me there; the second sent a small bag of gifts home with another co-worker to give to me today. I'm going to send them both something next week if I'm able; I hope to do a little bit of holiday baking if I find that I have the cash to do so.

then today we were told that we are having our office holiday potluck on Tuesday at lunch. the owners are providing the ham and turkey, and we're asked to bring sides and desserts. after wishing these types of things could be planned for a day or two after we get paid, I went into the bathroom and cried because I can't afford to buy or make anything to contribute. I'm going to feel like a freeloader on Tuesday, and I hate that (despite what I said above about eating stuff at work, I don't eat any more than anyone else does). but what are my options? I guess I could go get some cupcakes or something from evil Wal-mart after depositing my paycheck before the potluck, and now that I think of that, maybe I will. but...that's not the point.

the point is that I hate this season and I hate being poor and I hate how it makes me feel: embarrassed and inadequate and like a failure and...just so desperately sad.

so...in conclusion: being poor sucks, being poor this time of year sucks, this economy sucks, and I'm just going to ignore all the emo shit in the last paragraph because I'll feel like drinking myself into a fucking coma if I dwell on it again even for a minute.

(this post was chosen by the Holidailies panel as a "Best of Holidailies" selection. thanks, you guys!)

in which our heroine asks a question of her audience.

how is the crappy economy affecting your life right now?

I will post my own answer tomorrow.