the sloppy copy

You know how it feels when you’re sick to the point where you cannot/will not eat anything? Because the consequences are, let’s say, less than pleasant? But eventually you start to feel what you assume has to be hunger, because you haven’t eaten in what seems like fourteen days, so you decide to “test it out” by sort of half-licking, half-chipmunk-gnawing at a pretzel with the salt chipped off? And for the first couple lick-gnaws, it’s okay, you’re feelin’ pretty good about this. So you graduate to taking a bite, like a real-person-sized bite, and then suddenly BAM. No. Not working. It’s like you imagine your stomach or intestines or whatever suddenly seizing up into a giant spazzy knot while the voice of King Triton is roaring Noooooooooooooooooooooo! 

Why King Triton?

*shrug*

So, accepting the fact that you’ll probably just starve to death (even though it’s probably only been, like, five hours since you last ate), you just decide to go to bed.

And then you wake up in the morning and it’s like – whoa. Birds are singing. The sun is shining. You feel completely and totally fine. Like, you can’t remember what it feels like to be sick. At all. So after you finish praising Jesus and calling your Mommy to tell her you feel all better, you sit down to a bowl of Raisin Bran.

And it is the best, most delicious, meal you’ve had in your entire life.

GUYS. GUYS. GUYS. 

CHRISTMAS.
IS.
TOMORROW.

OMG. OMG. OMG.

But.

This means the Christmas music is ending.

Sigh.

Alright, alright. I know that probably makes most people want to break out into a chorus of Hallelujahs (Ha! I knew you liked Christmas music!), but for the first time in three years I wasn’t force-fed holiday tunes for 8 hours each workday. And yeah, I miss it.

I am a sucker – a sucker I tell you! – for Christmas songs. Granted, there are a few that make me want to deafen myself with the business end of a #2 Ticonderoga,* but for the most part I love ’em all: the good (O Holy Night), the bad (I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas) and the ugly (I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus…as performed by the Jackson 5).

So as a gift to you, I present (ha! get it?) you with this gem; the end-all, be-all of secular Christmas music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g4lY8Y3eoo

Oh, God. Her voice. I damn-near weep with joy when I hear Judy Garland sing. This one in particular gives me goosebumps. 

Merry Christmas, friends.

*ie Santa Baby.
So. Much. Rage. Against. Dumb. Song.

There is no shame in my game: I am completely and totally OB–SESSED with Pinterest. I visit that site and it’s like Christmas morning for me: an essentially unlimited treasure trove of recipes, craft projects and DIY ideas. Ho-Lee-Crap. It’s a wonder I don’t pee myself, overly-excitable-puppy-style, each time I log in.

From this cornucopia of Web sites I’ve hand-picked a few especially good’uns: either the photography is amazing (trying to take a good picture of a cookie is hard, y’all), the writing is excellent (also hard, y’all), the ideas splenderefescent (I went there) or d) all of the above.

For a very brief moment (nanosecond, really), I contemplated making this blog into something like those which I so admire. And I have actually tried a few times to come up with a super-clever-n-fun post about some project/idea/dessert I’d recently tried to copy/make/bake… I even carefully patterned it off of my best-beloved blogs, but… it ended up something like this:

Mint-truffle kiss brown bites

the clever introduction
I was at Target and my mom saw a bag of cherry cordial Hersheys kisses. And I was all like “Whoa!” And she was all like “I know!” and I was like “Yeah!” and she was like “You should buy them!” And I was like “I hate cherry cordials!” And she was like “Why did you say ‘Whoa,’ then?” And I was all like “Because YOU like them.” So she bought them. And then, I don’t know, she felt bad or something and bought a bag of these mint-truffle kisses for me.

picture posted after being photoshopped for at least 75 hours

But I’m all like “these are good in a one-per-day kind of way, what am I supposed to do with all these?”

But then I got an idea…

apology that the picture looks so bad even though IT DOES NOT LOOK BAD. SERIOUSLY DO YOU HAVE YOUR OWN PERSONAL GAFFER TO LIGHT YOUR KITCHEN?

the series of pictures with vague, step-by-step instructions
Too much work. Do these people really stop, mid-egg-beating, to take pictures?

the actual recipe, in cute printable recipe-card format
Ingredients:
1. Brownie mix. Bag, box, homemade. I don’t care.
2. The shit you need for the brownies. Eggs? Oil? Water? Milk? Cardamom? Fuck. Whatever.
3. A bag of the truffle-kiss things. I got mine at Target. They’re also available wherever mint truffle Hersheys kisses are sold

Instructions:
1. Get a bag of brownie mix. Or a box. I don’t care.
2. Do whatever it says to do on the bag. Or box. Whatever.
3. Use a mini-muffin tin. And maybe don’t use mini-muffin liners because FUCK do those things NOT like brownies! I was peeling that shit off the bottom of each individual brownie for-ever.
4. So grease the pan or whatever.
5. Bake them for almost as long as the bag or box says. Pull them out of the oven. Ram an unwrapped kiss, pointy-side-down, into the middle of each one. It’ll look like this:

pithy caption

the clever close and giveaway/contest/call for comments
I have nothing to give away to you, because the brownies already got ate and no one cares enough about this blog to give me things to give away (like I’d actually give them away! Ha-ha! Joke’s on you, imaginary corporate sponsor!). I’m told they tasted good. I was all like “meh, could take it or leave it” but a couple people damn-near shat themselves with delight when they tried them. So. Yeah. To each their own.

In summary, I don’t think this version would go over as well.

Or would it?