Delicious Cookies!

I wanted to post these recipes much sooner but I haven't been able too. Better late than never, right?!

Kathy at Bermudaonion's Weblog and Julie at Booking Mama hosted a Virtual Cookie Swap for 12 Days and provided all of us with some wonderful cookie recipes. If you haven't seen the posts on their blogs, definitely check them out. They are also each hosting a Giveaway. In order to enter the giveaways on their blogs, Kathy & Julie have asked that entrants provide a tried and true cookie or candy recipe. I am posting my favorite of my grandmother's Christmas cookies and a delicious cookie bar recipe I have made numerous times! Enjoy!

My grandmother made these cookies every Christmas when I was younger. I looked forward to them every year when I was growing up! It has been a while since I made them but I will be for sure this year!

Butter Ball Cookies

1 cup butter
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups cake flour
1 1/2 cups walnuts, ground fine**
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 325 degrees

Cream together butter, sugar, salt & vanilla
Blend in flour & nuts
Roll into balls.
Bake at 325 degrees for 20 - 25 minutes
Remove from oven and while still warm, roll in powdered sugar.
Cool
Roll in powdered sugar again
Makes about 4 dozen cookies!

** Pecans can be substituted for walnuts. You can also add chocolate chips or butterscotch chips to the mixture.

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Chocolate Oat Bars

1 cup butter, softened
2 cups light brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups quick-cooking rolled oats

Filling:
1 (15 oz.) can sweetened condensed milk
1 (12 oz) package semi-sweet chocolate chips (2 cups)
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

In large bowl cream together (1 cup) butter & brown sugar
Beat in eggs & (2 tspns) vanilla
In another bowl sift together flour, baking soda & (1 tspn) salt
Stir in oats
Stir dry ingredients into creamed mixture until well blended
Set aside
Put about 2/3 oat mixture into bottom of greased 10x15x1 pan
Set aside remaining oat mixture

In heavy saucepan over low heat, combine sweetened condensed milk, chocolate chips, (2 tbspns) butter & (1.2 tspn) salt, stir until melted and smooth
Stir in vanilla & nuts

Spread filling mixture over oat crust in baking pan
Crumble remaining oat mixture over the top

Bake at 350 degrees 25-30 minutes
Cool; Cut into squares

Friday Thoughts and Reading Weekend!

I woke up very early this morning, I'm not sure why. I think it may have been because Betsy was chasing Magoo all over the room and I was jumped on and run over 3 or 4 times! I have a hazy recollection of a cat landing on my chest and one running down my leg and then stepping on my head. Oh well! So I decided to read. And several hours went by. It was great! I thought about getting on the computer to check my mail and blog about reading for Thankfully Reading Weekend but I knew I would get sucked in to the blogosphere and be on-line for a while!

Sam and I and the kitties had a lovely, quiet Thanksgiving yesterday. We watched a little bit of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. There were some wonderful floats and performances...and a few weird ones like the large group that jumped rope. But they were good. We watched a short movie my husband wanted to see because the singer and song-writer, Maynard James Keenan, from one of his favorite bands, Tool, is in the movie. I also like Tool and Maynard is an interesting and very talented guy. The movie, Sleeping Dogs Lie, is a mystery story and it's good but could be better. It should be longer. The cool part was that I didn't recognize Maynard at all, even after Sam told me which character he was! I've seen him in a couple of other movies and he just disappears into the character he's playing, completely. It's pretty amazing. We also watched some of the Godfather I and II and played with the kitties. I read while Sam did a NY Times crossword. And we cooked, of course! Dinner was great and so filling. But when we were cleaning up we realized that we completely forgot about the stuffing, it was still in the Turkey! LOL Nice moronic move, uh?! lol We had a good laugh over that! Good thing we have lots of leftovers. Bob, Betsy, Magoo, Huxley and Dopey really liked the turkey. Jazzy, Hennessey, Sadie and some of the other visiting kitties didn't seem to care much for it.

As far as reading goes, this morning I read more of Double Take: A Memoir by Kevin Michael Connolly. I am almost finished this book. I also started Perfect Life by Jessica Shattuck can't decide if I like this book. I want to like it, but I'm not sure. There are 4 or 5 major characters and I think I might dislike 3 of them. Not good odds. But I want to see where the story goes so I'll keep reading.

Wordless Wednesday 11.25.09

Betsy and Huxley on the Art of Sleeping!

Help Feed Animals! Please!

I found this information on Esme's blog, Chocolate & Croissants. It's about helping to feed neglected and abused animals through The Animal Rescue Site. And It's FREE for you. I have seen posts about this on other blogs too. The Animal Rescue Site makes it extremely easy to help out animals not living in loving, caring homes like yours and mine. Simply click the link below, it takes you to The Animal Rescue Site and there you click on the large purple box. That's it! It's so easy, you can't miss it! By clicking this box, you will enable sponsors to provide money for the care and feeding of animals in need. It takes maybe 15 seconds. Please try to go to The Animal Rescue Site everyday and click the purple box or, if not everyday, as often as you can! Here's the web site! Please pass it along to people you know!:

The Animal Rescue Site

This is so important because The Animal Rescue Site is having trouble getting enough people to go to their site and click on the purple box daily so they can meet their quota of getting FREE FOOD donated every day to abused and neglected animals. This doesn't cost you a thing. Their corporate sponsors/advertisers use the number of daily visits to donate food to abandoned/neglected animals in exchange for advertising.
Thanks for your help! Thank you Esme for reminding me to post about this!

Teaser Tuesdays 11.24.09

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

*Grab your current read
*Open to a random page
*Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
*BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
*Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their
TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

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My Teaser:

"Aside from my head injury (and the half dozen I would incur in the years to come), he was right. It was good to have someone who was unperturbed by the fact you were a legless guy and only interested in getting you on the hill to ski. Buck asked the same of me that he asked of everyone else; as long as I didn't whine or complain, we'd keep skiing."

Double Take: A Memoir by Kevin Michael Connolly (p. 56)


If you'd like to join in (please do!)don't forget to link your post to MizB's at Should Be Reading. If you don't have a blog, share your "teasers" in a comment.

Sunday Salon 11.22.09

I was going to wait until later, after the game to write this but I needed to keep myself preoccupied before all the nervous energy coursing through my body drives me nuts! lol My mother would think I was nuts if I told her I was feeling so nervous because of a football game! Yep, the JETS are making me feel like a jittery bowl of jello. In approximately 45 minutes they play the New England Patriots. It probably won't be a pretty game. But, as with all Jets games, I'm hoping that, like earlier in the season, we pull out a win. Oh boy! would that be great!

I haven't been a very good blogger this week and I want to apologize to all my friends and visitors out there! It was another week when I didn't feel very well and I didn't feel much like myself. The good thing is that yesterday I felt much better, more like the old me! Hopefully whatever was making me feel blah is completely gone. I am planning to spend the week visiting all of the blogs I haven't visited regularly in the last couple of weeks as well as reading and responding to your posts. I also want to post some long overdue reviews, and get my Goodreads and my new Library Thing accounts updated. I need a central list of all the books on my TBR list, the books I want to read but don't have in my possession yet. That's a very long list! and it's on a piece paper here, over there and some are even listed on-line. It's chaos! I even found a partial list in an old book that fell off the shelf the other day! lol I used to be so organized and neat at work, my desk was beautiful. But at home I just had a big pile of stuff in a couple of different places. And I seem to have kept that up. But I am determined to get organized starting this week!

As many of you know, Bob went to the vet this week. Bob can breathe easily now, he's sleeping less and has more energy so he's really enjoying life now! He no longer makes any grunting or sniffling sounds which is great news. In all honesty though, some of his sounds were funny and charming - I miss them! Not to mention, I no longer hear Bob when he's approaching the house or coming into the room. But it's a small price to pay and I am happy he's feeling much better. Betsy the kitten is growing fast and furiously. She's become a big mush and loves to climb on Sam or me when we're in bed and be scratched around her ears! Betsy likes to sleep during the day and play at night. She likes to have a playmate rather than play alone. So she's taken to making Magoo play with her by jumping on him when he is sitting on the bed and pushing at him with her paw! It's very funny to watch. Eventually Magoo tires of this and gets up to run away which is exactly what Betsy wants. She runs after him and eventually jumps him. They wrestle on the ground until Magoo gets free of Betsy and runs away. Of course, Betsy chases after him and it begins again! LOL
All of the cats are doing very well!

I stopped in Barnes & Noble after we dropped Bob off at the vet. There are so many books I would love to buy but I also couldn't decide which ones to buy! lol I hate being in a mood like that when I'm in a store ready and willing to shop. I came across "The Gathering" by Anne Enright which I want to read so I picked that up and then read some Christmas magazines. I love Christmas and Holiday magazines!

I am still reading Stand the Storm by Breena Clarke. It's a really wonderful book. But, I confess that I didn't read it much this week because I was lazy and gravitated more towards lighter books such as Hungry Woman in Paris by Josefina Lopez and The Year of Fog by Michelle Richmond which I finished this morning. I have several reviews that I hope to post this week. The reviews are for Cherries in Winter by Suzan Colon, The Last Bridge by Teri Coyne and The Year of Fog by Michelle Richmond. Along with Stand the Storm, I'm also reading Double Take by Kevin Michael Connolly this week.

Almost time for the game. Dare I say it? Go J - E - T - S!! Enjoy the rest of your Sunday!

Book Review: This is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper

Title: This is Where I Leave You
Author: Jonathan Tropper
ISBN: 978-0-525-95127-8
Pages: 352
Release Date: August 6, 2009
Publisher: Dutton
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Rating: 4.5 out of 5


Publisher: The death of Judd Foxman's father marks the first time that the entire Foxman family-including Judd's mother, brothers, and sister-have been together in years. Conspicuously absent: Judd's wife, Jen, whose fourteen-month affair with Judd's radio-shock-jock boss has recently become painfully public.

Simultaneously mourning the death of his father and the demise of his marriage, Judd joins the rest of the Foxmans as they reluctantly submit to their patriarch's dying request: to spend the seven days following the funeral together. In the same house. Like a family.

As the week quickly spins out of control, longstanding grudges resurface, secrets are revealed, and old passions reawakened. For Judd, it's a weeklong attempt to make sense of the mess his life has become while trying in vain not to get sucked into the regressive battles of his madly dysfunctional family. All of which would be hard enough without the bomb Jen dropped the day Judd's father died: She's pregnant.

My Thoughts: The narrator and main character of This is Where I Leave You, Judd Foxman, is a man in his mid-30s whose life is falling apart. I thought it was refreshing and very interesting to have a male narrator when so many books have female leads and narrators. We are privy to his thoughts, ideas, feelings and dreams, many of which include the female anatomy and sex but not in a graphic or distasteful way. Foxman is a very likable and sympathetic character, most of the time, and easily relatable. He has been hurt badly by his wife (they are separated) as well as his former boss and is very angry at them with good reason: they are now in a relationship. As for their former couple friends, they chose his wife and her new boyfriend over him, mostly due to the fact that it's easier for couples to hang out with couples, while Judd is all alone. He's also humiliated, sad, very lonely, and despairing. It's quite realistic and understandable that he'd be feeling sorry for himself and spending his days wallowing in his misery trying to figure out where he went wrong. To make matters worse, his father dies and this just exacerbates his sadness and pain.

Judd isn't up to sitting shiva with his family (a seven day ordeal) which makes sense based on what's going on in his life right now. He isn't particularly close to his family and doesn't feel that they really know him. But, it turns out, he doesn't know them very well either and much of this, he learns, is his fault. He hasn't bothered to spend much time with his parents or his siblings since he left home for college all those years ago. After a short time with his family, a different Judd starts to emerge. He isn't just a nice guy getting dumped on by life. It appears that he's also somewhat self-centered and selfish. Judd's not the only one in his family having a difficult time. He has a lot of guilt in relation to his family, much of it brought on by his own actions and choices. And even though time with them may result in his having to face some unpleasant truths about himself, these seven days with his family may be just the antidote he needs to feeling sorry for himself.

It turns out the whole Foxman family isn't particularly close. The siblings competed with each other for their parents' love and attention and there's been misunderstandings and resentments and little to no communication. The youngest, Phillip, born nine years after Judd, is the baby of the family and was doted on by everyone. He's always been the irresponsible trouble-maker who needed to be bailed out of one predicament or another every few years. His parents always took care of him. After college everyone went their own ways, as is so often the case, getting jobs, boyfriends, girlfriends, and eventually husbands and wives. Paul, the eldest, joined dad in the family business, giving him a feeling of superiority.

The animosity between the siblings festered providing the impetus for them to keep their distance. The siblings rarely saw each other for long periods of time, mostly keeping tabs through phone calls with mom. Spending seven days together under one roof, much of the time in the same room together, forces many of the misapprehensions and animus to the surface. Pain, anger, sadness, indignation, despair, even joy all mix together in an ever-expanding balloon ready to explode at any moment.

Jonathan Tropper 's story is filled with realistic characters readers will recognize from their own lives. The feelings, thoughts, annoyances and memories are easy to relate to and understand. If the Foxman family doesn't resemble our own family, we see them in others we have known over the years. The issues of estrangement, avoidance, favoritism, and competition between siblings aren't unique to the Foxman Family but are found to some degree in many families. Tropper 's realistic vehicle of using the father's death to bring everyone together makes interaction unavoidable and, therefore, confrontation inevitable. But that same confrontation may be the best way to clear the air in this dysfunctional family for whom emotions run high. Resolutions don't necessarily mean the Foxman siblings end on good terms but Jonathan Tropper hasn't written a fairy tale. He has written a complex and authentic story about a family that reluctantly comes together during a crisis.

Tropper has an amazing talent for writing riveting dialogue that is, at times brutally honest and at other times, caustically funny. In fact, there are many humorous anecdotes and passages in this novel that caused me to frequently laugh out loud. The humor is a refreshing reprieve from the sadness and tension that occurs throughout the story. But in a novel about a man struggling to assess why his life is falling apart and face some realizations about himself, as well as cope with his family's sudden acrimonious unity, uncomfortable, awkward and intense situations are unavoidable.

I really enjoyed This is Where I Leave You and found I didn't want to put it down once I started reading it. Tropper's writing is so engaging and personal that I felt like I was meeting and getting to know Judd and the Foxman Family personally. The characters come alive through Judd's memories and in his interactions with them. Some of them seemed familiar to me and those that didn't I wished did, such as Judd's outspoken, quirky and loving psychologist mother. During the story, I found myself rooting for different characters at different times, one minutes loving Judd, for example, and 5 chapters later wishing I could shake him while giving his wife Jen a hug. I experienced the gamut of emotion from joy to sadness and everything in between while reading Jonathan Tropper's latest novel. If you enjoy an engrossing story with genuine characters and a roller-coaster of emotions, This is Where I Leave You is a book for you.

I won this book, a signed hardcover copy, from Sheri on her wonderful blog, A Novel Menagerie. Thank you so much, Sheri!