Claudia — Page 1501

Craving Cremes (and I Don’t Mean the Color)

August 7, 2012 at 7:46 am by Claudia

Lately, I can’t get enough of these:

I’m obsessed.

I discovered Tazo’s iced tea at Starbucks. I never buy coffee at Starbucks. I’ve tried. You know I love strong coffee and my favorite is Peet’s French Roast. Starbucks makes their coffee way too strong for this coffee lover and it has a somewhat bitter taste. But I do stop in at the mini-Starbucks when I’m at my neighborhood Target and get a little Tazo Passion flavored iced tea for the trip home. It’s so good!

On a Target shopping trip, I noticed a box of the same tea and it magically jumped in my cart. Now I can have my very own glass of iced tea here at the cottage.

But the big obsession, my downfall, my craving, is this box of cookies.

I’ve never liked Oreos. I don’t like the taste of the chocolate they use. I don’t particularly like the creme center. They taste fakey and too sugary to me. I’ve tried. They have not passed the Claudia taste test. I have strict rules, you know.

When I was a young girl, my mom would occasionally buy chocolate creme cookies. I can’t remember what company made them, but they were far and away my favorite cookies to munch on. As I helped her unload groceries, I crossed my fingers that somewhere in one of those bags was a box of chocolate cremes. Just for me. Well, I suppose I had to share them with the rest of the family. I couldn’t secretly hide them in my bedroom, could I? I wouldn’t stoop that low….

Fast forward many years. Many years. Every once in a while, I would scan the cookie shelves in the grocery store, hoping against hope that something other than Oreos or any of the other standard sandwich cookies would appear. Nothing. Until recently…..

I was at our local store, in the darned cookie/cracker aisle (I’m also addicted to Stoned Wheat Thins) and I glanced at the section with specialty cookies, which often seem to be made in another country. The still-hopeful-after-all-these-years-dream of a chocolate creme cookie in my head, I did a quick scan. Double take. Rubbing of eyes. Did I read that label correctly? Afraid I was seeing things, I grabbed a box like the one in the photo. Chocolate cremes. Made by Dare, which is a Canadian company. Hey, my mom is Canadian, 3 out of 4 of my grandparents were Canadian – I felt it was my duty to give them a try. I must be true to my heritage. So I bought one box.

EXACTLY like the cookies of my youth. You have no idea how excited this made me. I couldn’t stop yammering about them. I made Don try them. (He likes them a lot. Darn. Refer back to sharing issues mentioned in paragraph 6.) I ate approximately 6 or 7 or 8 of them. Believe me, I could eat more than that in one fell swoop.

Since then, I buy two boxes at a time. When they are out of stock, my heart sinks. Clearly, I’m not the only local shopper who loves these. Sometimes I am forced to substitute Dare’s Lemon Creme cookies (which are quite tasty.) I have yet to try their Maple Creme cookies, but I’m sure I will succumb at some future date. But these smooth, velvety chocolate cremes are my achilles heel. They are a happy connection to my childhood. They are scrumptious.

I need to make sure that my local store never stops stocking these. Or heads are going to roll.

I mean it.

Happy Tuesday.

Random Thoughts on a Monday Morning

August 6, 2012 at 7:49 am by Claudia

:: Does this photo look like I used a special effect in PicMonkey? Nope. Just a foggy lens courtesy of this awful humidity.

But I sort of like it. It looks a bit magical and mysterious.

:: Don’s home for about 36 hours. Originally it looked as if he would be working tonight as the play is moving onstage for a week of tech/dress rehearsals, but the cast got the night off. One of his fellow cast members lives south of us in New Jersey and gave Don a ride to our local park-and-ride, just off the Thruway, where I picked him up. The dogs were very happy to see him. So was I. They made him shave his goatee and cut his hair for the part he’s playing. (I miss his goatee.)

:: Yes, I know. This is a rather boring photo of a hose and hose hanger. But, in the why-didn’t-I-do-this-years-ago category, after 7 years here, I finally bit the bullet and bought the hanger. Previously, the hose just stayed in a sort of coiled mess on the ground. For some reason, the spigot for the hose is all the way around on the far side of the house. So I had to buy a 150′ long hose a few years back in order for the hose to reach the big garden bed. This hanger makes things so much easier. And neater.

:: The weeds that I see from our kitchen window are very popular. Yesterday, I posted some photos I took of a goldfinch that was flitting among the flowers. Today…

Same weeds, beautiful Eastern Swallowtail butterfly.

Such ephemeral beauty.

:: Is it wrong of me to say I’m getting a little tired of the Olympics? I am. I usually love watching them. Indeed, I have spent every evening this past week in front of the television cheering on those athletes. But I’m getting a bit weary of the whole thing. Part of the problem is the fact that I can’t look at any news sites online or on television without seeing some result posted before I have the chance to watch the event in primetime. Some sites handle it well and say “Spoiler Alert” giving readers the chance to make their own decision about that sort of thing. Many of them, however, including CNN and other major news outlets, just blast the headline, not caring one bit whether they might have ruined the element of surprise for their viewers. I find the whole thing tedious. Since I’m online a lot, I feel like I’m trying to walk through a field of spoiler-landmines.

I know that covering the Olympics is an enormous undertaking but I do wish the commentators didn’t feel that they have to fill every moment with words. Too much talking! Sometimes I end up shouting “Shut Up!” at the television. When I was growing up in Michigan, we were able to watch Canada’s coverage of the Olympics, which I found much more sane and much less hyped.

Swimming and diving and gymnastics are my favorites and they’re pretty much done at this point. I used to love track and field, but now, not so much. Last night, it was a relief just to watch The Newsroom. Is there such a thing as Olympics burn-out?

I hope your Monday is a happy one.

Zinnias, Goldfinches and a Question or Two

August 5, 2012 at 9:23 am by Claudia

My first zinnia has bloomed. Yes, I know it’s a bit late but I seem to forget to put the seeds in the ground until late in the spring. I also planted some sunflower seeds. However, the plants that are coming up look suspiciously like the purple hyacinth bean vine that I planted in pots by the entrance to the dog corral.

I seem to have a problem with sunflowers.

Last year, a blogging friend sent me some giant sunflower seeds, which I excitedly planted. Whatever it was that came up was scrawny and I never saw a giant sunflower. Okay. So this year, I bought my own seeds and planted them. Something is coming up that bears no resemblance to the photo on the seed packet. In fact, yesterday I pulled out the seed packet (which I had saved in a drawer) to make sure that I had actually planted the seeds. I did. So what gives?

On another note: I caught a glimpse of this little goldfinch, who turned out to have a mate, flitting among the weeds on the edge of the property. I shot this through the mesh of the kitchen window screen, so it’s a bit fuzzy. He’d jump from flower to flower, sometimes hanging upside down. It was like watching a gymnastics competition.

Which brings me to a question I have about birds. In the last week or so, I no longer see birds at the birdbath. There was so much activity earlier in the summer and now….none. All of the rain and bird activity had dirtied up the birdbath, so I cleaned it out thoroughly, thinking that might be keeping them away. Still no birds. It’s so hot right now, I would think they’d be using the birdbath more than ever. And though I’m indoors a lot these humid days, I don’t even see them flying around. Where are they?

What gives? Does anyone out there have any information?

I miss them. That’s why I was so happy to see the goldfinches yesterday.

Other business: A few of you asked about the cabinets and plate rack I bought for the dollhouse kitchen. They are made by JBM Miniatures. I first discovered them on this site, but they no longer have them in 1″scale. They do still carry them in 1/2″scale. On checking the JBM site, I see they are also sold out. (This is why I decided to bite the bullet and purchase them the other day.) I found Grandma Holly’s House online and they had 2 left in stock. I just checked and there is still one available.

It’s a little more money than I would usually spend, but the units are so well made and are very high quality. The drawers open and are beautifully finished. To me, they were worth the investment. If you’re interested, I would click on that link as soon as possible. Good luck!

Happy Sunday.

Craving Cremes (and I Don’t Mean the Color)

Random Thoughts on a Monday Morning

Zinnias, Goldfinches and a Question or Two

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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