T-Plus two days after Christmas.

It started with a real bang. That's right: massive dog diarrhea! Kerry is constantly guilty, God love him, of giving the dogs things that are guaranteed to cause (1) a mess on the porch (2) diabetes (3) fat beagles (4) massive dog diarrhea and/or vomiting. But I think this time he outdid himself. He decided that because the 24 pound turkey we got was difficult to clean when dinner was over and since we often don't really eat much of the dark meat anyway that he was going to give it ALL to the dogs. ALL meant probably 7 pounds of dark meat turkey and the fat that went along with it. I suppose he thought that a morning serving of Christmas dinner would give them all day to, um, deal with it. Wrong! Wrong, wrong, wrong! I was the lucky one who was still in bed when he discovered the gigantic piles of rancid, acidic, burning hot dog poop that were all around on our family room rug. It made him throw up. We still have spots because we are out of enzyme cleaner, and when he was out, he got other things that just don't work all that well. I don't want this kind of crap in my steamer, so I'm going to wait until tomorrow. Meanwhile, despite Resolve and Lysol and soap and water, it still stinks.

My sister in law and brother in law were coming today for "Christmas" with us, so there was much cleaning to do again. It is my yearly tradition to make biscotti at Christmas, usually chocolate chunk walnut biscotti, but since I lost the recipe I had saved in my bookmarks on Firefox last year, I had to find something new. I searched *everywhere* for that recipe or one that almost the same (my original biscotti recipe came from a Baker's Chocolate free recipe book from Kroger and has long since been lost, so I have a history of losing these recipes). In the end, it was baking, Nancy style. I made four or five different biscotti recipes today, searching for that perfect one. Also, Nancy style, I glanced over the first recipe I was going to try, but didn't register that it required a rather complicated type of cereal (Post Cranberry Almond Crunch) that I didn't have. Well, duh. I wouldn't have chosen the recipe if I knew it contained (1) cereal (2) a commercial brand of cereal like htat. But anyway, I got the cereal and made the biscotti, which stuck a bit to the pan and spread out a lot, especially on my bar pan, where the two logs of it 'became one' by the time the baking was over. I was able to separate them for the rebake, but they remained a little short.

My second attempt was with a chocolate biscotti that used unsweetened cocoa powder. It came out pretty well, but wasn't spectacular--I think it should have had white chocolate chunks or cranberries or something to make it a little more exciting. This was with a Master Biscotti Recipe that you could customize.

Third recipe was a walnut and chocolate chunk biscotti that used two tablespoons of milk, and I think milk is an interesting ingredient for a biscotti. The milk was supposed to make it a little softer, which is really not the point with biscotti (the recipe suggested substituting water for a harder product). I made a really big mess with this one because the dough turned out way too sticky and was all over my hands and the baking sheet and was unmoldable. I ended up adding probably a full cup of flour to it, bit by bit by bit, until I could finally get it into the flattened log shape I needed. But you know what? This one turned out to be the best one! Firm, but not brittle, attractive to look at, cut well, and tolerated the baking process without breaking.

My fourth attempt was another chocolate biscotti, and I used the Cuisinart with it because I was tired of cutting Baker's chocolate with a knife. Overall, I'm not sure how it went. At that point, I was really over baking, and I forgot that I had left them in the oven for the second bake. I guess you can't really overbake biscotti, but I just might have. They aren't burned, but they're very firm. I'd suggest dunking these in something to soften them up so they don't break your teeth!

Finally, I think my kitchen is kind of clean and all cookies are appropriately stored. Since Christmas Eve I have made chocolate cut-out cookies, reindeer noses, gumdrop cookies, sugar cookies, Moravian spice cookies, pecan praline muffins (that Pampered Chef non-stick muffin pan definitely needs to be sprayed before the batter is put in!), and dough that is now chilling for Amish sugar cookies (they had a lot of sour cream in them). I also made my second loaf of bread last night--a white bread with non-fat dry milk in it (my first was a dairy-free wheat bread) which turned out quite nice. It's still a little bit heavy, which I'm going to work on, but the loaf was much more attractive than the first one done in the machine, whose top looked like the Andes. This one I put on the dough setting and then baked it in my regular oven.

I think it's time for me to stop baking. It's time consuming, makes a big mess, and my kids are eating nothing but sugar. We still have some pork loin and turkey left from our big meal, so I'm going to concentrate on protein for tomorrow. Tonight was our traditional Chinese from the Zheng Garden when Annie and Tim were here--this is our Christmas meal together when they come.

If I wasn't baking, I'd surely be wasting time. And I have a host of new ways to waste outrageous amounts of time lately. The iPod Touch is a rather amazing device. I didn't know just how much I needed one! Of course, I haven't even begun to plumb the depths of what I can usefully do with it yet--the things like making a calendar, keeping lists of things like library books I need, or setting it up to check my email. No--I've been doing intellectual things like popping bubble wrap (you can do this for money!) and catapulting penguins and dive-bombing polar bears and laughing until I cried with a virtual Whoopie Cushion. Last night I spent close to four hours addictively playing Yahtzee, a problem I had before there was an electronic version. When I was pregnant with Rutledge, Kerry and I would play game after game of Yahtzee. Then, when he quit and went to sleep, I would sit and play by myself for several more hours every night. At 12:55, I made a pact with myself that the next time I got a score above 250, I was going to turn the thing off and go to bed. Then it was when I got three scores over 250. Then it was as soon as I finish this game here.... Next thing I knew it was after 1:30....

Frances had a friend sleeping over, and that's always a bit of an adventure. She slept over at this friend's house last Saturday night, and a day and a half later had the stomach flu. So I'm a wee tad nervous. I try not to let my severe emetophobia seep into my children's tender psyches, and I feel like I'm being especially gracious and calm this fall/winter about not limiting activities out of my own (ir?)rational fears.