Nuts 'n' Bolts and other drama...

I can hear all you Brenton's and Derksen's gasping...
"No, she wouldn't, she couldn't, she shan't, give away the totally top secret family recipe."

I've probably been disowned by now, but alas, but I figure its a dang good recipe, and heck, if you haven't done any Christmas baking, this is a simple little recipe that could get you lots of results, in not a lot of time! So there you have it family, I'm giving away all our secrets now.

Well, I won't tell how we all stay so stunningly beautiful and brilliant, even into our older years...that one is staying under wraps.

First of all, a most adorable little helper is essential. If you are lacking in the adorable little helper department, I have two to offer. I accept cash, cheque, and chocolate as payment.

*Disclaimer on the most adorable helper bit, they generally just end up eating pretzels, while you do all the work, but they do intially seem to enjoy dumping all the cereals into to the bowls.

The recipe. Hope you can read this...
I printed it up all purdy, then attached it to some scrapbooking paper with some brads. Then got some ribbon, attached it to purdy bag. And voila, a purdy, yet afforable little gift for some church folk.
So I use a large roasting pan to do mine up in. It usually works out that you have to split it up into two batches fit it all. So I poured half into this large bowl, and half into the large roasting pan. Once they were poured in, I divided up my liquid and drizzled each batch (but only drizzle the batch once its ready to go into the oven. Otherwise it will get soggy). Am I making any sense?
So after 1 hour in a 250° oven, stirring every 15 minutes, this is what you get...
Mmm, mm good. And from this "little batch" I was able to make up 5 family-sized baggies, and 4 small baggies, not to mention all the munching that our family did. I'm thinking I should still do one more batch before Christmas (that would be my third), but we'll see. Hopefully I can I get these baggies out the door before one of us breaks down and opens one up! And I do say that you need Bugles for the recipe, but I had a heck of a time finding them this year. I'm getting the feeling that they may very well be discontinued. Bugle makers everywhere should be ashamed!

In other news, I thought I'd report on a most troubling occurance taking place at the Nepper household over this past week. The Cord Swiper. Grr. Yes, you know the one. 4 times over the past week, our plug-in cord has been unplugged. I mean seriously? What is wrong with people? Its been like -30° around these parts, and believe me, I am none too impressed when I am rushing out to the car only to discovered its been unplugged for who knows how long.

Evidence. Slide A.
So we started theorizing. Well, it has to be the mailman, right? Our mailman had a bit of drama about our hedges this past summer. He said it was "too dangerous" to approach our houses (us and our neighbors) because our hedges weren't trimmed to the right length. So we received a notice that he wouldn't deliver our mail until we trimmed them up. Yup, mailman drama. So the mailman was definitely a suspect.

My theory was that it was some Greenpeace loving, tree hugging, throwback Hippie from BC. They figured we were wasting too much energy plugging in our cars, and we should have them on timers (and yes, we should, but do you have time to run over to Canadian Tire?). So I figured they were taking out their ecological aggression on our poor cars. "Don't you know that people in Africa can't even plug in their cars?" they would say.

Rob's theory. Some punk kid, thinking he was fairly hilarious with his little prank (Of course its a boy. Darling little girls would never get up to trouble, now would they? My Mother would beg to differ!). I said, no way would any kid do that, and Rob said, "I totally would have done that!" Oh my...

So Rob's solution. Well, his intial thought was to fray the wire a bit and let them have it (I know, I know, I did talk him out of that and explain why killing the person unplugging our cars was not socially acceptable). So instead he got some rebar wire and basically made it impossible to remove our plugs without a wire cutter. "Take that Cord Swiper," he said, with a little glint in his eye, might I add! The next day, our plugs did not move, although our neighbors got unplugged, so we knew they were still at large.

So yesterday morning, it was a very laid back morning about the Nepper house, as the past week has been. Seriously, do you have anywhere to go when there is like a -48° windchill outside? I sure don't! So I was rocking my sexy morning hair (READ: So crazy that it would give small children nightmares, type of hair), and the Hubster's most fabulous black housecoat. Abbi and I were in the kitchen. Out of the corner of my eye... I spotted them...THE CORD SWIPER!!!

Who was it? I know you are on the edge of your computer chairs...

ROB WAS RIGHT! A punk kid!

I could see his Mom walking along the road with some other children in a stroller and he came running down the path in front of our cars. He stopped at the plug in, and started messing with it. Of course, Rob had foiled him with his rebar set up. So in the meantime, I nearly bowled Abbi over trying to get to the front door. I flung the door open just as he was starting to continue running down the path (probably realizing he had been foiled).

I said, "Hey!" Nothing. He kept on running. So I found my deepest, angriest, loudest man voice I could muster and bellowed (I'm serious, it was a bellow. It was shockingly loud. I'm sure everyone in the complex turned around!), HEY!!! The kid stopped dead in his tracks and looked back at me, and in keeping with my man voice I yelled at him, "DO NOT UNPLUG THE CARS!!!" I'm sure he peed his pants at that very moment, he looked so frightened.

Ha, ha, ha, ha...oh, too funny. What a rush I got from yelling at what appeared to be a 7 year old boy. The mystery was finally solved (I cracked the case, thank you very much), and heck, I got to let out all of my cord aggresion. Bwa ha ha ha...

So now our orange car can rest in peace again. Mind you it looks like one of the brake lines cracked with our recent cold snap and its at the shop right now. Poor thing. Probably couldn't take all the cord drama...

So there you have it folks. The mystery has been solved. The Cord Swiper was caught. Or at least I hope so. After all my yelling I can't imagine he would try it again, but we'll see just how stubborn the little guy is. I figure Rob could figure out some priceless ways to teach the kid a lesson, but hopefully it doesn't have to go there.