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Monday, June 21, 2010

On Zombies, Yardwork and Waterparks...



I won something!  How often does a love of zombies and a hatred of mowing combine to gift you with books?  Well, it has and so to celebrate I've got a cute story and then a recipe for my favorite brain food: oatmeal raisin cookies.  Nom!  Speaking of noms, I won a galley of Dust by Joan Frances Turner from Jude at Omnomnom Books!  Clink the link to fnd out what zombies and yardwork have in common (at least in my head!)

Okay, cute story first and then noms.  Yes, it's a zombie story.  Sort of.  Okay, my kids are weird, but then I was a weird kid.  I know.  Isn't that where authors come from?  We all started as weird kids, right?  So Lizard Boy had a cub scout event yesterday morning.  e'd built a rocket and it was time for Rocket Academy.  Basically, you get a bunch of hyped up little boys together with moms and dads and fire off their homemade rockets.  Good fun except Howler Monkey now wants to make one.  He's 12, btw.  Their father (Let's call him Lawnmower Man, m'kay?) was also smitten with the process.  He's quite a bit older than 12, chronologically speaking.  But they don't want to make just any little old rocket.  They want to make a huge, enormous, Mythbuster-worthy rocket.  Stay tuned for more on that front.  I just hope they don't blow a hole in the barn roof.  Lawnmower Man tends to overestimate his explosive skills.

Now, you're saying "Where are the zombies?  Didn't Marguerite promise zombies?"  Patience!  You're as bad as my children.  So after two hours of explosive goodness, everyone is super hot.  This is Texas and it's already in the 90's by 10:00 am.  Solution?  I'm a brilliant mom.  I had them already in swimsuits to go to the Splash Pad and play.  We arrive at the Splash Pad and kids are playing the usual water games.  It's orderly, good clean fun.  Mom's have lawn chairs arranged in the shade and kids with appropriate smears of sun screen are splashing about.

But now the Butlers have arrived.

My kids invented an awesome new game they've dubbed "Zombie Tag."  Someone starts out as the zombie and chases everyone through the waterpark, violating Rule # 1: No Running.  It isn't enough to just touch someone.  You must be able to grab and hold on, thus violating Rule # 2: No Roughhousing.  The "zombie" then eats the brains of the kid he's tackled.  Bonus style points if you make lots of messy noises and your victim howls in mock agony.  Now the victim is infected and he's a zombie too.  The last non-zombie kid standing gets to be Omega Man.  He wins!  I love my weird kids.

We stayed for a couple hours and when we left, the kids were still messily devouring one another.  Butler Mission complete.  I'm sure the other moms love me.  I'm raising the next generation of writers.

On to the noms!

Oatmeal is good for your brain and you don't want zombies to starve, right?  But you don't want to be their snack of choice either.  So make sure you feed these cookies to everyone around you.  Zombies will be attracted to their big brains and leave yours alone.  It's a theory.

Brainiac Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

1 Cup butter
1 Cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 Cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
3 cups quick oats, uncooked
1 Cup raisins
1 Cup pecans

Now there is a secret to this and it's in the raisins.  Plump them up.  For the G-rated version, soak them for an hour in apple juice.  They'll absorb it and get all big and juicy.  For the adult version, soak the raisins in rum.  It's wicked good.  Cookies and a buzz.  Win!

Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees.  Beat your butter, sugars, eggs, and vanilla until creamy.  Combine all your dry ingredients except the oats. Now add the liquid mixture and the dry indredients together.  Stir in Oats, raisins, and nuts until it's well-mixed.

Drop tablespoonfuls onto cookie sheet and bake 10-12 minutes.  Be sure and cool these before you try and remove them.  They need about a minute to set up.  This recipe makes about 4 dozen 2 1/2 inch cookies.

Enjoy and look out for zombies.

12 comments:

  1. I'm so glad you stopped by my blog, Marguerite! I've added you to my reader and added myself to your follower list.

    It's nice to meet another Texan (and farmer).

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  2. ::waves:: Love the blog, Maria! Anyone who blogs about chickens and romance is fantastic to meet. Add that to another Texan, and it's a total win!

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  3. omg I love oatmeal cookies - and those look absolutely scrumptious!

    As for kid-invented games, my dad had a life-long friend whose pack of kids we played with, and we all collectively invented a rather weirdly complex and insanely rough game we called thow-thow (for some forgotten and bizarre kid reason) that involved kamikaze leaps from one side of the room to the other from one top bunk to another top bunk, with a "pit" of kids in the middle leaping to try and grab you in mid-air to drag you onto the floor to be messily eaten. Best of all? We played this in the pitch dark because we'd turn out all the lights and close the curtains. Gads. It's a wonder we lived to adulthood.

    I don't remember anyone losing permanent teeth, but I do remember lots of carpet burns and a few bloody noses.

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  4. Oh gads, I can't let my sons read that! They'd try it for sure.

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  5. It was really, really insanely fun. The kind of fun that leaves kids sort of ill and flushed and wild and reluctant to sleep or get in the car or do pretty much anything tractable and cooperative. Mom and Dad and Kehl and Peggy were generally playing pinochle downstairs in the kitchen. It was a big, rambling old house -- so we had a pact not to disturb 'em for anything short of a compound fracture, lest we get busted and the game forbidden.

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  6. For the life of me, I can't remember our weird kid games (though I'm sure we must've had at least one. We were weird kids!)

    And NOM for the recipe. I'm soooo there! :D

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  7. My sis and I had one where the object was to launch yourself from the top of the steps and see if you could clear the entire staircase. These were concrete stairs. I can't believe I didn't break more bones as a kid.

    Mac, I can totally picture doing something like that as a kid. I'd kill mine if they did half the things I did at their age.

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  8. Good lord...I can well imagine us doing something similar, though. I remember jumping out of the hayloft on a dare, more than once, to land in loose hay or leaves below.

    It's funny, looking back, how so many of these kids' games are such deep, instinct-brain, primate sorts of games to play.

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  9. That's it. I'm telling Moooooooooooooooooooom!

    (Can't leave you two alone for a minute)

    YAY zombies!

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  10. Hah! I should have known Stacey would be up for a round of Zombie Tag.

    Ooh, we used to jump out of tree houses all the time and they were waaaaaaaaaaaaaay high up.

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  11. It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt.

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