Hazel Ceej

When I ordered ice cream at a big lunch I hosted in 2004 for (m/l) 300 family and friends at my father's funeral reception, I also wondered how it was made. I like to have an idea of how something I'm eating came to be. The recipe I'm sharing comes from Rita on Food: Home of the Home Cook . She says her son likes chocolate mint ice cream and she made this for his birthday. In the meantime I can only buy scoops for my son and for a slightly different reason - to bribe him to eat veggies. The plan though is to try this recipe myself when things at work calm down. Ingredients : 2 ounces unsweetened cocoa powder, approximately 1/2 cup 3 cups half-and-half 1 cup heavy cream 8 large egg yolks 9 ounces sugar 2 teaspoons pure mint extract 1 teaspoon vanilla extract Directions : Place the cocoa powder along with 1 cup of the half-and-half into a medium saucepan over medium heat and whisk to combine. Add the remaining half-and-half and the heavy cream. Bring the mixture just to a si...

Links: Wordless Wednesday HQ , Rednesday, Create With Joy ,  Momspective , 5 Minutes for Mom , A Mother's Ramblings ,  Mama to 4 Blessings, The Can't-Shut-Up version: It was the kiddo's 5th birthday. I was busy at work and didn't have time to look for a cake that was not as girly as this. I feared he wouldn't like it and he didn't. He was then on a tantrum-at-every-turn phase. When he saw this cake he gave me an appalled look. What? no Ultraman, Mom?   He cried. I felt so sorry for him. Guilt was written on my forehead while tantrum was looming on the MacDonald's horizon. The guests have arrived and in a snap I promised him all the heroes on his next cake and bribed him with Hong Kong Disneyland if he would not make a scene at his party. He managed to show enough decent behavior the whole time. The next year we flew Air Asia to Macau and ferried our butts to Hong Kong. Boys!   

  A child's feet grow rapidly. It's a fact known to many parents or those in child care. So it is safe to assume that your child's shoe size is not the same as the last time you went on a shoe-shopping trip. The American Podiatric Medical Association suggests measuring your child's feet before every new shoe purchase. I fall short of this. And even if I did measure, I still would not have known we were to measure 'no matter how recently the feet were last measured.' I don't remember my kiddo regularly wearing typical socks while trying on shoes. And I don't remember myself inspecting his feet for signs of irritation after trying on shoes.  You may join me in making a note to self: socks and signs (of irritation) If you don't mind secondhand shoes, the advice is to avoid them as they 'could cause fungal infection.'  I remember a colleague proudly telling me how she bought her daughter's shoes for 25 cents at a garage sale. And I remember w...

In a fairytale world, she's the damsel in distress and he's the gallant knight in shining armor who comes to rescue her from the tower of the evil witch. Enter reality - CJ in a golden steed green bike and Pinky gallop to the sunset head to the lift of a six-storey apartment building. They speak different languages. They also have different personalities. He is an introvert; she is obedient. And sweet. When asked to kiss him she obliged. Click!  goes the knight's little professor's very first kiss from a girl besides his mom. ABC Wednesday

Divorce wiped me off something I would have been entitled to. That didn't bother me a hoot thanks to financial independence. But when the almighty ex-MIL cancelled my son's trust fund (long story, complicated) I had to look beyond mall windows to think. The realization that I am responsible for the loss of what is due the kiddo (we're talking more than a few digits here) horrifies me. Add the thought of giving up fine dining and entertainment, holidays abroad, and I'm twirling a nightmare in manicured fingernails.  The situation provides a steady supply of adrenaline as I scramble to adjust priorities hopping from one advice to another, experimenting, analyzing and trying out examples. Who wants a nightmare when life can go on nicely with some practice of what has been an option all along? Saving it is. A Yahoo Finance article shows readers how to live well on $40,000 a year . It looks feasible and motivated me to set a financial goal for CJ that will teach him how to ...