A Recipe for Chocolate, Peanut Butter, Oatmeal Cookies

Mix the following in a large sauce pan (at least a 2 quart size).

* 1 cube margarine or butter (1/2 cup)
* 2 cups sugar
* 1/3 cup cocoa
* 1/2 cup milk

Cook at a rolling boil for one minute. A rolling boil is one that you can’t stir down.

Stir in:

* 1 teaspoon vanilla
* 1/3 cup peanut butter
* 3 cups minute oats

Drop by the teaspoonful when cool. A sheet of wax paper makes a good surface on which to drop the cookies. Don’t wait too long to drop the cookies or they will be difficult to drop. The one minute of rolling boil is very important to the consistence of the cookie.

Gotta love this title, but it is a great article for SEO, and again, one to hang on to for future blogging reference!

7 Easy Steps to a Pimped Out Money Making Wordpress Blog-WeblogHits.com

via Blogging Pro, via ProBlogger

I am testing some good spammers software, but I am only using it for good, so that my dear hubby can keep up with his blogzilla wifey. So, here is a test post to see if I can ping his site properly.

I am having an awful time with my feeds being stolen and used at shady Adsense sites, as is all of b5media I think, so am going to test out this feed plugin, Better Feed, here before I go begging the guys to do something.

On a cool note, Glam.com asked me to write a weekly beauty column for them, and of course I said yes. First column out on Friday and we are gonna be talking - take a wild guess - sunscreen. My favorite topic.

Also, something to hang on to for future reference is Suzanne Falter-Barns’ article on communicating with your fellow bloggers. That is something just about all of us at b5 can improve upon. Suzanne does just about what I do, when I do it, of course, but hers will be a useful article to have my hot little hands on. Good stuff, thanks a bunch, Suzanne!

How cute is this? If you don’t love Kiss, you might not think it is cute at all, but I do, and I do. Look how happy Paul looks! He is 54, and he and his pregnant (duh) wife, Erin, are at the premiere of Superman.

Via Celebrity Baby Blog

I guess it isn’t THAT late - 9:45, but we went out to an early dinner and I said I was going to make sopapillas when we got home, but I forgot, so here it is, 9:45, and I am digging through Cooks.com. Here is what I found and here is what we are trying:

2 c. flour
3 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tbsp. shortening
Oil for deep frying

Sift dry ingredients together in bowl. Cut in shortening until crumbly. Add 1/2 cup warm water gradually, stirring with fork. Dough will be crumbly. Turn onto lightly floured surface. Knead until smooth. Divide in half. Let stand for 10 minutes. Roll each half into 1 x 12 1/2 x 1/8 inch rectangle. Cut into 3 inch squares. Fry, several at a time, in deep fat at 400 degrees for 30 seconds on each side. Yield: 40 sopapillas.

Oh man have I been laughing my butt off tonight. I don’t think Marshall will laugh too much, but boy(!) will every married woman I know. Ha! Check out True Wife Confesssions - found via Mary Tsao at Blogher. Honestly, I don’t think I am really the Blogher type woman so much (hearmeroar), but I always read and have really found some interesting things on there today - thanks again Mary for pointing that out!

Try these on for size:

Confession #029

After 10 years of being together, I still hope that you will learn how to make me orgasm one day.

Confession #016

Yes, I washed the chicken. I have been rinsing the chicken for 15 years. You do not have to ask me EVERY TIME if I have washed the god damn chicken. If my plan were to give you salmonella, it would have happened a long time ago.

Confession #003

Your electronic organizer? The one you loved in 1998? Yeah. That didn’t fall out of your car and get run over by your tire. I washed and dried it in the laundry , then tried to get you to think you’d done it by wedging it under your tire, in the rain.

This is killing me. I can happily say that none of these are my confessions - but go read the rest - I know you will identify with some of them.

I can’t seem to get motivated to write about Brad Pitt or Beauty or MRSA today to save my life, but my opinions about other things are flying around madly today. I watched as much as I could stand most of the Britney Spears interview on Dateline NBC tonight, and that girl just brings up so many different feelings in me, I just don’t know what to say. But I will think of something.

On one hand I feel really sorry for her - where is her stylist? Her mother? Her husband? My husband brought up a really valid point - if we were Britney and KFed (thank God for small favors), he would be one of those Russell Crowe paparazzi bashers. Marshall would not let paps around me and our baby. He would drive himself bonkers to be a man and keep that crap as far away from us as he could. And my mother would a.) be there helping me juggle my drink and my cigarette and my baby, b.) would have taught me NOT to chew gum on an interview on national television, c.) made damn sure my baby was safely tucked in his car seat at all times and d.) been all over the media telling them to go to hell and quit picking on her baby. And her grandbaby. And a whole lot more stuff too.

It pains me to watch Britney going through all of this, it really does. I think she is a doll, but at some point you have to take responsibility for your own stupidity actions. Is she at that point yet? I don’t know. For now I will just keep her in my prayers and hope she gets through this rough spot with some dignity. And please, for goodness sakes, a new stylist.

I am feeling the love from my friends and bosses at b5media today, no doubt. Duncan and Jeremy both put me in their top 10 list of people they would like to be stranded on a deserted island with - and that is touching. Really. And Jeremy even called me a sweetheart in the Beyonce vs b5 podcast. Wow!! I am glad I didnt make the list of their top 10 people they wished were stranded on a deserted island!! I still can’t believe how nervous I originally was to come to b5. I love it here and I love these guys and gals tremendously!!

So if anyone was wondering who my stranded buddies would be, here they are:

If I were stranded I would wish to be with Marshall cause I can’t imagine life without him in it, Hsien so I would have someone to bitch to (cause I know I would have a need to bitch!), Duncan, cause he would come up with some outrageously grand idea to get us back to civilization, and Jeremy, who would find a way to make Duncan’s nutty plan come to life. Aaron would keep me on my toes and keep me from being bored and I would take Suzzann, cause she is my dearest friend and it just wouldn’t be right not to have her stranded with me. Or I am afraid she would haunt me if I didn’t. I would take Mary Jo, cause she is tons of fun, and hmmm…Brad Pitt. Because he is Brad Pitt, and we girls are gonna get bored.

Lets see - who would I wish were stranded - well there is her, and her, and him and maybe him too - and now that the day has gone by, there is one more him - yeah, there are a few people. Do you know who you are? Heh. You should. I am far too polite to name them out loud.

Seems like I have run into a mighty lot of those lately (sorry, giving no links…LOL), so I thought I would see where I landed on the scale. I answered these questions brutally honestly.

You Are 24% Sociopath

From time to time, you may be a bit troubled and a bit too charming for your own good. It’s likely that you’re not a sociopath… just quite smart and a bit out of the mainstream!

I don’t know why my finger is on the pulse of the Former Beauty Queen news this morning, but it is. This is ridiculous. Completely.
A 25-year-old, first-year teacher and former beauty queen faces criminal charges accusing her of having sex with an 18-year-old student.

Amy McElhenney represented Bexar County in the 2002 Miss Texas pageant and was a Spanish teacher and cross-country coach at Hebron High School in suburban North Dallas. She’s charged with having an improper relationship with a student. The second-degree felony is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

At 18, the Hebron student is one year past the age of consent in Texas.

But McElhenney was charged under a law banning sexual relationships between educators and students, even if the relationship is consensual and the student is of legal age.

I don’t think she will see one day in jail - but stranger things have happened.
Source

You know, I would miss so much going on in the world if I did not do what I do for a living and spend my time scanning articles and RSS feeds. This is probably just me, but this just about made me spit coffee across the desk this morning:
From the South Bend Tribune:

Dear Chris,

I have a friend who’s afraid her 7-month-old baby girl is going to get too chubby. To me, the baby looks healthy, if not slightly skinny. Now that the baby is starting to crawl, my friend is pushing her to crawl all the time to get more exercise. I don’t think she’s keeping the baby from eating or would ever do that. My friend is very concerned with appearances and already hopes her daughter will be in beauty pageants like she was. I’m afraid that my friend’s attitude toward body image will later cause an eating disorder in her daughter. Is there anything I can do or say that might help without offending her?

Exercising Caution

Dear Caution,

As glittery grim as this baby’s future looks, there’s not much you can say that will help without offending. The next time you see your friend, you could say something like “Wow, Jon Benet is getting so much cuter now that she’s gaining a little weight.”

Ha! I guess she is. Poor little Jon Benet. Makes me mighty glad my kids aren’t ever going to have to deal with that end of the weight problem spectrum. That is the dangerous end, IMO.