D ~ Daily Dozen

    The daily dozen, a little phrase we always used while we were Amish. It referred to all the things you did around the house daily.
     As a young Mom with three preschoolers, if one of my friends asked me what I did the day before and I told them, 'the daily dozen', they would smile, nod, and understand. Being in the same boat with their little families and their own little daily dozens that they were thankful got completed by bedtime, they understood how full a day could be without having much to show for or talk about.
      There was/is no set list of things that belong on the daily dozen. Some moms might have had fewer than twelve things on their daily schedule, while others had more.
       Here is what my daily dozen looks like.

• Cook three meals  
• Do dishes and sweep kitchen floor after each meal  
• Wipe down stove, and stove hood with vinegar solution 
• Change out dish cloths and towels 
• Sweep all rooms on main floor 
• Clean bathroom, scrub toilet, wipe down vanity, clean mirror 
• Make beds 
• Change bags in trash cans 
• Fix couches (covers and pillows) at least once 
• General tidying: toys, mail, clothes etc 

     As a mother to young children that list expanded to include all the things that caring for them involved.

      We also used the phrase, 'the weekly seven' where there were other household chores that needed to be done weekly that we tried to incorporate one or two into each day in addition to our daily dozen. 

        That list included laundry, baking, washing windows, cleaning the oven, and a few other items to keep the house running smoothly.

C ~ Chocolate Gobs

    I haven't made many gobs over the years because I never liked the fillings, even though I tried a variety of different recipes. The pudding-like fillings were messy. Other fillings were too sweet, and I didn't want to simply use a regular buttercream frosting.
     When I discovered this recipe I had high hopes for it, and it didn't disappoint. I made a few small tweaks and it has become a new family favorite.

Chocolate Gobs

½ cup butter
½ cup butter flavored crisco
2 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
2 cups milk
1 tbsp vanilla
4 cups flour
1 cup cocoa powder
2½ tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

Mix butter, crisco, and sugar together. Add eggs and vanilla and beat well.  Sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. Add a third of it to your sugar and egg mixture and mix well. Add half of the milk and mix until incorporated. Add half of your remaining flour mixture and mix. Pour in the last cup of milk, mixing well, and finally your remaining flour mixture. Beat well.

Spoon dough into about two inch balls. (The dough is soft so actual ball shape was not achieved.) Drop on parchment paper lined cookie sheets about three inches apart. You will want to leave approximately 3 inches between each one. Bake at 350º for 10 - 11 minutes.

Gently slide entire parchment paper sheet, cookies and all onto a wire rack to cool. Allow to cool completely before removing from parchment paper.

Marshmallow Filling

2 cups butter, softened
3 cups powdered sugar
2 tsp vanilla
½ tsp salt
16 oz. marshmallow fluff

Hand mix butter, powdered sugar, vanilla, and salt until incorporated and then go ahead and beat. Add marshmallow fluff, mixing until everything is evenly nice and fluffy.

Spread a thick layer between two cookies.

I wrapped each gob individually to keep them from sticking together while stored.

B ~ Bleeding Hearts

    I was first introduced to Bleeding Heart flowers the summer I was eight. We had moved to our new home earlier that year and when spring came our yard was transformed into a jungle of flowering plants.
     One of those plants happened to be a Bleeding Heart.
     I immediately fell in love with it. I loved the color, the shape, and really everything about this gorgeous plant. The shape of the flowers reminded me of the shape the prayer coverings my Lancaster girl cousins wore, complete with their flying strings that they never kept tied neatly under their chins as our community was required to do.
    The first time we went to see my grandparents after the Bleeding Hearts started blooming, I ran out to the plant and carefully plucked a few of those hearts off and tucked them into my pocket. Grandma loved flowers, and I was sure she had never seen anything quite so lovely before.
     By the time we arrived the poor flowers were warm and somewhat damaged. Grandma admired them though and said she would try to come see them in person before they were done blooming.

~~~~~

     I'm so glad we have a Bleeding Heart plant growing in front of our house. It makes my heart smile every time I see those sweet little flowers, and brings back a wave of warm nostalgia.

Wednesday Hodgepodge

1. Has spring sprung in your part of the world? How can you tell? Did March come in like a lion where you live? Going out like a lamb or something more ferocious?

Spring seems to have sprung. All the spring flowers are beginning to bloom, the lilacs are budding, the birds are singing so cheerfully from all the trees around our house, and the spring peepers are serenading us at night. We're still having a lot of cloudy, overcast, and foggy days, but I'm enjoying all the little signs that brighter days are coming.

I can't remember how the weather was at the beginning of March, but yesterday was mild, cloudy, with occasional drizzle.

(Drizzle sounds so much prettier when you're talking about the icing on cinnamon rolls instead of describing the weather.)

2. The last thing that caused you to spring to your feet?

The last time I had to spring to my feet was when the smoke alarm went off while we were eating. That thing is so loud, and did a fine job of scaring me! No fire ... but at least we know the alarm still has the ability to work.

3. Do you have a spring clean to-do list? What's one chore on the list you've already managed to accomplish? What spring clean chore do you most dread?

We do spring house cleaning every year. I have been able to check off a few things already. The one I'm the happiest about having done already is shampooing all the carpeting on the main floor.

(Let it be known, if I were ever to build a house there would be no carpeted floors!)

4. Tell us something you've learned about yourself or the wider world as a result of social distancing/the virus crisis.

I have learned that I'm possibly not quite as much of an introvert as I thought I was.

5. Something you love that's the color pink?

I love Impatiens. I always fill our flowerbed under the big tree here in front of our house with Impatiens in shades of pinks.

I'm hoping I'll be able to visit the local greenhouses in early May to get the flowers I need. otherwise we may have empty flowerbeds this year.

6. Insert your own random thought here.

I once again signed up to do the April A-Z blogging challenge. You can find my first post for it just before this one.

There's no set theme I'll be adhering to, to get me through the alphabet this year. I'll simply be sharing a mixture of memories, recipes, thoughts, present happenings, and what ever else might correspond with the letter of the day.

You're welcome to keep checking back to see if I'm able to successfully keep up and complete my goal.

A ~ Apples

    Coming home from school and seeing that the fall delivery of apples had come in that day was always exciting.
     We were allowed to try the different kinds, but then bushels and bushels of crisp Yellow Delicious apples were stored in the darker part of the basement where they would remain until spring.
     Mom would have several different kinds of apples to make applesauce. A mix of Granny Smith and Golden Delicious were turned into hundreds of quarts of sauce that filled a whole section of our canning shelves. Cortland and McIntosh made a lovely pink sauce. I wasn't the biggest fan of applesauce, but a lovely shade of pink made it much more appealing to me.
     Big roast pans filled with peeled apples were placed in the oven where they baked at a low heat for hours and were turned into apple butter.
     My favorite were the Yellow Delicious. Night after night we would head down to the basement to fill a bowl of apples. Mom would peel and slice them, and then we'd munch on them as she read a chapter or two from a book for our bedtimes stories.
     By spring the apples were beginning to get a little wrinkled and weren't as crisp and juicy, but we kept enjoying them until the last one was gone, and time for gardening had arrived once more.
    Spring and summer were great, but I always looked forward to fall and winter. The season of apples and bedtime stories.