Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Happy Belated Birthday

Happy Belated Birthday to my stepson.

Silly me, I completely forgot that his birthday was yesterday, not because I forgot the birthday, but because I didn't realize that yesterday was the third....  Apparently, I do that a lot.

But that's not why I am writing about the birthday issue. I am writing this because of the word "belated".

See, when I first moved to the States, I would find greeting cards in the store that read "Happy belated birthday".  I had no idea what "belated" meant.  It was not a word I learned in school.  (I could have looked it up in a dictionary, but never did.  And yes, this was pre-google.)

Since the "belated" birthday cards could usually be found right next to "Happy Birthday to granddaughter" or "Happy birthday from uncle" I decided that the word probably meant something similar to "related".  "Belated"/"related" - you see the connection, right?

I figured that a "belated" was somebody who was not related, but not quite a friend - an acquaintance so to speak.

I took me a few years to figure out what it really meant.....

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Taste of Home: German Christmas Cookies!!!

I like cooking, but baking - other than bread - has never been of much interest to me. For some reason, that changed this year.  I spent the last 2 weeks before Christmas baking cookies, lots and lots of cookies.

My kids were convinced that I had lost my mind.

I don't even eat cookies, why would I bake them?   I think the answer was: "Because I can".


I am actually planning on sending a tin of cookies to my Mom in Germany.  She has sent me cookies in the past, but she didn't bake this year.  When I told her that I would send her some this year, she cracked up laughing.

Never in a million years did she expect that I would send her cookies because (1) I don't bake and (2) I don't ever make it to the post office.

By now the baking has in fact happened and here's a picture of the tin that will be sent to my Mom (if I actually make it to the post office sometime soon.)

Unfortunately, I suspect that they won't look like that when they get there....