When Life Throws You Lemons Make Lemon Cookies!

By Rachel

“When life gives you lemons, find someone who has vodka and throw a party.”

Ran into an old boyfriend – well, not literally. Started reminiscing about our college days and the POS car that he drove then. We laughed until we cried thinking about that damn car. Memorable highlights:

• Me having to jump out of it while it was still moving so it wouldn't stall. In front of the sorority house. Sorority sisters horrified. Me humiliated by my drop and roll.
• Fraternity brothers secretly moving it all over campus because they didn't want it in front of the fraternity house.
• An accident that severely bent the hood but was able to be beaten down and tied with twine.
• Fraternity brothers stealing a pizza delivery sign and putting it on top while we were at a restaurant celebrating our 1 year anniversary.

So, the next time you and your friends get together to discuss the "lemons" in your life, make these delicious Lemon Cookies. They are fabulous!

Lemon Cookies

Cookies

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour

1 ½ cups white sugar

1 ½ teaspoons cream of tartar

1 teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon salt

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

2 eggs

1 tablespoon freshly grated lemon peel

1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

Glaze

2 ½ cups powdered sugar

¼ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Mix the flour, white sugar, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. In a separate bowl mix the butter, eggs, grated lemon peel and lemon juice. Add to the flour mixture. Beat at low speed until ingredients are well mixed.

Drop dough by rounded teaspoons, 2 inches apart, onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake 6 to 8 minutes or until edges are lightly browned.

Combine the glaze ingredients and stir until smooth. Frost warm cookies with glaze. Makes 6-7 dozen cookies.

Pole in the Hole

By Tonia

I have an outdoor party at my house each June where we participate in various “Olympic Events.” Always looking for new ideas, one of my girlfriends sent me this link to a game called Pole in the Hole. We played it and loved it. Give it a try! It’s pee-your-pants hysterical. Click here

What you need:

Two toilet bowl plungers

Two rolls of toilet paper

Directions:

Stand two people at one end of a playing area. Have each of them hold a roll of toilet paper between their legs - somewhere between their knees and their crotch - with the hole facing out so everyone can see it.

At the other end of the playing area (opposite the two players described above) put the rest of the players in two lines (creating “teams”). The two people in the front of the lines place the toilet bowl plungers between their legs - somewhere between their knees and crotch – so that the pole sticks out in the front of their bodies.

Someone shouts, “GO!”

The players with the plungers then move as fast as they can to get to the player at the other end of the playing area with the toilet paper rolls. They must do this without losing the plunger. When the plunger holders get to the toilet paper holders, they must stick the pole (of the plunger) in the hole (of the toilet paper roll), without using their hands.

When this has been successfully accomplished, players exchange equipment (toilet paper roll holders take the plunger and the plunger holders take the toilet paper rolls); former plunger holders now place the toilet paper rolls between their legs and former toilet paper roll holders take the plungers and run back to their lines where they hand off the plungers to the people who are at the front of the lines.

These new plunger holders now place the plungers between their legs and move as fast as they can to get to the player at the other end of the playing area with the toilet paper rolls. This continues until all players have had both a toilet paper roll and a plunger between their legs. The first team to successfully accomplish this wins.

HINT: Players will be more successful if they are careful not to squish the toilet paper roll between their legs as this will close the hole and make it more difficult for plunger holders to get their poles in the holes.

Do You Drive a Garbage Truck?

By Rachel

I've divided moms into two categories: those driving clean cars and those driving garbage trucks disguised as family vehicles. I've always prided myself as one of the former. When my car broke down recently I had to hitch a ride with a friend. It was then that I discovered the "other side."

When I got into my friend's car she said, "Sorry about the car being a mess, but you know how it is when you have kids." Really? Your 5 year old left his empty Starbucks cups, gas receipts, old lipsticks and Men are From Mars and Women are From Venus book in your car? Peculiar kid. And I thought mine were a little strange....

As we drove I was met with several unusual scents. Mostly the smell of rotting banana peels, curdled milk and dirty diapers. Looked for an oxygen mask but had to settle for cracking my window. Didn't want to add vomit to the mix of aromas.

I was glad when we got to my house and I could escape the Stench Mobile. However, it was kind of fun seeing what kind of souvenirs stuck to our asses when we got out of her car. Note to self: give her a dust buster for her next birthday or a gift certificate to a car wash.

The whole experience got me thinking that it would be fun to have a smell-good girlfriends' party. Ask your girlfriends to bring homemade items that smell good (candles, drawer sachets, etc.) and exchange recipes. I've included a great recipe for a homemade air freshener below.

Air Freshener

1/2 cup lemon juice

1/8 cup baking soda

2 cups hot water

Heat water on stovetop or in the microwave. Find your manual if you don't know how to work either appliance. Dissolve the baking soda in hot water and then add the lemon juice. You can use either reconstituted lemon juice (kind you buy at the store in a yellow shaped bottle) or real lemon. Place the mixture in a spray bottle and spray the stench away!

Butt……

By Tonia

Recently, while walking up two flights of stairs in a glass enclosed stairwell, my wrap-around skirt suddenly (and without warning!) dove for the floor, leaving my ass hanging out. I simultaneously lost my mind and became paralyzed. Couldn’t. Bend. Down. To. Pick. It. Up. I stood there frozen for days (OK, maybe not quite that long). I thought maybe no one had seen me - until the next day when someone in the building across the grounds asked me if I had been in the stairway. Damn.

Butts have made a big turn around. Seriously. We used to worry that our butts looked too big. Now big butts are in - both physically and linguistically. Booty. Fanny. Ass. Tush. Heinie. Rump. Buttocks. Can.Bottom. Buns. Cheeks. Posterior. Derriere. And butt expressions: Worked my butt off. Butt of a joke. Bust your butt. Butt crack of dawn. Move your ass. Dumbass. Pain in the ass.

Maybe our butt admiration shows an acceptance of diversity - and normality. Thanks to J.Lo and other beautiful, full bodied women, maybe we are moving past some of our anxiety around body fat. Could it be true??

But, just for the record, I totally missed this one. Had a big butt when I was supposed to have a little butt - and now I have a flat, sagging butt when round butts are in. Go figure. Butt….I appreciate how my butt is always behind me in everything I do! *eye roll*

So, if you are wanting to have a Kick Ass Party, here are some ideas:

(1) Hang a poster that reads, “If my butt had a name it would be.....” and ask guest to sign it.

(2) Hang a toilet seat and ask guests to write sweet messages to their butts on it

(3) As one of the refreshments, mold pudding into a butt.

I KNOW you want to have this party butt…..

Birth Control Patrol

By Tonia

“By far the most common craving of pregnant women is not to be pregnant.” – Phyllis Diller

For centuries women everywhere have been trying to keep babies from getting on board. Some women use the No Penis method of birth control (not much fun). Others use the Get-that-Penis-out-of-Me-RIGHT-NOW method (not always effective). Still others use Sperm Bouncers. As women, we are all too familiar with these Sperm Bouncers – the spermicide, the diaphram, the pill, the patch, the shot, the condom, and the vaginal ring, to name a few. Personally, I think it makes more sense to take the bullets out of the gun instead of wearing a bullet proof vest but I digress….

To celebrate women’s shared pregnancy prevention vexation, here is a game for your girlfriends’ get-together that we call Birth Control Patrol.

Birth Control Patrol Relay:

Prior to the game, decide how many participants you want – we suggest four-six women. For each participant, make sure you have

One small bottle of small candies such as jelly

   beans or Skittles® (the pill),

A pink or red piece of cardboard (or construction

   paper) cut into the shape of a vagina,

A can of shaving cream (spermicide),

A plastic disposable cup (a diaphragm),

A condom (a condom),

A banana (stand-in for male anatomy),

A candle (spiritual symbol),

A set of matches (to light it up)

Set up four tables. One with the bottles of candy; one with the cardboard vaginas, shaving cream and plastic disposable cups; one with the condoms and bananas; one with the candles and matches.

Line up participants and direct them to perform the following tasks when you say, “GO!” 

(1) go to the table with the bottles of candy and eat all the candies (can’t leave until they’ve swallowed),

(2) go to the table with the cardboard vaginas, shaving cream and plastic disposable cups and spray one of the vaginas with the shaving cream and put one of the circle “diaphragms” on top of the shaving cream,

(3) go to the table with the condoms and bananas and put a condom ON a banana,

(4) go to the table with the candles and matches and light a candle, kneel down and pray, “Please, please, please don’t let me be pregnant!”

(5) return to the starting point.

The first one to make it back does NOT win a baby. And, baby, that is reward enough!

Oh, if you really want to have a baby, go ahead, I guess. Just take good care of it.

Dog Gone It

By Anna

Bark, bark, bark.

Bark, bark, BARK! All day. All night. Its cruel and unusual punishment.

When the federal government tried to break down the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, they bombarded them with the sounds of animals in distress. Have I offended the Feds? Are they in the neighborhood? OK, I surrender! 

Neither my noise maker's loudest volume or my deepest meditative state can drown out the screeching obnoxious bark of that dog. Before I remembered that I'm 30 years old now and shouldn't act immaturely I had fantasies of...

...barking out the window all night

...duct taping the dog’s mouth shut

...toilet papering the house and throwing some rolls to the dog to chew up

But I maturely (are you reading this, Mom?) decided to simply write a letter from the dog to its owner. Here it is:

Dear Master,

For the love of God, man, I’m old, senile & neglected...bark bark...please let me in when it’s cold. Please let me in in the middle of the night. Bark! If you're having sex with some bitch...I mean, woman, I promise I'll leave you alone. 

Our neighbors now hate us...bark bark...Some of them have even tried to let me out of the yard so I would get picked up by canine control. Is that what you want?? To see me in prison?...bark bark...When I bark it's for a reason, you know. Have you heard of the Dog Whisperer? He could explain it to you...bark bark bark...If this persists...BARK...I’m afraid that one of the neighbors is going to put a contract out on me. Pleeeeaaaase pay some attention to me! And, for God’s sakes, LET ME IN!

Your soon to be BARKING ex-best friend,

___________________(dog's name)

A girlfriends’ party idea is to get together and help each other write <humorous> letters to people who have gotten on your last nerve. You know, the company phone call that leaves you on hold for 45 minutes, the hairdresser that totally cut your hair the way you asked her NOT to, the pharmaceutical company that didn’t warn you about smelly urine as a side effect, etc. And while you all are writing and laughing, fix yourself a cocktail. We call it the Letter-writing Dog-Gone Cocktail.

Dog-Gone Cocktail

Stir in mixing glass with ice & strain:

1 oz gin

3/4 oz dry vermouth

3/4 oz sweet vermouth

2 dashes calisay

Add a cherry

Serve in a cocktail glass

Give Me All Your Eggs and No One Will Get Hurt

By Anna

“The grass is always greener in someone else's basket.”

I have a confession to make. I hunted eggs Easter week-end. Its true. A 30 year old grown woman running around the yard like her ass was on fire – just to collect plastic eggs. And I do this every year with my siblings. My mother gets some kind of sadistic delight in watching us push and shove each other - grabbing as many of those little fuckers as we can. Why do we humiliate ourselves in this way? Well, there’s money involved.

Weeks before the holiday we call each other and start trash-talkin’ about the loser who is going to find the egg with all the pennies. (My maniacal mother thinks it’s hilarious to put 100 pennies in one egg…. SURELY I was adopted.) We brag about our egg-hunting prowess and how we’ve been getting into shape for the big Hunt. We get our best running shoes ready. It’s ugly.

And we steal out of each other’s baskets. Well, it’s not exactly stealing. We simply trade an egg with crappy candy in it for one with money in it ….. when the owner of the basket isn’t looking. Over the years I’ve gotten really good at this. But my sister has a new secret weapon – her kids. After their hunt, she bribes them into distracting my brother and me so she can get an advantage. Egg-hogging bitch.

So all the egg-hunting frenzy this year got me to thinking about how women are always hunting for something – bargains, shoes, partners, the perfect purse, a more powerful vibrator…..

Why not have a girlfriends’ hunt? Create diva boxes with fun “prizes” and send your girlfriends ahuntin’! Use women-honoring affirmations or recycled jewelry or candy or anything worth hunting for. Have a fabulous time .… and try to be nice!