By the time you get to my age, you have some hard and fast rules. I will not go up in a hot air balloon or ride in a helicopter or bungee jump. I will never climb on the back of a horse. You’re not going to find me swimming in the ocean or any other body of water I can’t see through.

And I am not interested in using a candy thermometer. Ever.

Way too tricky. I used to feel that way about the Kitchen Aid mixer, but then I was given a hot pink one and it was too much to resist. And so, gingerly, I’ve tested the waters (or rather, the powdered sugar) and found that it’s true that if you keep it on a low speed, you will probably not spray your kitchen with the contents of the bowl of your Kitchen Aid.

I went hard core with the Kitchen Aid the other day, making conversation hearts. This is a candy item that does not require a thermometer and surprisingly, it’s really easy to make them. Time consuming, yes. As in, you better get busy if you want them to be ready for the big day.

I modified the recipe I found a while back on about.com and actually used the mixer this time, which made the process even easier. I made two batches and wound up with a giant pile.

INGREDIENTS
1 packet unflavored gelatin
1/2 c. water
2 t. light corn syrup
2 lbs. powdered sugar plus 1 cup
mint extract
food coloring
edible-ink marker (available in Phoenix at ABC)

Mix the gelatin, water and corn syrup in a bowl till dissolved. (You might need to microwave for 30 seconds if stirring doesn’t dissolve ingredients.)

Add the mixture to the mixer’s bowl. Turn the mixer on THE SLOWEST SPEED and slowly add the powdered sugar. Continue adding slowly till you have all 2 pounds in the bowl. You might need a bit more sugar more to get it to a stiff, doughy consistency. Save some sugar for dusting.

Remove the dough from the bowl (this is the messy part) and roll it into a ball, kneading it till it’s smooth and like Play Doh.

Divide it into balls — one ball for each color you want to make. Taking one ball, make an indentation in it that will make it easier to add the mint extract and knead it into the dough. This will take a while and you want your dough just a tad dry since the extract and coloring will add moisture.

I added about a tablespoon of extract to each ball of dough; three tablespoons for the total recipe. (Well, six since I doubled it.) But really, that’s up to you. The extract wasn’t particularly strong.

Knead till distributed, then make another indentation and add food coloring. Start with three big drops then add more as necessary. Knead till distributed.

Repeat for as many colors as you like. I made pink, yellow, orange, blue, green and purple and although the original recipe recommends using different extracts to match with flavors (like orange with orange) I prefer the taste of the mint throughout.

You don’t need to refrigerate the dough; you can go straight to heart-making. Grab a couple of cookie sheets to hold your finished product. Take a heart shaped cookie cutter (any size you like — the smaller the cuter, I think, but also the harder to write on and I had trouble finding a super-fine tipped pen) and roll out the dough (I used the palm of my hand because I couldn’t find the rolling pin) on the counter and punch away, putting the hearts on the sheet in rows to dry.

Once you are done punching hearts (a nice sentiment, right?) leave your hearts out overnight to dry. I actually flipped mine after 24 hours and left them for another day, as the backs were still a little moist, but I don’t think you have to do that before you write on them — just make sure the fronts are TOTALLY dry.

And — get creative. I was busy writing “love,” “nice” and “cute” when my husband walked by and suggested “LMAO” and “STFU” so we have a few of those in the pile, too.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Fifth grade isn’t quite coming to a close, but I did get melancholy last night, realizing I was wrapping teacher (and principal/therapist/aide/former teacher/office staff) gifts for this school for the last time.

It’s been a nice run, all things considered. Sophie has grown up at this sweet, little neighborhood public elementary school, and so have I.

For one thing, I’ve finally mastered the class craft project. Over the years I’ve had hits and misses — Valentine bingo (not bad), decoupaged frames (not good), and sugar skulls, which have been such a hit we’ve done them every year for as long as I can remember.

I offered to light the menorah for Hanukkah this year, but Sophie’s teacher (very understandably) doesn’t want any religion in the classroom, so we decided on snow globes instead. I got a little nervous; I’ve made a few snow globes in my day, but  never 30+ at a time.

Turned out, it was the easiest (and dare I most successful) craft I’ve done yet.

Now, before you get all excited, these snow globes will not be professional quality. Martha Stewart will not bow at your feet; no one will want to put them in a magazine. They might not get pinned. Some would even consider them a craft fail. But given how easy they were — and (I think) how pretty, I say go for it, Martha be damned.

Instructions:

1. Save jars. 

This was probably the toughest part, since we had to get past 30. (The teacher helped.) Make sure they are clean and that you can peel the labels off without asphyxiating yourself with adhesive remover (which doesn’t work so well, in any case).

2. Procure toys and glitter. 

I had a bag of small plastic toys already from previous craft projects, and I supplemented with barn yard animals and fairies from Michael’s. If you are here in Phoenix, try ABC Baking — last year I got some pretty good plastic snowmen there. Important: Make sure the toy can be glued to the inside of the lid so that the jar will then comfortably screw on.

3. Use the right glue. 

E6000. That’s all I’m going to say about it. It’s the bomb. It’s smelly and I wouldn’t let the kids use it, but you can glue the toy on for them — easy. And that stuff STICKS. Get it at just about any hobby store.

4. Don’t use fancy water.

Tap water works just fine. Will your snow globe be pristine in 10 years? Probably not, but who cares.  I have some that are a couple years old and look great.

5. Get crackin’.

We made this a two-day process but you could separate it by several hours. Each child chose a toy and a jar. Using masking tape we marked his/her name on both lid and jar (it’s important they stay matched) and I glued the child’s toy onto the lid. We put them on a level surface to dry. Two days later, each kid found his/her lid and jar, and filled the jar almost to the top with water.

The best part, I think, is the glitter. I have a bin full, so I let each child pick three colors (you could use as many as you want) and I sprinkled them into the water. I know some tutorials tell you to use a certain kind of glitter that won’t clump, but really, as long as you aren’t about perfection, any kind will do. The multi-color thing is pretty awesome, too. It personalizes the globes and the kids loved it.

Very carefully screw the lid on. Again, I did this myself. Once you are certain it’s on tight (we had a couple small catastrophes) flip it over and — voila! Snow globe magic.

Warning: Depending on the toy and glitter, your toy might initially get covered in glitter. I think that looks pretty cool, and a few hard shakes will set things right.

Enjoy!

A few days after the project, a friend mentioned that she was picking her daughter up at school and saw a boy — a big boy, there are a few future football players in the fifth grade — showing his own mom his snow globe. He was really excited.

My heart melted.

She’s definitely one of the godmothers of the scene.

And so it was fitting, I suppose, that I felt compelled to buy my mom (a longtime fan) a piece of Jenny’s work for Mother’s Day this year. I emailed to make an appointment for a studio visit, having no idea Jenny was putting all her work up for sale — way too cheap — to raise money to drive cross country to get her daughter at Cornell, then down to Florida to be with her own mom.

Fitting, huh? All these maternal connections.

I dragged my mom down to Jenny’s gallery, pretending it was a “work appointment,” and watched her greedily gather up pieces to buy herself (damn, that was not the plan). When I admired a piece, she asked if I wanted it for Mother’s Day. Oh no, I told her, don’t be silly. This isn’t a buying visit — I’m here for work. I hustled her out of there; luckily she left behind a painting of a polka-dotted, sad-eyed bird she liked (I hope) and that will be her present. And I might have bought my own favorite (a nude against stripes) as a Mother’s Day gift to myself. (Hey, it’s important to support the arts, right?)

I returned the next day to pick up my purchases, stayed to chat with Jenny, and on the way out, noticed another piece. On the side of the canvas, she’d collaged the line: so close that your hand on my chest is my hand

I had to stop to catch my breath.

“That’s just what my daughter does,” I told Jenny. When Sophie’s falling asleep, she pulls my hand onto her chest, across the bump left where her bones were sawed apart — twice — so doctors could fix her heart.

“Pablo Neruda,” Jenny said, smiling. And later, she sent me a copy of the poem, called “XVII (I do not love you…)”

This poem is specific — it’s about dark, hidden love. Not the love of mother and child — not my kind of maternal love, anyway. But it widens in the last two stanzas, which I think are just right for Mother’s Day.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Thank you for that, Jenny, and for making Phoenix a more beautiful place to live. Happy Mother’s Day. And safe travels. Hope to see you again soon.

Field Notes: Red Blooded from Coudal Partners on Vimeo.

This is an ad for notebooks, yes, but someone inadvertently nailed it — except for the part about the scooters, every detail fits Ray and me. Even the number of years they’ve been together and the number they’ve been married. I wonder if he’ll mind receiving someone else’s Valentine this year? Or perhaps it should inspire my own….

Just finished this year’s Valentine, and I had to share early. Annabelle drew the image of the two girls (this is the third year) and I stitched it. (Our friend Claire designed the card.) Next year we will get Sophie in on the action. It’s a nice tradition, I think.

“No way,” Ray said. “You’ll never use it.”

The man has a point. I’ve killed every green thing in my path for years, and really, until I have time to even go to the farmers’ market, I have no business pretending I’ll actually plant and maintain a vegetable garden.

Blame my terrarium high. My dear friend Claire and I spent part of the weekend planting succulents in glass jars, then adding tchotchkes (to be honest, that’s the real draw for me, though the succulents were pretty cool) and calling it done. So easy. And so awesome, sitting on my kitchen windowsill. (Here are Claire’s step-by-step instructions.)

“We still have that box of upside-down tomatoes from last year,” Ray observed. Two, actually, but I didn’t say anything. Plus the strawberry plant kit I bought at Lowe’s when I was picking up the succulents the other day.

So maybe I’ll actually plant those strawberries and tomatoes — then I’ll convince him I deserve a real garden. Now to start searching on etsy for some cute lawn ornaments.

I stopped at Safeway on the way to work this morning for a bag of rice — the universal sign for “Why yes, I dropped my phone in water.”

It was  a quick dip, so I’m hopeful. Also, to be honest, a little grateful. It’s been a peaceful morning.

Maybe we should all give peace a chance. Or at least slow down a little. Last night a clean-cut grandfather-looking guy in the Safeway parking lot was screaming so long and loud and with so many expletives at some college kids that I called 911. My beloved hairdresser called to say she’d given me a bad haircut the day before (I hadn’t noticed, but now I’m self-conscious) because I rushed her (which I have to admit I did). And this morning I was in such a sleep-deprived hurry I dropped my phone in a mixing bowl filled with soapy water and pumpkin bread batter.

Make it stop! I’m not sure how — I feel like Lucy in the famous chocolate factory scene.

Ray is constantly pushing me to live in the moment (this morning he gave me a collection of humor writing, saying I need some levity in my life) and yesterday I got to — for a whole 45 minutes. We decorated sugar skulls in Sophie’s class.

To be sure, getting there involved a lot of rushing — making the skulls, digging up decorations, figuring out when I could hustle out of work and back again.

But once I was in the classroom, time stopped and it was all about fuzzy pipecleaners. These sugar skulls are non-traditional — no royal icing, not much talk of dead people. It was just an excuse to slow down and make some art, something the grade school kids could use more of, as well, I know. They are drilled as hard as we are. Harder.

I was so impressed with Sophie’s class — by far the calmest, sweetest group I’ve encountered in years of classroom volunteering. I knew most of the kids, but there were a few new faces. One little girl I’ve never met came up to me halfway through, beaming, and asked, “Will you come back again?”

You bet, I told her. Wouldn’t miss it.  

She made my day.

Look what Sophie did — all by herself.

OK, she did have some guidance from her amazing physical therapist, but really, I’m told, she did all the stitching on her own.

“M” for Mommy. (Sorry — Hipstamatic washed out the purple M a bit.) She also did an “S” for Sophie and has plans for “A” (Annabelle) and “D” (Daddy).

One more thing Sophie and I will be able to do together in our old age! (Along with read and get pedicures.) Except that she’s way better than I am. You should see how clean the back of her piece is.

In honor of the approaching heat, Annabelle got out the duct tape and made shoes for herself and Sophie. She says dresses are next.