Not All Therapists Are Paid As Well As They Should Be

The list of things that are missing is starting to look like a shopping list, so it must be time for me to do a Very Serious Cleaning of the house. It's time for me to figure out where Ali Cat is hiding all of the things she steals.

She has done it for a long time. If she can pick it up in her mouth, she might just run off with it and hide it somewhere. Shoes, small toys, socks, underwear ... all sorts of things. She finds them. She decides she wants them. She piles them up somewhere that I can't locate. The last time I uncovered her stash, she had SIX of Alexis' shoes, some money, and a nice little pile of Barbie clothes.

This time I'm pretty sure I'm going to find my ID badge for work and Alexis' necklace for camp. One of these things can easily be replaced. The other has been the source of many, many tears.

Mostly my tears, by the way. The object of misery is Alexis' necklace, much as you would expect, but the loss of it has led to MY misery. Alexis spent half of a night up and roaming the house because she couldn't stop thinking about her beaded necklace that is used to incentivize good behavior at camp. The silly pink string that holds a blue dolphin bead and a couple of rainbow beads means A LOT to Alexis. She was devastated when she realized she couldn't remember where it was.

She wanted to find it.

She couldn't.

That didn't stop her from searching and searching, even at 3:00 in the morning.

I would guess she got maybe four hours of sleep that night, which is approximately NOT NEARLY ENOUGH. The child can function on less sleep than the average human, but even she has her limits. Four hours is past it.

What I'm saying is that the kid woke up pissed, and she was determined to drag the entire world behind her on a rocky path of misery and yelling and tears. She. Was. A Wreck. If she's a wreck, everyone around her needs to be a wreck, too.

Fortunately, The Wreck happened on a morning when Alexis' camp was going on a field trip. One thing led to another and I found myself uttering, "I will give you money for the gift shop, but only if you stop whining and yelling."

She agreed. Happily.

Minutes later, we were driving down the road and she was peacefully chatting away. She talked about Justin Bieber and her friends at camp and all sorts of things, but then she veered off her happy path. She basically ripped my head off for something, I don't even know what, and then turned on her Whine Factory.

WHIIIINE. WHIIIIINE. WHIIIINE.

I have no patience for The Whines. I glanced in the rearview mirror and said, "I thought we agreed you were done complaining."

Alexis thrust her hand into her backback, grabbed her gift shop money, and reached her hand out. "Here. I was wrong. I'm not done whining."

And then she whined all the way to camp.

At least she admits it when she really just needs to vent. Even better, she realizes you have to pay for those hours of therapy, even when your therapist is your mom.

I Hardly Knew You, Taylor and Megan

Houston, we have a problem. And it is ALL MY FAULT.

About a month ago, or maybe even longer, I peered into a certain terrarium and found that one of the residents was showing the sky the bottom of its feet.

A Bess Beetle was dead. Deader than dead. Dead as a doornail.

I had a choice. I could tell Alexis right then and there, or I could make the beetle disappear and wait for her to notice that one was missing and THEN explain. She was in a particularly sad panda mood that day, so I took the prize behind door number two. The husband disposed of a dead beetle when Alexis wasn't paying attention. I mentally prepared for discovery.

I'm still waiting.

Alexis STILL HAS NOT NOTICED OMG.

She wanted those things so bad, but has paid absolutely no attention to them in WEEKS. WEEEEEEKS.

Which, really, so what? Whether or not she pays attention to them impacts me not at all, except that it does because about a week ago I realized that Bess Beetle number two had bit the dust. Literally. It was sitting awkwardly in the dirt, all sorts of dead and stuff.

It's still there.In the terrarium. Dead.

WHAT DO I DO? Do I make the second one disappear? Do I trick Alexis into noticing? Do I just keep pretending I have no clue about anything? WHAT DO I DO?

I'm going with the science experiment option for now. Didja know that a dead Bess Beetle looks exactly the same as an alive-but-sleeping Bess Beetle? I know that now!

(So, how much would it cost me for one of you to tell the kid her bugs are dead?)

Dark Chocolate Cherry Ice Cream with Almonds

I have never posted an ice cream recipe.

That's weird.

It seems impossible, really. We make ice cream all of the time, especially in the summer. I can only blame the fact that we rarely measure what we throw into our ice cream maker. We just sort of Frankenstein some fun stuff together and enjoy the results, even when they aren't quite what we expected.

Like this one. This one didn't turn out how I expected it to turn out.

It turned out better. It turned out MIND-BLOWING. As in, just thinking about the almond, dark chocolate, and cherries together in that magnificent homemade ice cream is making me happy. Happy thoughts are good. Happy thoughts about ice cream are fantastic.

And so is this ice cream.

I had to make it a couple of times before I remembered to measure everything I was throwing in there. Yeah. I kept forgetting. Let's go with that, and not try to blame the fact that I just wanted more of it.

Which I did. Shhhh!

Dark Chocolate Cherry Ice Cream with Almonds

1 1/2 cups pitted and halved cherries
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon white sugar
1/2 cup light rum (or water -- rum is better, but water works)
1 1/2 cups whole milk (or heavy cream, if you're feeling REALLY decadent)
3 large egg yolks
1 cup dark chocolate chips, divided
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
3/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 cup almond slivers

1. Start by preparing your cherries. You're going to put all of the cherries in a large saucepan. Add the 1 tablespoon of white sugar and the rum and cook them over medium heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, until you have a fun syrup and some soft cherries. It takes about 15-20 minutes. Throw the cherries in the fridge once they are done.

2. Place the 1/4 cup of white sugar and milk in a new medium saucepan. Heat over medium heat, stirring ocassionally with a whisk, until the sugar is fully dissolved.

3. Place the egg yolks in a medium mixing bowl and whisk them together. Take 1/2 cup of the warm milk and sugar mixture out of the saucepan and very slowly add it to the egg yolks. Keep whisking the whole time you're adding. Make sure you're adding the warm milk slowly because you don't want your eggs to turn into scrambled eggs.

4. Now you're going to add the eggs into your milk-filled saucepan. Keep the heat on medium and slowly add the eggs into the saucepan, whisking the whole time. Keep stirring and stirring and heat until your milk is at least 170 degrees. If you don't have a candy thermometer, place a spoon in the milk. It's done when you pull the spoon out and it stays coated with milk.

5. Remove what is soon to be ice cream from the heat.

8. Add the butter and 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips. Stir until everything is melty and smooth and perfect.

9. Stir in the heavy cream and almond extract. Take a second to enjoy how fantastic your kitchen smells while you're doing it.

10. Refrigerate the milk mixture until cool, about two hours.

11. Pour the cooled milk mixture into your ice cream maker and turn that sucker on. Let it go until it is super thick.

12. Once you clearly have a chocolate almond ice cream thing happening in your ice cream maker, add in the cherries, almond slivers. and remaining 1 cup of dark chocolate chips. Either let your ice cream maker mix them in or use a spoon. I'm not going to judge no matter which way you do it.

13. Toss the bowl in the freezer for at least two hours so that the ice cream can fully set.

14. You're welcome. That is all I have to say about that.