a whole lotta boredom

there was much boredom last week, as the girls and i hung out at home after school without any real activities to do. i don't typically like to do anything major on school nights, so that the teen can get through homework, we can have dinner at a decent time, and then all unwind a bit before going to bed and resting up to do it all over again.

oh! for those of you who asked, yes - the teen does, indeed, use all TEN mascaras in the picture i posted. she's a nut, but i can remember having my own weird little quirks and routines when it came to getting ready for school back in the day. and now i look back on those pictures with the oh-so-carefully-applied lavender eye shadow, black eyeliner (remember those little red eyeliner pencils that you had to warm up with a lighter?), and big ass hair with half a can of aqua net and laugh my ass off. i wonder if the teen will do the same in the years to come when she sees pictures like this (which i took just for you folks, to get a close-up view of the end result):

i don't know what she was thinking, but that boredom i told you about drove her into the bathroom for a solid half hour, playing with her makeup stash, and came out looking like this:

meow.

to give her something to do, i finally busted out the tripod and remote i'd bought from amazon for my camera. that kept her occupied for another, oh, 15ish minutes.

we still need to find shoes for my brother and o's wedding, but i wasn't in the mood to hop in the car to hit the mall. the teen tried to entice me by saying "come on, mom...i'll buy you a pretzel!"

that girl knows me too well.

but it didn't work this time. i'd seen a recipe in my newest copy of the rachael ray magazine for bavarian pretzels (of course, because it's so new, it's not yet linked on the site. just e-mail me if you want the recipe). so, amongst her moans and groans of protest, i told her in that awesome, i'm-such-a-mom kind of way, "we don't need no mall for pretzels! i'll make you a better pretzel right here in our kitchen!" heh.

i started mixing up the simple dough, although it looked weirdly gooey and liquid-y.

because i was halving the recipe as i often do, i looked at the recipe again and realized i'd forgotten to add the second cup of flour. oops.

it did the trick, though - i stirred it in and my dough looked much better.

while i worked in the kitchen, the girls disappeared into my room to jump into the bed. here's some pics the teen took:

i mixed up the baking soda bath, divided my dough into three portions, and rolled them into long ropes.

i totally blanked on the pretzel shape, so after consulting my buddy google, i found out how to twist the ropes properly. but, lacking counter space to create the 42" ropes the recipe suggested, my pretzel twists looked kind of blobby after their baking soda bath. oh, well. i sprinkled one liberally with cinnamon sugar for the teen and stuck the pan in the oven.

my friend winnie had raved about some yummy-sounding iced tea syrup she'd made from martha stewart's website, and with our fondness for sweet tea, i decided to make some too.

i zested and juiced my two lemons, mixed it all up with sugar and water, and boiled the syrup in a saucepan.

as i turned off the flame underneath the syrup, the timer went off - pretzel time!

"mmmm," the teen said. "these ARE just like the ones at the mall."

just call me auntie wan.