Last weekend was Easter.

As part of our Easter celebration, I went to the bank and got crisp dollar bills and presidential dollars to go in the kids’ Easter baskets.

Before we went to Easter Vigil at church, the BoyChild stuffed my purse full of cars, Nintendo games and other detritus he  couldn’t live with out during the three plus hour service.

In the midst of loading and unloading my purse, the BoyChild discovered my stash of presidential dollars.  He knew what they were for.  He wanted one desperately.

When it was time to make the offering, he asked if he could have one to give to the Church.

I gave him one, as well as one for his sister and her friend.

Later, when we were talking about it, his explanation was, “when you have enough, you should give to people who don’t have enough.”

A simple concept.  One more people should heed.  Heartbreakingly sweet.

The weather is tormenting my husband.

It has been freaky here.  We had a mini-blizzard the 20th.

I’d taken my winter coat to the dry cleaners to be cleaned before putting it away.  I had to break that baby out again.

And then, within the next couple of days, we turned the AC on!

My husband prides himself on how long he can wait before turning the AC on.  While I don’t think we’ve ever gone as late as June, we have gone into May before turning it on.  David would be so smug, with our windows open, listening to all the units hum around the neighborhood, that HE didn’t turn his AC on.

But the weather has gotten him this year.  I let him blame it on me cause I hate being hot.

This was the view from my front door looking out Saturday morning:

That’s not a picture I took in black and white.  It was just gray.

This is from the top of the stairs looking at my front door:

I really have had enough of this bad weather.

Today is the official first day of Spring.  It feels like deep winter.

Maybe next weekend we can begin working in our yard again and I can regal you with pictures of my beautiful garden.

Fifteen or so years ago, I had a subscription to a magazine called Taste of Home.  David and I were still, relatively, newly married and in one of the magazines,  I found a recipe for a casserole called “Baked Spaghetti.”  This was back when I had time and energy for cooking and reading magazines. A time when I could easily eat fattening, yummy comfort foods with abandon and read cooking magazines unmolested by demands to play Bakugan or Legos or Super Mario Brothers on the Wii.

Like many recipes I wanted to try, I tore it out of the magazine. It’s ragged edges were turned under, so only the recipe was exposed. About the size of a 3×5 inch card, it has been in my recipe box this whole time making an appearance on our menu at least once a month ever since.

I remembered it had 28 ounce can of tomatoes, ground beef, a pound of spaghetti, cream of mushroom soup, black olives and lots of cheese.  There were other things in it, but I could not recall what they were, or the amounts.

A couple of months ago we were going to have it.  David pulled the recipe to make his grocery list.  That was the last anyone saw it.   We tried to recall the recipe from memory by looking at the pantry.  That was simply too hard to pick out the ingredients among our cans of stewed tomatoes, rotel, diced tomatoes, black olives, mushrooms and pasta.

As silly as it sounds, I mourned the loss of that recipe.  Not just the cheesy, delicious, goodness of the meal itself,  but the shiny magazine page, the picture, the stains from years of use.  Since we lost it, I’ve trolled around A Taste of Home‘s web page hoping to find it.  They have a nice search engine.  I’ve tried several permutations of “Baked Spaghetti” and looked at dozens of casseroles with the same name.

Today, while I was eating my lunch I idly run another search.   I found it!  Because it made me so happy, and we are going to have it for dinner tomorrow night, I wanted to share it with you.

Baked Spaghetti by Taste of Home
12 Servings Prep: 20 min. Bake: 30 min.

Ingredients

• 1 cup chopped onion
• 1 cup chopped green pepper
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 can (28 ounces) diced tomatoes, undrained
• 1 can (4 ounces) mushroom stems and pieces, drained
• 1 can (2-1/4 ounces) sliced ripe olives, drained
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
• 1 pound ground beef, browned and drained, optional
• 12 ounces spaghetti, cooked and drained
• 2 cups (8 ounces) shredded cheddar cheese
• 1 can (10-3/4 ounces) condensed cream of mushroom soup, undiluted
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Directions

• In a large skillet, saute onion and green pepper in butter until tender. Add the tomatoes, mushrooms, olives, oregano. Add ground beef if desired. Simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes.
• Place half of the spaghetti in a greased 13-in. x 9-in. baking dish. Top with half of the vegetable mixture. Sprinkle with 1 cup of cheddar cheese. Repeat layers. Mix the soup and water until smooth; pour over casserole. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Bake, uncovered, at 350° for 30-35 minutes or until heated through. Yield: 12 servings.

I was much more enthusiastic about this:

when I thought it was INSIDE the Bass Pro Shop.

He ultimately caught this:

but then we were faced with what to do with it.

He didn’t want to throw it back.

I offered to cook it, if his Father would clean it, but he didn’t want to do that.

I didn’t want him putting it in a box and storing it under his bed.

We compromised by agreeing to bury it in the flower bed to fertilize the flowers that will be coming up this spring.

We promised to do more fishing this summer, but I think we really need to come up with a better plan than burying them in the front yard.

On Friday morning, I walked out of my front door and found a blanket of snow on my front lawn.  It almost made me cry.  Here it is, almost March, and we STILL have snow.

Yesterday, I went out, and found these in my front yard:

Crocus.  They are always the first flower to arrive in the spring.  They always give me hope that winter will end.

Soon.

We’ve been hit by another winter storm.

This one isn’t as breath-taking as the Great Christmas Blizzard of 2009 but it’s pretty bad.

It started yesterday with freezing rain and sleet.  Today we have had 6 or more inches of snow.

At least we have power.  And cable and internet.

I called my Mother this afternoon.  She’d been without electric and heat since 11:00 a.m. yesterday.  I asked her about any shelters in her small town but she said she thought she would be o.k.

I called the County Sheriff’s office where she lives.  They told me where she lived  was hit the worst in the County and they were saying it would be Monday before the power was restored!  They gave me the number of the city police department.  I called and asked them to go check on her.  They talked her into going to the shelter set up at one of the Churches in her town.

The BoyChild’s school was cancelled Thursday and Friday.  The BoyChild didn’t even put pants on today.

So tell me, how long does it take to get cabin fever?

Yesterday we went to the mall because the BoyChild needed some new shoes.

The BoyChild has Fred Flintstone feet; high arch and flat.

This is the only pair he found that he liked.

This is, except for the pair he was wearing, the only pair of shoes he has that fit.  We tried to get the BoyChild to buy another pair, but he wouldn’t pick another pair.  I’ve learned not to buy any shoes unless he likes them because he won’t wear them.

My son has the shoes of a 50 year old man.

The BoyChild lost a tooth a recently.   He got $2 from the Tooth Fairy.

The next day, as he was leaving for school, he gave us one of his $2.00 and told us to send that to the people in Haiti who needed it.  He is such a sweet generous child.

Last night there was a second collection in Mass for the victims of Haiti.  The BoyChild asked if he could give money from his savings account.   I asked how much he wanted to give.  He decided $18.00 was an appropriate amount.

I am amazed, and proud, at how generous he is.

My family likes Snickerdoodles.

But no one really likes them when they’ve cooled off and are no longer soft.

If you’ve not had Snickerdoodles, they are a basic sort of cookie, rolled in cinnamon and sugar before baking.

I tried this recipe at the RecipeZaar.

They weren’t as hard as the recipe out of my Betty Crocker cook book, but they were still more crunchy that we’d like.

So.  Help me out here internets.  Anyone have a recipe for a soft Snickerdoodle cookie?