Don’t put the chocolate directly in the pan. It can scorch. If your set included a double boiler, use that. Otherwise, find a bowl that is big enough to set on top of the pan without falling in. Then bring water to a simmer in the pan, set the bowl on top, and put the chocolate in the bowl to melt over the simmering water.
hey geekwif! thanks! nope, it takes much more than that to offend me. For Lala’s birthday, i went to visit for the day and we took a candy making class at a fancy cooking store. there was much use of double boilers that day. without that recent experience i don’t think i would have remembered to do it that way.
mike ended up on chocolate cake duty and i went to buy a lot of nice knives.
isnt’ that the trouble with cooking with kids? sure, you can cook with me, but don’t even think of getting near anything hot or interesting or edible. better him than me.
I love that you perservered. Sort of. I hope Seth enjoyed cookin’ something and that he was appropriately pleased with his cake. And did you taste it…?!
yes…. self rising flour is different than all purpose, huh?
And love the jewelry idea. I never would have kept a secret that long! Wowza!
does Mike give gift-giving lessons? if so, can I sign Josh up, stat?!
i have a post in draft about how we haven’t exchanged Christmas gifts in five years and how my husband believes i like it this way when really it’s because he buys me dollar store presents and it hurts my heart and i’d as soon have nothing than be disappointed in the gifts he buys.
ew. i just re-read that and realize i am aw-ful!
oh well. he knew it when he married me.
but seriously, lessons on gift giving, willing to pay and send my husband to classes.
um…. no. you’re not, Sarah! It hurts because you know Josh can do better than that, and you know he should!
Mike really is a pretty great gift giver. I’m a pretty bad gift receiver. That’s how things stand right now.
Years ago, he always told me there wasn’t enough $ for a gift for me, but there was always enough for everyone else. That went on for years before deciding what I just told you: he can do better than that and he SHOULD.
And then I got a card with a $10 dollar bill in it. I protested. And there have been many, many years where he “forgot” my birthday or our anniversary completely. That’s the WORST.
But even when he’s really thoughtful, I’m awful. (Nice, huh?) For mother’s day he made this kickboxing thing. (Yes. MADE.) But he doesn’t kickbox, and I do… and he had no way of knowing it wasn’t exactly functional. It would have broken all my toes within 5 minutes of use. Good intentions… but I wasn’t having it. And it looked kinda morbid-scary like a gallows, and so I thoroughly rejected this handmade gift. I would have loved it if he’d talked to me and heard my input on the design and THEN done all of this…. listened, just a little…?
I have tried so hard to explain that what I really want is not some huge gesture. Homemade, expensive, or otherwise, I’m just not interested. I’d love it if he paid attention to the calendar, remembered something I really wanted (and it’s never big or expensive, because I’m just not like that) that I’d mentioned, and he’d LISTENED…. and then did something meaningful to ME. Not grand. Not showy. Not look what I can do.
Something small and sweet that would genuinely bless ME.
That’s hard. THAT is asking a lot, and maybe it’s asking too much.
I do need to remember to act a bit more grateful when there are genuine attempts at gifts, and maybe he’ll stop ‘forgetting’ altogether. There just might be a link there, and surely some of that is my fault. I know.
Dave and I do lists. He gives me a list of what he wants and I give him a list of what I want. I make my list long with a nice variety of items and prices so he still can choose what to get me and how much to spend, but he doesn’t have to worry about whether or not I’ll like it. It works out well for us. He has surprised me a few times and mostly he does well, but we learned long ago that the list thing works best.
For years he was The Geek…. I dont’ know if I can switch and think of him as Dave… but I shall try. Dave, who does well with gift lists. I like that idea. Particularly the ‘it works’ part. Because we have had 14 years of various things that do NOT work.
We’ve had 13 years of gifts that don’t work. Well, the paper cutter I got six years ago works but it doesn’t WORK. Next year, list. Fer sher.
He did tell me the other day that he considered getting me new cookware. I wonder if there would have been teeny tiny boxes in there filled will jewelry…from the dollar store.
If you try the list thing, Amazon.com has a “Universal Wish List” which will let you put anything you want from any online store in their wish list. You just have to download their Amazon toolbar and it shows up on your browser. Then, no matter what online store you’re at, when you find something you like, just click the “add to wish list” button at the top of your browser window, and it let’s you save it to your Amazon wish list.
The beauty of this is that he can then go to one place to see a list of everything you want, without you having to write/type out a list with URLs and store names, etc. And it has a place to write notes where you can put in sizes, colors, etc.
Kelsey, am glad you didn’t decide to return the cookware that had jewelry in them. I wish hubby had done that when he gave me pots and pans one year. He didn’t and I, as a truly grateful (yeah right) wife told him that never again is he allowed to buy me cooking stuff and call it a Christmas present unless he wants a new vaccum for Christmas (he said he wouldn’t mind – ughh). Hubby instead took my advice and filled my stocking for the first time in 8 years (with socks and chocolate, very thoughtful as I always have cold feet). He also got me a few other nice gifts based on my texted to him Christmas list the day he was out shopping.
Geekwif is right about Amazon wish list, it rocks. I got my leaf blower!
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you know… i’ve thought about it. mike doesn’t get me the stuff i say i want and i think it’s because then it wouldn’t be a surprise. (and he likes the whole grand gesture surprise thing) . it’s like it would be cheating, or taking the easy way out to just listen to me and well, just LISTEN. so… i’m guessing that a list would not work out after all.
socks and chocolate and leafblowers… yes to all 3. my stepmother actually BEGS my dad for whatever cookware she’s currently into and he tries to say ‘no, absolutely no cookware for gifts’ but he usually gives in because it’s what she really really really wants. i think she is an exception. as is he.
K – I LOVE my amazon wish list although as we’ve discussed for me it is as much about storing information as it is storing things that I might like (or might like to buy for others). So. It’s not a straightforward list that other people could look at and think “Oh, THAT’s what LaLa wants for her birthday.” Because stuff on there might be for other people. But that’s me. I think you could make great use of that list.