Lebkuchen & Lasik

My maiden name is Hachtel (hawk-tel) and is a nice, old German name. And for Christmas, Germans make Lebkuchen. I remember my mom making it a canning kettle because the recipe is a little overzealous. I haven't made it most of my married life so I decided that I would make some this past week because I was in charge of Germany for the "Christmas Around the World" activity we did on Friday at school and nothing pleases my dad more than to know his girls have made Lebkuchen. I had two family recipes so I have tried both of them this week. Last night was quite humorous as I called two of my sisters for help. I had added the soda to the liquid mixture and it was about 1/4 of an inch from the top of my 2nd largest pan. The recipe then called for me to add 1 Tbsp. vinegar. Lucky for me, I have made a few homeschool volcano projects and I knew what would happen. I called said sisters and we consulted on what to do. We figured it out, I got it all chilling in the fridge overnight and have spent the last 3 hours of my morning rolling out and cutting out cookies. And I only made half of the the recipe! (this is the last batch to roll out!)

Dad- they are in the mail!

The mailman brought me the next best thing to Lasik this morning:

I have been using the same contacts with major nicks for over the past 9 months. I figured out that if you position the nicks & gouges at the corners of your eyes, they don't bug you so much and you can keep going. Putting in the new ones feels unbelievable. No more gritty eyes. Yeah!!!

Lastly- I have a million posts written in my head (or at least started) so you may hear multiple times a day from me as I don't have time to write when school starts up again. Love you all!