"In Your Easter Bonnet, With All the Frogs Upon It..."

Started a quiet morning with two live-action sitcom episodes inspired by classic tales of double dilemmas. "The King Lives" is a third season Get Smart spoof of The Prisoner of Zenda. Max has to take over from the King of Corovia when he's shot, but the King's dastardly brother figures out and kidnaps 99. Max has to rescue his girlfriend after showing off his swashbuckling ability to KAOS!

The first season The Monkees show "The Prince and the Paupers" has fun with Mark Twain's short novel of the same title. Davy Jones' double is a shy young prince who is desperately afraid of girls...but he has to get married in order to claim his throne. Davy woos the Prince's lady friend (with Mike's help), while Micky and Peter try to teach the Prince the ins and outs of dating. Meanwhile, the Prince's uncle will do anything to keep him from getting married, including kill his nephew!

Headed for the Haddon Township Library after The Monkees ended. It was a gorgeous day for a ride. The wind was a bit blustery, but otherwise it was sunny and in the lower-mid 50s, perfect weather for mid-March in southern New Jersey. I wasn't the only one enjoying it, either. There were several people out for a stroll in Newton River Park, and at least two flocks of Canadian geese poking around for an early lunch.

The library actually wasn't that busy today. There wasn't even much for me to do. I put away a small pile of DVDs and a couple of children's books. I noticed that there were two new American Girl Mysteries sitting in the kids' new releases section, one for Julie and one for Samantha. Since I just read a Sam mystery not long ago, I grabbed the one for Julie, The Silver Guitar. The last Julie mystery I read was excellent and a huge improvement on her rather dull "core" series. I'm hoping for the same here, especially since one of the subjects dealt with is rock music in the late 60s and 70s.

I also took out a couple of DVDs. I only found one movie I wanted to see, Iron Man 2, but I went with three cartoon sets. Grabbed the newest Sean the Sheep set "Spring Shee-na-nigans," "Easter With Max and Ruby," and "Christmas With the Backyardigans."

My next stop after the library was Super Fresh. I like the individual packs of Hodgeson Mill yeast from there. They seem to work better and are cheaper than the ones that come in three-packs. They were having a sale on pecan bits, too, and I wanted those to try some more meringue cookies. After that, I made a brief stop at Dollar Tree for birthday cards for my friend Kelly (birthday is St. Patrick's Day) and Mom (the 20th). I hit WaWa on the way home for a Turkey Ciabatta Melt, then headed home.

After I got in, I had a quick Ciabatta Melt lunch, then made Chocolate-Pecan Meringue cookies while watching Sean the Sheep. Timmy, the mischievous little lamb, was at the center of two of the best stories in this set. In the first, he gets stuck on a spring and leads Sean and the other barnyard residents on a merry chase to catch him. In another, he eats a tomato that's been doused with a super-grow formula. He grows so tall, Sean and the others mistake him for a monster...and so does the farmer, who calls in a mob to take the monster sheep down! The nearsighted farmer was the focus of the last story. He loses his glasses and blunders all over the farmyard...until Sean comes up with a very creative replacement for his lost specs!

I worked on Wishcraft exercises while the cookies were in the oven. Chapter 6 deals with Negative Thinking. I've indulged in a little too much of this in the past. The exercises encourage you to just write out all of your complaints - I'll never earn enough money to start a business, I wouldn't know how, etc. Chapter 7 starts the actual brainstorming process. Most of the ideas I came up with involve talking to people. We'll see if I can actually make myself do that. I get so nervous about it.

I went for a walk while the cookies cooled. It was still a lovely day. In fact, it was such a nice day, I switched to my blue spring jacket, instead of my winter coat, which I wore this morning. Since it was past 5 by this point and school was long out, I decided it was safe to take a walk down to the park and school yard. I saw lots of kids out and about. Two boys played street hockey on Landis Avenue. A whole gaggle of little guys climbed around on the school playground equipment as their parents watched. Little league softball and baseball teams practiced on the school field.

Ran The Backyardigans while finishing the cookies and starting dinner. My favorite episodes were two bizarre but cute sci-fi spoofs. The first had Acorn Scouts Austin, Tasha, and Tyrone helping alien dictator Pablor (Pablo) get to the Crystal of Power before his sworn enemy Uniquor (Uniqua) does...and learning a bit about helping others in the process.

In the second, space cops Uniqua and Tyrone think diner owners Tasha and Pablo's sweet-natured alien customer is the rogue alien who has been going around shrinking objects. But Hugs the Alien has a surprise for everyone when she teaches the kids about the importance of the word "no."

Switched to Max and Ruby while making Shrimp with Tomato Sauce over Pasta and steamed broccoli for dinner. Springtime and Easter tales were the focus of this set (obviously). In "Ruby's Easter Bonnet," Ruby wants to make a prize-winning hat for the Bunny Scouts' Easter Bonnet Competition, but Max thinks her hat could use a little something...like his jumping frog!

Ruby came off much better for once in "Ruby Scores!" Ruby's determined to land a goal against Roger, the best soccer player in school. Max's robots get in the way, until they finally distract Roger instead. I give Ruby - and Louise, too - a lot of credit here. Though the robots helped Ruby make some nice dodges, that great ball-off-the-head shot that landed the goal was her own. And Louise is one heck of a cheerleader - maybe she should try out for her local little league squad!

I'm a little disappointed with how the cookies came out. They're tasty, but not as crunchy as I'd hoped. I don't think I chopped the pecans fine enough. Oh well. I'm really enjoying working with egg whites. I think I'll try more meringue cookie recipes. They're the perfect cookies - sweet, easy to make, low-fat, and very tasty!