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It's no secret that I hate cooking...a lot. But Christmas time is one of the few times I really try to do a good job. I don't know how to make any of the usual Christmas goodies like fudge or peanut brickle (brittle? what the heck is it called?) or even sugar cookies. We do have a few things we're pretty good at baking. So today was my baking day to make some pumpkin chocolate chip muffins to go in gift bags for a few friends. I'm going to tell you a story that is really the quintessential reason why I hate cooking.

It starts out with a few errands I had to run. I had to go to the doctor this morning. After that I picked up the kids from my Mother-in-law and headed to the bank, then the $1 store, then Safeway (where I had to go through the line twice because I realized I'd forgotten something after I'd already bought my stuff), then the pharmacy and home again. I was pretty proud of myself that we made it through all that without a major catastrophe.

I find when I put the muffin liners in the tins that I accidentally got jumbo muffin liners instead of normal ones. I dug through my cupboard and found some regular ones, slightly squished but I figured they'd do. In my first tin goes. After about five minutes I walk past the counter and what do I see? 1 1/4 cups of oil staring me in the face, mocking me. I pulled the muffins out and tried to salvage them but I had to throw the entire batch out.

I stared over again.

Since I had to throw away one whole tin of liners with my bad batch I now have to use the jumbo liners. I dug through my cupboards again and found more regular ones but these look like maybe they've been attacked by wolves or at least something heavy enough to mash them flat...but I use them anyway. This batch goes fine except when you use liners that start odd shaped you end up with muffins that are odd shaped.

Most of the muffins were fine. Enough that I could keep the really strange looking ones. However, if you are one those people who got our muffins and yours look strange, I'm sorry. I really tried. I did. They still taste good.