Exhaustion

Even if you or a close loved one have never been diagnosed with cancer, chances are we've all faced the strain of dealing with a serious illness in one form or another. Even just the fear of a potential serious health issue is enough to send anyone into a tailspin. As Christians, we know God is in control and trust that whatever comes, it is not only part of His plan, but He will carry us through it. Practically speaking, though, even the most faithful and optimistic of us still feels the strain of facing a battle with serious illness.

It's only been ten years, but I don't remember feeling quite this... tired the last time I was told I had cancer. Not really physically, but mentally and emotionally. Honestly, I'm struggling to not feel pointlessly guilty because Mark's going to have to go through this with me. If you read my thoughts during my breast cancer journey, I commented that I found it infinitely easier to be the patient than the caregiver. If you've never been either, let me assure you that being a caregiver for a cancer patient is exhausting in every conceivable way. It's a strain physically because you have to do twice as much as you're accustomed to doing. It's exhausting mentally and emotionally as well. 

Cancer is a a monster, but so is the treatment for it. Chemo comes is too many forms to list. Every kind of cancer has it's own stable of chemotherapy drugs to fight it. None of the ones I'll be taking this time around are ones I took for the breast cancer. They come with entirely different potential side effects. Except for the nausea. That seems to be almost ubiquitous. Still, last time around, I had virtually zero issues with nausea. Never vomited once. Last time I had to have a port implanted in my upper chest because one of the drugs (adriamycin) was so caustic that it literally could destroy any tissue it came in contact with outside the main vein it was injected into. This time around, assuming my veins hold up, I won't even need a port at all. 

The chemo protocol I'll be taking is called CAPOX. The CAP portion of the regimen is Capecitabine. It's given in pill form. Side effects include:

• stomach pain or upset stomach
• constipation
• loss of appetite
• change in ability to taste food
• increased thirst
• unusual tiredness or weakness
• dizziness
• headache
• hair loss
• skin rash
• back, join, or muscle pain
• red, swollen, itchy, or teary eyes
• trouble falling asleep or staying asleep

 The OX portion of the regimen is Oxaliplatin. It's an iv infusion. Here's the basic list of side effects:

• numbness, burning, or tingling in the fingers, toes, hands, feet, mouth, or throat
• pain in the hands or feet
• increased sensitivity, especially to cold
• decreased sense of touch
• nausea
• vomiting
• diarrhea
• constipation
• gas
• stomach pain
• heartburn
• sores in the mouth
• loss of appetite
• change in the ability to taste food
• weight gain or loss
• hiccups
• dry mouth
• muscle, back, or joint pain
• tiredness
• anxiety
• depression
• difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep
• hair loss
• dry skin
• redness or peeling of the skin on the hands and feet
• sweating
• flushing

My treatment will involve a two-hour infusion of the Oxaliplatin at the infusion center and two weeks of taking Capecitabine by mouth twice a day. Then I will have a week "off" before returning to the Cancer Center to repeat the regimen. I'll do this four times, for a total of three months, if I don't have any serious issues with the protocol. If I react badly to the oral chemo, I'll have to switch to the iv version of the protocol, called FOLFOX, which would take a total of six months to complete. 

The last time around, I prepared for all the worst case scenarios so that I wouldn't be caught off guard if they came to pass. I'll do the same this time while hoping and praying that things will not be as bad as the warnings say they can be. From discussions by countless other patients, I think it's a safe bet that the neuropathy (numbness, tingling, pain) in my hands and feet is pretty much a given. The severity is completely unpredictable, as it is different for everyone. The hand and foot syndrome (peeling of skin on hands and feet) is another issue that crops up. I've already started an intensive moisturizing campaign for both my hands and feet in the hopes of heading it off. Hair loss is actually fairly rare. Looks like I'll probably get to go through this without being bald, though that's honestly the one side effect I truly didn't care about. All things considered, being bald was the last thing on my mind. 

As before, I'm weirdly most worried about the nausea. I absolutely loathe feeling queasy. I mean, of all the issues chemo and the array of treatments meant to counteract the side effects it causes can trigger, nausea is the one that I simply cannot abide. Last time around I had no issues. I felt mildly nauseated one time after treatment, took one tablet to counter it, and never had to take anything else for the duration of my treatment. God willing, this time around will go the same. 

The Word No One Wants To Hear

Sigh.

I reached ten years since I was diagnosed with breast cancer last year. 2020 wasn't the sort of year to celebrate anything with any kind of fanfare. It was just a quiet, routine visit with my oncologist that involved her telling me that I didn't need to see her again, that my family doctor could monitor me from this point on. So I saw my family doctor for my routine annual wellness exam, which included routine blood work, and I got a call a couple of days later letting me know I was anemic. That required another relatively routine test as well as commencement of taking an iron supplement. I've done this test before. It's called a FIT Test and involves testing a stool sample for evidence of blood. Another couple of days and I got a second call telling me it was positive. 

Interestingly, the medical powers that be have altered the recommended beginning age for routine colon screening from 50 to 45, so my family doctor had already set up an appointment with a gastroenterologist for me. I saw her nurse practitioner, who told me that even though it is now recommended that we all get screened at 45, insurance companies have not adjusted to the new recommendations and would not pay for a screening colonoscopy. That positive fecal occult (hidden/not visible) blood test meant I was getting one anyway, though. So, I had that done on Monday, January 25. The doctor told me then that she'd found multiple polyps in my colon and removed several and a few pieces of one that was too big for her to take out that she believed would be cancerous. A few days later, the call confirming her suspicions came.

Cancer.

Again.

The first step regardless of biopsy results or anything else was to have the section of my colon with the malignant polyp removed, so I met with the surgeon, who scheduled a CT Scan to get a look at my chest and abdomen to confirm there were no distant metastases of the cancer. That came back clear, and last week I went into the hospital to have part of my sigmoid colon removed. He removed just over 5 inches of my colon along with several lymph nodes to have them biopsied for evidence of metastasis.

I spent Wednesday, February 24, and Thursday in the hospital, then got to come home on Friday, the 26th. I'm recovering more rapidly than I expected to. My abdomen is still tender, especially when I try to bend over, but generally speaking, I'm getting around very well and having no real issues at all getting back to a "normal" diet, though I'm still avoiding anything tough to digest like raw vegetables and nuts and spicy foods, which sucks because I love me some spiciness. 

So, yesterday, Tuesday, March 2, I learned that one of the thirteen lymph nodes biopsied came back positive. Just one out of thirteen, but that one makes all the difference in the world. Because of that one positive lymph node, my cancer staging leaps from 2 to 3. Because of that positive lymph node, I go from probably not needing any further treatment to facing 3-6 months of chemo. 

I have stage IIIa colon cancer. 

I'm limited in how much research I can do until I see the oncologist because there are multiple options for chemo protocols. Most likely is FOLFOX or CapeOx. These two protocols have one drug in common called Oxaliplatin. It's a nasty little chemical. I don't mind admitting that I am not looking forward to having to deal with it. It comes with a few side effects, primarily neuropathy, meaning pain, tingling, and numbness in the hands and feet that can last up to a couple of years after completing the chemo. If it gets really bad, the damage can be permanent. There are other side effects, of course, ranging from unpleasant to horrifying. I can only pray that I handle this encounter with chemo as well as the last one. 

I have my post op follow-up appointment with my surgeon next week. I should get the results of additional testing that is being done on the tumor then. Suffice it to say that if it comes back with unfavorable results, it will open an entirely new can of worms, so we're praying that what we already know will be the worst of it. I will need chemo, but rads are unlikely since we have no target for them. The point of the chemo is to kill off any stray cancer cells that may have moved beyond that one positive lymph node. I'll be seeing at least one oncologist sometime soon, though no appointments are made, yet.

 

As always, I am constantly aware that it could be much, much worse. It's cancer. It's chemo. It's a new journey into the unknown where we begin with a long list of potential side effects, many of them horrifying and nightmare-inducing, but all of them only possibilities. As before, I'll prepare for the worst and pray for the best. It's really all I can do.

Please pray for me, of course, as well as the doctors and nurses who'll be part of this journey. But make special mention in your prayers for Mark, please. As I've said before, it's infinitely easier to be the patient than to be the caregiver. 

Also, though the COVID-19 pandemic is generally considered to be plateauing if not on the way to it's conclusion, it's still not over. I will be starting chemo well before everyone gets a vaccination. I don't know if they'll give me a vaccination and have me wait a few weeks to start the chemo or if that's even an option. I know I will absolutely not be able to risk exposure once the chemo begins. Mark has a co-worker who was forced to take time off while his wife went through chemo because he could not risk being exposed at work and bringing it home to her. There are vaccines available now, though, so maybe we'll both be able to get one of them and then not have to worry about it. I just don't know, beyond the fact that COVID makes an already complicated process even more difficult to navigate. 

March is Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month, so it's only fitting that I end with a note about colorectal cancer screening. No one wants to talk about having a colonoscopy. I'm still a couple of months away from my 50th birthday, which is apparently when at least most insurance companies will pay to have screening done. By next year, I assume insurance companies will have caught up to the new guidelines about screening at 45. Either way, I advise everyone to talk with you doctor about getting the screening as soon as you're eligible. It's nothing to be embarrassed about and honestly, it's no big deal. The worst issue I had, by far, was the liquid prep solution. I'm hyper sensitive to flavors, especially the artificial sweeteners that are used in almost everything these days. The prep would have been fine if they hadn't tried to "flavor" it. I almost didn't  get it down. For my surgery I got to use a pill and Miralax prep that was infinitely easier. I'll need colonoscopies far more frequently from now on, possibly every year, but I'll never do the liquid prep again. 

Other than having to choke down several ounces of an overly artificially flavored and sweetened drink, though, the colonoscopy was a breeze. I just wish it had come with a better result. So, get screened. Tell your spouse to get screened. Make sure your parents get screened. If they find nothing, you don't have to repeat it for ten years! Trust me when I say it's worth having a simple test you may find embarrassing to avoid the process I'm now going through.

 

This is Animal Cruelty...

Brace yourselves, I'm about to launch a colossal rant.

Anyone who's on Facebook knows how easy it is to miss a post by any friend or liked page, particularly with Facebook's "we know better than you" attitude that leads them to show us the posts they think are most important without any real say-so from us. I was constantly switching to the "Most Recent" feed until I was fortunate enough to find a script that allows me to tweak several of the settings on Facebook, including forcing them to stay on Most Recent instead of Top Stories. Anyway, I'm mentioning this because of all the posts made by the Switzerland County Animal Shelter since I "liked" their page, the first and only one I've actually seen was one that was made last Tuesday, February 5. It was post of very cute Golden Retriever puppy who was one of the dogs currently available for adoption. I clicked on the image, which took me to the SCAS page where I caught sight of another image of another dog. This is that image:

Here are the words that accompanied it: This is Marilyn. She is an English bulldog approximately 4-5 years old. Marilyn was found curled up freezing and starving in the North Dr area.

This blog is named Winsomebulldog. My header is a picture of my two Bulldogs, Katie and Briscoe. Katie was my husband's dog, a dream come true for him. A friend's family had one that he spent time with as a young man, and from then on, he always dreamed of owning one. Clearly, we are Bulldog fans.

First off, let me just confess that both Katie and Briscoe came from pet stores. We weren't as aware then as we are now of the horrors of puppy mills. For us, the consequences of purchasing our two darling Bullies at a pet store instead of from a reputable breeder were a significant array of various health issues that could undoubtedly have been avoided if their breeders had been more interested in producing healthy puppies than in the obscene amount of money they could make while forcing dogs to produce litter after litter after litter of unhealthy puppies. Having said all that, I wouldn't trade either of my precious babies for any amount of money. Losing Katie was and still is one of the most painful things I have endured.

So, what does any of this have to do with Marilyn? Well, Marilyn was almost certainly used in a puppy mill. Let me tell you why I believe that.

She is skin and bones. She has a list of health issues that is almost impossible to believe. One of those issues is swollen, raw feet with pads that have spit open. This happens when a dog is forced to stand in their own urine and feces. You can't see it clearly in the above picture, but instead of being white, as she should be, she's more a dingy yellowish brown. She smells terrible. Just so you get a full picture of her condition, let me show you a few more images.

Have you thrown up, yet? I've come close a few times since I first saw her.

The obvious issues:

• She's been starved. 
• Her nails hadn't been trimmed in, well, probably ever.
• There are mammary tumors all along her stomach because she was never spayed.
• Her eyes are milky and constantly gooey because of entropion. (Entropion is a situation where the eyelids basically roll inward, causing the lashes to constantly rub the surface of the eye. Very uncomfortable.)
• Due to the untreated entropion, both eyes are severely scarred, making her almost blind. The damage from the constant irritation was so bad that her left eye developed an ulcer that eventually ruptured. Translation, she has a hole in her eye.
• Her feet are raw.

Now for the not so obvious, but not unexpected, issues:

• She is heartworm positive. 
• All her rear teeth are so decayed that they're essentially mush and will have to be removed before they cause her jawbones to rot as well. 

More possible issues that haven't been confirmed, yet, but that I wouldn't be surprised by:

• Heavy internal parasites.
• Hip and/or knee damage from being caged constantly.

She can barely walk. This could be due to her painful feet, arthritis, or the fact that she's barely more than skin and bones. Probably a combination of all of them.

When she was found, she was curled up on the cold ground beneath a rabbit hutch, waiting to die. The lady who picked her up said she just looked like she'd given up. She was so cold that she spent the rest of that day shivering, just trying to get warm.

When I saw that picture of her, taken as soon as she was brought into the shelter, I knew I had to do something. I sent the shelter several messages, asking for more information. As soon as my husband got home, I showed him the picture. He was as horrified as I was.

The next morning, I began communicating with the shelter about her. They'd guessed her age to be 4-5 years. By the end of that day, I was positive that I wanted to bring her home with me.

The next day, Feb. 7, she was due to see a vet. I had errands to run in the morning, but went over to the shelter as soon as I got home to meet her. I'd seen the picture, so I knew she was terribly skinny. The shelter had informed me that the picture didn't show how truly bad it was. What really got me when I first saw her, though, was the way she was curled up in a tiny ball on her blanket. She was in the isolation room along with several other smaller dogs. As dogs do, they all began barking like mad as soon as the door was opened. Marilyn's head lifted, then dropped once more in dejection. She began to tremble. All I could think was how much I wanted to take her to a quiet place, wrap her in warm blankets, and cradle her in my lap.

She had her vet appointment later in the afternoon and the shelter assured me that they would call once they knew something. I got that phone call at 5. That's when they told me about the heartworms, her eyes, the mammary tumors, her teeth, and that she was closer to 8 years old. The vet suggested putting her down, but they didn't because I'd already told them that we would still take her if she turned out to be heartworm positive. I'd prepared for that. I hadn't braced myself for all the rest of it.

When I got off the phone with the shelter, I sent my hubby a text message explaining all the additional issues she was facing. Her teeth will have to be removed. This is surgery. The entropion can be fixed through another surgery. The mammary glands can be removed when she is spayed. ANOTHER surgery. And don't forget those heartworms. Want to know how they kill those suckers? Arsenic. That's right. They poison the nasty little things. Follow that up with having countless dead worms flushed through damaged arteries and you're talking about a huge physical impact on the body. Look at those pictures again. Think she can survive that? The vet had concerns that she'd be able to survive any of the treatments she needs.

I hung up the phone and started crying. I just couldn't help it. I kept seeing her curled up on that blanket. I kept thinking about the hell she's been forced to endure. It is obvious that she's been bred repeatedly. Whatever bastards - yes, I know it's an ugly word - had her, used her, abused her, and then threw her away when she got too sick to be of further use. This is what I kept thinking about. Would it be kinder to just put her down? Would it be cruel to try to "fix" all her problems?

Needless to say, I didn't sleep that night. But when I got up Friday morning I'd made a decision. I had to give her a chance. She's known nothing but misery. She deserves so much more. I eventually came to the decision that even if she doesn't survive one of the cures for her many ailments, I could at least give her the best life possible for however long she lives. I can keep her full and warm and give her all the love she has never known but so obviously needs. And she just might survive it all. Katie was 11 before the cancer took her from us. This precious little girl could have several more years of life left to live. Happy, healthy years. I simply could not deny her that chance.

So, I went to the shelter and picked her up. I brought her home and gave her a chance to sniff a bit in the yard and potty. Then I brought her in the house and put her down on the large orthopedic dog bed that we keep in our living room for Malcolm to lay on. The boys gave her a few cursory sniffs. She wasn't sure what to think of them, but I laid down beside her and gently stroked her head and ears until she started dozing off. I tucked her blanket in around her so she could nap.

Since then, she's had some food and water, and been outside several times. She got a little bit sick, probably from drinking too much. She was a thirsty girl. She's napping on Malcolm's bed, occasionally waking up to look around, as if she's making sure she's still in a warm, safe place.

She has a very long road ahead of her. She needs a bath terribly, but I don't want to put her through the stress. I want to give her a few days to settle in, to feel at home and completely safe before I start doing things that I know will make her uneasy.

I have no idea what her personality is truly like. She's so weak that she doesn't do much more than eat, drink, and sleep. She is just so painfully thin. Watching her try to walk is agonizing. I want to do something, to make her better, to make her happy. Every time I look at her, I am sickened again by how much she has suffered.

Somewhere out there is a person or persons who used a beautiful, gentle, sweet, loving dog to make money with absolutely no regard for her welfare. They could make money off her because people buy dogs off the Internet and out of classified ads in the newspaper, sight unseen. They don't visit the breeder or insist upon meeting the parents of the puppy they're buying.

There is very serious problem in this country. We continue to view dogs, cats, horses, livestock, any domestic animals, as property, no different than a car or a sofa. We blame dogs for being dogs, condemning entire breeds or even breed types for the actions of a few while simultaneously deifying those who contribute to the problem. Michael Vick not only participated in dog fighting, he tortured his dogs to death, yet he didn't actually go to jail for that. He was allowed to plea to "Conspiracy to Travel in Interstate Commerce in Aid of Unlawful Activities and to Sponsor a Dog in an Animal Fighting Venture." Racketeering. In the state of Virginia, he submitted a guilty plea to a single Virginia felony charge for dog fighting, receiving a 3 year prison sentence suspended on condition of good behavior, and a $2,500 fine. He spent less than 2 years in prison, got out and picked his NFL career right back up where he left off. He was named the 2010 NFL Comeback Player of the Year and was selected to his fourth Pro Bowl.

This from a man who admitted to providing most of the financing for the operation and to participating directly in several dog fights in Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina and South Carolina. He admitted to sharing in the proceeds from these dog fights. He further admitted that he knew his colleagues killed several dogs who did not perform well. He admitted to being involved in the destruction of 6–8 dogs, by hanging or drowning.

How many thousands of people have cheered for Michael Vick during his "comeback?" How many people out there look at him and think he served his time and should be granted a fresh start despite the fact that he was never convicted of animal cruelty? He never spent one day in jail for it. Even if he had been convicted of animal abuse, he would have gotten little to no jail time for it and a monetary fine of a few thousand dollars.

Abusing an animal is a misdemeanor. No matter how terrible the abuse, how horrific the suffering of an animal, current criminal laws make it nearly impossible to convict anyone of animal cruelty short of having film of them committing it, and convictions carry penalties that tend to amount to a slap on the wrist.

Marilyn is not an inanimate object. She is a living, breathing, feeling creature. She has emotions. She feels pain and fear, suffers grief and loneliness. She has her own personality. She's an individual just like I am or you are. She is beautiful and sweet, wholly undeserving of the hell she's been put through.

So I'm left to ask, how many of you out there have a dog tied up out in your yard? How many have a wire kennel that you visit once a day just to drop off some food and water while the dog you've caged inside spends every single moment all alone? How many of you don't bother to get your pet spayed or neutered, or give the heartworm and flea prevention? They're just dogs, right? All dogs have fleas. So what?

Just because I can't bear to end this on a completely depressing note, I'm going to add one final picture.

Marilyn and her blankets, curled up on her comfy bed. No more shivering. No more fear. Whatever the future holds for her, at least she finally won't have to face it all alone.

I've used the name given to her by the shelter workers during this post, but that isn't the name we're going to call her by. I wanted something less formal sounding, so we've called her Maggie. Maggie May. Of course she doesn't recognize her name, yet. But she's already beginning to respond to the sound of my voice. Perhaps more telling, there have been at least two times that I've seen her wake up and turn her head toward me, her scarred eyes struggling to focus. I speak a few words to her, telling her what a good, sweet girl she is, and she lowers her head back down and returns to her sleep. Don't anyone dare try to tell me that dogs don't crave the companionship of their people.

Loss

Katie's gone...

A glimpse of how she got her name, Katie-Bar-the-Door.

This is the expression I loved most on her face. Joy.

The image that inspired the winsomebulldog name. 

 And finally...

Yesterday, at the emergency clinic.

If you know me, then you know that our girl, Katie, has been sick for a while. Yesterday, she was so weak that she could barely stand. I took her to the ER and they ran some tests, but couldn't find anything wrong. (It should be noted that we all thought her problems were connected to either her chemo or the heart issues that were brought on by the chemo.) So, I brought her back home yesterday evening but she got worse during the night. I took her back up to the clinic this morning and they took some x-rays and spotted what they thought was pneumonia in her lungs. So they kept her to give her fluids and antibiotics.

I got a call this afternoon a little before 5 letting me know that she had stopped breathing. They did their best, but as I was on my up there a little while later, they called to let me know she had died. I'll spare you the gory details and just say that additional blood work revealed that her kidneys were failing badly. It is likely that the cancer spread despite the chemo and caused significant damage, bringing on the kidney failure and other symptoms that were mistakenly attributed to her heart. No one is at fault. She was just a sick baby.

Right now, I'm fairly numb. I cried all the way up there. Spent almost an hour with her and cried some more. Then cried a good portion of the way home. So now I'm just in a holding pattern until the next wave of grief hits.

Losing her sucks, plain and simple. But it's made worse in so many ways because Mark is not home. He has made what should be his final trip to retrieve machinery from New Jersey and is due home this evening. His plane should already be in the air. So he had to deal with all this while being unable to be here for either me or her. Please pray for him, as Katie was particularly special to him for a variety of reasons.

I'll say without shame that we both loved Katie as though she were our child. I know some people take offense at that, but I'm sorry. Katie was a part of our lives every single day for eleven years. She will forever hold a home in both our hearts and nothing and no one will ever replace her in any way.

I wish I could somehow convey how incredible she was. So much unconditional love packed into one short, pudgy dog doesn't seem possible. And there's simply no way for me to express how much pure joy she brought to my life. I still can't quite make myself imagine living without her.

I needed to get this out there, to share it for her, to honor her. I'm so tired and I have one of those "after crying" headaches. I'm thinking that I might need to lay down for a little while. Maybe, in a few more days, I'll be able to be more philosophical about it all. Right now, I just want my baby girl back.

Golden Honey Pan Rolls - Lazy Version

After yesterday's Buttered Rosemary Rolls, I decided to try the shortcut version of the Golden Honey Pan Rolls that I already know are fantastic. The link will take you to the full recipe that has instructions on how to make them from scratch, using a bread machine. I'm going with the short version here, using store-bought dough, which means the rolls themselves won't have any honey in them. I'll just use the glaze from the original recipe and see how they turn out. I'm fairly certain that they'll be very nearly as good as the from scratch version.

Here's the recipe for the glaze:

• 1/3 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons melted butter
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1 egg white 

This is the recipe for a full 13" X 9" pan of rolls, but I'm not going to bother trying to halve it. Half an egg white? I don't think so. And just in case you've never, ever done anything like this before, I'll include a few pictures of the process. Brace yourself.

Step 1: Go to the store and pick up a bag of Rhodes frozen dinner rolls.  Bring them home and toss them in the freezer. When you're ready to fix your rolls, take the bag out of the freezer and cut it open.

NOTE: You'll notice in the upper right-hand corner of the bag that it has an arrow with the words "EASY OPEN Tear Here." This is a blatant lie. I tugged and pulled and twisted and not only was it not easy to open, it in fact did not open at all. No tearing, though the plastic did stretch quite well. I  eventually had to resort to using a pair of scissors. (This may well be the hardest part of this recipe.)

Step 2: Pick a pan. Any pan, assuming it's not so large that 36 rolls couldn't hope to fill it up when fully risen. Unless you're cooking for an army or possibly a potluck dinner, an 8" or 9" cake pan should be plenty big enough. If you want to get really rustic, break out a cast iron skillet. I'll admit the skillet makes a lovely presentation, but since I'm more interested in eating them than looking at them, and since I have not yet crossed into the world of professional food blogger, I just grab whatever is handy. For this post, I went all out and broke out a "fancy" piece of Corning Ware, so the pictures would look pretty. Yep, I'm trying that hard to impress you guys. 

Spray the pan with cooking spray and place the rolls inside.

(See - pretty pan.) You have a couple of options at this point. One, you can lay a kitchen towel over the pan or you can spray a sheet of plastic wrap with more oil and lay it over the pan. (Do I need to point out that the towel should be clean?) Pick whichever way suits you, then just set the pan aside and WALK AWAY.

That's right. You are DONE for literally HOURS! Just go do something else. 

This shot was taken after 6 hours. (My kitchen was fairly cool, especially in the morning when I started. Your rolls may thaw and rise faster or slower, depending on ambient temperature, altitude, humidity, etc. Basically, just leave them alone until they're big enough that you're happy with them.) Mine in the above pic are risen enough to be baked, though I'm letting them go longer just because I'm hoping to wait long enough for my hubby to come home so that he can have them fresh out of the oven. They will keep getting bigger. The bigger they get, the more careful you'll have to be when brushing on the glaze because they'll be so fluffy that too much pressure will make them collapse. (If that happens, they won't look very pretty, but they will still taste just fine.)


Step 3: Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Mix up your glaze.

 

It will be slimy and VERY thick. But once baked, it is oh, so good. Brush, or if your pan is big enough and your rolls haven't risen to the point of billowing over the sides, drizzle this concoction over the rolls.

By this point (after about 9 hours) mine had risen so much that I couldn't get as much of the glaze on them as I would have liked. My rolls completely filled up the pan, so none of the glaze could ooze down to the bottom, which meant that most of the sweet goodness was confined to just the top of the rolls. If I'd glazed them when they were smaller (say, in that earlier picture after about 6 hours of rising) the glaze would have more fully permeated the bread and they'd have been sweeter than they turned out to be. Still good, mind you. Hubby polished them off with no hesitation, and like I said yesterday, he's not really a bread eater.


Step 4: As soon as the oven is ready, place the pan into it and bake for 15-20 minutes or until they're golden.  Mine were ready after just 15. If you know your oven cooks really fast, you might want to back the temperature down to 325 degrees, just to make sure you don't over-brown them.

Take 'em out and let 'em cool just long enough so that you can handle them without needing a trip to the emergency room. Begin scarfing them down.

This is insanely easy. And the sweetness, especially when done like this, isn't so overwhelming that it gives you a toothache. In the original recipe, the dough itself is sweetened with honey, so it's by default sweeter even without the glaze. Still, this is a really nice way to get almost the exact same flavor without all the extra work. And it's really especially nice since rising bread isn't something that requires constant attention, freeing you up to do whatever else you need or want to do. Hope everyone enjoys them!

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Buttered Rosemary Rolls

The Pioneer Woman's Buttered Rosemary Rolls

Okay, made these yesterday. Didn't use the iron skillet because... well because I just didn't want to dig it out and I already had a square cake pan handy. The pan held nine comfortably and I just let them rise pretty much all day, which kinda became an issue eventually because they got so huge and fluffy that a couple of them finally collapsed. That was when I decided to go ahead and bake those puppies. (I'd been waiting for Mark to get home, but wouldn't you know, it was one of those 15 hour days, so I finally had to give in and get them into the oven.) Anyway, been wanting to make them since I first saw the recipe and finally picked up some rosemary. Let me just say that they are absolutely AWESOME! And by awesome, I mean irresistible and so blasted good that you'll be tempted to forgo whatever you actually intended to eat as a main course. Mark ate four of them, and he is NOT a big bread guy. He kept telling me last night that it was all really good. He's not stingy with compliments in general, but by the time he'd said it three or four times, I figured he liked his supper. Just FYI, I made a big pot of beef stew that I've been wanting but that I have no recipe for. I just started tossing stuff into the pot and added whatever struck my fancy at the moment. Then let it simmer all day long and it turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself. Anyway, I scarfed down 2 of the rolls right after they came out of the oven, then ate 3 more with supper. Or maybe Mark wound up eating five and I ate 2 more. I don't really know. All I know for sure is that the pan was empty before we went to bed, half the beef stew was gone, and I was feeling a bit like a balloon that was ready to pop. I was a bit leery of using too much rosemary because it's one of those spices that has a fine line between just right and overwhelming. But I think the next time I make them, I'll ad a bit more than I did this time. I didn't have the fancy sea salt that the recipe calls for, but did have some regular old sea salt and that's what I used. Seriously, they were just insanely delicious. I'm making another pan of rolls today, though I'm going with an old favorite - Honey Pan Rolls, with the shortcut of using the frozen dough. I'm going to take some pictures of these, and maybe post them assuming they all turn out okay.