Guest Post from Sugarbelle!

My poor friend Shelly just had the pleasure of meeting Irene. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY likes that girl. So, while Shelly is dealing with the mess mean Irene left behind, I’ll be hanging out here. I tried to think of a way to tie my ramblings to gumball machines, but I’m not quite that cool yet, so for now, my cookies will have to remain completely unrelated to my long winded stories. I hope you understand.

I was in a hurricane once. Hurricane Floyd back in 1999. When I first heard it was coming, I was kind of excited. This small town Texas girl had never seen a hurricane, plus, since it wasn’t going to be a direct hit, just lots of wind and rain {being from West Texas, little old hurricane force winds don’t scare me at all} it basically meant that I would have a few school-less days, right around my birthday. What a great gift right?

Um….RIGGGGGGHT. In the days before it hit, I couldn’t go anywhere because of the traffic. Bumper to bumper, people trying to get out of Norfolk as fast as they could. Then after the fact, even if there weren’t huge branches blocking the road, all the places I wanted to go, like Pier One and Target were without electricity, therefore CLOSED. BOOOOOOOOOO!

My conclusion from this experience? HURRICANES SUCK!

So, if one is coming your way, I have a few tips of my own, besides all of the others recommended but the National Hurricane Center, to keep you occupied in the days following a hurricane.

• Make up a batch of royal icing. It can be kept out on your counter, so this is great, especially if the fridge goes out
• bake some cookies, I mean, you need sustenance

If you’re like me, you’re really prepared and already have these in your freezer, so when they thaw during the power outage, instead of being upset, you can just decorate.

So, like I said, bake some cookies, snowman cookies to be exact, except chop off it’s scarf before you bake.

When you are ready to decorate, {probably the day after landfall when there is no internet, TV, or job you have to report to} you will need:

• red piping and flood icing
• aqua/light blue 20-second icing
• Mini-M&M’s {which I suspect Shelly ALWAYS has on-hand}
• Gray-ish 20-second icing
• a black food color marker
• white piping icing

*PS, try not to make a huge mess while doing this, because if you don’t have water, you’ll have to set the dishes out back and hope the rain rinses them off

Now for the decoratin’, which is what we call decorating here in Texas…

Outline and fill the red parts

Let that dry a bit, use the aqua 20-second icing to fill in the globe, pipe in a white accent, then quickly drop mini M&M’s onto the wet icing.

When the red is dry, use the black food color marker to draw a “mouth” on the machine.

Fill in the empty square with gray-ish icing…

Let all that dry, then use the gray 20-second icing and a small tip {#1 or #1.5} to add the knob and coin slot, and red piping icing to add accents and details. I took it a step further and used a bit of white on the globe.

Ta da!!! Not to shabby for hurricane cookies, eh?

So, in summary, before your next hurricane, add these things to your list. Have cookies and royal icing ready to go, print out this post, and keep it with your family safety plans. Got it? Bulieve me, you’ll thank me for it!

Seriously, though, I have several friends in Virginia, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, and other places affected by Irene. I worried sick over them, and I am so thankful, that the worst damage for them was a few leaky rooves and a couple days without power and water. I hope everyone is safe and that life is back to normal for y’all as soon as possible. Lots of love from Texas!

If you need more hurricane Irene bordom busters, hop on over to The Sweet Adventures of SugarBelle.  I’ve always got something fun going on!