divine intervention

Divine intervention. Lord knows, I need it.

I've been busy with my annual divinity-making project. Keep dreaming of heavenly creaminess and the crunch of  fresh pecans. Even though I always aspire my candy to be celestial perfection, too often the results are simply earthly.

Some of the cast of characters.

If you ever watched your mother or grandmother make this candy, you probably learned some fun, new curse words. Divinity is persnickety. One of my batches today was a total loss. Had to pry it with hammer and chisel out of the mixing pan. Over the years, I've developed my own rules for making this Christmas candy.

Rules for making Divinity

1. Measure all ingredients carefully. Sugar must be measured to the last granule.

Pouring the hot syrup into the beaten egg whites.

2. Don't attempt to make divinity on a day with a humidity level over 40%. Candy won't set up.

3. Do not attempt to make divinity on a day with a humidity level under 30%. Candy will be as hard as an anvil.

Lovely pecans.

4. Have a USDA-NASA certified candy thermometer. Must be accurate within a millionth of a degree Fahrenheit.

5. Beware making divinity in a leap year.

Ready to spoon out.

6. Don't attempt this candy on any day or year containing the dreaded number '1'.

7. Never plan on giving divinity as a Christmas gift. Your pores will excrete nervous gasses. Those gasses react with the candy to turn it a snot green color.

This piece looks surprisingly good.

8. Never...ever...let a wiener dog observe your divinity-making. It is the candy kiss-of-death.

I really wanted my candy to be perfect, but it wasn't. I was tempted not to give it. Didn't want my friends to suffer through crunchy divinity.

I put the candy in my pretty Target gift boxes and gave it away anyway. Maybe they will taste the love. Strikes me as a parallel to so many things in my life right now.  I could use a little divine intervention to straighten things out and spruce things up a little bit. Even if I don't see divine intervention or I don't feel it, it still seems important to keep striving....to keep giving. I'll live fully in this current messiness and imperfection and you can meet me there. We'll have a party!

Maybe that realization is my divine intervention for today.

Carry on. Christmas is coming.

Karo-y love to all.