Perfectly buttered popcorn

made expressly on the kitchen stove in my new kitchen pots (wheeee! for christmas!) is a really good thing. Like scary good. My marvelous homeschooling mama/friend (frama? miend? there's got to be a nickname in there somewhere) taught me the classified technique of home made popcorn. There is NO WAY IN HELL I will ever enjoy a steamy bag of mircrowave popcorn the same way again. It'd be too much of a let-down. It's like the secret society of Orgasmic Popcorn just handed me a key to the golden gates of their city. Where fat, happy cows always give creamy butter and sunny fields of corn grow only the best kernals for popping. And then? She made me a thick, warm pan of hot chocolate from scratch. As in baker's cocoa scratch. My children looked up at her with chocolate-brimmed lips and buttery-glazed eyes in utter adoration. Could there be a more delicious afternoon snack after an hour of snowball fights? I didn't think so.