Recipe: Snow day celebration cookies.

What to do when your husband gets word of snow day #2 and commences dancing (yes, DANCING!) around the living room while you face the grim reality that you will yet again trudge through the slush to work tomorrow (uphill, BOTH WAYS)?

Well, make delicious cookies of course!

Now, friends, don't ever say that I don't love you for these cookies--these simple-sounding delicious treasures--will blow your MIND! SERIOUSLY.

And not only do they taste out-of-this-world good, they look magazine-perfect...a feat I can never achieve!

Bottom line: it made me feel really good about myself even though I chose cookies over the gym. Uhh...mental health day?

Without further ado: Celebratory Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies**

Note: If you did not get a snow day, you obviously get first pick of the batch and can eat as much dough as you want.
 

Ingredients

• 1  cup  granulated sugar
• 1  cup  packed brown sugar
• 1/2  cup  creamy peanut butter
• 1/4  cup  water*
• 1/4  cup  canola oil*
• 2  teaspoons  vanilla extract
• 2  large egg whites
• 1  large egg
• 12  ounces  all-purpose flour (about 2 2/3 cups)
• 1  teaspoon  baking powder
• 1  teaspoon  baking soda
• 1/2  teaspoon  salt
• 2/3  cup  semisweet chocolate minichips

*After mixing the dough, it seemed a bit dry, so I added an additional two T of both canola oil and water. 

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°.
2. Combine first 8 ingredients in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until smooth.
3. Weigh or lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl; stir with a whisk.
4. Add flour mixture to peanut butter mixture, stirring just until combined. Stir in minichips.
5. Drop dough by tablespoonfuls 2 inches apart on 2 baking sheets. Bake at 350° for 12 minutes or until golden. Cool on a wire rack.
6. Try to eat just one I DARE YOU!

**Adapted from a recipe I found online...unfortunately, I have no idea where! So sorry for not citing properly!

...any recipes I need to try? I'm all ears!

Trend setter.

So, I know I am a total sucker for things like this but there are several reasons I deemed this worthy of posting for the masses:

#1: 3D Printing: blows my mind.
#15: Brigadeiro: I want one. (or five...purely for research purposes OBVIOUSLY)
#16: "Buy One, Give One Away": I like this trend...especially if the given one is given to one in (actual) need.
#25: Digital Downtime: This is why technology scares me...I guess we all need help setting limits?
#31: Electronic Profiling: WHAAAAAAAAAAAA?! Terrified.
#35: F-Commerce: Stupid.
#38: Global Disease, Refocused: LOVE LOVE LOVE. Oh here's hoping...
#43: Ignorance is Bliss: Worth discussing...torn as how this affects social justice versus national security.
#61: NKOTBSB: OMGOMGOMG my inner 90s tween's heart just flipped. Just kidding. (?)

...and that's just (mostly) the first half! Let me know if anything strikes you.

...and happy snow day-ing if you are one of the lucky ducks that can claim such a wondrous occasion!

JWT: 100 Things to Watch in 2011

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...For worse.

Life has been tinged in a bit of ugly the last few weeks and while there is never a good time for such a season, it seemed especially bitter during Christmas, the season of supposed joy and merriment.

I won't go into details, but suffice it to say that as I opened a thoughtful "Our First Christmas" ornament, I nearly burst into tears. I don't want to remember any of this mess, I thought.

It was quite easy to get lost in my own fog and while several acts of kindness drew me out from time to time, there I remained, mourning several things, one of which was the loss of a chance to celebrate with my husband following a very busy season.

And I'm not going to pretend to be Suzy Sunshine about everything and there isn't a way to wrap this all up with a pretty bow.

But yesterday as I was walking back from lunch, I was hit with a new insight that perhaps was dancing around my head all along but was difficult to realize before some distance had been made.

And that was this--

As we stood at the altar, we eagerly said yes to a lot of things that we secretly hope will never come.

In sickness? For poorer? For worse? Yes yes yes! ....but surely not to us...

Yet these times do come and if we have made such a promise, it can be sometimes difficult to feel bonded amidst such pain. Because marriage makes things that much more complicated--more obligation, more needs, more hurt.

Yet sometimes, mercifully, this bond is somehow strengthened in the very seasons that seem easiest to tear it apart. And we feel the meaning of sacrifice. Of commitment. Of together.

And in the midst of such gray days, it truly is a blessing to take a deep breath and look over and think well, we may not emerge unscathed but neither will we be defeated.


And hand in hand, our journey continues.

Friendship terminated.

I talk to a lot of people at my job, which is one of the best and worst parts of daily tasks.

I'm not trying to be rude. Most people are pleasant or at least, you know, civil. And if I have enough exchanges with one person over a short period of time, I like to think that we're on our way to being friends for life. (overstatement) ((ish))

There are certainly enough crazies thrown in there to make me want to bang my head against the wall and a few that make me just horribly, utterly sad but that's not the point for today.

All I really wanted to say was imagine my frustration when after two hours, I see in the bathroom mirror a BLUE PEN STREAK ACROSS MY CHIN.

Isn't it like social code to TELL A PERSON ABOUT SUCH OBVIOUSLY UNWANTED MISHAPS?!

...apparently not.

Ooh la la.

So, we've been married for almost nine months now (!!!) and have yet to put much of anything on our walls.

Besides an insane spring-cleaning itch, I am currently uber-antsy to make our apartment a little more of a home. Tell me I'm nesting I DARE YOU.

Ahem.

I follow several blogs for fun ideas and inspiration and thought I'd share a few that have caught my eye as of late. All of these are available to purchase via one of my faves, etsy.com.

I have actually been working on a few of my own (nothing too fancy, don't get excited), which I'll post sometime soon. Like maybe if they ever grace our walls.

At any rate, these prints have caught my eye so what better to peruse on a winter Wednesday? Enjoy!

Here via here.

Here.

Here.

Here.

Life as a country song.

Oh HEY everyone!

Just typing with trembling fingers in our place WITH NO HEAT! At least it makes wearing my robe indoors less weird. BONUS!

Adam says we're making a memory and will laugh about it later. We'll see. Right now I just want to poke the eyeballs out of the last two weeks. And then make it carry out my Christmas tree with its teeth.

Too graphic? Too honest? My social cues are a tad rusty these days. Which may or may not have led to me totally losing it at the terrible cell phone store of the century. After FIVE visits to your store in a SEVEN-day timeframe which included THREE waits for more than an hour, TWO crappy phones and ONE seriously frustrated new customer (Adam)...and a partridge in a pear tree...yes, PLEASE tell me about that "restocking fee" and your "corporate policy regarding box-cutting." Oh! And what's that you say? Each new customer gains you, sir, a mere $18 so we're really nothing special? FABULOUS. YOU'RE A GEM.

I could go on but I have some consumer complaints to write (oh yes I will!) so to close, I will just say this:

Guess who spent New Year's Eve playing a marathon of this childhood fave and won all three times?!

Yep, I'VE STILL GOT IT!

Shine on.

And he smiled out at us, face gently creased into a well-worn smile, and said:

"She was my lifelong friend and I will miss her dearly."

And we wiped our tears.

He continued, "I spoke with the family and was privileged to be among them as they lit their memory torch and shared many fine moments with her."

And we remembered, torches burning brightly.

He went on, "And I thought I would share with you one little nugget you may not know and that is this--"

And we listened.

"I found our old high school yearbook," he said, "and written beside her photo was one simple phrase that I feel embodied her then, embodied her throughout, embodies her now--

"Anita," he recalled, "the Human Sunbeam."

And we wrapped that around us and tucked it inside our grief and carried it to our corners.

And we miss her.

And she shines on.