Never Send Cookies in the Mail

chocolate chip cookies
Homemade cookies!

I usually start my blogging with a photo. I take lots of pictures of all kinds of things and I came across this cookie photo which reminded me of how I had this great idea to send cookies to my son last year.

He lives in Florida and his family (us) all moved north and left him. So I feel guilty and last year I got this idea that I would give him a taste of home – a blast from the past – and send a box of my chocolate chip cookies. He would love that!

I am tired of cooking and baking. I really don’t enjoy it much these days and would prefer to have my own personal chef whip up something and serve it to me. Comes from all those years of BEING the personal chef to everyone else I guess. But the cookie recipe is from my old Betty Crocker cookbook and it makes a ton of cookies. There would be plenty to keep for ourselves too. I always like the idea of killing two birds with one stone.

So I made the cookies, found a box and began packing them up. I put 2 cookies together in a baggie, then layered all the baggies between packing paper – the kind with air bubbles that pop if you step on them. I needed a bigger box. I kept bagging and layering and filled a big box and as I was doing it I thought that Nick had better LOVE this gift. It was a pain in the neck.

So between the baking, cleaning up, finding a big enough box, packing it, addressing it and taking it to the Post Office and paying to ship it, I learned a valuable lesson.

Do not ever do that again.

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Why Not Be Alone on Thanksgiving?

wine glass bottle
Happy Thanksgiving!

Right now I know a handful of people who will be home, all alone, on Thanksgiving. And not one of them is sad about that!

For the past couple of weeks everywhere I’ve been strangers have asked what I am doing for the holidays. Grocery clerks, nurses at the doctor’s office, bank tellers, you name it. When the nurse asked me what my plans were and I said “I don’t have any”, she looked at me like I had come from another planet. “Oh, are you cooking a turkey?” I said no, that I don’t do that any more. I wish I had added that I drink a bottle of wine now instead. Ha!

But the looks you get when you don’t seem to give a flyin flip about this holiday are quite amusing. My sister says that you can’t say that – that you will be alone and doing nothing. She says that she makes something up because otherwise people think you are pathetic.

The truth is that I don’t have much family. Only 2 of my kids are near me and I have one sister. My daughter nearly always goes to her boyfriend’s family’s house and my son visits his dad who has a big family. And although being invited into someone elses home to spend the holiday with their family seems like a nice thing to do, it is not appealing to me. I don’t want to spend time watching another family spend time together.

Thanksgiving is a family holiday and if you don’t have family, there is no sense in celebrating it. We don’t all have parents, grandparents, cousins, etc. and those of us who don’t prefer to be alone. Some people do have big families and just want to steer clear of all the drama of being together.

So leave us alone if we decide to be alone on Thanksgiving. Enjoy your turkey and crowded roadways and I’ll enjoy a peaceful, quiet day, drinking my wine.

Little Deer Visits on Day of Our First Snow

little deer in the garden
Hey, that’s my parsley!

Yesterday we had our first snow in the area and it wasn’t much but it brought a little deer into my yard who had fun finding it’s breakfast among my garden.
The blackberry leaves were the first to be munched, and they she began nosing through the greenery poking through the snow and found my parsley! Hey! She also liked the long leaf from my new Iris (which never bloomed last year) so at least it was good for something.
I’m sharing a few more shots below:

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Baking Cookies in Muffin Tins

pans of cookie dough
Ready to Bake

Now that the cold weather is back I am beginning to want to bake and cook more. I made chili the other day and a quiche yesterday. Now, at this time of year,  it’s a good thing to warm the house by using the oven so I have more incentive to make food.
I wanted to share a easy and fast cookie recipe for peanut butter and chocolate lovers.

  • Buy peanut butter cookie dough (or make your own)
  • Use small muffin tins and add pieces of dough like in my picture.
  • Bake – I think @ 350 for 10 minutes – until they are cooked.
  • As soon as they come out of the oven, push Reeses candy (or any chocolate or candy) into the center of each of the cookies. (You’ll have to unwrap them while the dough bakes!)
  • Let them cool a little and take them out of the pan using a knife.

I used to make my own peanut butter cookie dough and that tasted best, but the store bought stuff is super simple and the kids don’t really care.

It’s a nice way to warm up the kitchen.