12 bags of cookies. oh god.
I managed to get them all into the freezer except 1 bag of the succulently titled FUDGE PUDDLES, which in reality are more like double-stuffed-addictioncup-porncookies. I ate 3 of those upon arrival home and then Anders came in and in plaintive tones asked, “Can I have one?” at which point I growled and snapped at his tentatively reaching hand.
“Can’t you go see what’s in the other 11 bags?” I hissed, “Since there are probably cookies there I DON’T like?”
Then he held me at arm’s length, wrestling the bag out of my frantic paws and ate one anyway. O! the gnashing of teeth!
So I ate the rest today, hunched over, and furtively glancing around through slitted eyes, trying not to gobble.
Damn. Now they’re all gone.
But! I have talked a friend into trading HER bag to me for a bag of Mexican Wedding Cookies. muahahahaha!
Fudge Puddles
from Laurie Holmgren via the internet
Cookie:
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1.25 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
Filling:
1 cup milk chocolate chips
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 325ºF. Sift together flour, baking soda and salt. Cream butter, peanut butter and both sugars. Mix in egg and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla. Stir in flour mixture into creamed mixture. Shape dough into 48 balls, 1 inch each. Place each ball in one
compartment of a mini muffin tin. For filling, put chocolate chips in a double boiler over simmering water. Stir in milk and vanilla, mix well. Bake for 14-16 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove from oven and immediately make wells in the center of each using a melon baller. Cool in pan for 5 minutes, then carefully remove to wire racks. Using a measuring cup fill each shell with the chocolate mixture.
Real Movie Now Playing in Swedish Theaters That Made Me Do a Swenglish Double-take and Then Laugh for 10 Minutes Straight: Dolt Hot*
Here I sit, procrastinating.
My to-do list grows by leaps and bounds. It seems to be 1 step forward, 4 steps back, no matter how hard I work at it, how many things I thwack off of it, how many things I say no to. Especially now during crazy season when events sprout off the calendar each evening, twining and curling themselves around our days: birthday parties, Christmas parties, work parties, meetings, another business trip looming, choir practices, choir concerts, shopping for those last few things. I wonder when I will have time or motivation to sit down and write a Christmas letter, time and motivation to address envelopes, to decorate the house, to bake (yes! more!) cookies with my children. I’m taking 2 weeks off for the end of the year, hoping that will help, and suspecting it will just barely help me get caught up. Every time I feel myself sinking, I take a deep breath and square my shoulders, facing forward. Moving forward, through my life. Life by calendar, life by list.
Sometimes, at night, I step outside the door into the crisp and lung-crinkling air. I stare up at the sky, at the sharp starry glitter overhead, at the streetlights, at the skeletal trees limned with diamond dust. The only calendar there is planetary, a slow heavenly twirl. Stars, the only bulletpoints in sight. I stand there until I start to shiver, gulping in big breaths of cold, shocking my esophagus awake. When I step inside again, my head is clear, if not my calendar.
*It means “Hidden Threat” which, snore, but wouldn’t it be great it was what I thought it was in English?!