LadyGypsy.net – the blog of Kimberly Dowd of New Jersey

(Return of the ax murderer handwriting!)

Oh, the ring will come eventually, when I decide what the heck I want. But we’ve been wanting an iPad since the first one came out and even though we seriously, absolutely do NOT need one, I got tired of drooling for an object that people buy for toddlers.

The iPad is sweet. Oh so sweet. This is our Christmas gift to us.

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Anyway, I’m off from the sloggy job today. Here’s the plan…

1) Vaccccuuumm*
2) Make cookie dough for Kristen’s cookie swap tomorrow.
3) Head to Best Buy and maybe Wegmans for lunch and eggnog if it’s not too crowded.
4) Bake six dozen cookies
5) Complete 2 loads of laundry.
6) Find a cute and jaunty way to print out the cookie recipe for the swap.

My “extra-credit” items –

Extra credit 1) Bake the sugar cut-out cookie dough that I have frozen.
Extra credit 2) Find a Christmas gift that’ll get to my Dad by, you know, Christmas.
Extra credit 3) Pick up the family cards at Hallmark. It’s in the same center as Best Buy and Wegmans.If I do this, I’ll reward myself with something at Starbucks.

*If you don’t know how to spell it and are too lazy to look it up, may as well make your mistake with wild abandon, right?

As I was walking back to the apartment after dropping off some recycling, I overheard two older ladies talking in the hallway:

Lady 1: How did you know that?
Lady 2: Oh, there was a lovely arty-cull* in the paper? Pictures and all!
(I smile as I reach my door.)
Lady 1: Oh, I don’t read the newspaper anymore. It’s all trash.
(I weep and resolve to continue stocking canned goods and start dividing my 2-ply TP into 2 separate rolls)

*I love how older people talk here in South Jersey. The vowels have lives of their own. Acme = ack-a-me. Towel = tale. Mine = my-yin. Leg = laig.

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Continuing down my hippy-dippy path I started using baking soda as a natural scrub to exfoliate my skin. A teaspoon of it combined with my ren faire soap really made a difference! I can’t stop touching my face! I’ve been Proactiv-free since August and my breakouts aren’t any worse.

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I went to Halloween party two Saturdays ago and since my meat-dress plan turned out to be a rancid one, I quickly bought some ladybug gear to go with my black dress & platinum wig and went as Lady GagaBug. I won for most original costume. Go figure! I was going to wear it again to John & Kristen’s party too, but I was laid up that day with a stupid fever.

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I baked a spiced applesauce cake from a recipe on Smitten Kitchen. This cake was seriously easy and seriously awesome. Not only that, but the ingredients are common! No free-range, free-trade ingredients from the wild jungle of Ooomfoofoo that you can only get at a store where they’ll offer you a bunny for dessert.

I’ll be making this for every event for at least a year.

Okay, it’s Saturday. But yesterday I left work early with a 100.1 degree fever (my ‘norm’ is 97.5) and I spent the rest of the day/night tossing around in a boiling hot half-slumber.

I can only imagine how I mucked up the ads I scheduled yesterday.

Today? No fever, but I’m left with a mucky brain and an annoying non-productive cough. So we’re doing the Friday Five today. It’s about cookies, which is something I’m sort of familiar with.

1. What is absolutely the best cookie you’ve ever had?

The Nestle Toll House cookies at the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World. Yes, they’re an overpriced version of the garden-variety Nestle Chocolate Chip cookies…but the taste of them combined with the scent of the bakery and the fact that, hey, I’m in WDW! makes for the best cookie ever.

2. What is a cookie you really don’t care for?

Those star-shaped cookie press cookies with the goopy dried cherries in the middle. Keep yo’ dried fruit out of my cookies, please!

3. What are some other cookies you are rather fond of?

Snickerdoodles, lemon cookies, cookies with macadamia nuts, oatmeal raisin cookies, shortbread cookies…I can fill an entire page.

4. Grocery-store cookies are, of course, never as good as anything that comes out of someone’s kitchen, but what’s a packaged cookie that’s still pretty good?

Pepperidge farm Mint Milano cookies. The cookie part is so delicate and crispy and the chocolate filling is the perfect combination of minty and bitter. Unfortunately you only get 15 per high-priced bag and I can eat all 15 in one sitting. So I don’t buy them. Or, I won’t buy them until after John & Kristen’s wedding. Damn diets.

5. In general, do you think cookies should be chewy and gooey, or should they be crispy and crunchy?

This was a hard one. But if you put original Chips Ahoy and Chewy Chips Ahoy in front of me, I’ll grab the original every time. Plus, when baking, it’s easier to pass off a cookie as “naturally crispy and crunchy” instead over “overbaked.”

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Confidential to WM: Happy happy birthday, my darling. May every wish come true for you this year.