(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.

**
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?

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.

***

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.

***

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.

***
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.

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.”

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

I can type between 80-90 words per minute which is not as fast as some people, but a heck of a lot more impressive than most. When I as a freshman in high school, my mom made me take a full year of typing instead of a half year like most of my peers. It’s paid off in spades, since I sit at a keyboard all day.

I could probably type faster if I didn’t mentally say the name of every letter I’m typing. The only time I can turn that off is when I’m chatting online and don’t much care about accuracy.

2. What’s something you do more carelessly than most people?

Hairstyling. I can’t be bothered with it. I brush it, pin it back and am done with it. Today I have four bobby pins keeping my bangs back off of my face.

3. What’s something you do more slowly than most people?

Cook and bake. I have to be exacting with my measurements, and I often have to read the instructions two or three times before I realize that it’s 1 1/2 cups instead of 1/2 cup. Yeah, there’s probably a learning disorder in there somewhere.

4. What’s something you do more carefully than most people?

See Question 3.

5. In what contexts are you more patient than most people?

Talking people through websites over the phone. I deal with quite a few older readers at work who can’t find the C-P’s website and it’s an exercise in patience.** I hope when I’m old and I need help auto-tuning the info chip implaned in my brain some young’un is just as patient with me.

** Fictional, albeit typical, work phone call:

Me: Type in CourierPostOnline.com
Abe Vigoda: Courier dot post dot com. Got it. Oh, no, can’t find it. Not there.
Me: Nono…courierpostonline DOT com. Just one dot.
Abe: courierpost dot com. Hm. This ain’t it.
Me: Try courierPostONLINE dot com.
Abe: I am online.
Me: Sir, can you hold for a moment?
Abe: Sure.
Me: (Puts phone on hold, smashes head onto desk a la Don Music. I resume the call only to find out Abe’s looking for an obit from 1918 of some guy with the first name of Jack. Or John. Or maybe Jim.)

Here’s the entry for my brother:

My point was proven, by the way, because he never mentioned my “blogging” about that. Ha!

Anyway, I’m happy to announce that John & Kristen are (finally) engaged and will be married sometime next year.

Which means two things:

1) I have GOT to lose at LEAST 35 lbs by some undetermined date. Obamarms optional. Note to self: tapeworm.

2) I have to make pretty cupcakes for Sunday, after which I shall commence with list item 1.

Congratulations, you two!!

**
Dream:
I’m obsessed with the Jim & Pam wedding on The Office. Obsessed to the point where I’m collecting Pam dolls and am trying to create a replica Pam wedding dress on a mannequin in my living room. I think this was as close to a nightmare as I’ve been in a while.

Yesterday I found a recipe online for homemade peanut butter cups, and I thought I’d give it a whirl since I had all the ingredients on hand.

Mixing the inside parts was easy enough – I didn’t even have to break out the mixer. The chocolate was more difficult. I used a bag of semi-sweet morsels and melted them using a double-boiler. Chocolate is a pain. If you melt it too quickly, it can seize up. So patience is the trick. Patience and a bit of vegetable oil to make it more liquid.

Why, yes, that is a Christmas-themed candy cup. Sweetest Day tradition. Okay, I'm lying.

Once the filling was done chilling, I rolled them into little balls and poured the chocolate over top. I THINK it was supposed to go all the way around the peanut butter, but mine seemed to glorp on top and stay there.

I don't like to call it ugly. I prefer artisan.

The only other complaint (of mine, WM loves them) is that the chocolate melts super fast on your fingers when you hold the candy.

Notes for next time:

• Make the peanut butter balls smaller to give the chocolate a fighting chance to cover them.
• See if I can find chocolate that melts better, but doesn’t melt so quickly at room temperature, if that makes any sense at all.

Today’s the Collingswood Book Fair. That’s where we’re headed as soon as … well, I get off of the computer. I should really take a pic for you of how my shelving has grown since I moved here 3 years ago. We have a LOT of books now!

Other plans for this weekend include the mythical, unattainable homemade apple pie, some earrings for friends/family, a bit of World of Warcraft and a LOT of tidying up.

Getting glares from behind. Books await!

***
Dreams:

1) One of the people I work with dies suddenly during her lunch break. It is very sad.

2) I seeing a “Pirates vs Sharks” live show at a Sea World-type establishment. It’s interactive, so we’re all dressed as pirates — easier than dressing as sharks, I gather — and we are on little boats on the water. It turns out the “sharks” are actually a bunch of happy killer whales. Dream ends with a chorus line of “Shamus” walking on their tails across the water.

3) Some new necklace ideas. Really. I dream of beads now. (shudder)

My first step was to find a chocolate cupcake recipe. Bakerella pointed me toward Martha Stewart. All culinary road end at Martha Stewart.) I wanted peanut butter frosting, so I Googled that and found the first one on Allrecipes.com that had a good rating. I followed the recipe and put one miniature Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup into each filled cup before I put the tray into the oven. I made sure the cup was completely covered by the batter.

The cupcakes were fully baked in 20 minutes; however, the cup sank to the very bottom of the cupcake during baking. Next up was the frosting. I mixed it according to the recipe, and it’s really, REALLY peanut buttery. I piped the frosting onto half of the batch and decorated each with a half of a cup, jauntily placed on top. Cute, hm?

Looking at that dollop of PB frosting made me a bit ill, so I thinned the frosting a bit more (with milk) and gave the rest of the batch a thin coat of it. Then I dipped them in sprinkles.

They look great but taste merely okay to me. I like my chocolate cupcakes sweeter than this. It seems that if I start with unsweetened powder, I never can get the cake sweet enough to make me smile. But WM, the people at work, and the Comcast service guy liked them, so I guess it’s just me.

After I was done baking and cleaning my kitchen STUNK like peanut butter.

If I try this again, I may start with semi-sweetened cocoa (is there such a thing? there is!) and sit the PB cup on top so that it doesn’t sink all the way down.

By the way, an unexpected benefit of baking from scratch is that I don’t desire the end result at all. I usually just want to sit down.