NaBloPoMo Day 30: the home stretch… with cookies

It’s the end of November! Thank goodness! Not to wish my time away but posting every day was kind of getting to me. Was it obvious?

You don’t have to answer that.

By way of apology for having little to say for so many days in a row, here is my awesome chocolate chip cookie recipe. Enjoy!

Commisary Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
1 cup sweet butter
2 eggs
2 Tbsp milk
2 tsp vanilla
2 cup flower
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
2 1/2 cup rolled oats
18 oz semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (I never put these in)

Beat sugars and butter until smooth and fluffy; add eggs, milk and vanilla. Combine flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder, gradually beat into butter. By hand, stir in oats, chips and chopped nuts. Batter may be dropped onto baking sheet, but, for fatter cookies, chill the dough and roll into balls the size of table tennis balls. Place on ungreased baking sheets and bake at 350 about 12 minutes.

(I tend to chill the dough but still make smaller cookies. I like the smaller size but they’re chewier if you chill the dough.)

Makes about 4 dozen

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NaBloPoMo Day 29: reading instead of sleeping

I had all intentions of going to bed early last night. Well, I did go to bed early but not sleep. I made the mistake of taking How To Knit a Love Song by Rachel Herron. In case you didn’t guess, I couldn’t put it down and read it until I was done. Oops. It was a nice book though. I liked that there was romantic conflict but there wasn’t so much conflict that you just ended up feeling annoyed at the characters for not figuring out that they were in love, which I feel often happens in romance novels.

I give it two thumbs up!

NaBloPoMo Day 28: sick on the couch

The cold I have been trying to fend off caught up with me today so I spent most of the day on the couch knitting (and watching Netflix when Erik took the kids to the park). The good news is that I have made good progress on the yoke of my niece’s sweater. Also, I am feeling a bit better. An early bedtime tonight and I will be ready to face the week!

(Can I just say that I am glad November is almost over. I’m really running out of stuff to say.)

NaBloPoMo Day 27: a boring day

I don’t have much to show for today. I took the vacuum to be repaired, bought toilet paper and garbage bags, worked on my homework for my two classes and made Star Wars pancakes for dinner. I could have taken a photo of those pancakes, I suppose, but it didn’t occur to me.

I’m going to knit now, though. I have one week left to finish my nieces’ sweaters so I can send them with my father who is heading over for a visit!

NaBloPoMo Day 26: quilt tops

With some help from my mom (and the contribution of the sashing fabric) I got the quilt tops all sewn for the kids in Textiles to start quilting.

The fabric for the squares came from FabMo, which is a great organization but these fabrics are not great for kids to quilt. They are thicker than the usual cottons. I will have to make sure that the needles they’re using are very sharp. Next session we go back to buying quilting cottons, it’s just easier.

NaBloPoMo Day 25: PIE! (okay, tart)

I’m too tired to post. But look at my beautiful apple tart.

The apples in the middle got a little too brown but it was so good. I’m not even usually a fan of apple pie!

NaBloPoMo Day 24: almost lost sweater, flowers, quilt squares

I thought I lost my Anhinga. Those of you who have been reading my blog long enough probably remember it as the sweater I was working on last November when I thought I could make it through NaNoSweMo, National Sweater Knitting Month. I didn’t finish it in November but did around Stitches this year and love it. I was very sad for a few days because I wasn’t sure where it had gone. I found it though, so crisis averted!

This morning I noticed that Stefan’s Narcissus which he planted at preschool is blooming.

Isn’t it pretty?

This evening I did the, um, clean up work on the quilt squares from the kids in Arts Focus. I had to put together quite a few of them but the kids had at least started. Part of me feels guilty for changing their work but the rest of me can’t stand to have them sewn together backwards or what not. Ah, perfectionism.

There are enough blue squares for one quilt and the other will be a mix of the reds and greens. Given the time of year I have this odd feeling that I’m making a Hannukah quilt and a Christmas Quilt. I don’t think they’ll turn out that way at all but it amuses me that the colors ended up that way.

NaBloPoMo Day 23: ants vanquished? turned heel

I checked the wall this morning and did not see any ants. Yay! It’s going to be frosty over the next couple of days, though, so Erik brought our worm box inside and I’m wondering if some ants, or worse, are going to come out of that. It will go right back out when there stops being a frost warning!

In knitting news, I turned the heel on my wedge socks.

My wedges are not symmetrical to each other. I don’t know if that is wrong or not. Clearly, I can not be trusted with this knitting pattern. Hopefully I will still end up with a sock! Or even two.

NaBloPoMo Day 22: ants attack

Yesterday i discovered a couple of ants in the living room. I know very well that there are never just a couple of ants but I wasn’t prepared for the army of ants marching behind the couch, to a sticky spot under a side table and then up the edge of the rug towards the trash can. Because of that line of ants my living room now looks like this.

I keep spraying them with a mixture of vinegar, water and dish soap or with Orange Guard but they keep coming back. I also sprayed Orange Guard on the outside of the house, along the edge of the glass door with little success. I am bigger and smarter but I can’t keep them from getting in! Very frustrating.

Speaking of little success, I unmolded my bathbombs today. They are cute but crumbly. I think I should have waited a bit longer.

S used some in his bath tonight. I think I see the advantage of one big chunk instead of small pieces: the big chunk fizzes longer. Stefan definitely found them entertaining and asked if he could use more tomorrow. I ended up with some of the “mystery balls” from the previous fizz fest which I was unable to attend. I might try one of those in my own bath. I normally shower but these things are tempting! I definitely want to make some more.

NaBloPoMo Day 21: fizz fest

Cookie invited a bunch of the BobaKnitters over today for Fizz Fest: a bath bomb making party. I took the opportunity to bring the Costco sized bottle of tequila that I bought when I went with a group of the knitters to Tahoe in May. They didn’t drink as much of it as I had hoped and I keep trying to use it up and failing. I also brought my blender, because I don’t know how else to make the delicious Whole Fruit Margaritas that we all love without it. So…

first things first

Once that was taken care of, we could get down to business. Cookie taught us all how to make fizzy bath bombs and even provided a whole host of essential or fragrant oils with which to “flavor” them. The mixing included a step where you had to listen for the ingredients fizzing together.

cookie and jill demonstrate the listening step

I brought my cutesie Japanese egg molds to mold my bath bombs because I am hoping to give them to my kids. Because my molds snap together Cookie said to leave them like that until they are dry. I only had enough stuff left to make one small bomb, which refused to stay together, so I don’t have high hopes for the others coming out of the cutesie molds intact. You can’t tell from the picture but they are creamsicle flavor: clementine and vanilla. Cookie said someone did that last time she had one of these parties and it sounded good to me.

at least they’ll still fizz

Afterwards there was hanging around and snacking and chatting. Oh, and knitting.

rachel and jen

cookie and jill

lisa and her guava mimosa

While we were there, I finished the heel turn on my Wedge sock. You would have thought I’d take a picture of that but I didn’t. Oops.