Cookie Day Fun A Day Late

(Saturday's blog a day late)
This morning, I anticipated being up early. Geoff is working this weekend, full time shifts both days, 9am to 5pm. Since I knew it was going to snow overnight I told him to wake me up around 8:15, I'd drink a cup of coffee, and drive him over. Then, I could bake more cookies. 

Well, I heard him bumping around, 6am ish, too early to actually be up. So I went to the bathroom and back to bed. Fast asleep. Out cold. I didn't hear Doug and Toffee get up. And Doug drove the boy to work. I heard some talking about feeding the dog breakfast, but I rolled over and into my usual between 6 and 9am wild dream events. This morning was no different. But at least nothing so horrible that I am shook. Doug got murdered in this morning's dream. At least I think he did. He went missing on a forced haunted trail event after we had gone to a musical/play in a beat up shitty run down building where mice ran over your feet. Jess and Molly were with us, and after Doug disappeared we ended up talking about Taylor Swift songs at one of the "scary" houses, which wasn't scary at all. 

Well, unless you are afraid of Taylor Swift. Which I am not. I just don't know a lot about her music. 

Anyway. Up at 10:30, Doug was on the couch with the dog, so I just slept through it all. Didn't hear a thing. 

I had my first cup of coffee and set to baking. Regretted not making the dough last night but this went fast. I kind of screwed up though, you aren't supposed to heat the butter, but, my room temperature butter is always too hard and it never creams nicely with the sugar and egg. So I nuke it. Usually 10-15 seconds but I did it for a minute. I think that had an impact on the quality of the dough. It was very cracked and dumb looking and didn't roll out nicely. I needed a second (technically fourth) batch so I didn't make that mistake again. 

Two giant batches of dough ready, I had already made hearts and stars yesterday so we got flowers, some large mickey mouse ones, and lots of cats.

Lots of cats. 

And I realized I skipped all the birthday shapes after I was done with both batches. ugh. 

I thought about making Sara a batch of dough, so she and the boys can do it this weekend, but, I ran out of butter enough to make another batch or two. 

Instead, I asked Doug if he wanted cookies and he said "you don't have to do that," with all honesty.  But. I have enough butter for one batch for us for home. "Do you want toll house, oatmeal, or peanut butter?"

 He asked for oatmeal, with pecans. 

I checked the bag of pecans and noticed they were whole pecans. So I told him I was cheating. I didn't really have time to smash the pecans, so, each cookie gets one big ass pecan. What I should have done was wet the pecans and roll them in some brown sugar, or sprinkle a little on top of the cookies when the pecans were pressed in, but, I was just in a hurry and didn't think of it until everyone was in the oven. 

They look cute. I'm proud of them. Even if they aren't what I set out to really make. Doug told me he doesn't like the craisins or raisins in the oatmeal cookies and I do, so, since I'm not necessarily supposed to eat them, I mad them to his liking. 

Apologies for the wonky lighting. but 3pm brings a delightful angle into my kitchen through the window. 

I got to Sara at about 3:30. We set to covering the table, as the boys set to mixing colors. Hen is a little obsessed right now with colors. At the end of the month he's going to have a blast as they take him to a Crayola museum in Pennsylvania. I think you get to mix your own colors and then get crayons off of them! 

His cousin Grant is here for the weekend. He lives in Ohio, and they are two months apart. 

They are super cute together and worked closely (physically and in agreement) on color mixes. Grant's attention to the task was short lived - eventually he was kind of done. He didn't want to put sprinkles on anything, or eyes, he did a couple cats in a purple grey to match his cat at home. And we had to encourage him to stay at the table and not want to go play X-box. 

Sara's mom lives with them, and she also came to decorate cookies and I honestly feel like she had a blast. 

The cat butt cookies were hilarious. I brought chocolate chips and while he didn't bust a gut laughing at them, Grant gave a smile and guffaw, which is big. He's not a big laugher. So I know I scored with that when I showed him. 

Some of the cookies were cracked and weird because probably of how I made the dough, and it wouldn't roll out without breaking. I showed the boys how everything is imperfect. But sometimes all you need is a coating of sugar and color and it's like nothing is wrong. Perfection. 

Then I thought about it. Grant's going through some things with his mom (Sara's sister) and I realized the message I might be sending was a little warped so I stopped. 

I was thinking of Kintsugi, where you fix broken things with gold, so that the frosting was like fixing the brokenness of the cookie. But in Kintsugi, the gold is always visible, becomes part of the broken pottery, as a reminder of the brokenness. Not to mask the brokenness and hide it. 

I realized my metaphor was coming off as "put on a fake sugary coating and hide your flaws, your sadness, your weakness, and the world won't know what's happening underneath. That's perfection!" 

Frosting fixes everything. 

Ugh. no. It's just a cookie, Chris. Please don't say things that a 9 year old can take with him for life and be even more hurt by it when you're just trying to be a cool philosopher. 

Sara's husband said "I didn't know cookies had such deep philosophy." 

They don't really. I am just talking out of my ass.

Henry noticed that we didn't have m&ms and he was disappointed. I realized yeah, I didn't bring them because I am used to needing those for Christmas tree ornaments and red noses for reindeer. They used a bunch of chocolate chips on the flower shaped ones, 

At about 5:45pm we let the boys go, lots of cookies decorated without them while they played in the yard in the snow. We got a lot less snow at my house, 3 miles south. They had enough for a snowball fight but not enough for a snowman. 

The cat butts were funny but the shape could also be a dinosaur looking over its shoulder. We made a bunch and painted shoes and pants on them when the first coat dried. 

I now want to go get this cookie cutter shape from Sara and make a million more colorful dinosaurs. 

I didn't take as many pictures as I thought, I guess we were just having fun. 

We cleaned up, went to the pub for dinner. It was packed. A horrible band was playing and my meal was not so good. Feh. 

But. I brought home a mess of cookies that we didn't get to decorate and I have those to entertain myself with. I forgot my food coloring and half my sprinkles, so if I want to decorate these as a gift of a moment of peace to myself next week, I can. Digits below because I put the pictures inline. 

digits 

exercise: 11/12 hours of 250 steps. Missed 9am - slept in. No dedicated 10 but a lot of movement. 5500+steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

10:30am: 160
n/apm: did not take an afternoon reading
10pm: 227

food:

coffee, water
1pm: turkey sandwich w/Mayo on 647 bread
2pm: metformin
7:30pm: 2 pieces of pub pizza, 2 small pieces of southwest egg roll, fajita steak wrap - flavorless and horrible. ate the meat because i felt bad an animal gave its life and it didn't belong in the trash but the rest of it did (sorry, lettuce). 
3 truly seltzers
9pm: metformin+jardiance