Baking cookies

I forgot to pull out the unsalted butter this morning, so it is sitting with brown sugar waiting for me to dig my arms in and work them into a manageable goo. And then the manageable goo will be mixed with flour and eggs and other ingredients. And after all the mixing is done, I will turn on the oven to preheat and I will get to smell delicious scents in the air. And if by some fluke I manage to make the cookies small enough, there will be 3.5 dozen cookies. I will bring about a half dozen to work for the women I spoke to in HR (for when I bring the updated set back, because I mistook one for the other and they were nice and prompt in responding to my email), and send some to my mom, and some for Christine's packages, and then I will endeavor not to eat the rest.

For cookie making, a hammer is a powerful tool. Take your one ounce bars of chocolate, for instance. Instructions often suggest dividing them into half ounces for quicker and more even melting. Take the wrapped bars (so the chocolate pieces don't fly away) and cover the head of a hammer with a bit of plastic wrap. Hit the pieces once or twice with a firm tap, about the same strength as you would use on a nail (when it isn't yet firmly in the wall). Take the bars and unwrap them over your double boiler. It is rare that you will find one still whole, and better still you will have reduced the flaking that trying to break these bars with your hands can cause. And then you can melt your chocolate (for 12 ounces of dark chocolates, estimate 12 to 15 minutes on the double boiler).

Umm, and that is how I started making my cookies today.

And stuff

by Peter Dee (but not really)

Cookies are almost ready for the oven. I have a bit more flour to mix in and the oven to deal with. Not too shabby for someone who almost took a nap when she came home in preference to cooking. But I want to get my package out to my mom tomorrow, which entails finishing the cookies.

When I get the cookies done, and finish the two loads of laundry that are part of my to do list for today, I will still have 14 items left. This is why I should attempt to have productive weekends. Some of these items (like the laundry for one) are multipart projects or otherwise normally occur on the weekend.

And so, I will be working on my freelancing stuff well past my normal cut off time of 6:00 p.m. and will probably write until about 11:00 tonight when I suffer a minor episode of cognitive dissonance and fall asleep.

But the upshot of the work I have done today is I have nine sets of queries/guidelines to work on for various articles. At which point, I will go through my bookshelf next to my computer and see what books can be moved to one of the shelves in my room in order to put my copy of Writer's Handbook back out here.