Cookies

There is something immensely satisfying about a nice warm cookie accompanied by a tall glass of cold milk...even more so if the cookie is homemade. And what if you made your own cookies? Even better.
Of course, baking cookies at four in the morning borders on ridiculous, but what's a girl to do when she works during the day and needs the cookies to share with family tomorrow?
I've always enjoyed baking. Mixing proportions of common ingredients to create a magnificent confection fosters a warm contentment within me. Knowing that others will soon be enjoying the goodies I crafted makes me smile.
So, here for your enjoyment, is my recipe for some delicious cookies. It sounds like an odd sort of cookie, I know, but I promise they are wonderful!

Orange Slice Cookies

1 c. sugar
1 c. packed brown sugar
1 c. softened butter/margarine/Crisco
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 c. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
3 c. quick one-minute oats
2 c. orange candy slices (cut into small pieces)

Preheat oven to 350ยบ F.

Cream sugars and butter until fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla. Beat well. Combine flour, baking powder, soda, and salt in separate bowl. Slowly add to cream mix. Stir in oats and candy. Scoop up dough and roll into spheres approximately 1" in diameter and place on greased cookie sheet.
Bake 9-11 minutes.

Best enjoyed with milk!

Halloween '08 - Palin for VP?

This year I find myself too busy and exhausted to throw a Halloween party, but I still intend on dressing up. The problem is, since I'm not throwing a party, I have no set theme that I can rely on. I decided to choose a costume that breaks the trend of my other costumes - this time I want something scary. Okay, yeah, the unfortunate souls who witnessed that firefighter costume my junior year could argue that I've already been something scary, but I'm not counting that.
This year, I bring you the scariest thing I could think of...




Sarah Palin in office, you betchya.












So, Joe, why dontchya cast your vote...







Am I qualified enough to go as Sarah Palin for Halloween?




Note: Yeah, this is mostly due to laziness and cheapness in costume-making. I have a suit, I can fix my hair into a decent replica of her hair, and two strangers have told me that I remind them of Sarah Palin. Maybe it was meant to be. Hahaha.

Scabs

Do I have the right to be unhappy? Is it okay to be sad?

Reminds me of the time I stood in front of my bathroom mirror so many years ago. Has it only been two? I asked myself, asked God, if I was a bad person. Was I a bad person for thinking that my father's death would not be altogether a bad thing? If he were to die, that is.

Do I have the right to be unhappy? Certainly. But why? Why am I unhappy? I present smiles, and when I do I typically am in a jovial state. Even in light of life struggles, I have a lot of good things going in my life. Despite any reasoning I can produce, though, I am still a person with a hole. This pit, hollowed out by years of witnessing...and I don't know how to fill it. More importantly, I don't know with WHAT to fill it. Logical to fill it with love, yes, but even that elicits a dull sting, as though it doesn't fit just right.

And for nights I have let my tears fall in silence because I can't escape this slight burning in the pit. Pushing, turning, looking away does nothing. If anything, it prods at the walls of the cavity in loud persistence so I can't ignore.

And for days I stare and trace the features, wondering if I haven't been a fool. Have I made a mistake? A mistake - if only because I fear and disproportion what I should not.

And now it has dawned on me. My pit is like a scab - generating a small itch, but only because it is the process of healing. Perhaps a scar, ever so slight, will remain - but it will be healed.

Now...how long will it take?

Potter Rents Fiction

If you like Rent, Harry Potter, and/or Stranger Than Fiction (like I do), then you will find these videos hilarious. I especially like the second one. ^_^




Red Tears

This entry was made into poem form in my other blog.

It has taken me forever to realize that what is common is not always what is normal.

Of course, normal is relative. I have been living in my own 'normal' universe my whole life. It was normal, was normal to turn away, was normal to ignore, was normal to become defensive and evasive, was normal to resort first to illogical reasoning...
So perhaps it is normal? Two said so. Believed so. Accepted it as so.
Why?
I can't accept it as normal any longer. It's not.

Little girls play with Barbie and Ken dolls, who live in a huge house with sports cars and every other plastic luxury that can be bought...and their plastic life is perfect. Barbie looks great, is kind, and Ken goes to work and comes home and is kind. It is a cruel trick that the real world proves too often to present a grotesque mirror, where this perfect world is presented, but behind the mirror is a raging war.

Why must the world be war? Why must love be hate?

Another world behind the mirror exists, and I pray I am not yet hardened and cynical that I don't believe in the naivety and simple elegance of pure affection and white intentions. That I am not tainted by the biting black sarcasm, shrouding, and venomous lies and words so commonplace to all on the Earth. I fear I am, but apply a tourniquet of love that may stop the spread and save me, save us.