Have a Cookie. Please. Or I Will.

Today's mental to-do list looked like this:

• Put away all Halloween decorations
• Get out Thanksgiving decorations

Instead, I did this (listed in no meaningful order):

• Four minute discussion with boys about turning their own socks right side out, complete with demonstration
• Laundry, laundry, and more laundry. (There is, alas, still more laundry to be done.)
• Started making thank-you notes
• Putzed around in the general creative frustration I am currently experiencing. I'm not really sure why, but it is hard for me to work on scrapbook stuff when Kendell is at home. This is a problem because A: he's going to be home for many more weeks and B: I am trying to work on a new Big Picture class.
• Tried to make my sewing machine cooperate for just one more witch. I want to finish this witch quilt so next year I can, you know, actually use it during October. My sewing goals are always larger than the time I allot for them.
• Took 47 pictures of Kaleb spinning on the swing.
• Costco, bank, craft store, Target, gas station, post office, another bank, grocery store.
• Made children do their jobs.
• Ran for the first time since my race...almost three weeks ago. Discovered endurance, strength, and lung capacity have diminished to that of an 89-year-old couch potato.
• Read Becky's blog about my dad and cried. Wished I could have gone with her yesterday (had to work) but am alternately glad I wasn't there, so she didn't have to share her moment.
• Tried to start reading my SDBBE novel three times. Afraid.
• Went to Haley's school to bring her some cough drops and ended up being finagled into taking her to Sonic for a slushy to bring back to class. (She has a cough but NO FEVER or any other symptoms and no: it's not the swine flu.) I still haven't decided if this makes me the dumbest mom ever, or the coolest. Admittedly, she was only gone for 12 minutes, and it was during Flextime anyway, but...I don't know.
• Coughed. A lot. (Again: just a cough. No fever, sore throat, runny nose, sneezing, puking, or oinking.)
• Read the newspaper and cried over the Fort Hood thing.
• Breakfast: Refereed the argument over who got the last Eggos. Poured cereal for the Eggo-less children. Made toast with butter for Kendell. Protein shake with raspberries for me. 
• Lunch: tuna fish, with pickle. I explained to Kendell that the reason I forgot the cheddar cheese on his tuna fish sandwich (with pickle...borrowed from my neighbor) is because tuna + cheddar is unnatural. He pointed out that so is apple pie + cheddar. Touche.
• Plus: the pulse-taking and pill-giving and post-sneeze-comforting and awkward sideways-getting-out-of-bed helping and other stuff that goes along with the heart-surgery-recuperation thing. Which has, admittedly and blessedly, been far easier than the hip replacement surgery he had last year. (I really, really, really hope he doesn't have another surgery next year.)  
• And other boring stuff.

My point? I didn't accomplish the two things I really, really wanted to accomplish today. But those other things I did are good too, right? And part of the laundry was the Halloween towels, which had to be washed before they were stored away 'till next year, anyway. And then, while I was making oatmeal-chocolate-chip cookies just now with Haley, I looked over at my pretty spot, and my favorite-ever Halloween decoration which I finally actually put together this year after talking about it for the two Halloweens before this one, and I thought even though it's six days past Halloween, I am going to blog about that decoration before I put it away. Here is my Halloween tree, which I love beyond reason:

Have I ever told you that I love, love, love Mary Englebreit's designs? When I saw this hot chocolate three years ago, I bought it just for the tin. The hot chocolate, which was orange flavored, was sort of grody, so I threw it away and kept the tin. Immediately I had my creative vision: spikey black twigs holding up little Halloween cuteness. I didn't find just the right ornaments until last year, and I didn't manage to put it together until this year. The twigs came right off my maple tree. I filled the tin with rocks and black beans (after putting it all together once using just florist foam and everything promptly fell over). And then, every time I walked into my kitchen this October, I fell in love all over again.

It's been a good long while since I have been enamoured of a decorative object.

I think maybe I love it because it is the rare piece that turned out just as cute in real life as it was in my head. And because it's one-of-a-kind. And because I got to use spray paint. (Which, by the way, you are ID'd for at the time of purchase! The last time I was ID'd...well, it didn't go as well as buying spray paint did, twenty-ish years later.)

At any rate. As a thank you to whomever is still reading this very odd and unfocused post, I'm going to share my super-secret chocolate-chip-oatmeal cookie recipe. Actually it's not very secret. But it is very good. One of the secrets: just a touch of cinnamon. Usually I'm all about adding extra spices to recipes, but this one? It's just a little bit, and a little bit is perfect. Subtly perfect, without overwhelming anything. It is, after all, an oatmeal cookie, not a spice cookie. What you must have to bake anything with oats in it: old-fashioned oats. The quick-cook kind are just....ehhhhh. Flavorless. So:

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies, with Apologies to Whatever Spot Your Weight Tends to Gather (mine is everywhere except the chestal region, of course, but hey: I'm lucky like that)

1 cup butter (shortening is an option here, of course, but I think I'd rather smoke a cigarette than consume shortening anymore...I need to blog about my trans-fat obsession)
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup white flour
2 cups oatmeal*
2 cups chocolate chips

*if you, too, have a home that's bossed around by Pickies, you can put the oatmeal in the blender and process it until it's oatmeal flour.

Cream butter and sugars; add eggs one at a time and beat thoroughly between each. Add vanilla. Combine salt, soda, cinnamon, flours, and oatmeal, then add to creamed ingredients. Stir in chocolate chips. Bake at 375° for 10-ish minutes.
mmmmmmmmmmmm.

Maybe tomorrow I'll get it all put away. Have you put away yours yet?

 

Comments

[Maureen]

I think you are a col Mom for taking her to Sonic - it is the little things like that she will remember. I am glad I followed to the end, I was looking for a good oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe, just not so close to the halloween candy.

[Helena]

I love the Halloween tree.

[Britt]

I'm doing a boat load of laundry today, too (and pausing to spend some time on the internet. Shame, shame).

[becky]

My halloween decorations are also fall/Thanksgiving decorations. They stay up from whenever I put them up (oh, sometimes in August, other years like this year in October) until the day after Thanksgiving. I do love to get out the fall stuff; I love my decorations for fall.

I love the doily-thingy you have underneath your cute halloween tree. Did you make it? Oh, and I have a cute pumpkin table runner pattern from my friend that you might like.

I wish you could have come with me to see Dad, too. I called to invite you, but you had already left. Just so you don't think I wanted to do it all on my own. It was a very nice visit, tears and all. Love you.

[JanSC]

cookies sound very yummy. The homemade happy halloween banner is still up in the breakfast area, but the restof the halloween decorations are packed away (ok so it was just over an hour ago when I hauled everything up to the attic above the garage). I plan on using each square of the banner as a pattern for a Christmas banner, so that is why it is still up. Hope your DH heals in record time.

[Kayci Bitton]

You know it's bad when your Halloween decorations and Thanksgiving decorations are the same: Non-existent. :) I have been tempted to start with Christmas just to have decorations;)

[jamie `]

pretty spot; adorable

sonic trip: cool mom. it was just flex, no question, cool...

cookies. yum

tiny quilt under your tree: so cute

making lists of what you've done when you haven't accomplished what you thought you should have accomplished: I do that all the time and it always makes me feel better about the day. DId your list make you feel better? I hope so.

my big laundry challenge today: washing and ironing my king size duvet cover. Now I just need to re-stuff it. you can come help me. bring cookies. :)

[cris]

I love the tree - so sweet and your rambling post which made me laugh at several points throughout!!! I actually got my halloween decorations up this year... including the huge spider that my dh felt he had to buy and hang from the light above my desk... why, oh why??? :). Getting the decorations up allowed me the opportunity to take them down (last year they never got put up), but the bin is still sitting in the hallway because it is overflowing (due to a few new additions) and a second bin will be needed. A trip to Target will be necessary on Monday.

I'm going to bake those cookies on Monday for my kids!!! :)

[Margot/NZ]

So very glad that you are doing another BPS class. Care to drop some hints on the topic/scope?
That Halloween tree makes me wish we 'did' this holiday in New Zealand, it's very cute. Has given me an idea for a decoration for Christmas though... Will probably take me a few years to get it up though (for one thing I have to look for a really cool tin)!

[Julie]

I loved reading your post Amy. Your list sound just like mine and didn't we just wash all these towels yesterday. I think the kids just don't want to put away clothes so they throw it in the laundry with the dirty clothes and then everything is dirty. Laundry never ends! Cute Halloween tree. Loved it. I just might try your cookies. They look yummy! Hope everything is getting better. I have been thinking of you and I enjoy talking to you when we get the chance. Love ya

[Chris Selander]

Love your Halloween tree! I thought I had my Halloween decorations put away but I keep stumbling over additional items :) Can't wait to try the cookie recipe.

[Shaunte]

You said "grody." Hee hee!

[karla]

I so LOVE your tree. It is very cute! I have thought about doing one too, but never do it. This year instead I made a mummy lady, but she was just for outside. I had NO decorations inside this year. I so love your tree. Can't wait to make the cookies. I feel so unaccomplished when I have days like you explained, a small list of things to do and then never accomplish them and instead do hundreds of things that come up. Like you said... those other things are good too. Hope you get YOUR list done. You have Halloween towels? How cool is that?!!

[Karen Greenfield]

So are there Thanksgiving decorations for the tree?? Love the skeleton 'jingle bell,'
And the other comments are so right--it's those "sonic" moments the kids remember with so much fondness....mine at nearly 25 and 21 still talk about the days when they came away from the orthod. and we went for shakes for lunch or just went home and lay on the couch and moped instead of going back to school and tuffing it out.....silly things to remember but your sympathy cuts a lot of ice with them. xxKaren