National Cookie Day!

December 4th is literally my favorite day of the year. Not because this year the date happens to coincide with the beginning of Chanukah, but because it's National Cookie Day! Oh yeah - Buggy and I both harbor the cookie monster within (admit it, you know you do too!) and so, I began prepare for this fabulous holiday by baking! For the first time in my entire adult life, I actually made my Aunt Irene's (TZ"L) cookies and they were just as good as I remembered!

While sifting the flour, baking powder and salt together, I remembered this one summer I had gotten kicked out of summer camp (long story, not worth retelling the reason why in this blog) and I had about 6 weeks left until school started and nothing to do with my days. Since my parents worked, and my siblings were all either away at sleep away or day camp, my days were long stretches of boring. Well, my Grandmother and Aunt Irene both chipped in to help me out and one day I would spend fruit and vegetable shopping with my Grandmother at Kissena Farms. That's where I learnt how to pick good grapes (my Grandmother would pop them into her mouth to make sure they were sweet) and how to tell if a grapefruit was ripe. While, Aunt Irene, would take me over to her house and we would either go errand shopping together on Main Street or we would go to the house and bake! I'll never forget the afternoon we baked her cookies (she let me add chocolate chips even though you really don't need them!) and she let me eat a whole bunch (I was always dieting so cookies were a big NO NO in my house). Aunt Irene was really cool though, and I missed her a lot while baking cookies for Buggy. Anyway, I'm going to bake another batch tonight and bring it over to the Chanukah party.

Yesterday, I was a bit down, but I felt a lot better when I went into town to run some errands. I had to hit the bank to change my name and address since my Teudat Zehut has been changed. Afterwards, I just walked around a bit and looked into shops and stores. Everyone has some sort of Chanukah decoration out in their storefronts, and I was just getting so excited by the holidays that I practically skipped the rest of the way to Buggy's office. He was the only one still there, so I popped over to a computer and lent him moral support as he finished his project. We left around 8:00 p.m. and then I started dinner. We had a nice, balanced and nutritious meal of grilled salmon, brown rice with soy sauce, and three bean salad. Oh yeah, I did it, I actually served us three bean salad! We're way passed not eating certain food items that might be deemed offensive since we live in such close proximity. Anyway, it worked out great, and we were able to watch the latest episode of CSI New York before going to bed.

We had an early night, which was great because Tuesdays are our early mornings, and I had some interesting dreams that included a baby rhino and a dalmation puppy on a remote Island in the Pacific. Anyway, I must have had some sort of dream that Buggy was falling because I woke up - around 3:30 a.m., and lunged at him to make sure he wasn't falling off the bed. Of course, that woke him with a start and he was a little surprised with my sudden, early morning, lunge-to-safe-his-life moment and we had a good little chuckle. He started telling me he was having weird dreams, but since it was so early in the morning, decided to save the retelling until the alarm went off. So, we both went back to bed and I was up before the alarm went off at 6:50 a.m.

Buggy left for school around 7:30 with a tuna melt for breakfast, a deli sandwich for lunch and a whole bunch of goodies for snack (including an apple because it's true that an apple a day really DOES keep the Dr. away) and I, of course, went back to sleep. Four blissful hours later, I was up and on the move because I have so much to do today! First, I had to wrap my Mother-in-law's Chanukah present and, of course, I can't really wrap anything. So, I struggled for about 30 minutes to wrap the two boxes of trivets we bought her, and well, I just hope she doesn't notice the jagged lines or the sloppy tape jobs. We were way past due for a laundry run, and so I put up a colors wash and then got to work on the kitchen. I had to wash up and wipe down the counters and that just led me to my broom and, before I knew it, I was sweeping the whole place. Mind you, our cleaning lady comes tomorrow, but I prefer she not have to clean in a pig sty.

As soon as I sat down to update the blog, though, the doorbell rang and I thought it was the package I've been waiting for. Buggy's getting a delivery today, so I'm home until they come, and for some reason the intercom wasn't working. So, I slipped on my slippers and raced downstairs to find our lovely neighbor leaving us a note. Apparently, she has two leaks into her apartment that she fears is coming from our apartment and now that it's spreading she felt she should let us know. Well, since we're going to have to pay for any damage, I got on the phone and called our contractor ASAP and made an appointment for him to see the leaks at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. I guess tomorrow is going to be another early day for me, but I really hope we get this fixed and soon! She was really sweet about it though, and invited us over for Shabbos lunch of vegetarian Chulent. I told her I had to get back to her after I spoke with Buggy, but we'll probably go since we have no other plans and it would be nice to get to know our neighbors!

OK - I'm off to do some cookie baking in honor of Chanukah and National Cookie Day! Chag Sameach everyone; enjoy the start of this fabulous Festival of Lights!

Product of the Day



Oxo makes three sizes of cookie scoopers and I could really use the medium sized one for Aunt Irene's famous cookies. Since I'm supposed to drop them in 1/4 to 1/2 spoonfuls at a time, what I've been using ends up being a bit insufficient and I get cookies of all different shapes and sizes! With the Oxo cookie scooper, it would be perfectly shaped cookies every time!