Cookie Baking and Breaking

 

Today out of the blue, Jon texted about how the nurses at the place he was rotating at were asking about cookies. Since I was planning the stay in today anyway, because it was a snow day (a failed winter storm that just became winter weather, boo), I decided to oblige and bake cookies. This time, I decided I'd break up the mixing of the dough into two batches, hoping it would result in a more even chocolate chip distribution in the dough. I felt very clever and thought this would prevent frustration on my end. In the end that strategy worked, but somehow during the process I managed to break two things. First, I somehow broke the plastic tupperware holding the sugar when I tried to use it as a scoop to get the sugar out of the sack - too much force? The second was when I was trying to use a plastic Chinese soup spoon to scoop portions of dough out of the mixing bowl. The handle snapped off, startling me. I continued to use it, but the broken end did feel a little sharp. When I was done, I tossed both broken items.

Anyway, at least the cookies turned out perfect. It's always hard figuring the timing out, because my oven seems to be less warm than the purported temperature, and I prefer cookies on the crunchier side. This time, with about 15 mins at 375 Fahrenheit, the cookies turned out crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. Hooray!

Happy Things

Things that have made me happy/inordinately excited recently (besides the usual happiness from Family and Seasonal Events):

1. Top freezers being installed in my local Aldi - twice the freezer space for more things for sale! 

2. Yarn Com - a yarn store/crafting space opening up in Creve Coeur, checking it out yesterday on it's opening day, and learning that they're planning to have a floor loom installed inside. Maybe they'll have Spinning and Table/Floor loom lessons too?

3. Finding a 2nd hand 10" Schacht Cricket Rigid Heddle Loom for sale on FB marketplace nearby, learning how to use it and weaving my first piece. Then learning about weaving on Rigid Heddle Looms in general

4. Then finding someone in Springfield IL selling a 2nd hand 32" Ashford Rigid Heddle Loom on FB Marketplace, and her driving all the way to St Louis to sell it to me, and then learning how to use it and weave my first piece on it

5. Learning how to make good Cantonese-style soup - learned it from my Mum. As I type this, I'm boiling Pork Ribs and Lotus Soup. I've also learned to not be afraid of adding dates and goji berries to soup.

6. Reading and finishing the Shadow and Bone trilogy by Leigh Bardugo - I first read the Six of Crows duology in 2019 when I was student teaching, and loved it, I purchased Shadow and Bone on my Kindle sometime later, but never started it. I managed to borrow the other two books of the trilogy from the STL County Library, and immensely enjoyed the series. I then also finished the first season of Shadow and Bone on Netflix, and am also awaiting the second season. 

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As an aside, on Monday I picked up a stroller wagon from someone off FB marketplace. She lived off Carman Road in Ballwin. When I was driving in the area to her place, I noticed how incredibly hilly that area was, and also noticed to my immense satisfaction that the road names were geographically accurate; roads with Heights and Ridge in their name were on ridges, and Valley was really a valley. This made the Geography nerd in me very pleased, especially since it's more common that not that these terms are applied willy-nilly to developments and roads because they 'sound nice'.