Saturday, October 24, 2009

Don't Pretend There's Not a Little Home-Ec in You

As the weather is getting colder and I seem to be the only one rejoicing in forty degree temperatures, I find myself gravitating towards the kitchen. Seriously. I didn't notice it until this afternoon when I had such a strong desire to make peanut butter cookies that I took to the interwebs in search of a recipe that wouldn't require me to find a way to the grocery store. I generally do not love peanut butter cookies. I've never had a good one. They're always burned and crispy or big and caky featuring a Hershey's kiss (I'll choose to not discuss how combining peanut butter and chocolate isn't my most favorite thing ever). Certain things can be crispy and certain things can be light and fluffy but if there's a spectrum between those two, I feel like the perfect peanut butter cookie needs to land about a quarter past crisp with that chewy snap in the middle. Scanning my cupboards, it's been brought to my attention that I have very little in the way of baking materials but I'm determined and I'm about to venture in there and embark on a sort of hodge podge of an adventure involving flour, sugar, only one egg and 1/2 a cup of peanut butter. Just as soon as my butter softens.

In the mean time, some parts of my house are very clean and fantastic. Other parts are downright embarrassing. Like, how did it happen that my makeup found its way to the television stand? Why is there a pile of towels on my bathroom sink when there's a place to hang them not two feet from where they lay? And more than that, why is it that I keep seeing these things, feel bothered by them and yet, just walk away from them? Who does this? I do this. Until I get so sick of it that I schedule an entire afternoon to tackle these things that have effectively piled up when all I had to do was spend half a second to fix it in the first place. I don't think I can say that I'm lazy. That's not it. I'm not lazy. I'm something else entirely. Why is it that I can't overlook a misplaced apostrophe in a text message (even if it means re-typing it entirely) but I can't reach over and hang up a towel?

And another thing, I can not function if the cushions on the couch are askew but if my cat dragged out all of my gift-wrapping ribbon and has strewn it all over the house, I could actually leave it there for hours without even thinking to pick it up. And only then it's because I think that if someone comes over, they'll judge me for having crap strewn about. It has nothing to do with the fact that there is an actual mess on the floor. But those couch cushions: We're not trash, here. Fix those. What's wrong with you?

In other homemakey news, today I incorporated an office-type situation into my living room using items that I mostly already in other corners of my house. Put that in Real Simple and smoke it! I took the small folding table that previously held my birthday cake and covered it in the fabric that I have hanging over the windows in the living room. Add one dining room chair, one lamp (because Arryn gave me great ones for my birthday--my favorite one is going to need some work but you'll love it when it's finished) and a lap top and voila! Instant office. I'm so happy with myself today.

The cookies are out of the oven. There are two on a plate next to me right now. They're too hot to tell how they'll ultimately but I predict a little on the crumbly side. That is to be expected, all of my brown sugar was clumpy and, when heated, let off tiny sugar bombs inside the cookies. It actually looks really cool.

Have a great night.
-Lib

Call It Off

I lied in that last post.
It was a minor, insignificant slip up and it won't happen again.
Let me come back to you.
I love you.

Love, Me.