Beep-Poof-Woosh!

Those are the sounds of the day here. Beep is the timer on the oven, Poof is what the cocoa did to me when I was making the Black Forest Cookie dough and Woosh is what the wind is doing outside. Right now, Huhhhhhhhh is the sound of me sighing, tired. I need to rest a bit before I put the Black Forest Cookies on the sheets for baking.

I’m a little behind, just a little. I need to finish clearing off the dining room table. I've been clearing a little bit of the buffet every break today. Now everything I had that needed put away on the buffet is on the table, en route to its destination. I haven’t started putting our cards up yet. They’re in one pile, still on the buffet. We display cards in 2 places, just as there are 2 different cards we send. We do a family card with pictures of us and the “kids” and a card with our best snowy train for our railfan friends. We don’t credit the photos because we use a snow shot from someplace we were together. But, this year the photo is mine from the show day in Indiana the last day of November! David is changing over from slides to digital now. It’s been my photo one other time and I think I should just gaze upon the card this year in all my ego’s glory. I fear that when David, with a much better camera and a much more able body to get the shot, will likely be the photographer from 2012 on. But I’ll still be there for every Christmas card shot!

The closet door at the base of the stairs is where we display the train cards and those ones stay up until the next Christmas, all train photos from our friends. It’s neat door wallpaper! The other non-train cards and photo cards go on the French doors in the dining room. They stay up until mid-January and are the last Christmas decoration to come down.

I LOVE cards! I keep them, thinking, remembering, the people who sent them. I have birthday cards, valentines, graduation cards and some sweet “just because” cards in my cedar chest along with all those Christmas cards. When all is said and done, those are my certificates for my stocks, the investments that have the greatest value in my world, the people who make it a great one to live in!

Chocolate Chunk Hazelnut Cookies

I’ve finished the Mr. Goodcookies and the Chocolate Chunk Hazelnut cookies. I know I was going to come up with a pretentious Euro-sounding name, but David said “Just call them Chocolate Chunk Hazelnut!” Since I created them for him, I guess I ought to go with what he wants to call them. Now there’s a bowl of Black Forest Cookie dough in the kitchen which I’ll bake as soon as I post this. I’d wanted, planned, to have the Loaded Loaf done by dinnertime too, but it looks like that will wait until after dinner. David worked early, so he may be home early and I want counter space for spaghetti making.

Kitchen Sink Cookies

It seems the Davinities Test Kitchen is always open. After I made a couple dozen Goodcookies I had about three, maybe four left in dough. I had about five left in the hazelnut. I already had 5 dozen cookies made, so rather than baking a half and half pan, I made half and half cookies! I mixed the 2 pieces of dough together and threw in some raisins. YUM! That’s not going to become a holiday Davinity. It made 8 cookies with semisweet and milk chocolate, hazelnuts, peanuts and raisins. It’s possible that’s combination only a Nani would love, but love it I do!

Okay, back to the kitchen. I have back forest cookies to bake, spaghetti to make and then a Loaded Loaf before the night is over. I also want my Nativity up before bed!