Spring draws near. The singing of birds, the irises pushing their young greens up towards a sun still deciding if it wasts to shine or play hide and seek behind clouds of grey.
Trees think of budding. The ground is warming. The pests of spring are awakening while cats/kittens seek the sunbeams shining onto wooden floors.
It’s a new year. A slow start. The swirling of things to do, decide, to be, enjoy, leave behind and yet look forward to.
Of destroying and reshaping. Of building and reclaiming. A reimagining of what it should be. Or not be.
Now to get the damn pictures off the camera that show the mess in the front yard, the stump of the fallen weeping cherry (sob, so sad to see you fall) and the huge rock that needs to move yet again. I think I’ll get Girrl out there to push it around. Blink. Blink. That’s not moving no matter how much she tries.
Backhoe! STAT!
But to soothe the frazzled nerves, calm the panic of a yard gone to dirt/mud/chaos.
Cookies.
Be still my heart. The cooking bug is back and it’s demanding. Pushy damn thing.
Oatmeal Cookies
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
3 cups quick cook oats
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup of coconut
Cream together the butter, the sugars. Add eggs, stir until combined. Add vanilla.
Add flour, baking soda, salt mixing it all together. Add oats, pray wooden spoon doesn’t break. Mix. Add chocolate chips and coconut. Stir until all ingredients are combined, arm tired.
Oven 325 degrees
Use spoons to drop dough onto greased baking sheet.
Suggested cooking time is 12 minutes. For cookies the size I made them, more like 18 to 19.
Cool on sheet, remove to wire racks to finish cooling. Swat Girrl and Retro-Man away from cookies like flies at a picnic.
Enjoy.
Variations in the works: dried cranberries and almonds in place of chocolate chips.
My hips will never be the same.
