I am often asked, “Dave, what is the best way to prepare for dunking a cookie?” Well, that’s easy. Grab your morning newspaper and a cup of coffee (preferably in your limited edition “Cookies by Dave” coffee cup). Add Chocolate Chip Cookie flavored creamer and you are ready to dunk. Simple and delicious.
www.CookiesbyDave.com… “The perfect way to start your day.”
It was one of those mornings. One of those mornings, where the first thing of the day kind of kicks you in the pants and has you looking for any type of turnaround. Of course, the kids are clueless to these developments and are being loud, while running around the house before school.
During these developments, I passed my 5-year-old son at the breakfast table. There he was nibbling away at his blueberry Pop-Tart, while he held a green marker tightly and slowly colored an “Origami Jabba the Hutt” (trust me, not that unusual in the young boy demographic) that his older brother had folded for him. Providing him with notification that he needed to get ready for school, he asked with all of the innocence and sincerity of a 5-year-old, “Will you finish coloring this? All except for the arms and tongue.” Then, I missed the mark and responded (albeit in a nice, but sort of snotty adult way), “That sounds like a kid job.” Way to go, Dad. Jerk. The kid just needed a little help, but oh no, your adult troubles have you so wrapped up, you cannot be bothered by your child, who asked for just a little help. How long would it take you, “Mister Oh-So-Important?” Maybe, thirty seconds, tops.
Any who, I did not give it much thought. The kids wandered off to school. My 5-year-old Ben scurried off with the remains of his Pop-Tart in hand and acceptance that Jabba the Puppet would need to wait until after school to be complete.
Heading back inside, I settled into work. Sitting at the laptop, trying to figure out a way forward and no apparent answers surfacing, I saw the half-finished Jabba sitting on the table, with the green marker by his side. Grabbing the marker, I began to color. That was the answer. Turn my attention. Help someone else. The solutions will come, but not while I struggle. The solutions will come, when I redirect. When I redirect away from myself and help others. Finishing up Jabba’s green makeover, I was pleased. In a few short hours, a little boy will be pleasantly surprised. My actions will bring a smile to his face. The problem of the morning may still fester, but at least I helped brighten one day.
Jabba the Puppet… now fully green.
Making conversation with my 5-year-old son, I asked him what he likes better about Kindergarten, as opposed to Pre-School. There were some typical responses, such as snack time and gym class, then when pushed on the matter, he produced something completely unexpected. “Dad, when you dropped me off for Pre-School, it kind of creeped me out.” What?!? So having your brothers ignore you during the walk to Kindergarten is better than my heartfelt drop off at Pre-School? No, correction. Apparently my drop offs were not heartfelt, but rather creepy. Good to know that my expressions of affection come off as creepy. Thanks for the confidence builder, son. Good to know that Kindergarten has reduced a little of your father’s creepiness in your life. Oh well, maybe I can spin the whole creepiness thing to my advantage for Halloween.
There are those days, those days when danger just finds you. A mild kind of danger that just ever so slightly chips away at your sense of security. Those are the days you know things will happen to you in “threes.” Yep, the first thing that goes wrong, just wait for the next two, because that is the way the day is going to roll.
Hazard One: the fireplace mantel. Simple enough, there I was reaching down to clean up a random dog toy on the floor. Poke, pointy corner of fireplace mantel into my right shoulder. Oh, that is going to leave a mark.
Hazard Two: hot coffee. Walking the boys out to the sidewalk to see them off to school, one of my beloved children decides to jump on me. Jump on me, while I am holding a cup of coffee. Hot coffee (fortunately chilled off some by the cold morning air) splashing on my hand and shirt sleeve. Giggling children finding it humorous, then recognizing that Dad is not really pleased by the turn of events, and children scurrying off to school. Insult to injury.
Hazard Three (not really): misfire, since it’s just the way God made me. There I was at lunch with my wife and some of her friends. I have seen the look from my wife before, a subtle glance up at my hair, as if to say, “What in the wild world of sports happened to his hair?” Then, one at a time, I swear this is true, her friends took a glance up at my hair. Nervous about the situation, but confident enough to finish lunch without fixing my hair, I took the first opportunity to look in the mirror. Sure my hair did not look like George Clooney’s, but it also did not look like Carrot Top’s, it just looked like my hair does every day. God made me this way, hazard three averted. Or so I thought… you see, days could be considered 24-hour periods starting at any point… I was not out of the woods yet.
Hazard Three (for real): playful pup. Our young beagle’s favorite game is “rope.” He brings you the rope, you play tug of war with him for a while, then you throw it, he fetches the rope, brings it back, and you repeat this over and over endlessly or until he decides to just lay down and gnaw on said rope. Well, this morning (within the 24-hour hazard period), young Kirby the Beagle misjudged his bite on the rope and bit into the cuticle on my right hand’s ring finger. No ill intent, just a bad aim and the resulting blood. Retrieving a Band-Aid, the only one I could find had flowers on it. Strange considering I live in a house full of lots of young boys, but still it stopped the bleeding and I wandered off to work feeling at least somewhat secure in that I had survived my “three” hazards of the 24-hour day. Then it hit me, I had a presentation to make at work and really did not want to be making hand gestures with a prominent flower Band-Aid. Considering that I work out of the Public Health Department, I figured that they would have a spare Band-Aid I could use as a replacement. Explaining to one of the nurses how I needed a more masculine Band-Aid, she gleefully provided me with a Spiderman Band-Aid. Yep, that is how I ended the streak of hazards and now can utilize my Spider-Sense to avoid future injuries. Plus, you have to trust a man presenting with a Spiderman Band-Aid, a true sign of confidence.
Kirby the Beagle
plus…
Rope Toy
equals…
Spiderman Band-Aid
Big news! In this morning’s edition of “Where in the world are Jacob’s socks?,” they moved about four feet from the hutch to the dining room table. The dirty socks were replaced with a fresh pair and were enjoying breakfast with the morning newspaper and a library book.
Breaking news! In an act of bizarre brazenly barbaric behavior (the dreaded quadruple “b”), 10-year-old Jacob just took off his dirty socks and placed them next to me on the dining room table, while Jacob enjoyed his post-school yogurt snack.
Good news! After finishing his snack, Jacob placed his dirty socks back on his feet and ran off to play with the dog. Socks-on-table crisis averted well in advance of dinner. Only one Clorox wipe away from “good as new.”
In the latest installment of “Where in the world are Jacob’s socks?,” we catch up with 10-year-old Jacob’s socks visiting the dining room hutch. Hamper, hutch, so easily confused.
My 10-year-old son has a nasty habit of leaving his dirty socks lying around the house. My personal favorite location for the discarded socks is the dining room table. Really? One of your nastiest articles of clothing sitting where you eat. Really? At least, he consistently leaves them at his place at the table. A sort of filth control measure. Any who, we returned this afternoon from his baseball doubleheader and I began the laborious process of emptying the car. Food remains, stadium chairs, random jackets, all of them understandably abandoned in the car waiting for a kind and benevolent parent to move them to their proper place or perhaps the “Car Cleaning Fairy” just takes care of it. Just a thought.
There I was cleaning the car and what did I find in the third row of seats, where my 10-year-old nests for his family voyages? His dirty baseball cleats and tucked inside his filthy red socks. Kind of cute, in that his team is the Red Sox, but other than that, not cute. Nasty. Not only were they balled up, inside out, but upon unraveling, my hands were covered with a fine layer of infield dirt and a musk that his cleats had been fermenting all Summer. Even the most astute biologist would have been startled by how the filth from the socks seemed to leap from their original host onto my awaiting hands. Disgusted, I threw the socks into the laundry room (the backyard campfire pit was my second choice) and headed toward the bathroom to wash my hands. Ah, the long baseball season has ended, but its scent, courtesy of waywardly discarded socks, still lingers on.
“When in doubt, try the recipe on the bag. That was my theory, when trying out the new caramel-filled chocolate chips. The back of the bag did not disappoint. These cookies turned out delicious with a nice burst of caramel flavoring. Thumbs up to high tech advancements in the world of chocolate chips.” – Cookie Dave
CHOCOLATE CARAMEL CHIP COOKIES
1 cup Butter
¾ cup Sugar
¾ cup Brown Sugar
1 teaspoon Vanilla
2 Eggs
2¼ cups Flour
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
1 teaspoon Salt
9oz package Nestle Toll House DelightFulls Caramel Filled Chocolate Chips
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Mix butter, sugar, and brown sugar.
Mix in vanilla and eggs.
Set aside “butter mixture.”
Combine flour, baking soda, and salt.
Gradually mix “flour mixture” into “butter mixture.”
Stir in caramel filled chocolate chips.
Place tablespoons of dough onto parchment paper lined baking sheets.
Bake for 9 minutes or until golden brown.
Makes about 48 cookies.
Revised Source: Nestle Toll House “DelightFulls” Milk Chocolate Morsels with Caramel Filling, recipe on back of 9oz bag.
“Searching for a taste of Fall and embracing the classic Snickerdoodle, this recipe is the perfect marriage. Considering that both Snickerdoodles and Pumpkin cookies have the same type of fluffy texture, these two cookie concepts create a harmony of flavor and chew. Embrace the Fall, eat a Pumpkin Snickerdoodle.” – Cookie Dave
PUMPKIN SNICKERDOODLES
1 cup Butter
1 cup Sugar
½ cup Brown Sugar
¾ cup Pumpkin
1 Egg
2 teaspoons Vanilla
3¾ cups Flour
1½ teaspoons Baking Powder
½ teaspoon Salt
½ teaspoon Pumpkin Pie Spice
½ cup Sugar
2 teaspoons Pumpkin Pie Spice
Mix together butter, 1 cup sugar, and brown sugar.
Mix in pumpkin.
Mix in egg and vanilla. Set aside “butter mixture.”
Mix together flour, baking powder, salt, and ½ teaspoon pumpkin pie spice.
Gradually mix “flour mixture” into “butter mixture.”
Refrigerate dough for one hour to make it easier to handle.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Combine ½ cup sugar and 2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice.
Roll tablespoons of dough in sugar/pumpkin pie spice mixture.
Place coated balls of dough on parchment paper lined cookie sheet.
Slightly press down on balls of dough with the flat bottom of a glass.
Bake for 10 minutes until cookies are just firm to touch.
Makes about 48 cookies.
Revised Source: 52 Kitchen Adventures.
Welcome to the One Month Anniversary of www.CookiesbyDave.com! First of all, I wanted to thank each and every one of you that puts up with my daily rants and randomness on the website. Your support is greatly appreciated and I hope you have enjoyed the posts and recipes.
To have a little fun this morning, I decided to do some data mining on the site and see if anyone is actually reading the posts. So put on your mining helmets and breathing apparatus and join me in the facts and figures mine of www.CookiesbyDave.com. I know, I know, your initial guess is that three people visit my site (wife, mother, and sister) mainly to see what I am writing about them, well you are right, but there are also lots of other folks. Let’s take a look at the numbers (considering that you guys are sort of like my shareholders, think of this as our annual, in this case one month, meeting).
VISITS
In its first month, www.CookiesbyDave.com has had 1,720 views. While far from viral, it is a number about 1,720 more than I would have guessed. Since the website costs $7.95 per month, the expense works out to ½ cent per page view. A better value than anticipated. Perhaps, www.CookiesbyDave.com finally got us out of the lingering recession. Perhaps.
GATEWAYS
Most people visit the site via Facebook (94.5%), Google and Twitter both account for about 2.5%, and Microsoft should be proud in that 3 visitors used Bing.
TOP POSTS
Not surprising, due to the grand opening build up and constant ads, the Top Three posts were all related to the website’s launch.
The Top Three Non-Grand Opening Posts were all pretty memorable…
“Wings. Beer. Awkward Moment.” (37 visits) – Featuring my inability to order chicken wings and the origination of the term, “Wet Rub.”
“Narcissism – Library Card Style” (37 visits) – My attempt to win a contest at the Willmar Public Library and the perfect outlet for my narcissistic tendencies.
“That’s cold(play)” (33 visits) – My sad realization that Charlene has a crush on Chris Martin of Coldplay and Jennifer Lawrence of “The Hunger Games” would never date me.
Also, I am proud to report that my free cookie cookbook download, “Today is a Great Day for a Cookie… Soliloquies, Scrumptiousness, & sorta Psalms” had 54 downloads. Imagine all of those cookies baking around the world. Yummy.
WHO ACTUALLY READS MY STUFF
63% of the site’s viewers are women
38% of the overall viewers are women between ages 35-44
No one under the age of 18 likes my site
WHEN
The most popular time to visit www.CookiesbyDave.com is 8PM. Noon and 5PM are also pretty popular. Most of the viewers begin their daily Internet pleasures at 7AM and log off at 10PM. That leaves a whole 9 hours at night without www.CookiesbyDave.com. Oh well, everyone needs a break sometime.
WHERE
The most frequent location for the site’s viewers… Willmar, Minnesota (where I live) and Battle Creek, Michigan (my hometown)… Number 3? Wichita, Kansas (where I used to live). The key to building a website? Move around. A lot.
Overall, the site has reached folks in 24 states and 16 countries on 6 continents (all except Antarctica… what is wrong with those penguins and snowball researchers?). Special shout out to visitors from Zambia, Romania, and Honduras. It has also reached the native speakers of 10 different languages, including my Swedish fan (that blonde woman from ABBA?).
AND MOST IMPRESSIVE…
Of the 152 Likes for “Cookies by Dave” on Facebook, we have not had a single drop. Not one. Thank you for forgiving me, when I have offended you, and always giving me another (or two or three) chance.
ONE FINAL THANK YOU (and apology)
So I would like to end with a special thank you to all of you for putting up with my daily non-sense. By allowing me to vent, I am able to interact in public in a semi-normal fashion.
And a note from the Prize Fulfillment Department of www.CookiesbyDave.com… to our eleven prize winners (you know who you are), we are horribly slow in our prize delivery, but we are working out our glitches and promise to provide all of your prizes by our website’s first (year) anniversary.
Oh and remember, today is a great day for a cookie.
My wife is really good about not letting things get to her, but one thing that really bothers her is unorganized clothing. 99% of things, no problem. A messy dresser drawer, not good. Well anyway for some reason the boys have dresser drawers keep getting more and more disheveled. Part of it is the addition of long sleeve shirts and pants to the mix, but the problem seems larger than just a change of season. Not only were the drawers a mess, they were busting out of their respective dressers. Personally, I would take the clean batches of fresh clothing from the laundry room and just shove them into the drawers. Problem solved? Nope, if only it were that easy. In addition to it causing my wife stress, the bursting dresser drawers also lead to a frustrating conversation with the boys every morning, “I don’t have any long sleeve clothing.” “Yes, you do, in your dresser.” “No, I just looked.” Long sleeved clothing wait bunched up in the dresser for a child who glances even close to the right place.
Given that the children complaints were mounting and my poor wife’s disheveled clothing stress was peaking, today I tackled the messy dressers. The task was certainly necessary, but somewhat boring, especially since it is NPR pledge week and even though I mailed in my membership dues, I am still subjected to the painful financial pleas of the fund drive. One bit of excitement, however, as I sorted through the clothing, was that I needed to continually chase the dog away from a stuffed dog toy that for some odd reason 5-year-old Ben has adopted as one of his stuffed animals. I certainly think Kirby the Beagle would have a good argument in a court of law, if he chewed up the toy, given the fact that it actually is a dog toy, but I just did not want to deal with the whole child versus dog grievance process, so there I was with clothing in hand, continually shooing the dog away from a toy that should really be his. During this clown-car-but-instead-clothing-in-a-dresser-drawer process, it struck me, there is a sort of clothing disparity in the Paulsen house. Between the kids, they have approximately 4,000 t-shirts each that fit, while I own about 4. Sad, but true. If I shed close to 150 pounds and got much shorter, I would have a great selection of clothing at my disposal. Until that time, I must sadly continue my purge of children Summer clothing and deny the dog his right to tear apart a stuffed toy. Injustice reigns.