FIRST DAY IN THE BOOKS OATMEAL CHOCOLATE ‘CHIP’ COOKIES

“Well, I am getting caught up on my ‘Cookie of the Week’ posts, so today is a flashback. I know you will find it in your heart of hearts to forgive me for the delay.  It is after all the spirit of the season, the spirit of the Christmas cookie, to forgive.

Last Tuesday, the boys had their first day at their new schools. It would be a day filled with plenty of nerves and anxiety.  Coming home for lunch, Charlene suggested that it might be comforting if I made some cookies for their arrival home from school to help celebrate their new beginning.  What a wonderful idea!  Cookies as a source of comfort.  Cookies as a symbol of continuity.  Cookies for celebration.

Looking around our newly moved into home (our cottage in the grove) and its varied degrees of disheveledment (sure, it’s not a word, but it should be), I used what I had on hand to create today’s ‘Cookie of the Week.’

A comforting blend of old and new, this oatmeal chocolate ‘chip’ cookie features the grainy texture of oats with the nutty twist of steal cut oats, as well as the familiar flavor of chocolate carried along in bits of Hershey’s chocolate bar. What a great way to start anew.

Appropriate for our new year on the horizon, a cookie blessing for you. May all of your ‘First Days’ be filled with joy and may all of your roads lead to fresh baked cookies.  Enjoy!”

½ cup Butter

½ cup Brown Sugar

½ cup Sugar

1 Egg

1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

¾ cup Flour

¼ teaspoon Baking Powder

¼ teaspoon Salt

1 cup Quick Cooking Oats

½ cup Steel Cut Oats

2 Hershey’s Chocolate Bars (chopped slightly bigger than chocolate chip sized pieces)

 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream butter, brown sugar, and sugar.

Mix in the egg and vanilla extract.

Mix in the flour, baking powder, and salt.

Mix in the quick cooking oats and steel cut oats.

Stir in the chopped pieces of chocolate bar.

Place Tablespoons sized balls of dough onto parchment paper lined baking sheets. (In our mess of a newly moved into kitchen, the only thing I could find to scoop out dough was a coffee measuring spoon, which blessing upon abundant blessing turned out to be one Tablespoon in size.  Hallelujah!)

Bake for 10 minutes or until the cookies have turned a golden brown.

 

Makes about 18 cookies.

Revised Source: “Oatmeal-Chocolate Chip Cookies” recipe at www.browneyedbaker.com (By the way, what a cool name for a blog.  It just sort of makes me smile.)

The credit for the pretty chalk penmanship goes to the previous owners of our home, but a great photo backdrop is a terrible thing to waste.

 

Wrapping up a presentation at work, I figured I would swing by our old house and quickly clean the inside of our old fridge. Being a good boy, I even decided to apply a fresh coat of Clorox Wipe magic behind the crisper drawers.  Pulling out the “meat and cheese” drawer, I was met by a startling surprise.  There tucked behind the drawer, in the darkest crevices of the fridge, well beyond sight, light, or detection, sat a blackened stick of string cheese and an opened and blacked as well package of Canadian bacon, which had at one point been fastened with a clothespin (the best way to seal lunch meat for dozens of months).  That’s right, these products had been in there so long that they had gone past moldy and had reached a sort of carbon coated level of decomposition.

On the bright side, moving every few years saves us from meeting some rear of the fridge science experiment that will eventually sprout legs. #Genesis #LifeFromDeli #ItsAlive

 

Finally, proof that our new house is located at the end of the rainbow.

Waiting until the last minute, we waited until 7:30PM on Sunday night to tackle 1^st Grader Ben’s homework.  Unfortunately, it involved gathering photos of the student today and as a baby.  Considering that we just moved, finding Ben’s current school picture was no small challenge, but after many boxes searched through we finally found it.  The newborn photo on the other hand, I figured I knew right where that would be.

Digging through the “computer” box, I found the old external hard drive containing old family photos. Searching under the right timeframe and bingo, there was Ben’s official “newborn” photo…

Plugging all of the cords into the right places, I pressed print and unfortunately I got something very different out of the printer…

Egad! I don’t recall my beautiful bride and I getting our hair dyed orange on the day of Ben’s birth.  Nothing like a last minute printer fail to make homework an adventure.  A very sad adventure.  #WeekendHomework #CurseOfAllCurses

 

This morning, I came downstairs and as is usually the case, my faithful beagle Kirby followed me. I believe that he follows me both out of a love, but more importantly out of a belief that I will help him find food.  Fulfilling my end of the bargain, I began searching out my 12-year-old son Jacob, who is in charge of feeding Kirby.  I believe that Kirby still involves me (the middle man) in the process, because he feels that I am the problem solver, who can resolve his dog hunger issues, no matter the circumstance.

Suspecting that Jacob was in the basement watching television or playing on his tablet, I called down the stairs, “Jacob, time to feed Kirby.” No response.  Growing a little annoyed, I shouted down again, “Jacob, time to feed Kirby!”  Again, no response.

Heading downstairs with Kirby close behind, I found Jacob on the couch engrossed in his tablet. Walking toward him, I once again said, “Jacob, time to feed Kirby.”  Strangely this time, even with a father approaching an advanced state of grumpiness, still no response.  Almost standing over him, I prepared to remind my son once again of his starving pup, when I then saw earbuds perched in my son’s head.

He had not heard a thing I had said. He was in another zone.  Another world.  A world free of annoyed fathers, hungry pets, and societal obligations.  He was checked out.  Reaching down and gently pushing his knee, he finally glanced up to see me mouth the word “Kirby!”  Yep, the exclamation even came through when reading my lips.

Getting up to feed his dog, I soon realized that I had not only entered the basement. I had entered the future.  The future of a soon-to-be-teen.  Sort of there.  Sort of somewhere else.  But definitely what I could expect for years and years to come.  [Insert sigh of a tired dad and moan of a hungry dog.]

 

This week’s “Cookie of the Week” post has been delayed due to cooking utensils being lost somewhere in the moving boxes.  We apologize for the delay. #Truth

As I entered my newly-turned-7-year-old son Ben’s room, he was clutching one of his birthday presents, a foam rubber replica of Thor’s hammer. Yes, that hammer.  The hammer that can only be raised by those who are worthy.  The hammer that can empower flight.  The hammer that can whip around like ‘roided up boomerang.  The hammer that has some confusing other worldly nickname, such as Mole-near or something like that (I called it “Fred,” which is also my nickname for my cell phone and my boys seemed horribly offended, so I’ll stick with Mole-near or some marbled filled mouth version of Mjӧlnir).

So I edged closer to Ben’s loft to say goodnight, when out of the blue, Thor’s hammer flew toward me. I had no time to react.  I was a sitting duck.  Victim of my Avengers Chris Hemsworth wannabe son.  By the love of Asgard, that tool of a god plunked me in the eye.  And the worst part, Natalie Portman was nowhere to be found to comfort me.  Sadness (mostly at Natalie Portman’s absence).  Pain (okay, more like great startledness).  And one little birthday boy horrified at what he had just done.  Don’t worry my little Loki, all will be right.  Odin will survive.  Just snuggle under your covers, because the Frost Giants are out tonight.

After Day One of working from home, I have a few observations about my lone coworker.  First, he is not much for watercooler talk.  Plus, he tends to beckon me with the temptation of a lunchtime nap.  Not the best influence, but he is oh so furry.

Coworker Kirby caught in the act of taking his day long siesta.

 

Today was a big day for the Paulsen boys.  A day of new beginnings.  Their first day of school in our new home town.  I would need to be on my game, but waking up and looking in the mirror, I had serious bags under my eyes.  I would need to muster up everything left in my tank and be supportive.  Plus, I would need to avoid embarrassing my children.  The avoiding embarrassing them would be hard for me.  I am hard wired to supply such embarrassing moments.  I consider myself an embarrassment master, but I would put that on the shelf.  I would help my boys quietly blend in.

Over the next hour or so, there were some tears and some vomit, but at least the vomit was clear (or so observes the experienced parent) and most of it made it into the backseat’s plastic bag (Really?  How do you miss the barf bag, when you are leaning over it?).  All in all, however, it was a step in the right direction and I managed to not act like an overly extrovert ass in my children’s new world.  Yep, the morning was a success and I had done well.

Heading to get a “pat on the back” latte, with an extra shot of espresso, the barista asked my name.  In a mumbling slurred and oh so tired fashion, I said, “Dave,” because after all that is my name.  Looking at me, she replied, “Steve?”  Sure, why not?  I had no energy left to resist.  For the rest of the day, I would be “Steve.”  I know plenty of great “Steves” and now I know that after a tiring voyage across the Atlantic, most “Davidsons” probably became “Stevensons,” as they stepped foot on Ellis Island.

Some people need a horrific event to join the Federal witness protection program, but I seem to be blessed to just mumble and sleepwalk my way into a great alias.  Who is Steve?  I am Steve.

 

As we unpacked more (and more and more) boxes in our new home, I found myself searching for some sort of finished product.  Any sort of finished product.  Tackling this need, I tried desperately to tidy up just a few spots.  Kitchen, living room, desk.  If I could at least make them look somewhat finished, I could carry on.  The storage room would be stuffed and the home’s foundation might sink 3 feet, but at least we would have a few livable areas.

A few hours (er, many, many hours) later, I had successfully hidden (er, unpacked) boxes in several primary living areas.  Looking up and taking a deep breath, I looked out from the kitchen into the living room and there I saw something wonderful.  Sure it looked sort of finished.  Sure it did need decorating.  Sure it still needed books on the shelves and a fire in the fireplace, but what I saw was wonderful.  My weary eyes not only saw a living room mostly finished, but what I saw was a room ready for our family’s love.  An area where we could grow.  An area where we could be.  An area that my family would fill with love.  Perfect and just what my tired eyes needed.

The photo does not do the room justice, but the dog seems pretty happy settling his furry butt into a chair of his choosing.