I’ve moved on from my reading cycle into a cookie baking cycle. Sunday night I developed a very strong need for chocolate chip cookies. Luckily, chocolate chips are as much a staple in our house as flour and sugar, so they were easy enough to whip up:

I have a couple of these old, giant mayonnaise jars that were my grandmother’s. The other one is my sugar jar. Grandma usually had a jar full of cookies just like this.  I wish they sold mayonnaise like that still, those jars are the best. I’ll just brag a little bit here, and say that my chocolate chip cookie recipe is pretty darn good, and nearly half the fat of the traditional Tollhouse recipe. So if you get a hankering for cookies, here is an easy and delicious recipe:

Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, softened at room tempurature
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon of good vanilla
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 12 oz. package good chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

1. Cream together the butter and sugars.
2. Add the eggs and vanilla. I like to measure the vanilla right over the bowl and let a little extra dribble in.
3. On top of this mixture, measure out your flour, salt and baking soda. Since we live at 4000 feet above sea level, I add another 2 spoonfuls of flour. So do that if you live at a high elevation too. Stir the powdered ingredients lightly to combine them before stirring all the way down to mix them with the butter mixture. This is because I am lazy and don’t want to dirty two bowls.
4. Stir in the chocolate chips and taste the cookie dough to make sure it’s good.
5. Drop by the spoonful onto an ungreased cookie sheet and pop them in the oven for 10-12 minutes. Cooking them a shorter amount of time makes them come out soft, and cooking them longer makes them crispy, so make them whichever way you prefer.

Makes about 3 dozen cookies, depending on how much dough you eat.

This is why I haven’t been around for the last week or so:

Also this:

And then there is this:
 
I wrote about losing my sweet girl Gigi last summer. I didn’t write about how almost exactly a month later, Dune also died from a tumor in his lung. It was just too sad. So now, after living for seven months with no cats in our house, we brought home two new babies. Officially, they are Mr. Lucy’s Birthday/Christmas presents, although, honestly, I was ready for a new kitty myself. So up there at the top is Petey, and the little calico/bengal mix is Lucy. We decided that we really ought to have someone in our house actually named Lucy. Now that I think about it, I’m going to have to come up with a new nickname for Mr. Lucy, because otherwise that would imply that he is married to our cat, which is just weird. As he is a very private person, he doesn’t like his actual real name to be used on the internet. Maybe someone in my family will have a better suggestion?

So, anyway, Petey and Lucy are 8 months and 9 months old, respectively. We got them from the Helen Woodward Animal Center, which is such a nice facility. They had been there for about 6 months, and were living together in the same kennel. It’s completely different having two kittens, we didn’t realize how used we were to our old cats. These two are either bouncing off the walls, or doing this:

There doesn’t seem to be an in-between state for them. Although this morning it was so warm we had the back door open and they discovered the chickens:

One or both of them were at the door until I left for work. As far as I know, they could still be there. It’s like television for cats!

Expect to see more of this little buggers, although it’s taken me all week to get any decent pictures of them, they move so fast. I still have to get a good picture of Lucy with her golden tiger eyes open.

As for the chickens, remember how I had 19 hens, and had given 4 to one co-worker and 3 to another? Well, the three hens turned out to be 2 hens and a rooster. And since that co-worker lives in a residential area, the rooster was kind of a problem. So we agreed to trade one of my hens for the rooster, and now the lucky devil gets to live here with 18 hens. Oddly enough, they had named him General Tso, before they realized she was a he. How’s that for foreshadowing? Here is another picture of him:

He’s quite the looker. He’s an Araucana, and he crows. A lot. This morning at 4:30 our neighbor started up his Harley. This woke up the General and he started crowing. We didn’t hear the Harley, but we sure did hear the General. If nothing wakes him up during the night, he starts to crow at about 6:30, which is alright during the week, because I should really be up by then myself. On Saturday? Not so much. We’re getting used to the sound though, and I think it will eventually just be another background noise here on the farm.

I don’t remember reading a lot over the past couple weeks, but I guess I did, because when I thought about it I’d read all those books you see pictured above. I tend to do things in  cycles and I guess I’ve been on a reading cycle lately, there hasn’t been much else going on creatively speaking. So here are my one (or two) paragraph reviews:

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer: I quite enjoyed this book, and will probably read his others. This is the story of Oskar, a young boy who lost his father on September 11th, and finds a key amongst his belongings that doesn’t open any locks in his home. He decides to find the lock that belongs to the key. He also invents things, my favorite invention was a duct system flowing from everyone’s pillows in New York to a pond in Central Park that would fill with everyone’s tears. He proposes that there could then be regular reports of the water levels so people would know if there was a particularly sad day ahead. The passage was much more eloquent then that, so you’ll just have to read it for yourself.

There are some interesting illustrations and typographic techniques throughout, which I am not sure I like, such as a passage in which the type becomes progressively tighter and tighter until it overlaps itself completely and becomes illegible. Is it now necessary for authors to throw in little tricks like that to make their books different and therefore better than the competition? Is good writing no longer enough to sell books? I suppose if it’s carefully done, it can enhance the story, but if it’s becoming the trendy thing to do, I don’t like it. For the most part, such typographical tricks were well used here, but if there had been any more it would have become tiresome. The diagrams and such in Mark Haddon’s The Mysterious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime were definitely well done as well, as they illustrated the way the narrator, a boy with profound autism, saw the world with his damaged brain.

Speaking of, I also read Mark Haddon’s latest book, A Spot of Bother. Again he tackles the subject of a damaged brain, although this time it’s a recently retired man who finds himself slowly, quietly going crazy while his family members all deal with their own problems. There were some quite funny bits, which because of the subject matter are sort of bittersweet. I do like his very straightforward narration style, and while the characters are not really lovable at first, I eventually developed a real affection for them individually and for the family as a whole. It was a quick read, and very entertaining.

After finishing Cloud Atlas, I decided to read David Mitchell’s first book, Ghostwritten. He uses the same technique he used in Cloud Atlas, in that the book is actually a series of short stories, each linked to the previous. The structure isn’t as complex in Ghostwritten, but still interesting. It reminded my of a chain the way one story was linked to the next. What I like about his writing, which I mentioned when talking about Cloud Atlas, is his ability to write in many different voices so effectively.

River Secrets is the third Bayern book by Shannon Hale. I guess her books are technically considered Young Adult Literature, but I don’t care, I’ve loved them all. She can tell a story that will keep you completely enthralled and her characters are wonderfully human, flawed and yet still immensely likeable, like your best friend. I would recommend reading The Goose Girl and Enna Burning before reading River Secrets, as everything will make much more sense.

I’ve also been listening to some new music lately. With a brother who’s a musician and another brother who has a talent for finding the newest, coolest indy artists, I’m always finding good stuff to listen to. Cary introduced me to the music of Vienna Teng. I think he opened for her last year some time. Vienna is a piannist, singer, songwriter, musician extraordinnaire, and her music doesn’t fit easily into any particular genre. There’s a little jazz, a little folk, a little pop and a little something different in her sound.  I love her smooth as silk voice, which is high and sweet but never cloyingly so. If you’re looking for something soothing but not sappy, interesting and energizing, then I’d suggest giving her a listen. I’ve got all three of her albums, but I haven’t decided if there’s one I like better than the others, although Harbor on Warm Strangers is one of those songs I just loved the very first minute I heard it.

I’m not a very good reviewer, sometimes I just like what I like because, well, I like it, but maybe someone will find these little reviews interesting :o)

I really think I am an optimist, but the last few days have been quite a test of my optimism. So I figured I’d write about all the yucky stuff, find the good in each situation, and throw in a few pictures that are making my happy, despite all the doom and gloom around here.

First of all, there were the shingles and chimney blown off our roof. That’s not so terrible, except for the $500 deductible on our insurance, but at least we have insurance, right? And when it’s all done, we can enjoy a cozy fire in our wood-burning stove. I’m not sure when that will be, however, as the winds were still pretty bad yesterday, and the tarp was blowing all over.

I made a felted ring the other day:

It’s kind of funky and fun, and very cozy to wear. It was fun to make, and I’ve got some fun ideas for lots more of these little babies, so they may show up in my shop soon.

Saturday, as you may have heard, was (very nearly) record-breakingly cold. Of course, we live in the mountains, so it gets cold, and I like cold weather better than hot, but we’re talking way below freezing, for days on end. So Sunday morning, when it managed to get above freezing for a little bit, we heard a very loud bang and a whoosh of water. Not good. A pipe under our front porch had burst. So we had to turn off the water for three days. Luckily, it was under the porch, not the house, so the water just flowed into the yard, and also luckily, we were home, so we were able to shut it off right away. So there was no damage to the house, and not a lot of water was wasted. Living without water is very not fun. We did, however, occasionally turn the water back on so we could flush. It was a little wasteful, but we weighed our options, and decided it was worth it. Sometimes you just have to do what you have to do. By the end of the second day, we were pretty disgusted with ourselves and decided to waste a little more and take really really really fast showers. Boy oh boy, did that feel good! The plumber came yesterday and fixed everything up, and it was only $150 which goes toward that $500 deductible that we were already out, so that’s not too bad after all. Other people had it much, much worse.

Since there was no water and I felt scummy, the best thing to do was curl up in front of the television and do a little hand sewing. My Blythe doll, Evie, was the beneficiary of my handiwork:

I made a little sundress with some vintage eyelet and linen. I even made some pink striped stockings to go with it. I have a little jacket planned to go over it. And then I think this is my favorite outfit so far, a linen butcher’s style apron over and pleated skirt and lace-edged t-shirt. Apparently, Evie likes the Classics, she was hanging with Shakespeare and Chaucer this morning. I forgot to mention that Evie made the trip to Boise with me, and she was a big hit with one niece so far. We had to change her eyes frequently, but Evie came through it all with flying colors. I still need to work on my Blythe photography skills.

Yesterday I went out to my car to go to lunch. I started it up, backed out of my parking space, and started to pull forward, and a couple lights came on the dashboard. One of them was the EPS light, which came on last year, when my timing belt broke and took out half the engine with it. I called a tow truck and had it towed, and spent a sleepless night worried that we were going to have another thousands and thousands of dollar repair bill. Luckily, the dealer called this morning to say that for some reason the throttle had lost all its settings, and they needed to reset everything for a cost of $200. Sadly, that will not come out of the $500 deductible :o) he he.

Happily, through all these crazy happenings, I had a new crazy coat and scarf to keep me warm:

I knitted the scarf myself, of course, and the coat, complete with purple velvet flower, was only $29 at TJMaxx. It’s a couple sizes too big, but that just means I can wear it over sweaters and stay especially cozy.

This one might be a little gross, sorry. While waiting for the tow truck yesterday, I decided to go have lunch, since that was my original intention, and while chewing on some rice and beans, my crown came off. I tried putting it back, but it won’t stay, so I’ve got to call the dentist and find time to get over there. Luckily, we have good dental insurance, and the oral surgeon who took care of this particular tooth is really nice and quite cute. Not as cute as Mr. Lucy, of course, but if you have to have someone drill a metal rod into your jaw, it’s always good when they are nice and cute, right?

And one more really good thing, I ordered some Moo Cards:

How can those NOT make you happy? I didn’t think I really had enough ‘good’ pictures to get them, but they turned out pretty nice anyway, and I love all the colors! You really do need to click that one to see it full sized.

Okay, I guess I am still an optimist after all.

It’s always good to come home. I’ve been back since late Monday night, but have been busy catching up at work and at home. Next week will be all about catching up on blogs and comments, I think! I love getting comments so much, so if I haven’t responded to your comment in the last couple weeks, you’ll be hearing from me soon, I am definitely not ignoring you!

I went to bed last night to a light, sprinkling rain, and woke up to a few inches of snow. The picture above is my little town. Click it to see a really big version. That’s pretty much the whole town right there. Sometimes it feels like stepping back in time when I come home.

This is chicken alley. You can’t see it, but our shed is to the right (the bikes are leaning against it), and there is a short wall on the left, so the chickens hang out there a lot because it’s sheltered from the weather. We had some pretty high winds last week, and Mr. Lucy told me that one of the Barred Rocks had ventured out of the alley onto the driveway where she was caught in a gust of wind and went feet over tail, just like a tumbleweed. And then she went back into the chicken coop. I guess she didn’t like the wind too much. In this picture, several of them are running to me, hoping for a treat. Too bad I just have my camera, they already had plenty of treats today!

In another wind and animal story, there were also some very large gusts that blew a chunk of shingles and the top of our chimney off the roof. Our insurance company sent someone out the other night to tarp the roof, knowing that we had a storm coming in. The contractor put a big, black, plastic bag over the chimney pipe. Yesterday morning when I let the dogs out, Bear was looking at the roof and barking suspiciously. I think he thought the plastic bag was a person standing on the roof. It’s good to know that we are safe from suspicious plastic bags.

So it’s a new year, and I’m not making resolutions, exactly, but I do have plans to take better care this year. I’m going to take better care of myself and my home and of course, Mr. Lucy, who is going to be eating more vegetables this year, whether he wants to or not. Happily, I have a three day weekend, so there will be much cooking of aforementioned vegetables, as well as some serious cleaning and clearing out of the house.

Oh, and you can read more about how I rang in the new year here. There may be video of me behind the microphone, but I plan on doing every thing in my power to insure that it does not see the light of day. All in all though, it was a crazy fun time. Although why does silly string take less than 5 minutes to spray out of the can, and 5 hours to clean up?

I’m still on vacation, but I thought I would pop in and show off one of my favorite Christmas gifts:

Polka dot Wellies and a wire egg basket! The Wellies will come in handy, since I realized one day last week that I had stepped in chicken poop one morning and tracked it in my car and all the way to work. Stinky! And it’s just a matter of weeks before the chickens start laying, so now I have a stylish egg basket for that task.

In the meantime, I’m relaxing, shopping, knitting and sewing. This is the life! I’ll be back to the usual hectic stressful life next week.

I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas. I’m not going to say too much about mine, except that it involved fixing several things for my mother-in-law, and a soggy paper towel found in my salad (yes, it was as gross as it sounds). I’ve been in a bit of a grinch mood for the past week or so, but Sunday morning I leave to play for a week in Boise, where I’m going to see this person, this person, this person and this person. Oh I can’t wait! Even though I have to get up at 3:30 on Sunday morning for a 6:00 flight, I’ll be there in time for a big, noisy New Year’s Eve party. I hear we’re going to have a full drum kit, a few guitars, a mandolin, a keyboard, a harmonica, numerous iPods and an awesome Bose sound system. There may even be a visiting rock star, not including the one related to me. And then, for the rest of the week I will be going to movies, eating good food and sleeping as much as I want.

My Blythe doll now has a name, I’m going to call her Evangeline (after one of my favorite songs, ever), Evie for short. I think it suits her. I made her a new outfit for Christmas:

I love the little sneakers! That skirt is awfully short, Evie. I’m getting you some tights to wear with it. It finally stopped raining this morning, so she wanted to go for a swing.

Then I had to go to work, and she wanted to come along for the ride:

She insisted that we open the sun roof, even though it was still only 36 degrees outside. I like her pink eyes with this outfit.

In chicken news, it seems that Bear and the chickens have bonded and agreed to co-exist peacefully. One day last week I came home and the chicken coop door was wide open and their light was unplugged. I’m still not sure what happened, but the chickens were all sitting right inside the door, looking outside, puzzled by this strange new circumstance. Bear was trotting around, quite worriedly, but not bothering them at all. So this past weekend I decided to let them roam around during the day, and see what would happen. They are getting along quite well, the chickens seem to be enjoying their new freedom, although they don’t roam too far from their coop, and Bear, well, he just seems interested in eating chicken poop. Disgusting, yes, but we’ll work on that. He also wants to eat the stale bread and grapes that I bring for the chickens, but I guess it’s only fair that they share. So we can now say that we have free range chickens!

Speaking of chickens, Carol has some rescued battery hens, I think this is so great! It’s such a shame that raising chickens has changed from a farming industry to a manufacturing industry (scroll down to the November 2 entry here). I’m hardly a member of PETA, and I even still eat chicken, but the way meat is raised now is a little disturbing.