The story behind this blog

Ok, so I've never done anything like this before, but people keep telling me to write a book about this experience (or in other words crazy lunatic idea of mine).  I don't have the discipline or frankly time to write a book so I figured this blog might be my journal of sorts.  First and foremost, it's for me - if you enjoy reading it - that's cool too.

Last July, almost 5 months now, I got married. I don't know what else to say about that so I'll continue with this cookie story.  About two months ago I decided to make every single cookie out of this cookie cookbook that my husband and I received as a wedding present - see that's why I had to start the story with the whole I got married thing.  Why you ask, why would I want to make all these cookies.  Not sure, except that I like giving my self these enormous gigantic tasks.  I like to cook and bake and always want to make every recipe out of my cooking magazines, except I'm a picky eater and don't want to try most of the recipes in my magazine.  But who doesn't like cookies, this way I always have cookies on hand if people come over, cookies for work, cookies for neighbors, etc.  Plus, I kind of like the idea of being an old fashioned wife/mom type without actually being an old fashioned wife/mom type.  And, my husband was all for the idea.  So that's how this whole cookie challenge thing started.  Now let me be clear, I am not giving myself a deadline - I'm not doing that whole Julie/Julia thing where she almost destroys her marriage and puts all this pressure on herself to make all those recipes within a year - that's just crazy.  I will just be recording the cookies that I make, how it went, funny anecdotes about making these recipes and generally what's going on my life around these times.

Ok - so cookie #1 and #2 (10-20-11 and 10-21-11):
Monster cookies and Lemon Crumb Bars - I made these just to have cookies in the house - oh yeah, and I decided to have coffee over at my house for my Grandma and Mom.  I invited my sister and her 3 boys over as well.  Her youngest (Cullen - 6 years old) deemed them not good because the Monster cookies had nuts in them and I'm not sure why he didn't like the lemon bars.  He drank root beer instead.  I gave the bars 3 smiley faces and the cookies 2 smiley faces (frankly my Mom's monster cookies are better).  My husband gave the monster cookies 4 smiley faces - he would have given them a 5 but he wanted to save a 5 for something truly remarkable. 
I also had old lady game night (more on this later) so needed cookies for that too.

Cookies #3, 4 and5 (10-29-11)
Halloween time
So this cookbook has tons of holiday themed cookies - I picked out 3 to do on the Saturday of my brother's Halloween party.  3 types of cookies, 2 of which were rather involved - I will not repeat that mistake again.
Boo-rrific kisses - actually very easy - a merangue type cookie - they look like little ghosts - however do not keep well.
Pumpkin cookie pops - Huge hit both at the party and school (I'm a teacher by the way - so school is work and vice versa).  These are pumpkin flavored cookies that I put on a popsicle stick, put orange frosting on and made pumpkin faces. Yes, time consuming.
Boneyard cookies - these were supposed to be made out of bone cookie cutters but I could only find a bone cutter at Petsmart (looked everywhere) and they were $10 and really for making your own dog biscuits - so I went with a ghost cookie cutter.  Problem: these are sandwich cookies.  You need to cut out the cookies, put jam in between them - put the cookies together and dip it in white chocolate.  I will never be making these again.  Two ghost cut outs don't match up too well. 
So made these all, dressed up as a tree (my husband was the lumberjack) and brought them to a Halloween party - like I said - I won't be repeating that day.

#6 Chewy Surprise Cookies (11-3-11)-
The best cookie ever (so far)  No school on that Friday!! Whoo hoo.  Teachers still had to work and we were having a pot luck.  This cookie was in the big batch bonanza section of the cookbook.  Not much to say except this peanut butter cookie with melted milk dud in the center were eaten quickly. 

#7 (11-5-11)
Sister Sarah has party for people to see her new house.  I have 3 siblings by the way if you're trying to figure it out - older twin sisters and older brother.  2 of the 3 are married, 3rd is getting married next year.  Between the 2 married, I have 7 nieces and nephews.  One set of twin nephews (11) 3 other nephews and two nieces.
Sarah bought my Grandma's house after she was moved to the nursing home (Alzheimer's).  We tried selling the house, couldn't, so Sarah bought it. 
Anyways - had dinner at Sarah's on Friday, told her I'd whip up a batch of cookies since I started this whole exhausting challenge thing.  Found a recipe that I had all the ingredients for: Chocolate Peanut Butter Drops - kind of wierd to make since it called for oil instead of butter. 
Here's the problem though - so it was my husband's Aunt Betty's birthday.  And on Facebook I wished her a happy birthday and then said - I'll make a batch of cookies for you.  Innocent, sure - sounded like fun.  I could be the relative that sends cookies on people's birthdays.  However, Mike (my husband) has 8 Aunts and Uncles on just the one side and of course all of them are married and there are a bugzillion cousins.  So I put that on facebook and now everyone's like, I like cookies and my birthday is coming up.  Whoops!! Not sure how I'm going to afford sending out all these packages of cookies. 

#8 Malted Milk Cookies (11-10-11)
Dang - another birthday - this time, my Mother in laws.  So I was thinking her birthday was on the 16th - so I planned to make the cookies over the weekend - then find out nope, her birthday's on the 12th - now I gotta make these cookies like now, on a Thursday after a busy week of working with Kindergarten students (I do ELL for a kindergarten team).  I so don't want to make cookies right now.  So I make em anyway - and I completely failed - they spread way too much and were kind of wierdly chewy.  (tip: If cookies spread too much, try replacing some of the butter in the recipe with shortening).  I can't send these to my Mother in law.  I am NOT making another batch tonight though.  So my Mother in law will just get her birthday cookies late. Which brings me to batch #9:
Championship Cookies:
These have snickers in them and a little cinnamon and oatmeal.  All in all pretty good - sent these off to Indiana.  I pawned the Malted milk cookies off on my husband, dad and Uncle.  Dad and Uncle come over to the house a lot to do remodeling work.  It's rather annoying to have to clean the kitchen of dust every week - but yet I'm eternally grateful that I get free remodeling work on my house - people I know might be reading this and I need my dad to know that I am very grateful - not complaining.

So this is about where I took a break for a few weeks and where I'm going to stop now.  I'll try to catch up to now later.