Happy 1st Birthday Lil' D!

Fresh out of the oven.

Today my Lil' D, my little B-dawg, Birdie Belle, Cutie-Pie Jones, etc. turns one.

I haven't quite wrapped my head around all that has happened this first year but man oh man I do love that funny girl of mine.

More to come after our birthday party extravaganza weekend.

One cool chick. Happy Birthday to the love of my life!

Valentine's Day Cookie Time

After my years in school (the schools before college) where Valentine's Day was, like, the biggest deal ever, I've been pretty bah humbug about February 14th. I never wanted a significant other to gift me overpriced roses, a stuffed animal, or chocolates. I never felt bad about myself for being single on Hallmark lover's day. And I gave up on going out to dinner about five, tasteless, overpriced Valentine's prix-fixes ago.

But last year in the midst of my struggle I hobbled out of bed and made the simplest little heart garland for JTS. It's tough being a nurse and I wanted to show him that I appreciated his constant help. It made me happy. It made him happy. It was SO simple even someone in bed for 22 hours a day could do it.

So I got to thinking (Yeah, I'm totally ahead of the curve on this one. Brace yourself). Valentine's Day doesn't have to be about romantic love but really it can just be a celebration of the ones you love - friends, family, children, and/or a partner. It's fun and fuzzy to take some time out of your busy non-loving year and show some love.

So in honor of showing some love - here is a delightful recipe for Valentine's Day cookies. These cookies are from an ex-boyfriend's mother's repertoire. They are so delicious that the Valentine's Day after we broke up I e-mailed him to ask for the recipe.

And then I made them for myself.

I carve them into hearts with a small knife (hmmm...that sounds dramatic but it's the truth) because I don't have a heart shaped cookie cutter. I find the cookies more endearing that way anyway.

Valentine's Day Heart Cookies So Good You'll Ring Up An Ex

give these hearts away next year to everyone you love who doesn't have diabetes

Cookies

1 cup soft butter (2 sticks, but it sounds less as 1 cup)

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

2 1/2 cups sifted all-purposed flour

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

2 cups of rolled oats (quick or old-fashioned) uncooked

Beat butter and sugar together until creamy. Beat in eggs, vanilla, and almond. In a separate bowl sift flour, salt and baking powder together. Add to creamed mixture. Beat well. Stir in oats as evenly as possible and chill thoroughly (I've had success with 2 hours in the fridge, but they could definitely go longer). Roll out on a lightly floured surface to 1/4" thickness. Cut out into heart (here my ex-boyfriend wrote "or broken-heart") shapes. Bake at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes. Note: These cookies are thin and on the harder side - they get the slightest bit golden brown. But not too much so be careful.

Icing

3/4 cup soft butter

4 cups sifted powdered sugar
(wasn't kidding about the diabetes - I cut this down to 2.5 cups and was fine)

1 egg white unbeaten

1 teaspoon vanilla

red food color / candy hearts

Beat butter till fluffy. Add 1 cup powdered sugar gradually. Blend in egg white and vanilla. Beat in remaining 1.5 cups powdered sugar. Add red food coloring to desired shade. Frost cookies straight out of the oven so it melts. Frost 2-3x for a thick coat. Add candy hearts, sprinkles, or cinnamon dots (Although after giving these out to everyone I loved this year I found out that cinnamon dots are very divisive).

P.S. Never fear, dear reader, this shan't become a food blog anytime soon. The reasons are simple. 1) I cannot cook (only a small cache of hand-picked items) and 2. I am a terrible photographer (see above). If you do like food blogs a real good one is 6inthemorningside.

Daydreamer

I don't know about you but I spent the majority of my free time as a child making up stuff.

I either physically made things or made up stories or a combination of both.

My brother and I improved our fort with sticks and rocks, I talked to daffodils to cheer them up, I created and distributed our family "newspaper"  (readership of 4), I made a whole slew of little toothpick dolls that lived in a large matchbox, I drew elaborate fantasy homes, I burned paper to make it look like it was saved from a shipwreck.

I wrote and I wrote and I wrote.

Then I grew up. (But I don't think I really did).

I'm a daydreamer. And while you can force the daydreamer to dream practically, you can't really force them not to dream.

So a lot of the time I think of a cool project or something I want to try, to get my hands on, to get my hands dirty with and my first thought now is: Nope. That's ridiculous. That would take too much time. Too much time creating something that has an 85% chance of being a waste of time. Waste of time here being defined as something that does not make me money, make the house cleaner, make me famous, or actively work to feed or cloth myself or my family.

Then I go about doing something practical like working on a business plan or cleaning the bathtub and I think a small part of me gets a little sadder.

I read this wonderful piece about the "Power of the Meaningless" recently by an old, sort of friend, Josh Epperson. I say sort of because I didn't really know him that well. He was my friend's roommate. He was always a very nice guy and fun to be around but I didn't really know him: turns out he now writes incredibly fascinating articles for medium.com that really speak to me. If I still lived in Richmond I would want to grab a coffee.

Read it to fill up your spirit with some joy.

I'm rereading it, dusting off my daydreamer heart and heading out into my living room to figure out some meaningless side projects to dig into and smile about because I need the meaningless.

I need to write poems whether they are good or not. I need to paint and glue and cut even though my adult brain knows I'm not that great of a crafter or a painter or a cutter. At 33 I realize I need to create in whatever form that takes me.

"Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything." George Lois