Cold & Cookies!

Brrrrrr!!!! The cold front the weatherman warned us about hit Toowoomba last night! In fact, I can almost tell you the TIME it hit, as we were at a 21st party, sitting in a marquee and after a brief rain shower, the wind changed and I'm pretty sure it was blowing up from the antarctic!! It whistled under the sides of the marquee and up my skirt - how RUDE!! And today has just been plain NASTY!! The temperature didn't climb above 15 degrees and the westerly winds were roaring through at about 40km/h. So what did I do? I stayed INSIDE!!! I'm not as silly as I look! OK, that's where you all jump in and insist that I don't look at all silly ... SIGH!! It's hard to get good help!!!

So with outside being a very undesirable destination, I hit the sewing room to work on the curtains for our newly painted and decorated bedroom. I won't give you a running commentary, because I suspect there would be a lot of "BEEEEEEP"s! I chose a gorgeous burgundy voile for the drape and it did NOT want to stay where it was put - slippery little sucker!! I'm not 100% happy with the outcome and may still fiddle a bit more to get it right (the whole 'slippery sucker' thing means the fabric doesn't like to stay where it's draped!!) but it's heading in the general direction I was wanting. Take a peek ...


I love the burgundy against the teal and the white keeps it from being too dark without taking away from the rich colours. You should have seen me trying to get the two sides even, though!! Who needs an aerobic workout or a 'step' class! Just hang some draped curtains! I would go up one side of the ladder and fix that side, then down the ladder, then up the other side and fix that side, back down the ladder - stand back, have a look, mutter that the sides were uneven and start the process all over again!! If the truth be known, I think it's still uneven, but my poor dodgy knee wasn't going to make it up and down the ladder for the 78th time!!! On the up side, for the half hour I was up and down the ladder, I was warm!! Tee! Hee! Hee!

The other thing I did to keep warm was bake!! Now, this was actually not as simple as it sounds, either! You see, it was SO cold, that I had trouble getting the butter soft enough to do the 'cream butter and sugar' step of my recipe!! After scattering a fair amount of sugar from the bowl in several aborted attempts, I found a solution - I filled the sink with hot water and sat my mixing bowl in it, then creamed the butter and sugar while the bowl sat in the water. OK, so it's a little unorthodox and would've made a really funny photo if anyone had been on hand with a camera, but it got the job done and the result was ...


In the words of a famous blue Muppet monster ... "COOKIES!!!!" Tee! Hee! Hee! Actually, we usually refer to them as 'bickies' in our house and these are my world-famous ... Australia-famous ... OK, famous in my immediate circle of friends ... choc-chip bickies and they are YUMMY!! I've passed the recipe on to Chookyblue to try and she dropped an email today to tell me she was baking too, so we'll see what her verdict is!! I actually split my batch into two - half with choc chips for the chocoholic Geek Boy and half with craisins for me. What could be better on a nasty cold day than a cup of hot chocolate and some freshly baked bickies - apart from a sudden heat wave, of course! Tee Hee! Hee!

So ... that was my day today. I was actually pretty pleased to cross several things off my 'to do' list this weekend, including the bickies and curtains, so hopefully the rest of the week will be as productive - it's always good to start with high goals for the week ahead! Tee! Hee! Hee! Right now, however, I'm off to find some bed socks and a hot pack to warm up my cold tootsies. Hope you're cosy and warm whatever you're up to tonight! Til next time, Bear Hugs!

CHEERS!
KRIS