Jennifer's 365 Project

I've had this recipe floating around in my head ever since I saw it on pinterest, so tonight was the night. I was going to make these Graham Cracker S'mores Cookies.

I didn't have two full packages of regular graham crackers, so I did half a baking sheet of cinnamon flavor and half with the regular honey flavor.
I made up the cookie dough batch and put generous balls of dough on top of the crackers.

I ended up with quite a bit of dough left over, but that's ok.That just means regular cookies as well!
The cookies didn't quite spread and cover the graham crackers like I thought and they were still not quite cooked after the initial 12 minutes, so I pressed them down a bit with a spatula and put them back in the oven. I think I would have been better off with smaller cookie clumps and just more of them, instead of trying to do one ball per graham cracker square.
The results were delicious! A gooey center and a tasty graham cracker bottom.

Chris wanted to see John Carter today and although I reservations about it, I agreed to go see it. The movie had the tell-tale of a cheesy fantasy or sci-fi movie, at least based on the trailers.

It was better than I'd expected, but I wouldn't say it was great. With a token "strong" female character (which ultimately still needs to be rescued. Why? Because it is apparently difficult to write any other type of female character) I was instantly off-put. Combine that with cookie-cutter character archetypes and plot and I'd say the movie was manufactured to be what it is.

I honestly have a really hard time with most movies. They're typically too short for the type of character development I crave and rarely feature complex/morally ambiguous characters. I've been told I'm too critical and don't like any movies (I like Monty Python movies! Don't those count?). So maybe you shouldn't take my word on this movie.

I've started to read the book, A Princess of Mars, which the movie is based on (I usually try to read them before seeing a movie). I'm already more interested in the book.

Anyway, onto the chairs. Because really, that's what the photos about.

While we were out on Alpine to see the movie, we swung by the store to see some chairs Chris has been eying for awhile. They were on sale so Chris wanted to pick them up while there was a good deal.

Well, we just have one car between us and I wouldn't say the Fusion is very good in terms of space. So that meant if we wanted the chairs, we were going to have to jam them in the trunk and strap everything down.

So that's what we did.

Thanks, mom and dad, for those bungie cords when I first got my license. I can't tell you how many times, over the years, I've used those things.

I didn't really want to do anything today. The corner where Peppy's cage was is all weird without it. So I spent a big chunk of the day moping around. And getting sick.

In the afternoon, with the weather so nice, Chris strongly encouraged me to go outside. So we took a nice stroll down Kent Trails. I then got it in my head that I really wanted a mint chocolate chip shake.

I love mint chocolate chip shakes.

Chris asked me if I wanted a Shamrock shake. I'd never had one...so I said I'd try one.

It's not bad. But it's no mint chocolate chip shake. Mostly cause there's no chocolate chips.

There was a lot of this all evening.

When I first moved out to Grand Rapids  I was still getting my bearings straight when I met this little girl. I had a whole business of ferrets at home and I was out picking up some ferret supplies on a January night in 2005.

I passed one of the cages and there was a little kit (baby ferret) for adoption. The previous owners had purchased her from the pet store and returned her because she was "deaf."
She even loved the cat, although I can't say that was ever reciprocated.
This type of playing is about as involved as they ever got. But she tried. A lot.
Mostly she enjoyed playing by herself in boxes we cut holes in or dyer hoses we tossed around the place.
But, as you know from yesterday's post, Peppy was quite ill.

We took her in first thing in the morning and got her on some medication to try to stabilize her.

Unfortunately, as can sometimes be the case, her little body was tired. It was time to let her go.

I will miss her noises, her weasel war dance, and her adorable kisses.

Goodbye Peppy.

We came home to a sick little ferret. Coated in small bruises and odd things in her litter pan, she still refused to admit she didn't feel too good. If you're home, she's up and ready for adventure no matter what. And licking. She loves to lick people.

We took her to the only emergency clinic I know out on Plainfield. We spent a few hours there, they did some blood work, and most things looked fine. Shes anemic, but I suppose that is to be expected with the blood loss and bruising.

Diseases were eliminated but none were diagnosed. We came home with a bottle of meds and an advisement to see a ferret specialist.

So right now she's resting in her cage and hopefully we will find the cause of her symptoms soon.

I bought a box of English tea (P&G) this weekend to try. I made sure I was buying tea bags and not loose tea so I could take the box with me to work.

Silly me. It never occurred to me that there would be no strings on the bags.

So I improvised and used a paper clip to save myself the hassle of trying to fish out a bag from the bottom of a mug of hot water.

That was the most exciting thing all day...

Mass Effect 3 comes out tomorrow and I'm still on the first game.
Curse you wrist pain preventing me from gaming!

I noticed that a small tub of sour cream I'd bought was going to expire this week, so I had to either freeze it or get baking.

Since my solution is usually to freeze the leftovers of whatever batch of cookies, muffins, meatballs, dough or anything else I might not use before it goes bad, our freezer is pretty full.

I'd originally bought the sour cream to make sour cream coffee cake from a much loved and abused cookbook. The poor thing is just over 10 years and already the spine is falling apart. This is why the HP Touchpad tablet is a great thing for the kitchen. I'm less apt to spill something on it because Chris has cleverly placed it away from surfaces I bake on.

Anyway, I made half a sour cream coffee cake (I only had half the sour cream required). The cat was very excited.
 While I was at it I decided I'd make some tasty olive garden copycat breadsticks for dinner. If not for the magic of people pinning things on pinterest, I might not have discovered this delicious recipe. I've tried a lot of copycat recipes over the years for various things and not all of them are any good so it wouldn't have even occurred to me to search for such a thing.
I tried my hand at one last thing. A co-worker loaned me her Cake Mix Doctor cookbook. Basically you take a box of cake mix, add some other things, and voila, you have a more awesome tasty cake than what the box recipe calls for.

The cake you're looking at there? It's a pecan pie bar cake. Why does it look so funky? Because I have no patience and didn't wait for the initial layer of cake to cool before adding the topping coat. I can assure you though, the cake was tasty just the same.

Amidst all this baking I never made biscotti. I've been craving some the last few weeks and told myself I couldn't buy any I had to make some. So after all this baking I was too lazy to start in on a biscotti recipe.

Maybe next weekend...

It was starting to snow when Chris and I left the apartment in the morning. Any thoughts of trekking through a park or enjoying the unseasonably warm winter were forgotten. Instead we ran some errands and hurried back into a warm apartment.
I spent the afternoon watching the entire first season of Downton Abbey while knitting Chris's scarf off and on. It's as long as his current scarf, which is on the short side, and almost done. Just half a foot more...

Chris has purchased some interesting things on the internet, including another potato chip maker.

I couldn't stop laughing when I saw this at lunch.

Yes, it was a slow day.