I enjoy time alone as much as the next person, but after a lightning strike fried the alarm system at the house last week (an ongoing insurance saga), I felt a certain level of anxiety from having to spend yesterday evening entirely alone without the security of having a loud siren to scare away potential intruders.

After finishing the novel Disgrace and flipping through some sewing books, I decided that the only way I could truly relax was if I had a cookie. It was nearly midnight. Surely, no one would attempt to murder a girl in her home-made apron while she was baking cookies at nearly midnight.

I baked six delightfully yummy caramel and chocolate chip cookies using a simple recipe in Small-Batch Baking, a book with recipes to yield small portions for two or three people. Now, if only I can make two or three friends.

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You’re welcome.

Having been a long time admirer of Andrea’s blog Never Bashful with Butter (she’s a professional baker), I decided to take the plunge and make her Apricot Cream Cheese Butter Cookies. Again, I didn’t have vanilla extract on hand so I used almond extract instead and used organic apricot and apple baby food. In her recipe, she suggests using melting white chocolate to drizzle over the cookies to help prevent the cookies from sticking together. First, I tried to melted the white chocolate chips in the microwave until 2 minutes later, I had a burned gooey messy that made the whole house smell like smores. I decided to go with the saucepan method then, once it was successfully melted, I spooned the chocolate into a zip lock bag and snipped off the end to create a decorating bag (per Andrea’s brilliant baking advice).

And hour after mixing, kneading, baking and assembling, I had soft, sweet, scrumptious cookies.

Franki at the trendy life in a venti cup, mentioned me in a thoughtful entry about letter writing and stationary. I sent her a note from a fabulous card set I received as a graduation gift and still have more to give! I’m sending out notes to blog readers and writers alike so send me your snail mail address through my About Me page!

I won a vintage paper giveaway from Elegant Musings and received a great collection of vintage paper from magazines and books. I think some have the potential to turn into handmade envelopes.

I was also going to complain about Kelly Clarkson’s obnoxious new song and video “Never Again” but why ruin a perfectly good day?