My Day Off and Cookie Fail

Earlier this week, I wrote about how I get today off from work for NEOEA Day. I had lots of plans to relax, take a hot bubble bath, and read for hours. Yeah, none of that happened.

You see, I woke up with the insatiable urge to create something. Cookies, specifically. I really wanted to make some Halloween cookies. But I didn't want it to take me 7 hours like my fall cookies did. After doing a little bit of research on google: images, I came up with what I thought was a brilliant idea: I'd make all my cookies just plain and round. I'd only use black and white royal icing to decorate them so they'd look like silhouettes or shadows. I thought this was such a great idea, and would take much less time!

So I got ready to bake. I cleaned up the kitchen and created my little baking studio again. I donned my sock monkey slippers for the first time this year, because it's freezing, and they are just too cute and cozy (it's supposed to snow this weekend...that's how cold it is here).

Side note...the first time I tried to take the picture of my slippers, Ellie climbed up my jeans because she wanted to cuddle with me. I caught her mid-climb. She's so precious!

Okay HERE are the slippers...

And when I'm baking, I always have to put on some cheerful music. I couldn't resist putting in this CD today since it's wintery-cold outside. I know, I have a problem :-P
And then to get me started, I baked some of these Pillsbury Ready-to-Bake cookies. Okay, so really it was just for back-up cookies in case something went wrong with mine!
And then I made my Halloween cookies. A select few turned out okay. Most of them are shoved in ziplock bags hidden in a drawer because they did not turn out so well. I was just having an off day I guess. The consistency of my royal icing didn't turn out quite right this time. And my cookies were pretty small and I realized that my decorating tips are just way too big for them (size 5 was the smallest I could find at Wal Mart). Plus there was such a contrast between the black and the white icing that every little slip-up was completely visible. At leat this time it didn't take me 7 hours! But it did take 4.5. Sigh, I kinda wish I had just relaxed all day like my original plan :-)

Well anyway, here are the few cookies that I thought turned out somewhat decent:
Still not completely dry!

I think I'll bring the good ones down to my grandma, along with Ellie. Grandma loves Ellie! So I guess it wasn't completely a waste.

Later tonight I am working in the nursery during the Power Team (incredibly strong guys who break and bend things and travel the country telling about Jesus:-)) service at my church. I got to go watch them last night and it was pretty cool. Made me kind of nervous though...I'm okay with only being able to go once (I'll be working in the nursery the next 3 nights that they're here). It was more for the teens and kids in the community anyway...they seemed to enjoy it a lot, and lots of people were saved! Luke is on the clean up crew all week, and he gets to clear off all the broken things on stage between their stunts. Yesterday, he got to travel to three different schools with them and he even got to the gym and work out with them! Geeze, Luke gets to do all the fun stuff! He got to bring Reggie Dabbs back from the airport when he visited our church last year, he's eaten dinner with Remedy Drive and opened for them, now he got to hang out with The Power Team for a day, and in November, he gets to meet bunches of big Christian bands when he plays at youth explosion! He's just a lucky guy, I guess. And I'm really not jealous, I would probably be way too nervous around all those "famous" people (famous-ish in the Christian community, that is).

And who knows what the rest of the weekend will bring. More Power Team, hopefully some time with Luke, and maybe some snow!!