Thursday: TMI

Hello. Last Thursday, not the most recent last one but the one before, I had the day off. I’ve had both of the last Thursdays off but I am going to speak about the most previous one today. (Lots of word padding going on!)

I can’t remember what I did for breakfast that day, I feel like it was something worth mentioning but I cannot remember what it was. I got a little bit of a late start to my day. I was going to head out on my errands by, say, 8:30 but I think it was probably 9:30 or so before I left the house. I went with Heather because she also had some errands to run and it would be more economical to do that together. (More economical for her to come with me ‘cause then she wouldn’t have to pay for transportation. Woo!)

I got the oil changed in my car. That was one of the errands. I also got one of my headlights replaced. Both chores were way overdue. I don’t know how long that headlight has been out but it’s been a long time, at least a couple months. The sticker on the windshield of my car said my next oil change was due mid-December. *cough* I am a procrastinator; not proud of it by any means. The place I got my oil changed was very classy. They even vacuumed out my car and washed the windows! Talk about nice service. Haha Seriously, my windows look spa’kling and the lack of crumbs on the floor? So awesome.

I also went to the grocery store and bought cookie making stuff. Sugar, chocolate chips, vanilla, peanut butter, and all that good stuff. (Speaking of grocery shopping, I haven’t gone yet this weekend! How will I feed myself next week? Maybe I can mooch this week? Probably not, I will have to go after work tomorrow. Bother.)

The cookie making was very excellent. Kelsey and I worked together in joint effort. I would make the dough and she would form the cookies. The dough I made was following several recipes that I found on Domino Sugar’s website. In their recipe section they have a 1001 Cookie Starter recipe. It’s a concoction of sugar, flour, baking powder, and butter. You mix it together and then store it until you want to make cookies. We weren’t storing the mixture but I figured it would be an easier way to make several different cookies.

I took some of the mixture and made chocolate chip cookies, I then made the same exact recipe but used mini m&ms instead of chocolate chips. We also made peanut butter cookies and peanut butter cookies with chocolate chips. We had a little bit of base left over at the end of it all. I put it in the freezer, I am not sure what I am going to do with it.

Kelsey did the ball forming part because I told her to. She made ball after ball after ball, all of the same size! It was very impressive. She formed the cookies, we flash froze them, and then put them in Ziploc bags and put them in the freezer for a later date. We froze four dozen each of the chocolate chip and m&m ones. We ended up with four dozen peanut butter with chocolate chip cookies and three dozen plain peanut butter cookies. We  froze them in even dozens because, well, because I like even numbers. Also, any of the extra left over cookies we could bake. And then eat! Always freeze in even dozens, people.

(The purpose behind this extravaganza was to heal some guilty feelings. Kelsey and I go square dancing all the time and then, when we eat afterward? We always eat like pigs even though we don’t contribute to the feast. It’s because we are forgetful and are very busy and never have anything appropriate on hand. So now, we have cookies to bring! All we have to do is bake them. Fifteen minutes max. Now all we have to worry about is when we make them and wrap them up for travel and then forget them on the countertop. But we would never do that!)

(Other side note, so far we’ve baked two dozen of the cookie balls. How many cookies do we have left? I think we have more or less all of the chocolate chip ones, maybe half or two-thirds of the m&m ones, and then about six balls of the other two batches combined. Apparently frozen cookie dough makes a good snack!)

(Forgive and forget is something I need to work on. Oy.)

After the cookie making I might have done something productive or I might have just wandered around until it was time to leave for advanced lessons. Knowing me I probably did the later. I think I might have watched something on the telly, I remember sitting on the couch and eating a cookie so, yeah, probably spent some time watching TV.

Yes, you heard me right. I am taking advanced lessons. Yes, it is the most unsocially acceptable thing to be doing. Taking advanced, seriously? I started advanced square dancing lessons about two and a half weeks after officially graduating from plus. I learned plus a little differently than most. I took a couple lessons at one place and even fewer lessons at another place. The bulk of my plus knowledge came from actual floor time, I learned most of the calls at actual dances. I danced plus dances after just a couple of lessons. The caller would call a move and I’d announce, “Ahh! I don’t know this one! What am I supposed to do?” Someone would always be there to help.

So, I feel like I actually knew plus long before I graduated from it. I feel like there was a good two months of workshops and practice of plus before moving to advanced. On the other hand, I was still really nervous before my first advanced lesson. I was coming in on the fifth week of lessons so I was starting out behind the rest of the crowd. I felt like I was going from simple addition to Algebra II without any of the between stuff. I was so nervous.

However, my first lesson wasn’t so bad! I found out, much to my surprise, I don’t exactly fail advanced. The teacher did review all my first night, he went through just about every call they’d already covered and just quickly showed me what to do. Everyone also seemed fairly unannoyed by the fact they had to start over from the beginning just for me.

My first lesson was totally fun. Advanced might not be quite a piece of cake but it’s not a jaw breaker, either.

Woohoo. Thus ends my rather-longer-than-it-needed-to-be tale of last Thursday, my one day staycation.