Pumpkin chocolate chip cookies

A couple weeks ago, while I was at work, my sister texted me asking for my delicious pumpkin chocolate chip cookie recipe. I jumped online and into my Pinterest version 1.0, a.k.a the folder labeled “recipes” in my personal email and began scouring it for the recipe. But it wasn’t there!

I told her it must be at home and after work, looked through my recipe folder but still couldn’t find it. I began to panic. This is my famous recipe. A go to fall recipe that everyone loves! 7 days and a mild panic attack later, I remembered there was a girl on facebook that I talked with about it, well over a year ago. Only problem with that is, I’m no longer on facebook and didn’t know how to get her recipe (that was almost identical to mine).

I sent a 911 email to my friend who I hoped was friend’s with her on facebook, when I decided to reactivate to contact this girl directly. As I’m writing out my covert “I’m on facebook but not really on facebook” message, I thought I’d check my private messages just in case I still had it. Lo and behold there it was, sitting pretty with both of us comparing our recipes.

I texted my sister! I texted my friend! I texted myself! {ok, not really} I was so excited!

I promised work I’d make them for our potluck today and I went to work on them last night. OOh how they’re so good.

I bring you, my cookies.

Let me break it down for you:

Here’s everything you’ll need. {milk and eggs not shown}

Mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Mix all the wet ingredients together in a larger bowl and slowly add the dry until smooth.

Add all the chocolate chips you desire…then realize it wasn’t enough and add a whole bag more.

Stir with a wooden spoon to combine and plop them on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake, remove and let cool.

They are soft cookies. Not your crunchy variety by any means.

Now for the breakdown:

2 Cups Pumpkin
2 tsp Baking Soda
4 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Salt
2 tsp Cinnamon
4 Cups Flour
2 Cups Sugar
2 Beaten Eggs
2 Tbsp Milk
1 Cup Vegetable Oil*
2 tsp Vanilla
6-12 oz Chocolate Chips

Preheat over to 375 degrees.
Combine all dry ingredients together. Combine all wet ingredients. Slowly add dry into wet until blended. Add chocolate chips. Place by the teaspoon size on cookie sheet (non greased)
Bake for 12-15 minutes. Let sit, transfer to cooling rack.

*substitutes for vegetable oil (though I’ve only used vegetable oil)
1 C butter or
1 C shortening
these substitutes will require you to grease your cookie sheet, cream the butter or shortening w/the sugar, adding an egg one at a time, then remaining wet, then dry.
{again, I’ve only followed my recipe}

They are so delicious! Have a great weekend, friends!!

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Signs that speak truth

I’m feeling signs today. Maybe you are too once you read them. I’m busier than a mule at harvest, (…I have no idea where that came from, but let’s go with it) and haven’t really had a moment to breathe ‘blog’ but I felt signs were words enough for me, right now.
appropriate given the above statement..
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if you don’t drink coffee, well I don’t see how you survive..
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nothing but the truth here..
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this is me about 95% of the time. If you only knew how anti social I really am..
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I’ll admit I’m guilty of this..or even guilty of judging someone for something I’ve done..but its different when they do it, ya know?
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To give an idea to how my days have been, yesterday, I came home from work, changed into my workout clothes and fell asleep on the couch. I am darn near tuckered out. I don’t normally say this but I am looking forward to this weekend where all I have to do is a sunrise photo shoot. Not one thing more. A weekend all to myself. Glory be, I can’t wait!

A weekend off is just what I’m been needing lately.

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A thankful me - 36

Hi ho everyone! Let’s all pause and reflect on the fact it’s the last week of the month. Oh my dear goodness this is hard to fathom. The start of my weekend was busy but thankfully by 7pm Saturday it was nothing but restful. Just how I like to round it out, if you ask me.

I had a bit of anxiety since my friend came for a quick visit Thursday that involved a meeting at my house that left a lot of trash and dishes. Trash and dishes that couldn’t be cleaned up until Saturday evening (I was so busy) and I was having the most difficult time seeing it all. Once I got home at 5 that night, I spent the next 3 hours cleaning. Best part was making a long list and crossing each and every single one of those things off. aahhh, satisfaction indeed.

Today is my sister in law’s birthday, so (though she doesn’t read my blog) I wanted to give a hearty happy birthday to her!

Today there’s so many things to be thankful for..for one..
- bacon. I’m sorry. I can’t help it. I love bacon and the fact there were still some left in my fridge to have a BLAT (bacon, lettuce, avocado and tomato) made me endlessly happy
- my friend flying in for 24 hours and getting 7 1/2 hours of that 24 to hangout with her
- realizing my backseat in my car reclines. The fact I’ve owned the SUV for 2 years and have been eating my lunch in the backseat of said SUV for the past 4 months has not been lost on me. All that to say, it made my day knowing I could recline.
- long emails from friends. They really are a day brightener, not to mention my daily back and forth emails to my mom while we both work.
- your love over my eyebrows! Who knew that would make me so happy!? But know that it did. =)
- seeing the show on History 2 Channel, “How the States Got Their Shapes”. It is such a good show and so informative! I never realized that I would enjoy watching history shows or learning about history. Clearly a sign of me getting older because younger..? I couldn’t care less about any of it.

And then some extra special things…
- using a belt in my hair for a little extra something. Scooping peanut butter with my Hershey’s (best idea EVER) and making a real breakfast for the first time in weeks and weeks!


How’d your weekend fair?

I had the worst itch to spend a ton of money over the weekend, it was unbearable! Do you ever get that way?

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September photo challenge–week 3

We’re at week three and I’m going for a bit of a different approach for this week. The three to choose from are stranger, family and life.  I went for life but more so what my life has been lately. Beyond the driving everywhere, another thing has been my life lately.

As I’ve mentioned just recently, I sell lia sophia jewelry. Have for just about 2 years now and its pretty fun. I haven’t really talked about it on the blog because mainly, I’m not here to push it or make a sale off anyone. So its not something that needs to come up.

Over the past 7 months, its been pretty consistent at keeping me busy. Kind of too busy (which is good), since having my full time job to work around it. It can keep me up pretty late, like last night especially, with helping customers or with my new girl entering in her first party, walking her through each and every step until after 10pm last night.

But this is what I do. This is pretty much what I am and what’s become a huge part of my life. And truthfully, I rather like it…and even more so, I’m pretty darn good at it.

I like helping my girls learn what they’re doing and I like figuring out how a customer can get 3 things for the price of the one they planned and watching their face go from ‘are you crazy?’ to sheer excitement. …not to mention, all that jewelry being mine sure doesn’t hurt.

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Changing the direction

No, I’m not changing the direction of my blog. Like it ever had a direction to begin with.  I’m talking about changing up your direction to and from work. Or to and from home.

Yes, this will be a paranoid post by yours truly.

Remember, I’m an expert in these things… Almost from the beginning I was told it was important to never establish a routine in prison. Never walk the tier in the same direction twice, never leave the office at the same time, never go the bathroom, make a phone call, open a cell door, eat your lunch, pop inmates out at the same time every day… doing things like “clock work” was or could very well be your death sentence (or someone else’s)

Same can be applied to your day to day life.

I have to drive through the ghetto in order to get to work. You can change the name to lessen the blow; ‘less than desirable part of town’ but either way, it’s a druggie filled area that I get to work in… I get to watch the same druggies walk by the office and in so doing see whether they’re drug free (at that moment in time) or doped up as they walk by. Not to mention the gang members, homeless, scam artists and families who love them, smoking in their baby’s face while they walk by my lovely floor to ceiling window.

I started to develop the same route to and from work. Driving the same road where they’d all be hanging out at the liquor store and in their front yards watching cars go by. Where the girl would be spraying her husband’s face with the water hose while he had to do pushups in their front walk way and him not being able to breathe…you know, the normal things couples do for all to witness.

It wasn’t until one Friday morning, I was driving down the road and there were cars and people everywhere, lined up over a block long at the Salvation Army, that this one beat up mini van was going under 5mph for reasons I do not know. I couldn’t take it any longer and blared my horn nice and long and when I finally had that inch I needed, sped past him. It wasn’t until that moment I realized I may have rocked the boat on my route a bit.

There were a lot of people out that morning who heard the horn, saw the car and no doubt, saw me. I’m sure they’re used to noise and drama but I would prefer to stay out of it, so I realized it was time I took a break from that route. For the next 3 weeks, I went a different direction to and from work. Alternating between 2 routes. It was longer and more painful since there was more traffic, but I wanted to break the routine I had created.

Now I change it up between 4 different routes. Never taking the same street twice in one day. You can call me paranoid, obsessive, crazy or whatever else you want to think of, but there’s one thing I will always be. And that’s cautious.
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They watch you. They see the direction you drive and they see the time you drive it. They know when you get home, when you arrive at work and the minute you pass by their place.

My advice to you is: Change it up. Find a different route to work, to home, to school. Make if more difficult for those who are looking to track your schedule. Oh, and of course…take those stupid decal stickers off…cause you know, that’s an obvious bullseye.

Do you take the same route every day or do you make the effort to change it up?

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Filling them in

I felt compelled to show you just how much filling in {my} eyebrows really makes a difference. Since quite a few of you mentioned you don’t do it, I thought I’d let you see how it can change the look making it more complete, so to speak.

When I took the first set of pictures, I did it with greasy hair and after only one cup of coffee. Not something I recommend doing (the only having one cup of coffee first, that is). To say I looked like a hot mess is an understatement. What’s sad is I even had my ‘full makeup’ on minus the ‘eyebrows’. So after quite a bit of inner turmoil of, ‘to show myself as the less than perfect person that I am, or maintain my pristine image on here’, I made the judgment call to retake them the next morning.

Eyebrows are the first thing I do in the morning, which now that I think of it, maybe shouldn’t be. I’m barely half awake when I’m doing them, but none the less they are. I brush them first before filling them in, then brush again to smooth them all out.

First picture is of them not brushed or filled in and as you can see, they’re just messy.
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Ok, I can’t believe I’m doing this but you need to see what my messy eyebrows look like without grooming, which means showing the hot mess picture.
…my point has been proven.

Second is of them brushed only. A little better but still sparse in some areas and still not quite looking as good as they can. My face doesn’t have the shape I’m wanting.

The third and final has them completely filled in. Completing the whole look for me that I’m going for.

Do you see the difference? It’s a big difference, right?! Even if you don’t fill them in at least brush them. It will keep them from being all kinds of crazy.

What’s your eyebrow routine? Since a lot of you don’t fill them in, do you have something else you do for them? Also, did you know, if you tweeze your eyebrows too much, the hairs won’t grow back, therefore leaving you with thin to non existent eyebrows!??

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A thankful me - 35

Welcome to the start of a new week…minus a day.. you know, Sunday.

The weekend came and went and wouldn’t you know I was a social butterfly a lot of it. Ok, sort of, ok not really. If you call having 2 girls come over to my apartment to get pictures and chit chat with me then yes I was quite the social butterfly.

Although, now that I recall, I did go to a friend’s house to give her her family pictures I did back in May, which coincidentally she was pregnant and didn’t know it then. Kinda fun.

She’s now 19 weeks and as cute as can be. Sadly, the day before her baby shower, she got home with her 2 kids and while unloading the kids, noticed her dog barking at their front door. Normally, he greets her but he wouldn’t stop barking. Instantly she knew something was wrong. She looked up at a second story window and saw a curtain was pulled back that she knew she closed before leaving that morning.

She immediately loaded the kids back in the car and called the police. Her house was getting robbed at that very moment. By the time the cops arrived, the guys were long gone, but not before trashing her whole (freshly cleaned for the shower) house. They took some very precious things of hers and her husband’s and even after it being over a week since it happened, I know it still affects them.

I’m thankful they’re alright and didn’t walk in on them. I don’t even want to think of that scenario. They’re a little more paranoid right now, which is understandable and hopefully over time will be able to go back to a normal state.

Speaking of ‘things’ being taken, I came across this website called TinEye reverse image search. It allows you to put in your picture URL or your website and see if your pictures are being used anywhere else other than your blogs. I thought it was pretty great considering a lot of us have been concerned with our images and even lives being taken and recreated.

On top of spending time with friends this weekend, I scored some awesome new FALL candles. 2 for $20, anyone?! Thank you awesome deals! I’ve burned the Marshmallow Fireside and it is divine! Subtle yet delicious!

Also, since its my house and I’ll do whatever I want, I listened to Christmas music as well. Michael can sing in my house anytime.

I hope you had a fall-esque weekend yourself. You know it’s officially official this coming weekend, right? Fill me with your weekend happenings! Pin It Now!