homemade.

Every once in awhile, we all need a little boost to help make it through the day.   While I will continually advocate that a kind word is always worth sharing, it is my experience that homemade baked goods seem to go the extra mile.  In an attempt to communicate care to my fellow d/hh teachers, I grabbed my moms recipe for ginger snaps, pulled all of the ingredients from my cupboards and baked some cookies in spite of sink full of dirty dishes.  The cookies were received at staff meeting with great enthusiasm and, a whole day later, they are still the talk of the team.  Since my co-workers  have requested this recipe, I figured it had earned its place in cyberspace.  After all, I am sure you know some people who could use a little homemade pick-me-up in there day too!

Ginger Snaps 

3/4 cups shortening 

1 cup sugar 

1/4 cup molasses

1 egg

cream the above ingredients and add: 

1/4 tsp salt 

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp cloves 

1 tsp ginger 

2 tsp vanilla 

2 cups flour 

Mix. Form dough into 1 inch balls.  Roll in sugar, place on cookie sheet and press flat with a glass.  Bake at 325 degrees for 8-10 minutes.   Do not over bake.   Mild Molasses is best.   

reuniting

There is something about summer that enables people to come out of hyphenation, clear their social calendars of unnecessary obligations and reconnect with their friends.  Reuniting with friends is a pretty fantastic way to enjoy a warm summer evening if I do say so myself.  The crew pictured above are the fantastic women that endured two years of grueling graduate school with me.   We sat through hours of class together, studied in each others company and ate a lot of snacks.   It was really special to coordinate a special night out simply for the purpose of enjoying each others company without highlighters and research articles in hand.   We were able to catch up on what everyone's been up to now that our paper-writing and lecture listening days are behind us.