Good morning! It's 12:19am and I'm going strong! Keep the caffeine flowing! Did you watch Grey's Anatomy tonight? I thought it was good. Unfortunately, my brother interrupted but it's okay because Tivo is WONDERFUL! Ed and I had a good conversation. And, a good conversation with him is better than any silly tv show.

I have made the final two dishes for my cookbook AND I did a trial run on some REALLY tasty cookies. I think they're the winners. But, are you surpised that they're not the easiest! Here's the recipe:

Spicy Iced Applesauce Cookies
1 1/4 cups packed brown sugar (I used dark)
1/4 cup butter, softened (I used the real stuff)
1/4 applesauce (I had some sitting in the fridge from the photo - and it was cinnamon flavored)
1 egg
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cloves

Beat brown sugar, butter, applesauce, and egg in large bowl with electric mixer. Stir in remaining ingredients. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour until chilled. (Oh yeah, these are roll-out cookies because I wanted heart-shaped cookies.)

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Grease cookie sheet (strongly recommended and I have teflon coated sheets). Roll dough 1/8 inch thick on floured cloth-covered surface. (I skipped the cloth, but did have quite a bit of problems with the dough still sticking to my countertop.) Cut with 2 1/2 inch cookie cutters. PLace cookies about 1 inch apart on cookie sheet. Bake 7 to 9 minutes or until edges are light brown. Immediately remove from cookie sheet to wire rack. Cool completely. Frost with icing (see below). Sprinkle with colored sugar. Let icing dry 2 hours before stacking cookies. (I haven't tried the icing yet. I'm thinking of using red sugar.)

Icing ingredients:
1 envelope unflavored gelatin
1/2 cup cold water
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla
dash of salt

Oh, and this recipe was in the "Kid Kookies" section of mom's cookbook. Awfully involved for kids cookies, don't ya think?

So, after 1 sheet of the cookies, I started on the recipe cards. Someone PLEASE remind me to spell-check things. I printed the cards on 69 cent paper (4 per page) and of course realized there was a typo!!! I'm NOT fixing it. It's not really a typo, just a gramatical error. I said "flour surface" instead of "floured surface".

After that I made the chocolate eclair cake and the white chocolate honeycomb mix. So, I guess I ought to get busy doing something besides talking to myself online. Is this pathetic? How long do you think these cookies will take to make? I think one batch makes about 36 cookies. I want to give 6 to each guest. I haven't heard how many people are coming, but I think we invited 39, so I'm making 40 to be safe. Therefore, I need 240 cookies. That's like 7 batches of cookies. Am I mad??!?!?!

On that note....I'm gonna clean my house because Becky's coming tomorrow....

3:27am Update...
I'm getting giddy - or at least that's what Randy told me an hour ago. I'm starting to feel tired. I just finished a 2-page layout of peanut butter mouse pie (without the picture) and Nan's Poor Man's Cake. I officially have taken ALL of the photos for the cookbook. Hooray! So, I went to upload them to Walmart - and the site is UNDER CONSTRUCTION!!! Do they know how many people are trying to upload photos at 3:30 in the morning?!?!? It's okay. I just want them to be sitting there for them first thing so that I can pick them up by noon.

You know, a smart person would have called Becky to see what time she's coming tomorrow....well, today... However, I didn't do that. My entire day from 8am to 5pm is kind of in limbo because I don't know when to expect her. I can't have any clutter because she's gonna want to clean. That is what I pay her for!! Why didn't I just call her???? I'm actually considering sleeping/napping at my parents house.

Okay...enough of that...I think the chocolate eclair needs to go back in the fridge. I officially want NO MORE sweet food. Give me vegetables!!!!

9:37am update....
Why do we hit snooze??? Why don't we just set the alarm clock for the time we want to wake up? I finally made it to bed just after 5am. By the way, I beat Randy. Because he's working nights now, he tries to stay up all night. When I called to say goodnight at 5am, he was asleep. Anway....I set the alarm clock for 8:30 and hit snooze for 45 minutes. Now, today I really did want to get up that early. But most mornings I have good intentions of waking up at the time the alarm is set. This morning I could have gotten 45 minutes more uninterrupted sleep. Well, Walmart is FINALLY available and I've uploaded my photos. For the first time, the 1-hour photos will be done in 1 hour. Usually they tell me 2 hours. What's up with that!?!?!? I don't understand. How can 1 hour photos take 2 hours? Enough rambling...I have to pick a project to dive into. Cookbook or favors, cookbook or favors....