On Vacay

My ten days off of work started today; I already miss my girlie, but so far it hasn't really hit home that I won't see her on Monday like normal, so I've been enjoying the weekend so far.

I started off the day in the coffeeshop in the historic square about twenty minutes away, drinking a peach smoothie (which, sadly, wasn't very good), listening to music, and making use of their free wifi, all while snuggled in an amazingly soft chair. :) Then I came home, threw dinner in the crockpot (beef vegetable soup with salad and dairy-free faux blue cheese dressing), spearheaded the cleaning of the house - sort of lol - took a nap, had dinner with the family, and made cookies (more on this later). Played in an extremely competitive Hearts game with Allen, Maggie, and Mom. I do so love my weekends. :)

Now, on to cookies: I was upstairs pining for cookies but, since I had no motivation to de-allergy-ize a traditional recipe and couldn't see eating cookies that the kids couldn't eat in front of them, I had sort of given up on the idea. Then while I was idly scrolling through Simply Scratch and ran across her Peanut Butter & Jam cookie recipe - no gluten and no dairy already!!! Amazing! I ran downstairs, pulled out the ingredients, and started mixing up cookies. :)

Of course, seeing as this is my family (remember the story of trying to make cake that everybody could eat?) I actually mixed up two batches: one with cashew/almond butter (for the peanut allergic peeps) and duck eggs (for those who couldn't eat chicken eggs), and one with peanut butter and chicken eggs. Both turned out well, surprisingly - I guess nut butters are pretty much the same when you come right down to it. I didn't alter the recipe at all, and did half with raspberry jam, which ended up being my favorite, and half with grape, which was actually surprisingly popular.

I actually understate the amazing-ness of these cookies. They were to die for. I could have eaten them all myself. Luckily, I had seven other people competing for them, too. :)

I have so much I want to get done this weekend - deep clean my room, get those last two boxes unpacked, decorate for fall, put together a couple of craft projects that are piling up, etc - and then next week I can't wait to go to the beach with Maggie! I feel like I haven't gotten to see Mags in so long, between both of us having busy schedules and then having overnight guests for a few days... I miss my Maggie! Can't wait for three days of swimming, hot tub soaking, TV watching, night-time beach walks, etc. :)