Cookie Madness

On Saturday the church is having their annual Cookie Walk and Boutique. Since I’ve only been going there since August I have no idea what this exactly entails, I only know that we’ve all been asked to bake as many cookies as possible. I know that two women and one of their daughters baked 120 dozen cookies for this event, so when they say bake as many as possible, they mean it. I began baking in earnest last week and completed about 30 dozen through today. I had the day off so I baked another several dozen. I’ve baked huge amounts of oatmeal raisin cookies, bundles of peanut butter cookies, shortbread, rum balls (exceptionally delicious), and Eskimo cookies. Today I baked sandwich cookies. I had never baked those before and they were pretty good but very sweet. I also made a bunch of hand-painted Christmas tree shaped sugar cookies.

Along with all these cookies we ordered a dozen small neutral canvas bags and decorated those with fabric paints as well as gluing on bells and tassels, angels, little bears, etc. etc. to sell. They turned out very pretty. I ordered another dozen but these were much smaller – guess I didn’t read the description right, but I’ve been decorating those this evening. They’re turning out cute as well.

Anyway, I had the guys carry my first bag of cookies out to the car. They’ll stay fresh out in the cold until Friday when they have to be dropped at the church. I packed up the cookies by the dozen in Ziplock bags and labeled each with the type it was (especially since the rum balls are so potent and look just like the Eskimo cookies). My husband keeps asking me if this is how Mrs. Fields got started. 😉 So, in total, I know I’ve baked about 45 dozen cookies or more but the yield for the church is probably about 35 dozen. I brought a pan of shortbread for Sunday school last week and I had about a dozen “rejects” of various types because they cracked or broke or were a little too dark on the bottom or were an odd number (not a dozen). I also pulled a few to give to this guy I visit on Wednesdays (an old friend who had a stroke a few years ago and never gets out or gets any visitors) and to give to my therapist. It’s been years and years since I made cookies from scratch so this was quite an experience. It was fun, a bit obsessive though, but I did very well. The cookies came out looking good and tasting very good.

Tucked in here after all the cookie blah blah blah, however, is the fact that I’m being weird right now, though. I saw the psychiatrist on Monday… good timing for my appointment. He raised my antidepressant dosage to 20mgs. Obviously I wasn’t taking much, only 10mgs which is almost nothing. I’ve just been feeling weird… sort of depressed and discontent… unable to acknowledge some of the brighter things but well able to fell the pain of annoyances and unfairness. I hate when I get like that. We’ve been talking about some pretty heavy stuff in therapy, however, so that may have something to do with it. This weather doesn’t help much either. Oh well… it will all pass and things will be bright again. I just have to wait it out.