[Gossamer's Scrapbook] The Ethereal Canyon I

[Gossamer]

. I'm up at 3am making cookies for work! (Wheee!) So, I'm up fairly late. I made a double batch of chocolate crinkle cookies and a single batch of normal chocolate chip cookies. People make them two different ways. Some actually melt chocolate and then make the batter from that. I like to use cocoa powder and do it instead. These are those lovely dark chocolate cookies that are rolled into balls, dipped in powdered sugar and they sort crack as they flatten and cook. They make really super great cookies - absolutely to die for and super easy. I'll post pics when I get them done. They are a bit unusual in that I had to make the dough first then it needs to chill four hours before I bake them... so I won't bake them until I get up in the morning and actually look alive. I'll be baking for a long long time. Here's the recipe for the Chocolate Crinkles. Ingredients 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder 2 cups white sugar 1/2 cup vegetable oil 4 eggs 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 2 cups all-purpose flour 2 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar Directions In a medium bowl, mix together cocoa, white sugar, and vegetable oil. Beat in eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt; stir into the cocoa mixture. Cover dough, and chill for at least 4 hours. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Roll dough into one inch balls. I like to use a number 50 size scoop. Coat each ball in confectioners' sugar before placing onto prepared cookie sheets. Bake in preheated oven for 10 to 12 minutes. Let stand on the cookie sheet for a minute before transferring to wire racks to cool. So my chocolate chip recipe is the best I've ever used. It's one I've been stuck on for years. It's not Tollhouse (I hate those!), but rather its the type of recipe that you throw everything in a bowl then take off all your rings and massage the ingredients until you have a nice true to life dough. Then you dump crap in that dough... whatever you want. Chocolate chips, fruit, nuts, etc. I love this recipe cause I have no patience for making all the wet in one bowl and all the dry in another and then adding them together. Who has time for that shit? My cookies stand up to anyone's and normally blow theirs away. Why? They form this nice cake-like soft thick scrumptious cookie that's not flat, cracked, and lumped with garbage. Nope. Mine's a real cookie. I'll post pics of one. Normally I like to make monster sized cookies, and this recipe holds up to that style. However, this is for a safety meeting the drivers and I are going to be forced to endure so I decided to make them in bite sizes (rather than make a double batch like I did the crinkles... I'm tired!). So if you want my recipe for chocolate chips... I might give it to you. But probably not. Not unless I get something equally killer back. *raspberry* .

[Gossamer]

. Cookies! [indent]Here's the finished product from my three am cookie spree. I made quite a few of these, but this is just a small sample. I'm a little rummy today. And I feel a bit desperately behind on posts again, but it can't be helped because RL is busy and there's a lot of transitions going on. Sometimes you just gotta shrug and know things will get done when they get done. And besides, hopefully the projects people are waiting on will be enough to make them not actually mind the wait. That's all someone can hope for right? .

[Abashai]

Jen, the cookies look great, especially the bottom pic! And you know I have always told you your posts are well with the wait!

[Eanos]

Funny how things link together. Saw this today on the Idaho wolves

http://www.itv.com/lifestyle/survival/wolves/

The program was a bit fluffy but interesting to see the comments on the link above that it's not the hunters who are the biggest threat to the wolves. But hard from this far away to know where the truth lies since all you hear about is from the outspoken people on the fringes.

[Gossamer]

. Updates So. I haven't blogged in a long time. Normally I'm only a blogger when I'm happy, pissed, or buzzing about something new and exciting in my life. In general though that means a few a week, sometimes more sometimes less. And right now there's a lot going on - but nothing that makes me feel any specific way. I mean, I'm a busy person and there's always a lot going on, but that's ordinary busyness and nothing extraordinary. Generally people that game with me realize that as the weather grows nicer in the northwest I become more and more infrequently on because I'm outside doing other things. You would too if you had horses to play with, a mini donkey that follows folks around like a dog, and a massive yard to tend too that causes you bliss. But I might be around more this late spring into summer. I might need Mizahar more than I ever have before. Sundays will now be devoted to my mother since she'll need time with me now that all thats going on in our lives and we don't have my father to come between us. You see, hes dying. He's dying rather fast too. A week ago he was fine. Then he just collapsed mowing the lawn and he wasn't fine. We thought it was a stroke because he couldn't walk and one side of his face was hanging - one side of his body was dropping and dysfunctional. Strokes are scary. We hauled him in but he had no blood evidence of a stroke. Evidently there's things in the blood that pinpoint this as an issue just by doing a quick swab. So they did a catscan an MRI and low and behold found a massive structural tumor in the middle of his brain. They suspected it was an astrocytoma. So he was transferred to a big scary hospital about 150 miles from me and they drilled a hole in his head to take cells out. In the mean time they had stabilized him, got him walking, eating, and talking normally just by giving him ant-inflammatories and whatnot. After the hole was drilled and he woke up and seemed fine, they sent him home. Results from studying the tissue take 5-7 days. So he was in the hospital from Sat through the following Fri and was home Sat morning for everyone to see him and visit. Sun we came and planted his garden with my brother and put all his flowers in the ground. It was a lot of fun but no one seemed to want to acknowledge the fact that he was no longer walking, talking, or doing anything but sitting in his chair with labored breathing staring off into space. It scared me... and my brother and I talked as we planted his corn about what it meant. Luckily a home health nurse was on her way to draw blood and check his progress... and as soon as she came in we said frankly... "We need help. This isn't normal. He cant walk, hes non-responsive, and its almost as if he is worse than he was before he collapsed." No one could lift him, carry him, change him - he's a big guy. And it was obvious from just that early morning to somewhere around one pm he stopped knowing where he was or caring. So, she said we needed to get him back to the hospital, re-evaluate, and go from there. We called the ambulance which was actually there (I told them to come without sirens or fuss and to not hurry because it wasn't a true emergency) in three minutes. Three. The firefighter EMTs came with them. By the time the nurse left and they were called, he was even worse. Now hes back in the hospital and though the intial plan was to put him into hospice which if your not from the US - its generally were terminally ill patients go to die - but the doctor said he wouldn't make it that long probably. They are just keeping him in the main hospital. The neurosurgeon that did the biopsy was called and he went down to the lab to see to the results himself and called us back. It wasn't the L4 astrocytoma they thought it would be. That was, from what he said the absolute worse case scenario. Instead he said it was a glioblastoma, rare but sorta the supermonster tumor that astrocytomas turn into when they become like girls gone wild on spring break. Great. I'm glad he had one good day. But hes dying. There's no hope. There's nothing radiation can do. And they can't even cut it out of his head because hes 66 and they have to remove most of his brain to get to it. So... please don't ask me how I'm doing. You can imagine. If I'm not at home exhausted, I'm at the hospital with my spouse who's been an absolute dream (since 'the incident'). And don't pressure me for posts, I'll get to them when I can... but truthfully at the moment I'm not feeling creative enough to do wiki writeups or other things. I want to catch up, but I know I'll produce trash for a while.. so if you get a few trash posts, just look the other way and bite your tongue. And if the rain stops today, I'll be outside plotting and planning a new garden or new flowerbed because I can and that makes me feel awesome. And in the mean time, I'll be here as much as I can... maybe using this place as an escape between work (which is still super busy and 6 days a week) and other things in life.

[Malia]

I'm sorry! Very sorry.

I'm sure nobody will expect anything creative from you now. I'll ... I don't know, I'll send positive thoughts into your direction? If that helps.

[Gossamer]

. 10 Days I can't stop thinking that. Seriously. I keep thinking 'ten days' over and over in my mind. How can someone go from being as normal as you and I to absolutely wholeheartedly and utterly dead in ten days? I can tell you how awful it is to watch someone's brain swell so fast and furiously from a tumor that is inappropriately labeled 'massively aggressive' that it kills them. Massively aggressive doesn't really cover that. Murderous is more like it. I can tell you what it feels like to get the call from Hospice in the middle of your work shift that you need to come fast. I can tell you exactly how it feels to sit at the funeral home and make arrangements for putting your father in the ground. Truthfully? It leaves you numb. It leaves you exhausted. It leaves you in so many kinds of pain you don't know how to label them and convey emotion for them. I have probably gotten five hours of sleep in the last week totally. And truthfully I'm sitting here exhausted not knowing what to do. How do you help your mother loose your father that shes married to for 44 years? You really can't. You can just hang out, settle in, and be there if someone needs to laugh or cry.

[Cypress]

xox

[Abashai]

We love you Jen, and I pray for you and your mom.

[Terminus Norin]

our love and thoughts go with you and your family at this time. Also hugs and anything else you need or want...even it its nothing at all >>>