Sadness and Cookies

Sadness this morning for several reasons in Blog World.  

Leontien Vandelaar lost her fight against cancer yesterday at noon, surrounded by loving family.  Leontien, as some of you know, emigrated from Holland, and, with her husband Bastiaan, worked at a huge dairy in Indiana.  Her blog is here.  You may also remember that bloggers united to send "Flowers to Leontien" and "Leaves to Leontien" last year, and she wrote in November how it made her feel to know that everyone was pulling for her.  A beautiful young woman, gone to her Maker too soon.  I hope everyone can stop and say a prayer for her family today. 

And one of our side-bar bloggers, Kerin, at "Always Fixin', Never Sittin'" has announced yesterday her decision to stop blogging.  She has had two lovely blogs, and did stop once before, last year.  How I will miss her posts... I suspected this was coming again, as she had stopped posting regularly.  She did come up against the dread Blogger freeze, but I am not sure knew that downloading Google Chrome or using Firefox would have solved it.  Her "Attitude of Gratitude" made me stop daily to say a thank you for my blessings.  Kerin, we will miss you! 

And speaking of the Google changes.... I find that since switching to Chrome to do my posts, they move along at the speed of light!  No more sitting here, waiting for things to load.  I am so very grateful to everyone who gave me the information to move things along. 

Today we were told that the temps would get up to the high sixties, after yesterday's rain.  Right now, at 2:19 PM as I type this, it's 57 degrees out. My plans of opening windows and airing the house out did not work out.  It is also very gray out, and looks like more rain. 

Keith has gone to Salina for a meeting, so I am "batching it" today. 

Two years ago, I bought this from my sister in law, and put it on a shelf in the laundry room, and NEVER USED IT.  

I was intimidated, and I'm not kidding. 

So, all along, I've been using a 20 year old hand mixer. 

Four days ago, I got this out and thoroughly cleaned it.  Then, I let it sit on the sink all week while I studied it and was very sick on Wednesday, the day I had planned to bake.  

I had to figure out how to raise and lower it, etc., because I got no book with it, and also, how to put the attachments on. 

My gosh, I was stunned at it's ease of use. 

Here's what I was making.  Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies... look how big they are! 

You can find the recipe here from the Brown Eyed Baker. 

Keith will be surprised when he gets home.  Someone else ate one, though, when I turned my back.  And she wanted more....

While I made the cookies (most of which will be going to son Jim's family tonight or tomorrow morning), 

I had soup cooking on the stove.  I have become very adept at using small amounts of meat left from meals to start soup or stew batches.  We are trying very hard to cut down on large amounts of meat, and eating more vegetables and fruits.  I had maybe an ounce or two of meat left from our Swiss steak meal the other night, and made soup with it and plenty of vegetables, and that was my lunch. 

We had a sourdough boule of bread with our dinner last night, and I had a piece off of it with my soup.  Now the soup is on low, and I'll have another bowl at dinner time.  Keith will be back fairly late, and I'm thinking a small bowl of soup might just satisfy him if he's hungry when he gets there.

Here's Lilly this morning, laying out in the yard and intimidating the squirrels from eating at our feeders. 

This pretty girl cracks me up! (and as of 2:43, she's back in the same place!)