C is for cookie, that's good enough for me.

Say hello to week six of the Gussy's Inspiration Workshop. The prompt for this week was pamper yourself. 


I think that one of my favorite ways to pamper myself is to eat some delicious food. Maybe in front of a movie. Maybe curled up on the couch with my hubs.


Maybe it's pasta.


Maybe it's pizza rolls.


Maybe it's brownies.


Maybe it's quesadillas.


Maybe it's hummus.


Maybe it's chocolate chip cookies.


Maybe it's Arby's roast beef with cheddar and special sauce with curly fries and one of those chocolate filled croissant things you can get there nowadays.


In this case it was chocolate chip cookies.

I baked these cookies last weekend with my sis and cousin, and they were so tasty that I baked them again this weekend. (Even though I had the same brown sugar rock problems as before.)


Then I carted them with me all over the 4th of July. They are just that good.


It's a REALLY great recipe. I got it over at one of my favorite food blogs, Annie's Eats. You could head on over there to look at the recipe, but I'll write it down here too. In case you want to stay with me.


You want to stay with meeee? Aww thanks.


But really you should visit Annie's blog sometime because it's delicious.


Really Excellent Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 cups + 2 tbsp. all-purpose flour

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

12 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled until warm

1 cup brown sugar, packed

½ cup granulated sugar

1 large egg plus 1 egg yolk

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 ½ cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Whisk dry ingredients together in a medium bowl; set aside.  Mix butter and sugars until thoroughly combined.  Beat in egg, yolk, and vanilla until combined.  Add dry ingredients and until just combined.  Stir in chocolate chips.

Roll about a half-cup of dough into a ball.  Hold the dough ball in fingertips of both hands, and then pull apart into two pieces. Place on cookie sheet with jagged edge up.  Bake for 11-14 minutes.  Do not overbake.

Pamper yourself by eating them.

Click to see everyone else's linkups!

Previous Inspiration Workshop posts: week 1, week 2, week 3, week 4, week 5

Weekend Recap - The Fourth.

My fourth of July weekend consisted of these things:

-Storms, hail, Little Caesar's pizza and crazy bread, a movie.
-Chatting with my mom on her porch.
-Listening to the sis and her bf make fun tunes on stringed instruments. Like ukeleles and banjos.
-Celebrating my grandma's 81st birthday with her and the fam and watching fireworks courtesy of my cousin and his driveway. And Apples to Apples. I was winning for awhile. But then I wasn't anymore.
-Late night rooftops downtown with some dear friends. It's only with Jacki and Jorgen that my nights start and 11pm rather than end at 11pm.
-Time with the hubs included some grocery shopping, movies, rotisserie chicken (that we bought, yo. I won't pretend that we did the rotisserie-ing ourselves), rock band, a bike ride, discovery of a new FABULOUS park (like a 3 minute bike ride from our house!!!!) sunlight, cookie baking.
- Barbecuing with some wonderful friends at Lake Harriet, walking across the Stonearch bridge, meeting even MORE friends for fireworks in Minneapolis, and more late night adventures. Which included stopping at Psycho Suzy's but not actually going in, driving around a lot, and Uptown.

It was great I tell you.

This morning when I had to wake up for work it was not great BUT. It was worth it of course.

Here are some of the people I shared my weekend with.

Jorgen, Me (the shockingly white one), Jacki, Tina, Emily

Kelly, Jacki again (Jacki was visiting from North Carolina. We had missed her.)

Me and the hubs

My dearest friend Melody was there too during fireworks but I didn't get a picture with her. Sad face. So here's a picture of me and Mel. From the winter time. At camp. I thought you needed a break from looking at summer pictures for a minute.

Ya, she's a good one. Sometimes I like to carry her on my neck.

How was your fourth?

PS I do not take credit for most of these pictures. But Facebook does.

Deer Doodle

(Semi) Daily Animal Doodle




Ok. How hard is it to draw a deer? Not hard you would think.


Ok turns out that it's hard. HOW many times did I erase and redraw and erase and redraw those little legs?!?! 


It was a lot. I need a new eraser. I had to eat a cookie to help get me through it.

And I just have to make a confession. I can't draw hooves.


I CAN'T DRAW HOOVES.


It seems like such a simple thing and yet I just...can't...seem...to make it happen.


Boy does it feel good to get that off my chest.


Thanks for listening guys.


Weekend recap to come.


July Doodles: Aardvark, Chameleon
Want to check out June's doodles? Click here.

Chameleon Doodle

(Semi) Daily Animal Doodle


This guy seems pretty paranoid. He thinks that the world is out to get him.

He probably needs a massage or something.


I'm having an excellent 4th of July weekend so far. And the fun is not over yet.


July Doodles: Aardvark
Want to check out June's doodles? Click here.

The Skylark Studio

Ok. I have been meaning to write this post for a couple weeks now, but remember back here when I said a friend and I were starting a graphic design business? Well I have some exciting news. Our website is up and running! This is especially a good thing because we have been handing out business cards for the past few months (actually since Christmas), and our business cards have our website on them. But...our website has not existed until a couple weeks ago.

We like to do things a little backwards I guess. Ya, it's how we roll.

Ok. Let me back up. A long time ago in the year of 2005 AD, I went on an 2 month overseas adventure to learn about missions work through the school I attended (good ol' Northwestern College in St. Paul, MN.) We had a total group of twenty fabulous people, many of whom are still very close friends today.

We went to England and did awesome things together.
We went to Romania and did awesome things together.
We went to South Africa and did awesome things together.
We went to Mozambique and did awesome things together.
To say it was life changing is an understatement.


(Yes, I was going to actually list all of the things that we did in all those places but then I realized this blog post would become a novel and...let's just do that another time.)


Here we are.

This is Romania. At a castle!


One of my team mates was a little red head named Emily. We got to know each other (as only two people living in such close proximity over two months could) and we realized we had a lot in common. We liked art. We liked graphic design. We liked to laugh at each others jokes and talk to each other in British accents. We liked music. As we painted a house together in the blazing African heat she introduced me to Ben Folds who eventually became my absolute favorite musical artist in the whole widest of worlds. This girl has good taste. 

Once back in the states, we would always say to each other, "Hey, let's start a graphic design business!" Then we would laugh, make some British accent jokes and continue on our merry way.

Years passed.

Then one day we said to each other, "Hey, let's start a graphic design business!" But this time we finally took each other seriously and did it. Soon after, The Skylark Studio was born.


Here are some nice pictures of us.

Here's the link to our shiny new website. Wanna take a looksie? And maybe there is someone you know who would like some design products? Perhaps a fresh new logo, brochure, or business card? Or maybe some classy wedding invitations? Perhaps an updated website or blog header? 


Feel free to just send them right over.

Around the House

The prompt this week for the Saturday Snapshot was around the house. I knew immediately the picture I should use.

Last weekend my sis, cousin and I made THE most AMAZING chocolate chip cookies EVER. They were HUGE and GOOEY and DELICIOUS.

Excellent chocolate chip cookies cause me to SHOUT.

But we ran into a bit of a problem with the BROWN SUGAR. I mean brown sugar.

Sometimes the hubs likes to buy the economy sized stuff. Who doesn't? Anyway. He bought us a HUGE bag of brown sugar. A LONG time ago. Now I use brown sugar sometimes, but not that often.

This is what happens when brown sugar sits in your cupboard for a  LONG time.

You get brown sugar ROCKS.

Along with that big huge rock were lots and LOTS of tiny little rocks. I think it was the sis who had the unfortunate job of trying to break up all the tiny little rocks so that we would have a cup of brown sugar fit to make FANTASTIC chocolate chip cookies with.

It took a long time to break up the tiny rocks.

There were tears shed.

Just kidding.

But when all was said and done, the cookies turned out SO GOOD. Even if there may have been a few sugar rocks here and there. I will be posting the recipe later this week in case you would like a taste of all the AWESOMENESS.

K see ya later. I will shout less for my next post.

Aardvark Doodle

Daily Animal Doodle

Day 1 - Aardvark

Well July is here and we're back at day one. I admit that when I looked at the word "aardvark" on the list I thought to myself, "what the heck. is that." But then when I googled it I remembered what it was. 

This one went pretty fast, which is nice. The hubs and I decided to stay in tonight because of all the big storms in the Minneapolis area, and we rented Say Anything with John Cusack. It was pretty good.

And I drew an aardvark.

Want to check out June's doodles? Click here.