“I just wish I could stay home and make cookies,” I whined to my husband the other night. “I just want to experiment with new dishes, and write, and go on doing all the normal things I do every day.” I slumped over until my forehead rested on the table and I was talking to the wood. “I don’t want to go annnnnyyyywhere.”

My younger daughter wishes I would make cookies, too. I mixed up the dough for the gingerbread men a few days ago and she keeps pleading with me to make the cookies already. But it takes work to stand at the kitchen table and roll, slice, bake, and ice. I’d rather… I don’t know, trim my toenails or something.

Actually, that’s not true. I’d rather do just about anything than trim my toenails. But I’m trying to make a point. The point being that I don’t want to exert myself in frivolous baking even though I’d rather be baking.

It’s confusing, I know. Just go with it.

Part of the problem is that we don’t need cookies. We have butter bars in the freezer and who needs cookies when you have butter bars? Not me!

This was my second time making these bars. The first time they were wonderful and we scarfed them down. (The males in the family are particularly fond of these bars. The girls are not. I am a woman, not a girl. I love the bars.) The second time, I took more pictures and put some in the freezer so we wouldn’t eat them all at once.

These bars, though unassuming, are rather exotic. There are two parts to them: the firmer cookie-cake bottom and the softer, almost gooey, cookie-cake top. They remind me of a cross between a pound cake, dense and rich and vanilla-y, and a cinnamon flop or coffee cake. Serve the bars plain, with coffee or tea, or dress them up with a splat of whipped cream and some berries.

(Did I really just say “a splat of whipped cream?” I do believe I did. Oh dear.)

Soft Cinnamon-Sugar Butter Bars
Adapted (not much) from David Lebovitz, who, in turn, got the recipe from Deb of Smitten Kitchen

There are two parts to this recipe. Since the ingredient lists are similar, I make them simultaneously, with two sets of bowls. It’s a little confusing, but only for a couple minutes. The recipe comes together quickly. Just don’t multitask while making these cookies. Because you already are.

The cookie bottom:
1 ½ cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup milk

Cream the butter and sugar. Beat in the egg and milk. Add the dry ingredients. Spread the thick batter into a greased 9×13 pan.

The gooey top:
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1/4 cup milk
1 tablespoon vanilla
12 tablespoons butter
1 cup, plus 2 tablespoons, sugar
1/4 teaspoons salt
1 egg
1 1/4 cups flour

Cream the butter and sugar. Beat in the corn syrup, milk, and vanilla. Beat in the egg and salt. Add the flour.

Dollop the batter all over the thick batter. Spread it out as smoothly as possible.

Topping:
2 tablespoons sugar
1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon

Stir together the sugar and cinnamon. Sprinkle over bars.

Bake the bars at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes. The center should still be quite soft but no longer jiggly. The top should be golden brown and puffy.

Cool to room temperature before cutting into bars.

This same time, years previous: ginger-cream scones

Our newspaper subscription ran out and we decided not to renew. Now my mornings feel naked.

We’ll probably make one more library run this month and then we’ll only head back to return books (and pay fines).

I make cookies and bread, put them in the freezer, and then wonder if we’ll get around to eating them before we leave.

Last weekend we sent the kids away (not by themselves) and filled up the car with stuff to get rid of. The house still feels full and cluttered. This weekend is Dung Out Session Number Two.

It’s like there’s an elephant in the room, an elephant named Guatemala. It sits there, smack dab in the middle of everything. Sometimes I think it looks lovely and exotic and other times it seems scary and downright wrong. But there it sits. So I shrug my shoulders and go on doing other things, ordinary things, because I can’t spend my whole day staring at an elephant.

I skipped the quotidian post this week. My routines are fading. The chaotic unknown is encroaching. I feel myself slipping into lockdown mode.

I go for walks and play with my camera and watch Parenthood. I stock our toiletry kits with little tubes of toothpaste and write thank you notes and stare at the wall.

It’s too much.

This same time, years previous: cracked wheat pancakes, gingerbread men

Back to that smoking hot photography: Reader Carol guessed correctly, yay Carol!

Here’s what we did. We took the picture in the completely dark toy closet. The exposure was set for eight seconds. While the shutter was open, one of the kids jiggled a piece of twine around the object while I shone a flashlight straight down. I also made sure I shone the light on the front of the object so that it would be visible.

That’s it! Pretty nifty, no?

That night the kids and I moved the sofa out of the way and settled down in front of the tree to do some light painting.

These (very amateur) effects were accomplished by an assortment of the following:

1. Zooming in and out with my 18-55 mm lens.
2. Using a long exposure—about 5 seconds.
3. Using a flash.
4. Rotating and jiggling the camera proper.
5. Flashlights.
6. Finger flashlights.

While we played (i.e. vied for camera time and argued loudly), my potatoes that I had set to simmering on the stove boiled dry and scorched. It was kind of fitting, after all those smoking hot photos I had taken that day.

This same time, years previous: the quotidian (12.12.11),  Sunday Vignettes: Human Anatomy (“tit-bit nipply”—oh boy, I’m laughing all over again!), cashew brittle