beats me

on saturday there is a big earth day festival fund raiser at my daughter's school. i am wracked with guilt at not really being able to volunteer my time. tomorrow i am consumed with a major event my workplace is putting on, and on saturday i have to cart dan off to dulles airport in dc. so tonight i at least got my act together to prepare some delicious peanut butter oatmeal cookies for the bake sale. i poured the sugars, the butter, the peanut butter into a bowl to cream, but could not find the beater attachments for my electric hand mixer. i searched high and low. where do beater attachments disappear to anyway? hmmmmm. perhaps tashi was licking chocolate off of them in the not so distant past, and now they are buried deep in dust bunnies in some dark corner of our house.

well, thank goodness for the cuisine art.

i generally don't use it for anything but pureeing soups, but in a pinch, it whips up a mean dough. in fact, it probably does a better job than the hand beater. but i do prefer my hand beater. i'm old fashioned that way.

in other news, amanda soule's book is in the house (or in the yard. depending on where you are when it's in your hand).



tashi and i started digging through it, and she was immediately attracted to the section about finding your spot. even though she has many favorite well established spots, it became time to purposely declare a spot as her very own. and so she did.



a fine perch in a stand of scrub and trees on the border of our yard, tashi can watch the street and the neighbors from many angles while remaining fairly camouflaged.



ah spring.

oh and here is the peanut butter oatmeal cookie recipe. use which ever kind of mixing device you prefer!

1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup unbleached flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups oatmeal

preheat oven to 350

Cream together butter, peanut butter and sugars. Add eggs, vanilla and beat well. Add flour, baking soda and salt. Mix. Stir in oatmeal.

Prepare baking sheets. Using a spoon, place 1 inch spoonfuls of dough about 2 inches apart on baking sheets. Bake 10-15 minutes. Place on cooling rack.