Cornflakes Butter Cookies

One of the traditions during Chinese New Year is baking cookies. My mom and me would usually spend days baking a variety of cookies to distribute to friends and family and to serve guests when they come over for visits during the festive season.
I am going to try and preserve this tradition.
Today I made some cornflakes butter cookies. Since we didn't have any cornflakes, I substituted it with the almond flakes cereal.
Jason says it tastes like Pecan Sandies.

Here's the recipe :

Beat butter (2 sticks) and sugar (3/4 cup) till white and fluffy
Add one egg and continue to beat.
Fold in flour (3 3/4 cups).
Add cornflakes (1 cup)
Roll into tiny balls and place onto greased baking sheet.
Bake 15 to 20 minutes in 350F.

Makes about 60 cookies.

Fooled yet again

In anticipation of the snow storm, we decided to cancel our weekend plans to attend the Caran's much awaited holiday party in Apex, NC. We had originally planned this trip with the Austin's and were supposed to leave around lunchtime on Saturday. On Friday, we were all constantly checking the weather forecast which did not look at all promising as the hours went by.

It rained for most part of Saturday with some snow mixed in. But not a lot. Jason and I stopped by Monkey Joe's for Wrenn's birthday party, watched 50 or more kids jumping happily in inflatable buildings and drove over to the Austins'. We had lunch at Ilios Noche and everyone enjoyed what they ordered and we split a delightfully choking tiramisu for dessert. Yumm!

This morning we woke up to bright sunny weather, with a light dusting of ice on roof tops and cars, and temperatures below freezing.

Where was the 4 inches of snow that we had been anticipating? Mr Weatherman fooled us again, or maybe he is just preparing us for the real thing.

Cloverfield

Just came back from the movie Cloverfield.
Having to sit through 1 hour 15 minutes of a jittery, hand-held camera movie can get irritating. Not to mention, it made me feel a little motion sick.
Entertaining nonetheless. It is a wild ride.

Wrenn's funnies

We celebrated my sis-in-law's and Wrenn's birthdays last night. Jason and I drove there separately as it was closer for him from work. But we arrived at the same time.
As we were leaving after dinner, Jason backed out of the drive way and I waited for him to leave first as I had parked mine on the road.
Wrenn was watching us leave. He didn't know we drove separately. As Jason drove off, Wrenn called out to me "RUN!! He's leaving you!!" and then.. "HURRY! You can still make it!"

Another year goes by

I am sad that all the festivities are over but I am also glad to get back to our normal lives.
We ushered in the New Year with me fighting off a damn migraine and stubbornly trying to stay awake, mentally cursing the people shooting off fireworks outside.
At 11.55pm, Jason brought up 2 champagne glasses filled with ginger ale and we toasted while watching the ball drop in Times Square on TV. And I immediately fell back asleep afterwards. And the husband continued putting away his laundry and reading his book.

I generally do not make goals or resolutions for the New Year. I don't see a point in doing so. I have done or achieved some things in 2007 which wasn't planned ahead of time. Little goals can be made throughout the year, not necessarily on the first day of New Year. And most of the time, we can't foresee what's going to happen anyway.
If I have to name one nice thing I did for someone this year, it would be publishing a book for Carlton, Jason's step-grandfather, and given to him for Christmas. It was a book written by him when he was in the army in 1942 and I searched for pictures to add into it. I guess this made me feel like I've done something good (for once). I am now known as the "book girl". That's what they called me at the family get-together last weekend.

Last year wasn't too awful and it wasn't very eventful either. I would say it was generally smooth-sailing with few hiccups and some frustrations along the way.

So, after more than a week away from work, I’m about as excited to go back to work as I would be for a 5 a.m. root canal, although on second thoughts, the latter sounds more appealing, because at least it’s followed by an afternoon spent with soap operas and eating bon bons.

Here's to 2008! Cheers!