So yea, that NaBloPoMo thing was a spectacular failure, as I expected it to be. I had briefly considered live-blogging part of the honeymoon but ultimately decided not to give myself tendonitis again by typing away on my phone, so I’ll have some honeymoon posts shortly!

In the meantime, I attended a Cookie Swap on Saturday. Organized by my friend Alex and hosted by Elizabeth. When Alex asked a while back if I was interested, I couldn’t respond fast enough. I had never participated in a cookie swap before but I was alllll over it. The most difficult part was deciding what kind of cookies to make! I usually end up making cupcakes for parties because they are adorable and a crowd pleaser but in a battle of cookie vs cake, I’d probably be on the cookie side. One thing though, I am a cookie snob. I am really a baked good snob, if we’re being completely honest here. Some grocery store cookies are passable and grocery store sheet cakes are a necessary evil, but to me there is nothing worse than those hard chocolate chip cookies people try to pass off as dessert at events. I’d rather eat the napkins they are served with.

Whoops, that got a little real. But! Cookie Swap! With people making real cookies! I was so excited! At first I decided to make double chocolate cookies and before I left for Hawaii, I made a test batch and took them to work. They were received well enough…but I could tell they didn’t wow anyone. And that wouldn’t stand with me, so last minute, I decided to just go with the tried and true m&m cookies from The Crepes of Wrath. I am not a huge fan of m&ms…expect the peanut butter ones, but regular m&ms are meh. Something about putting them in a cookie, though. That’s where they really shine. I have made these countless times and they might be my all-time favorite cookie recipe. The resulting cookies are colorful and chewy and the sea salt on the top knocks them out of the park. I highly recommend buying a bar of chocolate and chopping it up so that you get all different chocolate sizes plus the chocolate shavings which just really take them over the top, in my opinion. Also, they use melted butter! No chance to forget to take butter out and let it soften. I actually pulled butter from the freezer for these and it took no more time than usual.

So. Anyways. The Swap was in Mt. Washington…and while I am not as bad as I used to be…driving new places still gives me a little anxiety. I left super early and of course got a little lost on the way. The place where 28S splits to go to 579/279/376 and then again where 279? splits to the Ft. Pitt Bridge is the bane of my existence. I have never gotten it right. And I didn’t this time either. I took a nice little downtown detour on the way there and back. But I arrived, unscathed and had a wonderful time! The only person I had actually met before was Alex, so it was great to meet a bunch of people that I have only interacted with online. It was a diverse group of people with a diverse group of snacks and most importantly, cookies! I had so much fun, I am already eagerly awaiting the next one.

And all of the cookies were sooooo good. We smartly decided to cut the quantities in half, usually you bring 1 dozen cookies for each participant, but with 10 participants, we cut it to 1/2 dozen per person, which was still cookie overload! In the best way! I ate one of each, froze 1-2 of each and sent the rest to work with Keith. I thought I had take a picture of my portion of cookies laid out on a tray, but apparently not, so I only have this picture of the packaged cookies from the party.

In other news, I mentioned over and over again how horrible my Remote Sensing class this semester was. I’m not sure that I publicly announced that I failed my midterm? Yep. A big ol’ F. But then he bumped everyone up 10 points, so I officially got a D. There were 3 assignments, the midterm and the final. I got a B on the 1st assignment, a D on the midterm, then went on my honeymoon so never got back the 2nd and 3rd assignments, came back from the honeymoon and had 3 days to prepare for the final. My hopes were not high. I have never been so completely lost in a class. I went to every lecture (minus one while we were away) and I just couldn’t grasp anything. I felt like the final went better than the midterm, but since I had no idea how I did on the rest of the assignments…my grade was very much up in the air. One of the essay questions on the final said something about “After getting an A in your Remote Sensing class, you were put in charge of a team of paleontologists to survey this land in Africa…blah blah blah.” I was able to answer about 60% of the question, but couldn’t grasp some of the concepts, so I finished my essay with “Based on my remote sensing knowledge, I would likely be demoted to field cook.” Oh, Katrina. Always with the jokes.

So imagine my surprise when I logged in today.

Ha! I would not have been surprised (though very disappointed) had I gotten a D and here I pulled off a C+! Curious as to how far away from a B I was, but not curious enough to ask. Just glad to be done with that class forever and glad to move on to my final! two! classes! in January. The end is near my friends.