several accomplishments of note

Part 1. On not more than two, or possibly three, occasions in my childhood, my mother made us The Most Amazing Cookies Ever. Oh my heavens, were they good. They were chocolate, and combined two seemingly mutually exclusive characteristics: extreme fragility/delicacy, and utter chewy richness. They were the world famous “Beacon Hill” cookies, which you can find on The Google very easily. They’re basically a meringue cookie.

Melt one cup of chocolate chips – or 6 ounces – in a double boiler.

Beat two egg whites with a pinch of salt until stiff peaks form. Beat in a half teaspoon each of vanilla and vinegar. Beat in – gradually – a half cup of sugar. Fold in the melted chocolate.  Convey the sticky, fluffy goodness to a greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 for ten minutes.

Now, you can halve this recipe pretty easily, which is convenient if you don’t want to accidentally inhale all those calories in one go, which I guarantee you is a serious risk. You can also omit some of the chocolate and substitute the Nutella which your husband thoughtfully loaded you up with at Christmas.

The “real” instructions say to drop the batter by the teaspoonful onto the cookie sheet.  “teaspoon”? I’m sure they mean, “heaping tablespoon”. With practice, you can you can turn that half batch into just twelve…perfect…cookies…

Yeah, I started with twelve. Somehow only six remain. And yeah, they are as delicious as they look, if not more so.

Part 2: In other news, we went to the surgeon’s today to learn more about Kevin’s upcoming knee surgery – the pre-op visit. Came home with a bunch of paperwork.

Part 3: The basil and cilantro continue to germinate – nine or ten more of ‘em, just since yesterday! Hooray!

Part 4. I registered – or at least started the process – for Reiki Master training this September. Waaagghhhh! To some extent, I am inspired by a college classmate of mine who is going through the training to become a yoga instructor. She blogged about her decision, saying she wasn’t sure she wanted to become a yoga teacher – she just knew she needed to go through the training.

I feel that way about becoming a Reiki Master. I can’t say, at this point, that I’m committed to conducting Reiki classes …so much work! Creating the fliers…finding the locations… getting a website going… formalizing how I articulate what Reiki is and what it means to me… etc. etc. etc. I’m not even a formal practitioner at this point. I don’t advertise.

All I know is: it’s meant a lot to me over the past seven years to be able to practice Reiki, and I want to deepen my experience of it.

Sometimes, if you want something to grow, you have to plant a seed or two…