It was so deja vu. Lying on the sofa, watching the news, seeing the old Beatles footage, everyone parlaying what Paul had to say about it all. All the while the Christmas lights are reflected in the screen as the networks pan to Central Park to show the flowers resting and the single green apple.

Of course, this time it's a little different. It's not murder, for one. For another, it's not 5,000, it's just one. And we've really almost grown to expect bad news in the morning so it doesn't have the effect it might have.

And the green apple did look a bit staged.

It makes one think, as well, about life's balance. He was a Beatle. How many of us wished we could say that? I've often wished I could write words to songs that people would carry in their hearts as I've carried his. But then look at his life as a whole - once divorced, sued for plagerism, ridiculed for his religious choices, bancruptcy, stalked and stabbed, cancer, cancer and then cancer to kill him at 58.

Makes one wonder if he would have traded.

Is that a selfish way to look at things? Do I sound like a whiner? It's not intentional. It's just my way of looking at my life and being thankful that on this day, I have my husband, my son, our health and our comfortable home. We are lucky.

Okay, that went of in a direction I wasn't expecting...

Thanks to those well-wishers. I'm at the sneezing-every-ten-minutes-while-slightly-feverish phase. I didn't go to work today. This is the first time I've called off in about a year, and I'm actually swapping a comp day I had planned for next week. It's just so hard to think when my head is all stuffy like this. It makes me mean because I just can't be bothered to take the extra steps required to be nice. So it's best that I just stay the hell home.

And I had tons to do today around here, but have I done any of it? Nope.

Finished the last of "The Sopranos" on DVD. Love that show. Then I watched the "Buffy" I taped last night (just one of the two) and I am definately in concurrance with those that think James Marsters is the man. Yumm.

I took some time to try to catch up with all of you, but I'm afraid I'm just too far behind. Sorry. I'll just have to go on from here and say that the last three weeks were lost to me.

The cookie making went wonderfully well.

Especially since I was all full of my cooker-girl self on Thanksgiving (I spared you all the results of underdone chicken and the pumpkin pie that ended up as bird/squirrel food), it was a little ambitious of me to think I could do cookies while I was sick.

Also, the oven has taken to burning things a bit. (Sure, blame it on the oven.) When the Hubband brought home some cookie dough he bought at work I attempted to make cookies whilst helping Little Boy with his homework. Only about 1/3 were even edible. One entire pan was smoking so badly I had to toss it out the back door. (To the amusement of Responsible Michelle who was entering next door.)

These little disasters, however, are just blips on the radar of my steps toward total domesticity. I will not give up.

Last night's cookies were a direct result of my having let Little Boy see a few seconds of an show in which Martha Stewart (or MFS as she's known around here) in which she had little ones cutting out gingerbread in the shape of their hand.

Now, I know my boy. I know that if I plan the activity during prime cartoon viewing time (anytime between 4:00 and his bedtime) he will only have the patience to do one, or maybe two, hands. And if I change them from gingerbread to sugar cookies, then I can use the rest of the dough to make Christmas cookies.

Brilliant!

Iced Sugar Cookies - in the shape of anything - are my favorite cookie of all time. There's a bakery in Clarkston that actually sells them year round in various shapes of the season. Their cookies are the as big as one's fist and about an inch thick, as well as about $8 a dozen.

Where was I...

Oh...

Since they're my favorite, and what Little Boy thinks of as fun for a minute, I usually attempt to make them once or twice a year.

They're a pain. Unless you like being covered in flour and digging dough out of the little nooks and crannies of those cookie cutters, they're a real pain. Usually, I end up with a good chunk burnt or too crispy (because I rolled the dough too thin) or have them break as I'm taking them off the pan (because I didn't let them cool enough) or the icing is too thin or too thick.

But this year, ah...perfect. About 4 dozen beautifully iced and tasty tasting cookies in various shapes of Christmas.

Couple of things that helped:

*Bigger kitchen (more room to work).

*Actually preparing the dough in enough time to allow it to chill properly.

*Buying new cookie sheets with the air cushion thingy so my stupid cookies won't burn as easily.

*Letting the cookies cool before removing them from the pan.

*Letting them cool all the way before icing.

*Placing a cooling rack in a pan for catching the dripping icing.

*Letting the icing set up before removing them to the storage facility.

Okay, I'm nuts. But seriously, this is the best batch I've ever made. And I should know because I've eaten at least a dozen.

God, it's almost 2:00. I should get something, anything, done.

I have to go to a crop session at my friend's house tonight. I need to decide what I want to work on and get that together by the time I leave. I wouldn't go, but I've canceled on her before and I'm hoping it will get me going on my scrapbooks again. (Because shopping as a hobby is getting a little expensive.)

Also, Big Boy is coming over tonight. His birthday - his 18TH BIRTHDAY! - is tomorrow. I'll miss it because of the crop thingy but we've already given him his big gift and he'd rather spend the time alone with his dad, I'm sure. But I have to clear out some of the boxes that are clogging up his room. (Hey, when you only spend the night once or twice a month your room tends to become a storage facility.)

So I should go. I'm just afraid that if I do the phone will start ringing and I'll be forced to answer it and the people that are RSVP-ing to our party purposefully during times when we should be at work will be awkwardly surprised.

Run on sentence, much?