Lost in The Middle Ages.....

Inbetween everything else going on this week, I'm still reading "The Pillars of The Earth." I suppose I will be reading this book for most of the month.... nearly 1000 pages long, it's not a quick read, and there's too many interesting historical details in this book to be skimming through it. I'm not a skimmer, anyway. If a book is good enough to read, then I want to read every word of it. And if it's not, then I don't even want to waste time skimming through it.

When The Middle Ages get too intense, then I take a break and page through one of my Christmas books. So many recipes in all of these beautiful books, and every year I promise myself that I will make Christmas cookies but somehow they never get baked. Looking at all the pictures of the beautiful cookies somehow seems to satisfy the urge. At least the pictures aren't filled with calories, as the cookies would be.

We do have a cookie gun in this house. I had bought it for my husband a couple of years ago, when he got the urge to make those imprint-cookies. Trouble was, I gave it to him for Christmas, and we didn't want to be baking cookies after the holiday because we had enough goodies in the house as it was. I took the cookie gun out of the pantry yesterday and read the directions...... seems simple enough, and I have everything I need for the sugar cookie recipe. If I make them for the party, I don't want to be baking them too many days before the party, so that means I will have to be baking on Thursday or Friday. That might be do-able, as long as everything else gets done before that. The to-do list for these parties seems to be a mile long. And didn't I just go through that same to-do list for the Halloween party?

They didn't have cookies in the Middle Ages. They did have all kinds of bread--- horsebread being one of the most popular. I don't even want to be asking about the recipe for that one.

I haven't cooked much since we went out to the Moroccan restaurant on Friday night. We still have left-overs in the fridge from that night, which we've been eating. And on Saturday, we ate in Galveston, at the "Dickens on The Strand" festival. I have a feeling that no matter what I cook from now on, I will be thinking that it isn't as good as the Moroccan food.

Our temperatures here have gone from 80 degrees to 45, and the weatherman said it will be close to freezing tonight, then it will keep getting back to the warmer temperatures as the week goes along. But the cats will be sleeping in the house tonight, instead of on the screen-porch. Which means that one of them, most likely ShadowBaby, will be waking me up before dawn. Translation: I will be reading "Pillars" before the sun comes up, because once the cats wake me up, I very rarely can fall back to sleep again.

And that right there, trying to fall back to sleep after a cat walks across your pillow and puts his paws around your head, should be the biggest problem that anyone should have to face.

So many things going on this week, this month, this year. It's a wonder that I can sleep at all.