Today has been a very nice day

Raven and I had a great day today.  He had the day off, so he slept in and then around noon we went to brunch at this fantastic cafe near our place.  Portage Bay Cafe is this great little place that does uses all organic, fair trade ingredients from as many local sources as possible.  They have an awesome vegan selection and are great about working with food allergies.  It was very nice to have a sit down breakfast just the two of us.  We haven't done that in a very long time.

After brunch, we went to Fred Meyer's to pick up some ingredients for baking cookies.  There was a local radio station out front, collecting toys for the Salvation Army.  One of the radio personalities was a guy who was on a show that my mom used to watch every afternoon, so I got his autograph for her.  We also picked up a couple of gift requests.  We got a couple of toy trucks for a 1-2 year old boy, and some Megablocks for a 2 year old girl.  I couldn't resist picking up stuffed Bernie and Cookie Monster dolls.

We went home and started baking cookies.  I am making 8 dozen molasses gingersnap cookies from an old family recipe.  One of my family traditions growing up was baking cookies and watching Christmas movies.  I decided today was the perfect day to do that.  While making the first batch, my little $15.00 hand mixer burnt out, and so back out we went to find a stand mixer that would be up to the job.  I looked at some websites and decided to try a couple of different stores.  The first store was sold out, and the sales person was extremely rude.  He informed me that I should have called the store first before coming in.  I really didn't appreciate being lectured after being told that they didn't have what I was looking for.  So we went to the next store.  They did have the mixer we needed, but were also very busy.  Most of the patrons were rude, pushy and didn't seem to have any manners.  It made me very happy to come home.

Now I am back to baking, and am watching Sleepless in Seattle.  Not totally a Christmas movie, but kind of. At the very least, it is a good movie to bake to.  I am going to teach Raven how to make these cookies so that he can help next year.  Then, back to knitting.

Warmest wishes,
- J