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Homemade Oreos

I tried this (super easy) recipe on Sunday and it was a success.  These cookies are too good.  They're dangerous.  They make storebought Oreos seem like flavorless cement disks (and I LOVE storebought Oreos!).

*Notice how the cookies are casting shadows in the top left photo.  I really enjoy that.  They remind me of little clouds casting shadows on the ground below.

Homemade Oreo Cookies

Cookies:

2 packages of devil's food cake mix

4 eggs, beaten well

1/2 cup oil

Filling:

1/2 cup butter

4 oz cream cheese

2 cups confectioner's sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix cake mix, eggs, and oil together.  Roll dough into balls about gumball size.  Place on greased cookie sheet.  Bake for 10 minutes.  Remove from oven and let cool on sheet (until warm).  Remove cookies from sheet and place on cooling rack.  Allow cookies to completely cool before frosting.

To make the filling, cream butter and then slowly add the cream cheese, confectioner's sugar and vanilla.

To assemble the cookies, add about a tablespoon of filling into the center of one cookie. Place another cookie similiar in size on top of the filling.  Lightly press to work the filling evenly to the outsides of the cookie.  Continue this process until all the cookies have been sandwiched with cream.

Enjoy with a frosty glass of milk (or beverage of your choice).

Our New Apartment (warning: image heavy)

Let's take a little photo tour of our new place, shall we? We have the whole top floor of the building.

Two Years

Last year I didn't have a lot of time to reflect on our anniversary because we were moving into our new apartment in a new city and so much was going on.

This year, I've been thinking about how my life changed in such a good way when I met Cole.  I can hardly believe it's been two years since our ceremony.  I can't imagine life without her. 

Happy anniversary, Cole!

Our New Neighborhood!

Yesterday we signed the lease for our new apartment at 777 Crescent Avenue in Bernal Heights.  I did some sleuthing and found out that the building was constructed in 1912--so it's even older than our current apartment building.  It's a really pretty unit, with a decorative fireplace in the living room, 3 sets of bay windows, French doors, our own entrance/stairs, hardwood floors with decorative inlays around the edge, a formal dining room with a built-in cabinet, 2 bedrooms, and a sunroom.  When we found out that it comes with our own garaged parking space and washer/dryer hookups, and is only $50 more per month than we're currently paying, we were sold.  It's got some quirky touches, too--like a lever on the stairs that allows you to open the front door from 10 feet away, a built-in ironing board in the sunroom, and a little fold-out seat at the phone nook in the hall. 

The apartment has tons of windows all over the place--my plants are going to love it!  It's exciting to know that we'll be exploring a new neighborhood, too.  Bernal Heights is one of the sunniest neighborhoods in the city, and Cortland Avenue at the top of the hill is a ridiculously cute street.  It will be so much fun to check out all of the neighborhood spots like we did when we moved to the Western Addition last year.

Pictures of the apartment itself to come!

Hot Stuff

My crafty significant other made this super cute coffee sleeve for me so that I can be both stylish and environmentally conscious while sipping my lattes.  It's made quite the splash at work: I've already had to field orders for a few more.

Chinese Medicine...Maybe Not For Me.

On Tuesday after work I braved yet another rainstorm to go to an acupuncturist.  Now, I've had acupuncture twice before and both times it was a very laid back affair.  When I was in law school, I had a good friend who was studying Eastern medicine and she put some needles in my face to help combat a particularly bad sinus infection.  A couple of years later, again for recurring sinus infections, I went to see a naturopath in Flagstaff who prescribed some herbs and did acupuncture on my face.  I felt very relaxed after both treatments and I'd like to believe that acupuncture played a part in resolving my sinus issues, but who knows.

Anyway, I'd been hearing that acupuncture can help fertility, so I made an appointment with an acupuncturist who had been highly rated on Yelp.  The practitioner I found, Lai Yat Ki, happens to be extremely traditional and has been practicing Chinese medicine since the early 70s.  In his no-frills office, two old Chinese ladies were hand-sorting a bunch of herbs for patients.  Every stick of furniture looked to be thrifted.  I think I even saw a calendar on the wall from 1972.  This office was far, far removed from any sort of hippie/yuppie acupuncture practice.

I took all of this in stride, and because I had been feeling kind of under the weather for a few days, I really wanted to stay to see if acupuncture could help my cold.  Once I was ushered into Lai's tiny office, I began to have a few doubts.  First, there was a major language barrier.  He *tried* to communicate with me, but was making all of his notes in Chinese on my chart.  He was horrified--and I mean HORRIFIED--to learn that I had been on a vegetarian diet since the first of the year.  "NO VEGETARIAN DIET!" became his mantra, and I heard it at least 20 times while I was there.  Apparently if you don't eat meat, you're depriving yourself of energy.  And if you're vegetarian while pregnant, you're just asking for trouble.  I wanted to debate that with him, but figured it would be pointless given the language barrier.

He was also unhappy to hear that I had gotten a flu shot.  This sparked a lengthy story about a patient of his who was 45, had been seeing him for fertility issues, did manage to get pregnant, but then miscarried after getting an H1N1 shot.  So he now had a second admonition for me:  "NO FLU SHOT!  NO H1N1!  BAD BAD BAD!"  This too he repeated over and over.

Lest you think he was shouting at me, I should say that Lai was extremely soft-spoken but placed great emphasis on his words when giving me these warnings.

After he finished lecturing me, he brought out a really cool model of the human body with all of the acupuncture/pressure points marked on it and showed me where he would place the needles.  He probably used about 20 needles altogether, putting them in my scalp, ears, forehead, nose, throat, chest, abdomen, and a couple at my ankles.  None of them hurt.  The strangest part was that he used some electrostimulation on a few of them, hooking wires to the needles on my face, throat, and abdomen.  I could feel the current coming through the metal and bouncing around.

It was actually quite relaxing.  Lai left me there for probably 30 minutes to rest with the needles.  It was dim, my eyes were closed, and all I could hear was the whooshing of cars on a wet street outside.  I felt pretty satisfied at this point, because I figured that even if acupuncture didn't actually have any major effect on my health, it would at least relax me.

This lasted until Lai returned, flooded the room with fluorescent light, and began chastising me again for being a vegetarian.  Then, he noticed that I was wearing a pair of dark purple studs in my ears.  He looked at those and wagged his finger at me.  "BAAAAD COLOR.  BLACK THE COLOR OF DEATH.  WOMAN NEVER WEAR BLACK."  When I told him they weren't black, it didn't appear to matter to him.  He had the same problem with an innocent Gap friendship bracelet I was wearing, which was also purple.  He said that women can only wear gold or silver.  "NO BLACK!"

So.  I don't think I'll be going back to this guy.  I have no doubt that he knows his stuff, and I do believe that there must be something to Eastern medicine given its longevity, but the way in which Lai conveys advice is not particularly pleasant.  Next time I want to relax, I think I'll book an hour-long massage so I can rest in peace.