It’s Tuesday. In Blogosphere, this means it’s time to put on my random face. Note: No random face pictured in in above image. Hmmm, how does one put on a random face? Okay, let me rephrase. It’s time to get in my random mood of mind.

Who likes cookies?

Stupid question, I realize. Who doesn’t like cookies? Yesterday, I made a batch of Chewy Cherry Chunk Cookies. I first came across this recipe when Martha Stewart did her morning TV shows. This is this the first time in several years to make this recipe and all I can say is “Mmmm, good!”

Ingredients

1 cup dried cherries
1 cup boiling water
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed light-brown sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup coarsely chopped white chocolate
1/2 cup coarsely chopped milk chocolate
1/2 cup coarsely chopped pecans

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, with one rack in top third and one rack in bottom third of oven. Line baking sheets with parchment paper; set aside.
Place dried cherries in a small bowl, and cover with 1 cup boiling water to plump them; let stand 5 minutes. Drain, and set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine butter and both sugars. Beat on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Scrape down sides of bowl. Add egg and vanilla extract, and beat to combine. Beat in flour, baking soda, and salt. Mix in cherries, white and milk chocolate, and pecans. Batter should be stiff.
Use a large (2 1/2 ounce) or small (1 1/4 ounce) ice-cream scoop to form balls of dough. Place the balls of dough about 4 inches apart on the baking sheets. Bake until golden and just set, rotating the sheets between the oven racks halfway through baking to insure even browning, about 15 minutes for large cookies and 12 minutes for small cookies. Transfer sheets to a wire rack to cool for about 5 minutes before transferring cookies to rack. Store in an airtight container for up to 1 week.

Personal notes: I automatically added an extra quarter cup of chopped pecans to this recipe, but after sampling the finished product I feel like the total quantity should be 1 cup of chopped pecans. Also, DH felt like the brown sugar could be increased to three-fourths of cup.

I have the cookies, now it’s time to get a cup of coffee for my visit with Les @Time Out For Mom for her weekly Coffee Chat. Today, she has another interesting prompt very much similar to last week’s. It is…

“Keep it, toss it, burn it, sell it ” This time I am giving you the items:

1. old high school/Alma mater T-shirt “Toss it” I mean, what do you do with a t-shirt you wore 20 + years ago, other than junk it. Okay, you could tear it into pieces to use as rags. That’s probably what I would prefer to do with it.

2. love letter from old flame who broke your heart “Burn it” Not that I have any, but if I did then I would imagine this is exactly what I would do.

3. engagement ring — from when you said “no” “Sell it” Of course, this all would hinge on if the ring stayed in my possession. My sensible left brain would want to get some money for it no matter how little. It’s better than no money at all. What other choice do you have other than let the thing sit around unused collecting dust and reminding your husband of an old flame. It doesn’t matter that he captured your heart. That being said, then there is no need to heap coal to future fires with a constant reminder — an ex-boyfriend’s love for you in the house. None of this applies to me since I have only gotten the one marriage proposal, but my right brain wanted to contribute.

4. vinyl edition of what was “your song” – you can download from iTunes anyway “Keep it” Although, digital media is the future, I would keep my vinyls. In fact, we have a stash of vinyls (70s & 80s music) in storage. Maybe, one day these will actually be worth something and we can then “sell them” at premium price.

We rarely use pay money for anything thanks to plastic, but there are times we need to have some extra dough. On Sunday, we made a trip to the store at which time we decided to use the ATM to get some cash.

DH inserted his ATM card and did all the button pushing that’s required for the transaction. The machine ejected crisp twenty-dollar bills, along with the receipt. As DH fiddled with his wallet, I noticed a blinking little light where the money came out.

I thought to myself “Why is it doing this – blink, blink, blink thingy?” DH was still messing with his wallet (its new). My attention went back to the blink, blink, blink thingy. The thought hit me, “What if it retracts the money?” This is when I decided to throw out my two cents, “Honey, you may want to get the money.”

No sooner did he reach for the buckaroos at that precise instant the ATM sucked up the cash! There was no signs posted or mention of this when we accepted the $2.95 transaction fee or anything anywhere warning us that our timely retrieval of the money is vitally necessary. Looking like two deer staring into the headlights, a notice flashed up to the ATM screen saying something about contacting our financial institution. Boy, were we miffed!

I get that this is a safety feature, but why should the financial institution care one way or another. Is it really up to them to govern my move if I do or do not pull the cash from the slot?

We live in a world full of distractions – cell phones, fussy children, job worries, …But, we are still in charge of our lives and despite the reason my mind wasis divided when I go to get money out of the ATM, then the responsibility falls on me.

Since we were empty-handed after the first attempt it forced us to make another transaction. This time, we removed the cash promptly and then the receipt. Now, we are left with the process of disputing the failed withdrawal.

Speak of technology, I just love it! Well, when it’s actual helpful. Sunday night, we missed the second episode of the All-Star Celebrity Apprentice. All the coolness of today’s innovative devices such as wireless routers, Internet streaming, and Airplay devices saved the day.

Our computer can use the airplay option. It’s really simple. We enabled the feature with mirroring, which sends the video to our Apple TV device and then our TV displays the video as seen on our computer. This is kinda like streaming, but not. The video quality lags a bit in spots, but it’s not too bad. True airplay video is smoother and doesn’t temporarily pause. At least, we were able to see the missed episode and that’s better than not seeing it all.

This morning on Facebook, I noticed the sad news of a classmate (Danny Blevins IHS class of 1977) of DH’s and a friend to me passed away last night. Please, keep this family in your prayers.

One more thing before I scoot off. Did you notice the Top Commenter blog award in the upper right corner of my blog? The lovely Amanda @Self Sagacity presented it to me. She’ll be featuring me on her blog real soon. I will be sure to share that with you as soon as it goes live.

It’s time to grab a cup of coffee and join me as I visit Stacy Uncorked for Random Tuesday!

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