The Tale of the Magic Cookie Bars

Magic Cookie Bars are one of my favorite desserts of all time. Seriously, it doesn't get much better than shredded coconut, chocolate chips, sweetened condensed milk, graham crackers, and butter all layered together. Apparently though, the magic can be taken out of these delicious cookie bars...

Last Sunday Adam stayed home from church because he was sick, and I came home from church with a pretty bad headache. I don't get them often and this one felt like it was bordering on a migraine. By the time 4:00 came around then, we were a pretty miserable pair. I was still in denial that I had a pretty bad headache though, and kept saying I was going to get up soon to make magic cookie bars because I was craving them. My attempts to move my head at all resulted in miserable failure, so I soon accepted my bed-ridden state and tried to take a nap. Soon I heard some clanking in the kitchen and knew Adam was up to something. He had said earlier he could make the magic cookie bars, and I had promptly responded that it was ok, I would do them. And besides, he'd probably do it wrong anyway. When I heard clanking I figured he had found a recipe and was trying to make them.

I slowly crawled out of bed to see what was going on and sure enough, he had found a recipe in my family cookbook and had started to make them, but he was making them wrong. The recipe he had found was different than the one I usually used, and he had mixed the butter with the graham cracker crumbs instead of pressing the crumbs into the butter. I decided to let it slide, fight my throbbing head, and help him out. Now, when Adam is cooking or baking something he likes to stick to the recipe EXACTLY. It's actually quite good of him, but I like to be a little creative when I feel the urge. In this case, I didn't have the energy to convince Adam to diverge from his found recipe which continued to give different directions than what I was used to, and I thought "Hey, maybe this way works just as well". We finished the bars and left them to cook. About a half hour later Adam went to check on them and came back with a daunting question, "Are the magic cookie bars supposed to boil?" No. No they are not. I went to check on them, and what I found was simply sugary goop!

We tried to eat them (I hate wasting food, especially coconut and chocolate chips!) but they were just too sweet. Sadly, they were discarded Monday morning.

The story then continues. This Sunday, Adam and I were feeding the missionaries. For dessert, I decided to show Adam how it was done and try round 2. I made the bars as usual, and they turned out great. However, I didn't get them cooking as soon as I should have so we had to serve them to the missionaries soon after they came out of the oven. Little did I know these bars would result in the most magical (aka funniest) moment of the night. I took a bite, discovered the bars to be pretty hot, and exclaimed "HOT!". Adam responded with a black girl head shake and a "Yeah you are". I shrugged my shoulders (I'm a bit used to it), and the missionaries stopped, looked at each other, and paused awkwardly for a good 20 seconds. In my head I thought, "If the goal of the night was to make the missionaries feel super awkward, consider it mission accomplished!"

Creating Space

Well, almost a year and a half later, I have decided to start blogging again. Hopefully this motivational streak will last longer than six posts. I've been thinking for a while of blogging again since I am no where near any of my friends or family that I have known during the first 22 years of my life, and a lot has/is happening! Quick update: I moved to Texas in June of 2011 to begin my Masters program and married Adam Brown in August of 2012, a little less than two months ago. Maybe a future post will tell our story, it's a pretty good one. For now, I'm just pretty excited about the adventure of being a newlywed and making space in my life and heart for my amazing husband, and especially making OUR space a home! 

Adam bought a house a little over a year ago and did a good job furnishing it to look like a bachelor pad. In other words, beyond some basic furniture, it's a little bare. One of the first things that we did for our home is buy some new pillows. This is not as easy as one might think. I've never bought a pillow before, but there are soo many kinds! So naturally, Adam had to try them out to make sure we got the best. 

To go with the new pillows, Adam and I wanted to buy a new comforter set for our bed. The only problem is, Adam and I have VERY different tastes. We had been looking for something that we both liked for a couple of months and hadn't found anything. Then one day, we were walking through Bed Bath & Beyond, and a miracle happened. We found a comforter set that we both really liked. We gathered all of our gift cards (We really appreciate those, Thank You cards are in the works, promise!) and marched to the bedding area where we spent a good 20 minutes tearing apart and re-creating the show bed to decide which parts we wanted to buy. We decided on 1 decorative pillow and two shams for now. 

I'm kind of a huge fan of that orange-ish red color. I have some great ideas to incorporate the color to the rest of the room. Our latest addition to the house is a picture we bought for the wall space above the piano. One morning Adam and I spent a whole morning looking at what picture frames we had and talking about different ideas for that space. Then we went to Hobby Lobby (I LOVE that place) and found a picture that we fell in love with. It is now above the piano, and I'm hoping to buy some wall sconce's to put on either side, but Adam's still working on accepting that idea. He like geometric shapes, and I like to add a little swirl haha. 

So there you have it, a little bit of our home and life. More to come soon! (I hope)