hear the tinkle of breaking glass?

She has shattered the biggest of all glass ceilings.  Congratulations Madam Secretary.  Now it's on to the White House!

graduation

The setting:

Outdoors, on the quad.  Cold and wet, but glorious nonetheless.

The graduate:

With her honors stole, diploma in hand!

She did it!

The joyous family:

Andrew, Em, Alex

It was a wonderful ceremony no matter the rain, wind, cold.  As they were crossing the stage the sun came out in celebration.

Daisy takes a dip

At 8 o'clock on Friday evening it was still 104º here in the valley.  Daisy dropped by to take a cooling dip and seemed to enjoy the whole thing.  I know I did.

child replacement therapy

Two days after her daughter Emily graduated from Whitman College, Alex brought this beautiful creature home.  Meet Jitterbug.

bear in the 'hood

From daughter Caitlin in front of her house.  All we have in our neighborhood is the occasional turkey.  Know your neighbors.

don't miss this read

This is a spectacular read.  Put it on the top of your bedside stack.  The "hero" is a displaced New York Jew who finds himself in Oslo, Norway.  I am loving this book, thanks to daughter Cait's recommendation.

cookies

It's cold and rainy here in the valley.  Perfect weather for baking cookies.  Of course staying in bed with the duvet up to your chin, reading a good book and sipping hot cocoa would be a good idea, too.  But I opted for the cookie business.

One of my favorite Instagram sites in nytfood, a treasure trove of recipes sent several times a day.  A couple of weeks ago it was Peanut Butter Cookies.  If there had been smell-o-vision I probably would have eaten my iPod.  Instead, I copied out the instructions, then bought what I needed, put on my apron and went at it yesterday.

I hauled out the food processor (to grind up the peanuts), the sifter, the standing mixer, cookie sheets and parchment paper.  The entire kitchen was involved in this endeavor.  Here is the dough almost ready.

Into the oven!  The traditional crosshatch markings on peanut butter cookies.  I have no idea why they are supposed to look like that.

Perfectly done.  Not cake-like.  Crisp and crunchy.

Absolutely delicious!  I now have about 60 cookies to tide me over through the coming chilly days!

Oh, and this is how the kitchen looked when it was all over.