Half-baked: A little bit of this, a little bit of that ...

Welcome to August!  I've always loved this month (and not JUST because it means its almost my birthday :) Memories of August include sweltering days poolside, watering flowers in our yard for Dad and back-to-school shopping.  I still remember buying some sweet cords and a brown velour top that I LOVED one year for elementary school.  (Did I just totally date myself?  Oh well.)

Last week Rhett and I removed EVERYTHING from our bedroom for a pretty intense deep-clean.  That meant furniture, craft supplies, clothes and well, you name it was spread throughout the house.  You could barely walk into our living room for almost a week.  The kids playroom literally had paths to the computers.  We took that time to re-arrange things as we put things back in order.  Rhett and I switched our "office" areas.  He now has my old sewing table and that side of the bedroom and I have a longer fold-out table in the living room.  I also gave up my craft closet that stored all my supplies--painting, crochet, sewing and scrapbooking.  Its been quite interesting trying to create suitable new spaces.  It will be ongoing ...

Since I got most of that to a stopping point, I took some time to finish my Tetris block for week 3--YAY!  I'm loving how this is coming along.  This is my first truly scrap project and I think it'll make a fun picnic or outdoor blanket.

Finally, I got some baking done last night.  We have a little "thing" this afternoon at Rhett's work that I'll post more on later, but I wanted to make a goodie tray to take with us.  Both recipes I got from other bloggers.  My favorite cookie ever is Oatmeal Chocolate Chip, so I had to try this recipe that was recently posted.  I made them with my small Pampered Chef scoop--so people would be more likely to munch.  They turned out really well.  They browned up nicely and are soft to eat.  I still prefer my Aunt Susie's recipe (I'll  have to post that sometime ...) that I've had forever, but these aren't bad.  The cinnamon flavor is really strong, so I'll either halve or totally omit that next time.  This other recipe is one that I've made before for ward potlucks.  It always disappears super fast.  I cut it into about 1" squares.  It's a very rich three layers:  chocolate chip cookie, oreos and brownie mix.  The recipe calls for double stuff, but I just use regular Oreos.  It can take 15 or 20 minutes more to cook than the recipe says, so be patient. Its definitely worth the time it takes to cool and set up, so leave yourself plenty of time by making it the night before you actually want it.