30 Things in 30 Days: Thing #5—Doorbell Ditching

They can't all be home-runs, ladies and gents. They—can't—all—be—home—runs. These past two days have just been exhausting. David is in the next room right now working on two papers due at midnight tonight. He will likely be at the computer until midnight—as many of you know, almost any paper in the world can be worked on right up to the minute of the due date. But Dave will actually probably be in bed earlier tonight than any other night this week, since he's been writing until about 2 a.m. every night.

So even though we've managed to do Awesome Things every day, it's felt a little sloppy, too. Bilbo Baggins keeps jumping into my head and whispering, "You and me, kid: we're like butter that's spread too thin...so thin...." (This is an appropriate literary character for me to empathize with considering that my sister-in-law Sarah purportedly referred to me as Gilgo Gaggins when she heard her brother was romantically involved with a girl named Gilliland. Of course, my family teased me about David, too: Grover has been my favorite muppet since I could first walk and talk, and one of my first words was "Goh-dee-goh" for "Grover." So yeah, my sister referred to David as Goh-dee-goh for about as long as my in-laws referred to me as Gilgo. Quid pro quo, I should say.)

To my point.

We wanted to go doorbell ditching for Thing #4 last night. Baking these cookies was absolutely not stressful. It was glorious, actually. An absolute stress reliever. And I'd been wanting to try these double-chocolate cookies for a long time, and this was my perfect excuse. But because we started too late, the cookies weren't done until 10:00 p.m. and we felt sheepish about knocking on anybody's door that late, even if we were bearing gifts. So, much to my chagrin, we bagged the doorbell-ditching and let the cookies cool overnight.

We made Molasses Spice and Double Chocolate cookies. We love the America's Test Kitchen cookbook because the recipes are almost always delicious (and scientifically proven to be the best!)

Momma Grover had to be on the road by noon, so rather than bring Hollie with us tonight (after her bedtime), we decided to doorbell-ditch the treats by the light of the sun, around 10:00 a.m. These are the things we learned about the experience:

1. We are old. (Seriously, we can't leave the house after dark anymore? Who have we become?)
2. In high school, you had a pretty safe bet that your friends would be home eventually to pick up the treats on their porch. When most of your friends are university students or university professors, though, and it is at the end of a semester, leaving treats on a porch with no car in the driveway is potentially leaving treats on the porch for a week or more. (Dear squirrels and stray dogs: enjoy, but don't eat too much of the chocolate cookies as they are not good for you.)
3. It is incredibly difficult to find hiding places in broad daylight. We managed, but SHEESH. Furthermore, David and I are big people. The typical shrub is not enough to cover our girths and lengths. Plus, have you seen Dave's hair?
4. We don't run nearly as fast as we used to.
5. Even when you make a bunch of treats and give almost all of them away, you still end up eating more than you ought to at home. (Hey, do you expect me to give out the funny-looking dud cookies? They were funny-looking!)

Our little partner-in-crime.

Our little partner-in-crime's tootsies.

Dave doing some ditching, wearing the carnation-pink adventure watch we bought at a Hello Kitty shop in Edinburgh when we realized we had come to Scotland without the means to tell time. It is ironically too big for my wrist, so Dave wears it on all our adventuring.

Also, we realize that doorbell ditching cookies and then crowing about it via Facebook and a blog is hardly altruistic. But, in our defense, we tried to hit up people who are not frequent Facebookers and who have never, to my knowledge, read this blog. However, if you did happen to get cookies this morning that look like the ones in these pictures.............it wasn't us. *cough*

Thing #5: The doorbell-ditch—ACCOMPLISHED, barely.

As a bonus for my family readers, here are some pictures of Momma Grover and Baby Hollie from this morning.

Thanks for coming to visit us and help us get all our work done during finals week, Momma Grover! We miss you already!