Every year I put together a box of Christmas cookies and I send them to my friends. Normally I am very organized in the way I go about it: A preliminary cookie list is developed, with a repetoire of cookies that makes sense; Boxes are purchased and the cookies are packaged in a relatively neat and orderly fashion, to ensure the least amount of crunching and smooshing they will take in the mail.

Normally what I try to do is try out new and exciting cookies months prior so that when Christmas arrives, I will already know what I want to make and there won’t be any guessing as to which cookie recipes would be good or not. That didn’t happen either.

At the last minute, after I had my list of cookies to make, I am perusing the internet, and I see a bunch of interesting cookies that are a definite shift from what I usually bake for the holidays. Maybe I was going through some sort of baking withdrawal because I threw out my list of tried and true cookies in favor of some wild cards. The list ended up being so grandiose, there was no way I could finish them all. Most of them were completed, but there were two that I just couldn’t get to. Four cookies in all, and three different truffles. Two of the truffles had been assembled the weekend prior, so there was just one more truffle I had to put together. Last night at midnight I was finally finished, and before I went to bed I made sure my kitchen was relatively clean and all of the food was packed up.

The cookies needed to go out today, without fail. And I had to run an errand in the afternoon, so I come up with this ingenious plan - instead of buying boxes for the cookies this weekend (like I should have done) I decided that while I was out this afternoon I would grab boxes, head to UPS, pack up the cookies and send them. It would have been a genius plan, except that it wasn’t.

I run my errand, pick up boxes and tissue paper. Then I get to UPS.

The line was out the door.

So, here’s what I’ve got. Four boxes of cookies that need to get sent out, nine different boxes of cookies/truffles, one small Jetta, and me.

In the front seat of my car, I juggled boxes and tissue paper and cookies and truffles and was covered in chocolate while I tried boxing this crap up. What in the world was I thinking? In the end, I was just chucking everything into boxes, stuffing tissue paper over the top, and slamming the lid down. I was covered in chocolate, and while I was having an episode I ate one of Ed’s truffles.

After the boxes get done, I get inside and get to the UPS counter. The staff was nice, as always, but that’s probably because you have to take out a second mortgage just to send a couple of boxes across the country. After they finish my boxes, it dawns on me that I didn’t include Christmas cards. Screw it. No cards. What’s more is that I am sending truffles to California and Alabama where it is very warm. How’s that for forsight?

Well, enjoy your Christmas boxes. Just remember to grab your spoon before digging in.

Last year I went back to school and got a few of my art classes out of the way. I applied to the Interior Design program at my school, and started classes for the program this year. The Interior Design department only offers classes during the day, that is, during the usual business office hours of 8 - 5, but my boss (who is awesome) likes the idea of me going back to school and lets me go. So, two days a week, I leave work around 3:00 and come back at 5:00 to make up my work day. It actually works out nicely because my boss can get so busy that we don’t end up catching each other until the end of the day. The 5:00 hour can be the most peaceful and most productive, since most everyone else has retreated from the building.

In my class, we have a crazy person. The neat thing about her is that you don’t know she’s crazy until she starts talking. At that point, crazy is all out in the open and pretty hard to hide. She’s older than most of the students - not that she is old, she’s just older than a lot of the kids who are fresh out of high school. I would guess she is in her 40’s. We knew she was a little nuts because of some of the odd things she decides to interject during lectures, in an attempt to raise her “participation” part of the grade, which is worth 25% of the grade (basically, the participation grade is showing up to class, not being rude, asking questions, that sort of thing).

Allegedly, a lot of the IDE 101 students are failing the class. The course grade is mainly decided by three tests, each worth 25% of the grade, and then the 25% participation grade. Halfway through the semester we had only been given one assignment, so in all essence, the grades were riding on the tests. A lot of students bombed the first test, so our teacher decided to assign some homework to help prop up our grades. So we put together what is called a color board, where we were given measurements that we had to have for fabric swatches and the board that the fabric is mounted on, and the idea was for people to get colors and fabrics together on a presentation board, called a color board, which is then presented to a client. Our teacher was trying to get us to learn how to lay out our items in a way that makes sense to a client, and then receive feedback from peers.

Crazy came out for the project in a whole new way. She was the second or third to present, and her board was a bit like her - crazy. Nothing on the board fit the measurements that were on the handout; first of all, her board was about 1/3 of the size it was supposed to be (11×17). So no one could really see it. When that, with a couple of other things, were politely brought to her attention after her presentation, she was like a woman scorned! To everyone else who presented after that, she would raise her hand to give feedback and she would say, “I don’t like that at all. I think it’s ugly.” Thanks for the constructive criticism, Crazy!

During today’s class, it was a new and interesting day for Crazy to botch up the lecture. And did she ever.

About a third of the way through the lecture, someone’s phone starts ringing. Loudly. And not in one of those regular tones - some extremely loud and annoying little pop song. The teacher stops speaking and we are all looking around for the culprit. Meanwhile, Crazy is gazing stupidly up at the presentation screen, as if nothing is going on. Finally, my teacher says, “Whose phone is that?”

Blinking, Crazy looks over at her and says, “Oh, that’s mine.”

A brief pause ensues while my teacher stares at Crazy, waiting for her to get up and stop the offending phone. She doesn’t.

“You need to turn it off. Now, please.”

But Crazy was just too crazy to understand this request. “Oh, I can’t - it’s up front, behind you. It ran out of battery so I plugged it in up at the front of the room…”

Another pause from my teacher. “You need to get it right now.”

Crazy gets up from her seat, squeezes herself between the lecture tables until she can make it into the aisle, bumbles, stumbles, and shuffles down to the front of the lecture hall, and retrieves her phone. Then she has to repeat the process to get back to her seat. Meanwhile, we’re all waiting for her to sit down so we can continue.

A few minutes later…

RING! Her phone is ringing again. We all stop and look over at Crazy. My teacher, now pretty angry, says, “You need to shut that off right now. Please do not ever have a phone on in class.”

Crazy mumbles her response (she’s always mumbling and no one can understand her) so we try to pick up the lecture where we left off.

But wait, there’s more! A little while later…

A strange noise! Our heads pop up like marmots as we’re trying to figure out where it’s coming from. It’s Crazy, snoring at the front of the lecture hall! Yes, that’s right, now Crazy has fallen asleep and is taking a few minutes out of her hectic schedule to have a little nappy-poo. My teacher, now thoroughly annoyed, walks over and begins to tap on Crazy’s shoulder until she wakes up. “You need to leave,” she said. “Right now. You really just need to go. Please go.”

“Okay,” is what I think Crazy mumbled - who knows. She gathers up her things and proceeds to shuffle/stumble out of the room in a dopey and sleepy stupor.

It took a few minutes to recuperate from all of that, but we finally managed, and it’s a good thing, too. We’re on the final stretch to the end of the semester, and things are getting intense. Apparently a lot of students are not doing well, and the people in my particular class have been dropping like flies. The final grade is based on the 25% participation grade, and three tests, each worth 25%. Originally, each test was to cover 3 chapters out of our book. However, when so many people did poorly on the first test (History of Interior Design/Architecture - I admit, that test was fairly intense) she decided to really dig in and cover the next two chapters. In fact, she went back and presented the same lecture twice on chapter 4, just to make sure people got it. Because we spent so much time recovering information, she gave the next test based on two chapters, as there was no time to squeeze in a third chapter.

Again, a lot of people did not do well. I didn’t do as well as I had expected either, but I was still doing well in the class overall so I wasn’t too worried. The day that we got the grades from test #2 back was the day we did our presentations on the color boards. After that day, people started missing from the class, and continued to disappear. Registration for next semester started, but not many people are signing up to take the continuation class (Interior Design 102) - my guess is it’s a reflection of people doing so poorly in this current class. Before every class, my teacher has been asking people to sign up for the next class, because the school is going to consolidate the two classes into one if people don’t sign up.

In an attempt to bring grades up, we are now receiving “Extra Credit” assignments to turn in, that have a real “project” feel to them - they’re quite time consuming. She says they should only take 15 minutes to do, which I am sure is the case if you have a Masters Degree in Architecture like she does. For the rest of us, it took hours. At any rate, I was quite pleased when she mentioned in class yesterday that at the end of the semester she will add up our grades, and then whatever she decides to award us for the Extra Credit assignments, she will just add across the top. Her example was that if she decided to give us 10 points for the project we just turned in, and we were getting an 80 as an overall class grade, we would now get a 90. That’s a pretty big boost, so I’m wondering just how poorly people are doing in the class - or just how desperate she is to get people to sign up for next semester.

The funny thing about it is that the semester ends next week, and she now has to cram 4 chapters into this next test. Our class is on Tuesday and Thursday. She wants to have the test on Tuesday, which leaves us with one more day to cover the rest of the information — nearly two chapters worth. She’s desperate to get our grades up, but on top of the four chapters we are racing through, we also have these big projects piled on top of us to do for extra credit work.

This is not making sense to me, and even though her new and nifty extra credit points are going to solidify a good grade, I’m really nervous about this upcoming test. I’ll probably take a day off before the test to study.

My good friend, Kerry, has turned me on to Savage Chickens.

Although my passion for cooking has not waned, my ability to spend a lot of time in the kitchen has. And as the season has changed, I have spent less time combing through the countrified Taste of Home magazine in exchange for the sleeker recipes of Bon Appetit. It’s about time, too. When I first began to cook I was only interested in desserts, and that is the only thing I combed Bon Appetit for. Eventually, the lengthy, time-consuming, food-glamour recipes took a backseat and I stopped reading the magazine altogether, even though my subscription was repeatedly renewed - It was a gift, and I couldn’t tell her to stop giving it to me or I would have felt bad!

It’s a good thing I did not. Today, I have 4 years of magazines and half of them are still in the plastic. Now that I am interested in cooking meals, the magazine has found it’s way back into my life - and although many of the recipes enclosed are for those with more time on their hands, in the back of each magazine is a section that suits me perfectly, titled Too Busy To Cook?

Chicken with Sun-Dried Tomato Sauce - Oh my Lord, this dish was like a SONG. I couldn’t stop talking about it days after I had made it. Taking a whole 25 minutes to cook, the cream sauce with shallots, white wine, and sun-dried tomatoes was unbelievable. The recipe is listed on the epicurious website, and out of 107 reviews, it is getting a full 4-fork rating. And don’t forget - use fresh basil, don’t use dried! I usually pick up a live little basil plant in the produce section of the grocery store. Don’t worry about getting too much basil; you’ll be using it again with some of the other recipes listed below. Serve with salad or a vegetable.

Fettucine with Creamy Tomato and Sausage Sauce - Quick, easy, delicious. If you’re looking for an excuse to make it, consider that you probably have extra shallots and whipping cream left over from the chicken with Sun-Dried Tomato Sauce dish.

Angel Hair Pasta with Peas, Proscuitto, and Lemon - I can’t say enough about this dish, and it takes 10 minutes to make - seriously. The original recipe calls for 4 tsp. lemon, but it’s a bit overpowering so I cut it in half on my recipe index. If you like lemon, add more juice. This is one of Tom’s new favorites and he’s pretty picky so it has to be good. If you only tried one recipe from this article, I would strongly urge you to pick this one. If you have leftovers that you plan on packing up to reheat later, add a little more of your spaghetti water to it. That way, when you go to microwave your pasta, it won’t dry out too much. And don’t forget to use fresh basil!