Sunday Update

I realized it's been a week since I posted anything here. It's been busy. I am the annual garage sale coordinator for my neighborhood and yesterday was the 3rd Annual Lake George Neighborhood Neighborhood-wide Garage Sales day. It was a blast!

Out of a neighborhood of about 700 homes, we had 25 "official" sales and many, many more who hadn't signed up but were riding on the coat-tails of the advertising the rest of us did. (I have mixed feelings about that. The more sales, the merrier the "atmosphere" around here, but then if everyone had chipped in the $5 that 25 households did, just imagine the advertising possibilities!). Anyway, the weather was cool and sunny and it felt like a festive, fall day with a few sales on every street.

We sold a few things, some big most small, but our main money-makers of the day were my Amish Chocolate Chip Cookies and George's blueberry scones. I made a batch of 3 dozen large cookies and after the family swiped a few probably sold 25 of them at $1 each. And the blueberry scones? I had to keep sending George in to make more! People were walking around with them, tempting others and sending them our way, so we sold about 5 batches of scones, 40 at a buck a piece. The fresh out of the oven warmth, the u-picked local blueberries and the chilly morning made these just irresistable, I guess.

The other thing we sold was fresh hot, organic, fair trade Peace Coffee. In preparation for this, I stood in the grocery store aisle on Friday night just staring at the super-cheap styrofoam cups for several minutes. Earth-lover that I am, I just couldn't bring myself to buy them though. So we solved that problem by selling the coffee in some of our excess mugs (doesn't everyone have way too many of these?). I told people the coffee was $1 a cup with a free mug thrown in--take it or leave it. We sold a few mugs worth of coffee and didn't see any mugs returned, which is just fine by us. I think we will do this every year now, so I'll actually have to collect a few mugs here and there to be sure and have enough. I'm sure that won't be a problem.

Fall is upon us. The St. Cloud State University students moved in yesterday. School starts for them and the public school teachers (including George) tomorrow. There's even a chill in the air here in Minnesota. I just love the changing of the seasons, don't you?

Here's my Amish Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe, from a cookbook I bought in Lancaster, PA when I was a teen-ager. So I've been making these cookies since then! We even served them at our wedding...

1 c. cooking oil (I've been using grapeseed oil lately)
1/2 c. white sugar
1 c. brown sugar (I try not to pack it, just loosely measure)
1 t. vanilla
2 eggs
1/2 t. water
1 t. salt
1 t. baking soda
3-1/4 c. flour
1/2 pkg. chocolate chips

Mix oil, sugars, vanilla and eggs till creamy. Then add water and dry ingredients, including chocolate chips. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto a baking sheet. Bake at 350 deg. F. for 8-10 minutes or until golden brown. These turn out differently for everybody. I like mine best! But they're easy as pie so give it a try...;-)