Baking Cookies and Going Bonkers

I meant to document Micah's first baking experience the other day right after it happened, but I just didn't get around to it. I have been swamped with an equal mix of responsibility and fun. This summer, the average day goes as follows:

7-8am: Wake-up call given by Micah or Scout, the green dog.
8am: Make breakfast
8:20:Eat breakfast
8:45:Clean kitchen
9:00:Laundry, take out trash
9:15: Get ready to teach lessons
10:00: Teach
12:00: Lunch and clean kitchen
1:00: Micah naps. Mommy spends time with Jesus. Check email and FB.
2:30: Get Micah up and feed him a snack. Begin cooking dinner.
3:30: Clean kitchen again.
3:45: Play with Micah and do a couple of chores
5:00: Pass Micah off to someone else, and leave for the theater.
6:00: Rehearse.
9:30-10:15: Arrive home. Eat snack. Clean kitchen for the 4th time. Waste time or fold laundry.
12am: Go to bed, and do it again.

Blogging has been difficult to fit in.

But back to baking with Micah . . . I managed to fit it in week before last when we had an unexpected night off from rehearsing Peter Pan. We baked chocolate chip cookies, and he loved it! Well, most of it. He wasn't too interested in my compulsive cleanings in between each mess. He enjoyed dumping ingredients into the bowl and mixing them together, but his favorite parts of baking were eating the chocolate chips he dropped onto the counter, licking the bowl and consuming the fruits of his labor.
Whisking dry ingredients.



Licking the bowl.

Gluten free chocolate chip cookies made from rice and potato flour.

Yum! Yum!

Those cookies were remarkably good for being gluten free. This was the first time I have ever made them from scratch, but it won't be the last!

We are through the first weekend of Peter Pan. I have only 4 more nights to be Mrs. Darling, and then I'm back to being Mrs. Keaster full time. A hunch tells me that Brandon is looking forward to that. He is so incredibly supportive of my love of the stage, but he can't enjoy me being away from home until late every night. By being such a good sport about this play and its hours, he has given me a much greater gift than he could possibly know. (I love you, Baby!)

Peter Pan has taken a bit of a physical toll on me. I am exhausted. I'm sore for reasons unbeknown to me--What? I'm old. It takes me awhile and a few cups of coffee to help me get going in the morning, but I am having so much fun. Fun hasn't been the only positive by-product of being a part of this production. The creative waters have been stirred, and the sleeping beast within has been wakened. I am a firm believer in the old adage "creativity breeds creativity," but I'm experiencing something closer to "creativity breeds manic creativity."

Yesterday, I went bonkers. I wish I had taken a picture of the house before I cleaned it up because I had uncharacteristically large messes in multiple rooms. Stuff was everywhere! I started several projects yesterday, and began planning several more. All I really want is to do is to do, to create! So, I added several pages to my novel, framed photos to hang in our "new" home, began preparing for a hypothetical audition, began studying Dickinson again, unpacked boxes, decorated, began planning a scrapbook for Micah's life thus far, cleaned, taught, spent time with Jesus, read my book, mothered and did two loads of laundry.

For me, this is crazy behavior. I am generally a low key, low energy kind of person. Normally, if I make it out of my pajamas, cook dinner, and keep Micah healthy and happy, I count it as a good day. But today, the house is mostly clean, I am creating and possibility flavors the air. And possibility tastes oh, so good.

"I dwell in Possibility--
A fairer House than Prose--
More numerous of Windows--
Superior--for Doors--

Of Chambers as the Cedars--
Impregnable of Eye--
And for an Everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky--

Of Visitors--the fairest--
For Occupation--This--
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise--"

-Emily Dickinson