Soft Cookie, Warm Cookie, Cookie On A Shirt

After my "Soft Cookie" post the other day, I thought I was done what that parody song.  However, I began thinking of other images I could base off of it.  Eventually, I came up with this:

cookie_song_mosaic_web

I liked how it came out so much that I thought "That would look good on a t-shirt."  You know what?  It does!  Here’s the link in case you want to buy a t-shirt.

On a related note: Did you know I had a Zazzle store?  I didn’t.  I opened it awhile back intending to sell products with some photos I took but never did anything with it. I’m resurrecting it to offer my "Soft Cookie" products. Does this make it a Zombie Zazzle store?  (The things you think of when you’re writing your post at 12:40am.)

The only bad part about this graphic? It’s making me hungry for cookies! I think I need to run to the store tomorrow.

Note: The cookie graphic I used is by sonoftroll and is available via OpenClipArt.org.

Evolution of a Parody Song or Little Cookie of Fur?

My boys haven’t been allowed to watch The Big Bang Theory of yet. While there’s a lot in the show that we could geek out over together, there’s just too much (e.g. sex talk) that is inappropriate for them.  Still, we’ve introduced them to some elements of the show such as the Soft Kitty song.

If you’ve never seen Big Bang Theory, the Soft Kitty song is the tune that Sheldon Cooper’s mother sings to him when he gets sick.

While in the kitchen the other day, I began – just out of the blue – singing "Soft cookie, warm cookie."  That’s when JSL chimed in.  Unfortunately, he completed the line with the line "Little Cookie of Fur."  Suddenly, there was much laughter – mostly from me as I envisioned a furry cookie.  (Furry cookies don’t seem appetizing to me at all!)

After a moment of thought, I continued my verse with "ball of cookie dough.  Chewy cookie, chocolate cookie…" And that’s where I was stuck.  I couldn’t think of a rhyme for dough that would work.

Not to be deterred, I kept at it as I worked in the kitchen.  Finally, I came up with:

Soft cookie
Warm cookie
Cookie dough rolled up
Chewy cookie
Chocolate cookie
Eat them up!

This sounded really good… except the repeated "up" nagged at me.  It always strikes me as cheap when a singer rhymes a word with itself.  Call it nitpicking, but an entire song can be ruined for me because the lyrics include self-rhyming.  After some more thought, I sang:

Soft cookie
Warm cookie
Get them in my tum
Chewy cookie
Chocolate cookie
Yum! Yum! Yum!

This was better, but now the "tum" line bothered me.  Still, it was pretty good so I decided to leave it be.

A short while later, I went upstairs to hook up a new printer (one my in-laws weren’t using anymore).  While cleaning up some space for it, I came upon some old finds: VHS tapes, old Free Comic Book Day comics, and a rhyming dictionary.  I wondered if this would have a good word so JSL (who had come to keep me company/play) and I looked up "yum."  I could have slapped myself.  How could I forget the word "crumb"?!!!  That both rhymed and fit the cookie theme.  So here is the full Soft Cookie song:

Soft cookie
Warm cookie
Little cookie crumb
Chewy cookie
Chocolate cookie
Yum! Yum! Yum!

Of course, I had to have a little graphics fun as well to come up with this:

Soft Cookie Web

The Importance of Playing

Platformer_Game"But we didn’t get time to play!!!"

Sadly, these words have been uttered often this week.  Thanks to various activities, the boys have had little time for playing in the afternoon after they return home, eat dinner, and finish their homework.  All too often, they’ll finish their last homework problem only to find that they have a mere ten minutes until they need to start getting ready for bed.

Obviously, play time is important for kids.  It lets them relax and get creative in a manner that they find enjoyable (versus in a manner that a teacher has assigned).  However, play time can be just as important for adults.

In a conversation with a friend if mine, he asked how many hours in a week I spent on social media, playing games, and other activities that did not directly put money in my bank account.  When I answered, he suggested that I use those hours to take on extra freelance work instead.

While I do freelance work, I try very hard not to be a workaholic.  Mainly, because I think that a life consisting of only work will quickly become a frustrating and boring life.  I would rather live a life with slightly less money but one filled with family, friends, and fun.

In addition, you can easily get burnt out by working too much.  When I’m faced with a frustrating task, the worst thing I can do is keep trying to tackle it for hours on end.  When faced with problems like this, I’ll put the problem down and either play a quick game, take a walk, or work on something else.  Doing this keeps my brain from going down the same failed path over and over again.  Oftentimes, my subconscious will figure out the solution for me while I’m pursuing other interests.

Finally, there’s the "death march fallacy.". Some employers try to get their employees to work 80+ hour weeks for weeks on end to finish projects on time.  (Usually in these cases, the deadline was set by managers who aren’t directly responsible for meeting said deadline.). The theory is that the employees will put in double the hours and get the work done in half as many days.  The reality is that employees wind up overworked, overtired, and burnt out.  The quality of their work declines fast and more time is spent fixing mistakes that they make than would have been spent with a slower development schedule.  Why would I subject myself to a" freelance death march" just to earn extra money?  All that would happen would be that I would be miserable, my quality of work would plummet, and my clients would be upset about the work I was doing for them.

No, my playing a game, watching TV, or reading a book doesn’t bring in money, but every activity we do doesn’t have to be monetized. A life focused solely on money sounds like a very boring and meaningless life to me.

How important is play/recreation to you? What is your favorite method of unwinding?

NOTE: The "Platformer Game" image above is by qubodup and is available from OpenClipArt.org.

A Late Bout Of Pumpkin Guts

Halloween came and the boys got on their costumes.  We went out trick or treating and they collected plenty of candy.  They returned home, shed their costumes, and ate a couple pieces each.  We even welcomed trick or treaters at our house and gave out some treats.  However, something was still missing.  We had two, perfectly good pumpkins sitting in our porch uncarved.

Thanks to a combination of getting them late and a busy week, we just didn’t have the time to carve them.  So the boys, sadly, went to bed on Halloween night without carved pumpkins flickering in the window.  We corrected this on Sunday by taking some time to carve our pumpkins.  Unlike the first time we did this, the boys were more hands on.  First, I sliced off the tops.

knife_in_pumpkin

Next, the boys reached in and pulled out all of the seeds and guts that they could.

pumpkin_inside

pumpkin_seed_hands

Finally, as I scraped the insides down, NHL and JSL drew the faces they wanted.  NHL made a monster and JSL made Captain America.  In the end, I needed to use a little pumpkin carver’s poetic license on their designs.  (JSL’s, for example, would have had a portion of the A floating in midair.  I’m not THAT good of a pumpkin carver!)

pumpkins_unlit

With the addition of some LED "candles", the pumpkins were set for some post-Halloween spookiness.

pumpkin_heads

Sure, Halloween might be over, but this doesn’t mean the fun needs to end, right?  And besides, those pumpkin seeds will taste really good roasted!

Gold Medal For Lost Teeth At The Sled Olympics

The Winter Olympics might be in full swing in Sochi, but back here we are having some winter events of our own.  There’s the meter deep snow drift shovel, the icy driveway skate, and the ever popular car figure skating (aka maneuvering your car out of a snowed in driveway into a snow-narrowed street without hitting the snow banks or parked cars).

To find some actual fun in the snow, we went to a local park that has a giant hill.  During the spring and summer, the boys love running up and down this hill.  I figured this would be the perfect place to sled down.  JSL immediately began to get fearful.  He’s afraid of heights (or so he claims) and this was definitely high up.  NHL took the first sled ride and loved it – shouting with joy the whole way down.  JSL decided to brave a trip and shouted as well, but more out of fear than enjoyment.

tall-hill

Of course, I had to have my go and – always thinking social media – filmed a first-person view going down.

Hard sled + bounces + my not-so-young anymore body = OUCH!  I definitely envied another family that was there with inflatable sledding devices.  I could have used some of that cushioning power.

We kept at it for awhile and I even came up with a solution for JSL.  I positioned the sled halfway up the hill and stood in front of it to keep it in place as he got on.  When he was ready, I stepped aside and he went down.  This gave him enough height to make for a fun ride, but not so much to trigger fear.  Of course, this meant less opportunity for me to take photos of JSL in any pose except for his apparently traditional post-sled snow angel.

snow-angel

NHL, for his part, tended to gravitate to the more dangerous sections.  Some people had fashioned sled jumps and NHL wanted to try them out.  I let him and he had a blast.

snow-hit

One jump he caught just right and wound up with some serious air.  I was at the top of the hill at the time so when it was his turn next, I had him wait until I got into position so I could snap this photo.

catching-air

Unfortunately, right after I took the photo, NHL got up from where he landed and yelled that he had hurt his nose and glasses.  I looked him over and he was fine – if a bit snow covered, but then he realized something else was wrong.

He had lost a tooth!

Yes, it was a wiggly tooth that was due to come out.  (Insert sigh of relief from me here.)  However, it wasn’t with him.  It was somewhere near where he landed.  Finding a small white tooth on a patch of white snow was going to be nearly impossible so I let NHL know that we’d look but we probably wouldn’t find it.  Two minutes in, I was about to call off the search when NHL proclaimed that he found it.  Sure enough, he plucked something small off of the ground and had his tooth back.

tooth-found

I took it and firmly held onto it until we got home.  The tooth fairy visited him that night and gave him his own gold medals… I mean coins.

gold-coins

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