Larkin Family's Favorite Cookie Recipe

I'm listening to the thunder roll in outside, it is crazy loud! I love thunderstorms but I really look forward to moving back to the East Coast where thunderstorms just mean rain and not tornados as well. I still love listening to the rain though.
: )

 I decided that today I would share my families favorite oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe! It is super popular at the Larkin residence, so much so that there aren't any pictures of the actual cookies! : ( I waited too long and they were all gone before I got a picture, woops! Oh well, our cookies look just like any other oatmeal chocolate chip cookie, but they are extra special because of how salty and sweet they taste!

You are gonna need:
3 cups quick oats
1&1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2&1/2 sticks butter
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1&1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

  Look at that battered old recipe sheet! It has most of my families favorite cookie recipes on it. It is definitely well loved. 2. Combine oats, flour, baking soda and salt. Mix and then set it aside!3. Mix together butter, brown sugar and sugar until its light and fluffy. Or in my case, until its a little less chunky. : )4. Add the vanilla and the egg, mix until creamy.5. Slowly add in the oat mixture. Go slow so you don't burn out your mixer. My family has bad luck with mixers!6. Mix in your chocolate chips! Feel free to add in extra chocolate chips. I always do!7. Drop round balls of dough onto a ungreased tray. As you can tell, our tray has also been around for a while. : ) 
8. Bake for 8-9 minutes. Let cool! Bakes 4 dozen cookies.
As you can tell, this is a really simple cookie recipe. I love me some drop cookies! Feel free to add other things instead of chocolate chips, sometimes we mix it up and add mini m&ms as well. Just no raisins! I hate raisins in my cookies, always tricking me to think they are chocolate chips, then bam! DISGUSTING. 
Here is the recipe in a printable version:
Larkin Family's Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
Some things I have been up to this weekend were:

• making this delicious maple mustard pork tenderloin for dinner.  I just skipped the whole plank thing and cooked it straight on the grill! I suggest doing the brine, it made the meat so juicy and kept it from drying out. I made some garlic mashed potatoes and broccoli to go with it. Yummy dinner! 
• looking at summer dresses! I am obsessed with cute floral summer dresses and I would love to have some like this and this. I am on the mad hunt for cute dress tutorials and patterns right now so I can make my own.
• also looking at getting some hair feathers. When I first heard about the concept from my sister, Leigh, I thought it was the strangest style ever, but I have been looking for a while now to get bright colors in my hair in some way. I think my friends and family are relieved to hear I am backing away from the idea of dying my whole head of hair pink. : ]
• hearing about a bunch of babysitting jobs! God is so good, and like one of my friends said, when it rains, it pours! I heard about three different babysitting jobs in one day, and I have an interview set up for this coming Wednesday. I've been sharing some of the jobs with my sister so I am hoping things will work out for the best for both of us! 

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Tutorial Thursdays... Er... Saturday

Here is my first tutorial you have been waiting for so long! I am terribly sorry it took such a long time, but I had some unforeseen difficulties with this craft! I was first inspired to do this craft when I saw the idea on another blog. I thought it was an awesome craft to try out and a decently inexpensive one as well! All I needed to purchase was some fabric, oven cleaner and eventually hydrochloric acid. : )
This craft shouldn't take more than a day to complete, sadly for me it took me several due to my unusually antique mirror. The mirror I decided to use was from 1939 and made in Philadelphia! It was one we had that was being unused at my house. For this tutorial I would suggest trying to find a newer mirror to use (say 1980 and onwards) but if you do use an antique mirror just cut out the oven cleaner and use the hydrochloric acid instead! 
What you will need is:

• Mirror
• Enough fabric to cover the frame and mirror
• Modge Podge 
• Paint brushes or foam brushes to spread glue
• Oven cleaner (or hydrochloric acid) 
• Scissors 
• Gloves (protect yourself when you use the chemicals!)
• Iron (if your fabric needs to be smoothed out)

I had pretty much everything already. I suggest trying the oven cleaner out first if it is a newer mirror but if you want to play it safe you can just go straight to using the acid. The acid will work! After trying millions of things, the acid stripped the silvering off in seconds. Just be careful and know that you will have to buy a huge amount, which you might not use again. If you live near me you can totally have some of mine because I probably won't be using it very often!

 Get your cat off of your fabric. Easier said than done. Cut fabric down to size. I left around a four inch amount to wrap around the back and on the inside. Don't forget to leave the extra on to wrap around the frame!(Optional) Iron fabric if there are huge wrinkles. It will make it a lot easier to glue on the fabric smoothly.  Cover that frame in glue! Cake it on! Put fabric one and smooth into any corners or edges. Add lots of glue to cover the fabric.Keep gluing and checking to make sure the fabric is smooth! Now its time to go spray your mirror with the oven cleaner (or acid). You can do this earlier if you would like, I waited to see where my fabric would end up somewhat.I wanted my splotches to be as natural looking as possible. The only one I wasn't too happy with is the one on the bottom of the picture. Leave the oven cleaner on for at least ten minutes, but the acid should be washed off fairly quickly. Make sure your fabric is staying smooth!This is what the oven cleaner/ acid should look like once it has set. If you are using acid, use water to neutralize the reaction after a few minutes of it being on the mirror. The silvering should virtually wash right off with the water. With the oven cleaner scrub off the silver paint and you will see some muddy yuck. I'm not sure if this will be on newer mirrors. Did I mention mine was a lead based paint? Yum!I had to scrub and scrub to get even a little bit of the silvering off of my mirror with the oven cleaner. If this is happening to you, stop now and go get some hydrochloric acid. It will save you lots of time! It really shouldn't take much to get it off.You can see the oven cleaner just wasn't doing the trick. I suggest a steel wool fine scrubby. I used a 0 grade. Super fine!Really, this stuff should be coming right off. Once again, if it isn't get yourself some acid!You can see I finally started getting some results with the oven cleaner. The silvering will come off and turn clear, like the glass it really is!
After this point rinse off the mirror and let it dry. Using a paper towel is a good idea to get all of the silver gunk off.
I failed to get photos of the next few steps. I apologize but they are pretty self explanatory/ repeats of what I did above.
To get your mirrors fabric to match up perfectly (or almost) it takes a lot of ocd and planning. I wanted mine to be a perfect match so I took the time to lay the fabric down under the mirror and look through the glass parts to see if it matched with frame. If you don't care about this, just start cutting your fabric! I also traced around where the mirror should go so I would know where to lay the mirror back down.
Once its all lined up (or not) cut the fabric down to the size of your mirror. I left an extra inch on each side so I didn't get glue everywhere. 
Then cover the back of your mirror with glue and slowly lower it onto your fabric. I found it pretty easy to leave the fabric on the table and lower the mirror down so the pressure would hold the fabric and mirror together. You may need two sets of hands for this part. My friend Heather was around and lent a helping hand!
Let it all dry and cut off your excess fabric around the frame. 

Once its dry its time to put the mirror back in the frame! We had to use little wooden pieces to get my antique mirror back in the frame, but your mirror may be different depending on how old it is. Then you can go ahead and screw or attach your back board back on to hold the whole thing together.Here is the back of my mirror with everything all attached!Finally, put the hanging wire back on if your frame has one.Tada! You can almost not tell where the mirror and frame start and end in this image.Everything is a bit more defined in this photo. I think I will want to hang it with the big blob on the bottom.And another photo with me in it! As you can see, most of the mirror is still usable, some places the silvering is still slightly there making my fabric more transparent. I am really happy with how this all turned out!
Special thanks to my friends Kaleigh and Heather for helping me out! Kaleigh took some magnificent photos for me and helped with the frame and Heather really helped me with putting the fabric on the back of the mirror. My dad also really helped out with putting it all back together again!
I hope you all enjoyed my first craft tutorial, I have another one coming your way soon! 

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Whimsical Wednesday

Today I enjoyed a relaxing day of working on my craft for tomorrows tutorial and watching television! I don't know how I got so lucky to be able to just enjoy myself today and I am so thankful for it! Haha I just realized everyone is going to think I am television obsessed after my post yesterday and then saying thats what I did today. Woops! I'm watching Mythbusters with my sister and my friend Clay now while I wait for Top Chef Masters to come on. I hope everyone else is able to relax a bit today! : )

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Things I love...

Television Show Edition!

Tralalalalala! Hello dear readers out in reader land. I hope life is treating you well! I am fighting off sickness, I really don't know what is up with my body but my head and stomach are rather mad at me right now. I had a job interview today with one of my local Jimmy Johns! I would love working there I think, sandwiches aren't too difficult to make and the atmosphere always seems to be a lot of fun. Plus they always seem to be very social people and I like that that quite a bit. : ) Well today's Things I love is focusing on some of my favorite tv shows! I never though this would be so difficult, but apparently I like a lot more television shows than I thought I did! No worries, I am not obsessed with tv, I don't even have my own tv (didn't have one all year this year in my dorm room and last year I was lucky enough to have a roommate who had one. Annie! She is the sweetest girl I know. Had to give a shout out!) anywhoo, I mostly watch shows on hulu or via other internet sources. I rarely just sit and watch a show either, I always have to keep my hands busy, so its mostly when I am crafting or designing or doing my makeup in the morning. 

Without further delay, here is a random collection of ten of my favorite tv shows! (In no specific order)

1. The West Wing is in fact, my favorite television show of all time. I do not think that any other show will ever top this seven season show of awesomeness that Aaron Sorkin created (yes the same guy who did The Social Network). If only President Bartlet could be the real president of the United States, I would be in heaven. This show is where I first picked up my interest in politics and I really wish that politicians held themselves to the same ideals that many of these characters did. Not that anyone was perfect, but this show really did help give me a positive outlook on politics. I guess I live in a daydream world where this show is real life. I like it here a lot, I wish everyone else would just join me. 

2. Project Runway. Oh Tim Gunn, where are you and why aren't you telling some incredible designers to make clothes for me? My mom and I first started watching this show when it first aired back in 2004 and I have been hooked ever since. I almost wish that graphic designers could have a show like this so I could try and compete, but our lives are not nearly glamorous enough. My favorite challenges are the ones where they have to use non-traditional sewing items or have to make super elaborate costumes. I like seeing that extra bit of creativity put into their outfits.

3. Extreme Makeove Home Edition is a show that I don't watch every week, but when I do watch, I normally end up tearing up at least a few times during the episode. My heart is always touched by how many people reach out to help out someone they don't really know, and to see how families lives can be changed by so much positive support from their community. I also love seeing the designs of the homes, especially since my mom is an architect and interior designer, so I was raised with somewhat of an understanding of what works and what doesn't. All of the little kids make my heart swell. : )

4. Top Chef Shows. Okay so this might be a huge cop out, but I can not list each one independently. I enjoy watching Top Chef, Top Chef Just Desserts and Top Chef Masters so much! I only recently started watching this show but I have seen all of the episodes now and I always find them online if I can't watch them live (which pretty much always happens). This is where I credit being inspired to try new recipes, after watching a few of these episodes I just see so many yummy ideas I have to start cooking!

5. Wedding Shows. This is an even bigger cop out, I know, I am a terrible person but once again, there are TOO MANY shows to list them individually. I probably could have an individual list for this category. Lets see, there is Say Yes to the Dress, one of my favorites, but the drama is a bit unnecessary at times. I know plenty of guys that enjoy SYttD too! Platinum Weddings, Amazing Wedding Cakes, Four Weddings, oh there has to be more. 

6. Ace of Cakes. (and any other baking show) A little less of a cop out, I can definitely narrow it down to one show that is my stand out favorite. Duff Goldman is a cake genius and the team that works for him is incredible. I can't help but admit that their location in Baltimore (where I used to live) also gives them a slight edge over other baking shows. In general, I love most baking shows such as Cupcake Wars and Food Network Challenge (not always baking, but the ones I watch are) and they also inspire me to bake awesome new recipes.

7. Glee! Even when this show was the new kid on the block I was way into it. It premiered my freshman year of college, right after graduating from high school where a majority of my friends were in show choir. While Glee is a very warped portrayal of show choir, a lot of the basis of the show comes from the area I live in. Carmel is the neighboring town to us and back in the day they were the number one show choir to beat. Also I love the lessons they try to teach about high school in general, with judging, bullying, sexuality and friendship, this show is often truer than most other tv shows are when it comes to portraying how high school can work. And the characters are hilarious renditions of a lot of people I know, only exaggerated to ridiculous levels. 

8. Joan of Arcadia. Sadly this show only lasted two seasons, but my mom and I watched every episode when they aired and we now own both seasons on DVD. The premise is a modern day rendition of the Joan of Arc story, Joan talks to God and because of this, her life is effected by the things she is told to do and the decisions she has to make. I really enjoyed the fact that God portrayed by many different actors, it really speaks to my belief that God is a part of all of us. Portraying Him as a child, an old lady, a garbage man or as punk rocker illustrates that God made us all to be a part of Him, despite our outwardly  appearances. I wish this show could have lasted more than two seasons and Amber Tamblyn is one of my favorite actors to this day. (Fun fact, this is also set in Maryland!)

9. Modern Family. Even though this show is still relatively new (like so many on my list!) it is definitely one that will have me laughing my butt off every episode. Something about the way this show is written really shows how families actually interact and points out the hilarity of the daily lives families live. All of these actors are hilarious and I think this show proves its point of being awesome by the sheer amount of people that watch it. Everyone I know enjoys this show. And I was going to name my (future) adopted asian baby Lilly and of course now I cant! Thanks Modern Family. Thanks a lot.

10. ARCHER! Oh my goodness. This list would NOT be complete without this show on here. I have every episode saved onto my hard drive and I always turn to the episodes when I need to be cheered up. I love the animation style used (I feel like I could illustrate some of the scenes, that is so cool!) and how much detail is put into each episode. I enjoy the mash up of old technology meets new in such a smooth way, half the time I don't even realize that they are wearing 1960's fashions while talking on a cell phone or using modern weapons. Everything about this show is epic.

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