Always a bright side - Recipe: Sally's Choclate Chip Cookies

As I sit here at my desk looking out the window watching the crew from Cranebrook cleaning up the mess in the back yard left by the wind storm last week I'm thankful for the gorgeous weather that we've been enjoying the last few days, but sad that our mighty maple of 150+ yrs was split almost in half and one of it's gigantic limbs (so you have an idea of how big this tree is, the white thing in the photo to the right of the tree is a white glass top table and 4 chairs) is now being cut apart with a chain saw and hauled away.



Last year I took a photo after we had a light snowfall that covered the ground while the maple was still arrayed in all it's golden leafed glory. I'm thankful for that as well. In addition, the storm uprooted a small apple tree which will also have to be removed, leaving the perfect place for the red maple that mom & I wanted to give Rodney this past Father's day. We planted a dogwood and a rhododendron this spring and although the limb from the maple fell exactly in that area the new trees were unharmed. There is always a bright side.



So, that's what I'm trying to focus on after having been up until 2 AM messing with the website trying to insert a spry navigation menu. Of course I managed to mess things up. Seemed simple enough at the time and I was quite proud of myself for how it turned out. The problem was that the submenus wouldn't pop up on the home page... all the other pages were fine but you really need the navigation bar to work on the first page of your site otherwise it's hard for people to get around :) Ok, so I figured I'd just change everything back to the way it was since I saved the old pages and could overwrite the new ones with them. Worked on the home page but not on any of the others! I finally called Coburn Design and asked Jamar to help me get it straightened out. He's working on another big site and said he'll try to get to it this afternoon.

So now what kind of trouble can I get into?

Mom is baking chocolate chip cookies this morning. It smells soooo good in here! She makes the best cc cookies :) Recipe follows photo. Enjoy!



Sally's Chocolate Chip Cookies

Preheat oven to 375
COMBINE IN MEDIUM BOWL:
2 1/2 Cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda

IN LARGE BOWL BEAT UNTIL CREAMY:
1 Cup softened (2 sticks) butter (do not substitute)
3/4 Cup granulated sugar
3/4 Cup packed brown sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract

TO LARGE BOWL ADD ONE AT A TIME:
2 large eggs

GRADUALLY BEAT FLOUR MIXTURE INTO WET INGREDIENTS:

STIR IN:
2 Cups chocolate chips
1 cup chopped nuts

DROP BY ROUNDED TABLESPOON ONTO UNGREASED COOKIE SHEETS. BAKE FOR 9-11 MINUTES. COOL ON BAKING SHEETS FOR 2 MINUTES THEN TRANSFER TO WIRE RACK TO COOL COMPLETELY.

MAKES 3 DOZEN DELECTABLE COOKIES!

Slideshow

Time to blog

Blogging. Seems like everyone is doing it or at least has heard of it. My husband Rodney is always joking with mom and me that he is going to give us a bad review on his blog. He's technologically challenged so there is really no danger of that! But hey, the point is that even he knows about blogging!

We attended the Professional Association of Innkeepers International conference in Anaheim CA in April of this year and we heard a lot about blogging and other technologies that innkeepers can use to be on the cutting edge of what is happening and what people look for when they surf the net. I'm still not sure exactly what to blog about. What will people be interested in? Of course those considering coming to the Finger Lakes-Auburn region might like to read about area events, happenings and goings on but is anyone interested in the day to day life of rookie (1 yr) innkeepers? I guess we're about to find out :)