Lemon Cake Cookies

One of our wedding presents a few years back was a baking sheet, a whisk, a box of lemon cake mix, and a recipe for cookies. Seems a bit strange, but it was one of our best (unregistered) presents. I had never heard of making cookies from cake mix before, but it has become one of our all time family favorite recipes. Even my grandma makes these along with her famous peanut butter cookies for family functions. They are so simple to make and only require three ingredients!

Now, what type of eggs you use and what brand of oil don't matter, but you MUST use Betty Crocker cake mix for these to turn out properly. We tried it once with Duncan Hines lemon supreme mix, and it didn't work at all. After a little sleuthing, I noticed that the first ingredient in the Betty Crocker mix is flour, while the first ingredient in the Duncan Hines mix is sugar. I think that makes all the difference.

Just pour one box of Betty Crocker Lemon cake mix into a bowl with two eggs and half a cup of oil, mix well, and refrigerate for an hour. After the hour is up simply make the dough into one inch rounds and roll generously in powdered sugar.

Bake at 350ᵒ for about ten minutes and voilà! You're done and will possibly have just made the easiest, most delicious lemon cookies your friends and family have ever tasted! I took these to a gathering this past weekend, and everyone talked about how delicious the lemon cookies were. Little did they know how easy they are to make!

Lemon Cake Cookies

1 box Betty Crocker Lemon cake mix

2 eggs

1/2 cup oil

1. Mix three ingredients together. Refrigerate dough for one hour.

2. Make dough into 1-inch rounds. Roll into powered sugar.

3. Bake at 350ᵒ for 10-12 minutes. Cookies may require longer depending on your oven. Watch them closely so they don't over cook and get too hard upon cooling.
4. ENJOY!

Library Love

One of my very favorite things to do is to read - so much so that I have to watch myself and sparse out my books, otherwise I'd never get anything else done. Due to my love of books, and the fact that I don't give my books away, I've amassed quite a collection over the years. Right now we just have large Ikea bookshelves, but one day we plan on having a proper library. Most of my home design pins on Pinterest are of libraries (or lighting, which we all know I love), and I am constantly ripping out magazine pages of libraries to go in our "Future House" file. Here are some of my favorites:

Traditional Media Room design by Toronto Interior Designer Mark Dodge Design

Traditional Family Room design by Boston Design-build ARCHIA HOMES

Contemporary Living Room design by Burlington Architect Smith & Vansant Architects PC

Eclectic Hall design by Los Angeles Design-build HartmanBaldwin Design/Build

I love that the last photo looks like a public library. Now just add some height to it so I would need a ladder, and it would be perfect! Any suggestions of books to add to my collection?

More amazing private libraries and college libraries.

A New Direction

Seeing how I've been absent for over six months, I think it's high time I let y'all in on the craziness that has been our life.  So, without further ado, I've decided to go to medical school!  Now, I'm aware that "I've decided" sounds fairly flippant, however, I don't really think you care to read about the months I've (we've, actually) spent languishing over my life and my career choices.  As a non-traditional student (i.e. not still in school, have been a professional for awhile now, decided to make a life change, etc.) this has been quite the road thus far.  This is not really the place to write about all of that, but I may be starting a separate med school-minded page, so stay tuned for that if you're interested.

So there's our big news!  I won't be going to school until the fall of 2013 so I have awhile to continue what I'm doing and to enjoy a bit of free time.  I'll begin posting regularly soon, and if you have any questions about the medical school admissions process just shoot me a line - I'd love to talk!