By Heat dome over Pendleton this week. Hundred-and-five inland. Caleb had baseball practice Tuesday and Thursday. I drove.
Caleb, 7, wants to be a firefighter still. Has not deviated. Hazel, 4, chaos incarnate. Put a peanut butter sandwich in the DVD player Wednesday. Showed zero remorse.
BBQ chicken on the grill. Ryan handled it. He grills, I do everything else.
Mom called Sunday. We talked while she was putting up tomatoes from the garden. She is sixty-something and gardening like she is forty. Megan called from D.C.. We talked twenty minutes. The relationship is better now than it was.
Donna would say: dinner at 1800, no exceptions. We did 1800.
Caleb watched the firefighters at a school visit Wednesday and came home buzzing. He is going to be one. I have known this since he was four. Some kids tell you who they are early.
Base housing is base housing. Beige walls, beige carpet, beige expectations. The dryer venting is in a stupid place. The kitchen has no dishwasher. We make it work.
I unpacked another box from storage Tuesday afternoon. Three years on this base and I am still finding things I packed in Twentynine Palms. Military-wife archeology — every box is a layer of geological history. I found a ceramic dish from Lejeune still wrapped in newspaper from 2020.
Hazel and I had a hard moment Tuesday at homework time. She is in a season of testing limits. We worked through it. We always do. She is mine.
Caleb's school had a fundraiser this week. I baked cookies because I always bake cookies. The cookies were the standard chocolate chip. They sold out in twenty minutes. I am the cookie mom of this PTO and I have stopped fighting it.
I made a casserole for a neighbor whose husband is deployed. I dropped it off. She cried. I told her, eat the casserole, baby. The food is the saying. The casserole was a mostly-frozen tater-tot situation that took fifteen minutes of effort and six months of practice to perfect.
The Friday before-school morning was chaos. Three kids, two backpacks, one missing shoe. We all made it to the bus. I drank cold coffee at nine AM because that's when I sat down. Standard.
I went to the commissary Saturday morning. Got the grocery haul under sixty bucks for the week, which is a small victory. The cashier knows me. We talked about her grandkids while she scanned the chicken thighs and the family-size box of pasta. Small-town energy on a Marine base in California.
The kitchen counter has a chip in it from someone before us. Some military housing thing. I have stopped asking what. The chip is fine. The whole kitchen is provisional. We are renting from Uncle Sam.
The PCS rumors are starting again. The official orders will come in a few months. We could move. We could stay. The waiting is the worst part. Three years here and I have learned to not put down deep roots in any military town. Nineteen-year-old me would not have believed how good I have gotten at packing.
The military spouses' Facebook group had a small drama this week. Two women fighting over the playgroup schedule. I muted notifications and cooked dinner. Some weeks the group is the lifeline. Some weeks it is the source of unnecessary stress. The skill is knowing which week you're in.
Reading another military memoir at night. They make Ryan tense. They steady me. We negotiate. He doesn't ask what I'm reading. I don't tell him. The arrangement works.
I sat at the kitchen table Tuesday night writing in the journal. Volume 10 now. The handwriting has not gotten neater. The journals are a record of the life I am living, in the moment, in tiny script that I will look back on someday and not be able to read. That is okay. The writing was the thing.
The chocolate chip cookies I brought to the fundraiser were not fancy — I have made them so many times the recipe lives in my hands more than in any notebook. But this version, with cream cheese folded into the dough, is the reason the plate empties before the table is even set up. I have been the cookie mom long enough to know what works, and these work. Ryan grilled the chicken; I owned the cookies. That’s how the week divided itself, and honestly, I’m fine with that arrangement.
Softbatch Cream Cheese Chocolate Chip Cookies
Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 11 min | Total Time: 26 min | Servings: 24 cookies
Ingredients
- 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
- 4 oz full-fat cream cheese, softened
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
- 1 large egg
- 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat. Heat oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
- Mix dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
- Cream butter and cream cheese. In a large bowl, beat the softened butter and cream cheese together with a hand mixer or stand mixer on medium speed until smooth and fully combined, about 2 minutes.
- Add sugars. Add the granulated sugar and brown sugar to the butter mixture and beat on medium-high until light and fluffy, about 2–3 minutes.
- Add egg and vanilla. Mix in the egg and vanilla extract until just incorporated, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.
- Combine wet and dry. Add the flour mixture in two additions, stirring on low speed until just combined after each. Do not overmix.
- Fold in chocolate chips. Stir in the chocolate chips by hand with a spatula until evenly distributed throughout the dough.
- Portion cookies. Drop rounded tablespoons of dough (about 1 1/2 inches) onto the prepared baking sheets, spacing them 2 inches apart.
- Bake. Bake for 9–11 minutes, until the edges are just set and the centers still look slightly underdone. They will firm up as they cool — do not overbake.
- Cool. Let cookies cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. Serve warm or store in an airtight container at room temperature up to 5 days.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 188 | Protein: 2g | Fat: 9g | Carbs: 26g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 98mg