Admittedly, I’ve never seen The Sound of Music. I know, I know. Travesty. But I’ve seen the well-known clip from that movie where Julie Andrews is spinning around in a field, arms wide open singing happily. You know what? That’s EXACTLY how I have been feeling ever since the friggin snow has been melting. So while I’m about a week overdue for a blog post I’ll tell you where I’ve been on the weekends. EVERYWHERE. I finally moved my car. First thing I did, drove straight to Bed, Bath ad Beyond. I didn’t even need anything, but I was finally free! Last weekend I was literally SKIPPING in the parking lot at Target, which I normally only do when I am afraid I’m going to get mugged and trying to get to my car faster. Sweet sweet freedom. And man does it feel good. Now, let me be clear here. There are still piles of snow everywhere in Boston and I am pretty certain that after we recently hit the record for most snowfall in the history of the universe in Boston this winter that my backyard legitimately will have snow until the middle of May. But the parking spot space savers are GONE. The negative temperatures are no more. You can walk three-people across on the sidewalks. You can see pavement. Praise Jesus, Hallelujah! The only thing I can really think to help you understand what I look like leaving the house in Boston now is my favorite scene from the movie 500 days of Summer — watch this.

So I am sure you can understand that it was hard to find the time to sit down and write about cookies when I was out high fiving random strangers in the streets of Boston. Also I think in the past two weeks I was in Connecticut, New York, Philadelphia, Utah and Boston, so my weekends have been spent trying to catch up on sleep. But do not fear. While I may be late on blogging, I have kept up with my baking. I made these Coffee Cake Cookies last weekend and brought them down to Philly for my team on Monday morning. And they devoured them. Like when you throw a loaf of bread out your car window in the beach parking lot and the seagulls go insane. That’s how my team reacts when I show up with cookies Monday morning.

I came across the recipe for these cookies when a random train of thought got derailed. I had bought sour cream to use for a dinner recipe, and then I got to thinking how much I love my Mom’s Sour Cream Coffee Cake recipe. And then I thought maybe I would make that, but man that would be a pain to try to transport on the plane to Philly. Then, Eureka. What if I could make coffee cake into cookie form. INCONCEIVABLE! (More on that reference later). So I did it. I found this recipe on the blog Cookies and Cups. I really wasn’t sure how to tackle this recipe on my own, so I decided to follow the recipe on her blog pretty close to how she did it. And I am glad I did. I was not a believer until I took a bite, just how good these taste and how much they taste like you’re biting into a piece of fresh coffee cake. Which I guess means these are a totally acceptable breakfast food, right??

Yield: Makes 20 large cookies

• ½ cup butter, softened
• ⅓ cup brown sugar
• ⅓ cup granulated sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• ½ tsp salt
• 1⅔ cup flour

• 10 Tbsp butter
• ⅓ cup shortening
• 1 cup light brown sugar
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• 1½ tsp cinnamon
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 3⅓ cup flour
• optional ~ ½ cup powdered sugar for dusting (I skipped this part)

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. To make the crumb topping, mix the softened butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, cinnamon, salt and flour together in a medium bowl. Cut together with pastry cutter or a fork until evenly mixed. Chill in the refrigerator while you make the cookie dough.

Step 2: In your mixer, cream together butter, shortening, light brown sugar and granulated sugar on a medium speed for about 2 minutes until smooth. You do need to use shortening for this recipe, so try not to substitute for it. It will help with the texture of the cookie.

Step 3: Sift together the baking soda, salt and flour, and slowly add into the wet batter mixing on a low speed until combined. 

Step 4: On a sil-pat or parchment-lined baking sheet, use an ice cream scoop to place large cookies at least an inch apart from eachother. I baked 8 cookies per sheet to make sure they had plenty of room to spread out.

Step 5: Using a spoon, make an indentation in the center of the cookie dough.

Step 6: Scoop at least 1 tablespoon of the crumb topping into the center of the dough, pressing lightly with your fingertips to make sure it sticks. 

Step 7: Bake at 350 degrees for about 9-10 minutes, or until the edges turn golden. Mine took a few extra minutes. When you remove from the oven, let them sit on the cookie sheet to set until transferring them to a cooling rack to finish cooling. An optional step is to dust with powdered sugar. I skipped this because I figured it would get messy in transport to work, but if I was serving these day of I would definitely include the powdered sugar.

I think this is going to be the cookie that starts the revolution of eating cookies for breakfast. The cinnamon flavor and all the browned sugar topping just makes for such a sweet and rich goodness with every bite. And the shortening helps the cookies stay together and maintain their softness, which is just perfect. I mean really, this is perfection in cookie form.

Absolute perfection. The center of the cookies are so soft and chewy, just like if you took a bite of regular coffee cake.

So I have almost two weeks to catch you up on. Not like I really did anything THAT exciting (minus the dancing in the streets now that you can actually see the streets) so I’ll try to remember what I did the past 10 days and recap them for you.

So my last post I actually wrote on the long flight to Utah two weeks ago. I was flying from Philly to Salt Lake City to attend the Adobe Summit. Because that’s what technology consultants do. Too bad we didn’t actually go outside a half mile radius of the convention center, because the little I did get to see of Utah was pretty beautiful.

This was the sunrise right outside my hotel room over the mountains. It looked like the sky was on fire.

So the second night of the conference they had this event where Imagine Dragons performed, but for the two hours before the concert there were all these food stands which was right up my alley because I’m much more of a tapas/appetizer try a lot of things kind of girl rather than eat one big meal. This is not a good picture of it, but this was called a Walking Taco. In a Doritos bag cut in half, there were crushed up Doritos at the bottom and then all the insides of a taco thrown on top and you ate it with a fork. Not clean eats, but delicious.

So then we got to see this amazing Imagine Dragons concert. No I was not that close to the stage, this was just a picture of the Jumbotron, but we still had great seats. And they are just amazing performers. I would definitely go back and see them live in concert if they came to Boston.Since I am used to mostly East Coast flights under 2 hours, any of these flights I take that cross more than just the central time zone feel incredibly long to me. So I downloaded Birdman and Up in the Air to watch on the flight back since I had almost 5 hours to kill. I have watched Up in the Air way too many times for my own good, but Anna Kendrick in the scene below – I just relate to on way too many levels. I am also pretty sure that’s the expression I have at work after a few flights or a long day in the closet. (Yes, we work in a windowless room). Just watch the movie. You’ll get me. And if you don’t want to pay the $3.99 to rent the movie, just watch this scene. That’s where I usually am come Thursday morning. And then this is the rest of the scene if you really have some time to get your YouTube on today. Now you get me? We’re also 9 days until the big 3-0 so I may be a little overly sensitive right now.Okay so … moving on. Once I got home from Utah, I slept a lot. It was really raining last weekend (thank GAWD it wasn’t snow) but I used that as my excuse to catch up on my DVR and sleep. Sunday morning was the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Southie, which Mother Nature nicely held off with her little snow fit until the afternoon so the morning 5k and parade still went on. In my younger days, Southie was the place to be for the parade. Day drinking starting at 10am, house hopping. Now, I run the 5k and then nap on the couch all afternoon. And I wouldn’t change a thing. This year my friend Ashley and I ran it together – with NO headphones. We actually talked the whole way. Well, Ashley talked while I dry heaved up the hills, but we finished in 34 minutes with no training, which was pretty good considering there were 4 pretty steep hills. No matter what time of year it is, you can always count on Ashley and I to meet up for a walk or run dressed head to toe like ninjas. I spent Sunday afternoon watching The Princess Bride which my parents were so appalled a few weeks ago when they were discussing House of Cards and my dad said Robin Wright from The Princess Bride and I said I never saw that movie. So then it magically (via Amazon and my parents) arrived in my mailbox last week so I watched it. And now every time I call home my Dad answers the phone saying “Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.” Every. Single. Time. If you haven’t seen the movie here is the clip. and YES that is Saul from HOMELAND. I will never be able to look at him the same again. Yes. Really. It’s him.

So I decided to ride that 5k high this week and just crush my workouts this week in Philly. I joined Fitmob which is a great way to try all of the boutique gyms around Philly – and the first month is only $1. Two of the other girls that I work with also joined, so it’s been a fun way to try new classes with friends. And it’s helped to get into a better routine while I’m down in PHL. Tuesday morning I took a kettlebell class at 6am with my very energetic friend Maya who requires very little sleep and flies to the east coast from LA every week. The best part was the walk back “home” right around sunrise through Love Park. Other highlights from Philly this week include a delicious dinner at Parc in Rittenhouse Square, which I finally started exploring more now that it’s actually light out when I leave the office. In honor of my Mom who loves Creme Brulee because it’s one of the few naturally gluten-free desserts that actually tastes delicious, I decided to splurge on a Wednesday night and enjoy a few bites (well… a lot of bites) of this perfect creme brulee. 

Thursday I caught the 5:15pm flight home which was amazing because it took off ON TIME (unheard of in PHL) and I landed in BOSTON BEFORE THE SUN SET. Yes. That is the first time I think ever since I started this project in early November that has happened. Which meant I was able to make dinner with my friend Caitlan at our favorite Southie Spot Local 149. That was a nice treat for a Thursday night.

This weekend I decided I needed to get out of the house and enjoy the freedom that is the start of spring. Saturday morning I woke up to run errands before my tennis match and thought I was seeing things. SNOW. FOUR LETTER WORD. ITS SPRING. STAHHPPPPPPPPP. But I refuse to drink hot coffee anymore. It’s iced coffee season. And this picture was actually taken after I put my coffee on top of my car because I needed to climb the giant snow bank to get out. So I was eye level with the roof of my car. Then we crushed our tennis match despite not having played for a long time together. But the Young Gunz always dominate. One of our opponent’s names was JoJo so the entire match I had this song stuck in my head. So I tried to channel the inner sass of JoJo (the singer) to dominate. And then last night I went out with my friend Molly and Ania for a friend’s birthday at Highball Lounge in Boston, which was great because they have all of these board games to keep you entertained. And there is nothing better than sipping pinot playing a round of Jenga or Hungry Hungry Hippos. Molly had some pretty good Jenga skillz.This morning I took an early yoga class at South Boston yoga, which was such a great way to start the day, even if I was a little pinot-unbalanced. Then I went to Chestnut Hill and grabbed lunch at the Cheesecake Factory with my sister who was in town for a Swing Dancing event. The Cheesecake Factory has been one of our favorite spots ever since we were both at Boston College, and we do well as sisters because we both prefer appetizers over entrees. Yum Yum. 

And that’s it. Which was basically me complaining about flying, and showing you what I ate, and then what I did to burn it off. But at least you have enough YouTube clips to get you through the first hour of your Monday morning. So you’re welcome for that.

Next week is my birthday. 30. It’s here. And by the time it gets here, I’ll be ready to embrace it with open arms. Hopefully. I have a lot of really fun things to look forward to over the next few weeks though, so I have nothing to complain about. Saturday night is when I tear up the nonexistent dance floor at one of my favorite bars with all of my favorite people. Then Easter Weekend Skip turns 60, so we’re celebrating both of our birthdays together. And then the following weekend I fly to PUNTA CANA with two of my favorite friends Caitlin and Katie for 5 nights of fun in the sun. I could not be more excited.

HAPPY SPRING!