Day 8, stuck here at the house. We ventured out yesterday to First Hill for a doctor’s appointment. While the freeways were clear of any snow, slush nor ice, the roads to and from the freeway were a far different story. First Hill being, you know, hilly, there were several main roads that were closed, so we went the most circuitous route possible to get to Madison and Minor. And, if you think it would make sense for the city of Seattle to, at the very least, plow the streets leading up to oh, I don’t know, a HOSPITAL, well ho ho ho are you way off-base. At least, I was when I said to the husband, “Surely Madison will be clear of snow.” The ride to the doctor’s was bumpy bumpy bumpy. Baby was not fond of the ride, so far as I can tell. We thankfully have a 4Runner with 4WD that got us to our destination, but boy was I nervous about all of the OTHER cars on the roads, like the lame Toyota Corolla in front of us trying to get to Capitol Hill, or the insane Honda Civic that thought it could bypass a “Street Closed” sign on Boren but then fishtailed and ran into the curb. Some great driving going on.

And, I’m not the only one complaining about the poor job the city has done with clearing the streets.

So, that was our only jaunt of the week (not including a two-mile round trip to UVillage over the weekend). Needless to say, we’re staying home as much as possible. As you might have guessed, I’ve been a little stir crazy. I baked cookies last week, intending to give them to some co-workers. Being as how I never made it back to the office, the work cookies soon became neighbor cookies. I made a batch of chocolate chip and a batch of sugar cut-outs, and frosted them with this lame icing from the BHG cookbook. I wasn’t crazy about the cookie dough, either, so I decided to try again.

For this batch, which I finished today, I used the Best Rolled Out Sugar Cookies. Seriously, that’s what they call them at allrecipes.com. I also found a frosting recipe from allrecipes. It is my go-to site for simple recipes and all-american cooking (i.e green bean casserole).

I had quite a bit of fun frosting these. The frosting is way better than what I used from BHG. BHG was basically powdered sugar and milk. Blech. I sent the husband out for food coloring and added it to the new version, made of powdered sugar, milk and butter (the original recipe called for shortening but I declined. I’m not sure what shortening does to frosting that butter doesn’t)

The toppings I got from Williams Sonoma, on sale. I’m hoping we make it to the in-laws tomorrow for Christmas, so I can give these cookies away. Otherwise I am going to come out of this snowstorm one roly-poly cookie-eating chica.

See more cookie pics on my flickr photostream.

BTW, I am not so clever as to have invented the title of this post. I have to give credit to Cupcake Royale.

Speaking of cupcakes, I imagine this frosting would be incredible on a nice chocolate cupcake. Yeah!