Every year in my department at work, we attend an annual sales and marketing seminar. This is the first year that I did not feel like committing suicide at the seminar. Normally it goes on for almost the entire week and is located somewhere well outside the city and ends up being socially awkward on some level. I am not a social butterfly, am not a drinker, and am not into being around people who drink too much. In fact, I realized this year at one of the events on the last night that people start to scare me a little bit when they are really drunk. The people who don't even look twice at you or say more than a word or two to you under normal circumstances are suddenly all over you, overly friendly and grabby, their eyes dilated and behaving in this almost zombie-like attack fashion. This unnerves me, and as I witnessed this a few times in my last moments of attendance at the final-night dinner, I was pleased to just go back to the hotel.

And now school has begun. Doing the millionth master's degree in my educational repertoire… it's part-time, distance/online from Malmö University and fascinating. Communications for development. Love this subject.

Caramel cream cookies are next up in my baking fun — it is a new recipe for me (see below). Outcome to follow.
Cookies:
1 cup soft butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 egg yolk
2 cups flour (might need a few more tablespoons to make the dough easy to handle)

Frosting or filling:
1/4 cup butter
2-1/2 cups sifted powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
3-5 tablespoons cream

Preparation:
In large bowl, cream 1 cup butter with 1/2 cup brown sugar and sugar until fluffy. Add tablespoon of vanilla and egg yolk and mix well. Then add flour until dough forms. Chill at least 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 325F. Roll dough into 1" balls and place on baking sheet. Flatten by pressing fork tines or by pressing with the bottom of a glass dipped in sugar.

Bake for 8-11 minutes until light brown at edges. Remove from cookie sheets immediately and cool on wire rack.

Frosting:
Melt 1/4 cup butter. Heat on low until butter begins to brown. Watch it carefully, cook at about 6-8 minutes. Remove from heat and blend in powdered sugar, vanilla, and cream until desired spreading consistency.

Frost the top of the cookies. Or if you make them into sandwich cookies, frost the undersides of the cookies and stick them together.