Deployed Soldier Cookies

These are my very favorite kind of cookies to make. They are the very first kind of cookies I ever made. These kind of cookies are the reason that I ever started decorating cookies in the first place. These cookies are for a soldier deployed overseas. Don't get me wrong. I'm not excited that they are deployed...I just like being able to do something for them.

I started making cookies when my husband was deployed. It seemed like I had nothing but time. And a computer. And a library. I learned to do A LOT of cool stuff between the hours of 9pm and 5am. (Obviously...sleeping was not one of the things I learned to do while he was deployed. But don't be like me. Sleep is a good thing. Especially if you are an infant.....Can someone read this post to my child?) I made some real ugly cookies the first time around. And the second time as well. And I made A LOT of them. And I sent them all to my husband. And he shared them. And then he told me that everyone loved them. Secretly I knew they didn't care what the cookies looked like, but I felt like a rock star anyway.

Also while my husband was deployed, I learned --

To play soccer. And I was really good at it because I played with other moms who had been bribed by their friend to play so they didn't really care if they won or not. But I cared. I wanted to win. So I ran really fast. And did all sorts of crazy trick moves that didn't fake anyone out. But they laughed a lot and then I would quick take the ball.

What a sump pump sounds like at 3am when my neighbor left their sprinklers on all night and it flooded my yard. And in case you are wondering -- it sounds like a big scary bad guy hitting all the pipes in your basement with a hammer every 5-7 minutes. And it was hard to tell from the sound itself, but I was also guessing that he had a beard. And that he smelled bad. And probably, he had come from Mississippi or somewhere else far away and was trying to eat the cereal I left in the laundry room. I knew I should have put that away.

Where the best garage sale neighborhood were. I had a map and everything. I printed out a couple copies just so I could spread them out on the table in dim light and then I'd hunch over them and plot my course for the following day while hoping that someone would look in my window and think that I was doing something super secret and really cool.

How to do basically everything around the house -- I fixed plumbing leaks. I planted grass and built a giant flowerbed and hauled buckets and buckets of dirt to fill it up. I stained my fence and painted my walls. And then when my husband came home, he was all "Great! Now what do you need ME for?" Except, he really didn't think it was great. And I told him that he could do all those things for the rest of his life and I would just make some more cookies or something. So that turned out all right.


Do you want to know how I got the Route 66 -ish shape cookie? 

1. I used the fancy square cutter! (...and some end of the line, cracked to bits cookie dough.)
2. After cutting out the fancy square, make two diagonal cuts starting just inside the point and going in.
3. Angle your cutter so you are only cutting with the very top edge and cut the dough from line to line.
4. Done. Lift. Bake. Cool. Decorate. Eat. Enjoy.

PS: The flag isn't backwards. It is designed that way to look like the wind is blowing it because the soldiers are always moving forward. And when soldiers are deployed, they wear this "subdued" version of our red, white and blue flag.