It felt so nostalgic when I was sharpening these pencils using a typical blade with which I used to sharpen pencils the days I used to go to school. Here, I say, I used to sharpen the pencil and that is not true. Fact is, I was a totally spoiled child to the extent that it might become difficult for the majority of you to even believe if that is true.
I dedicate this post to the most lovely and one of the best moms in the world.
To my Mom!!

My mom was highly studious always tops her class. Always!! So it was natural for her to expect her kids to top their class. My bro was a natural, she didn’t have to go behind him to score the maximum. Me being the younger one, she had to make sure I did my part well. Every day I had to THOROUGHLY finish studying the lessons of subjects that were taught in class. Ok, this is in class 2 as far as I remember . If I wouldn’t pay seriousness, this is how she used to handle. Sit near me in my bed half an hour ahead of my usual waking time, before getting up for school. I wouldn’t open my eyes, and fully cover me up with my quilt, she cant even find my eyes or ears. Trusting that what she reads out aloud will go into my brain through my ears, she would start reading out the lesson, repeating it with every punctuation needed. She repeats and repeats that it gets stored in my brain without my knowledge. During the day in the class if there was a sudden test, I would start writing the answers as if I knew it thoroughly, but I would be surprised at how I knew those answers while I never studied it myself. When my mom sees those answer sheets, she will bubble with joy and that was my studying pattern for few years as much I remember. There were many who use to be surprised at how I appear for exams and score the maximum, without even looking at the book even once

We used to work with daily time tables in the school. Each day the subjects vary and the time in which every subject appear on different days also vary. When I have my first class in the day, I wouldn’t have to look into my bag to check where that subject’s book is. I can blindly pick out the first book kept in order in my bag. You pick it and you name it, it is the first subject of the day. The 4th period of the day, go blindly, pick the 4th book and there I get it. It is my mom’s job to arrange my bag looking at the time table in the order that I don’t have to struggle searching for my books

Any pending home works?! Never!! I have never checked my pencil box before leaving to school. It is my mom’s foremost duty to check out my box and fill them with everything needed. I will be always equipped with beautifully sharpened pencils. Those were always sharpened using the regular blades and she never trusts a sharpener, because the extent to which the leads are sharpened using a sharpener, are way too much for me to handle. She has to sharpen it to make sure it is just right for me to write it without being too sharp . My pens are always filled with ink and I m never left with any surprises.

Once I crossed my bed studying age, my mom combine studied with me. All my subjects. She used to prepare thoroughly along with me as if it was her subjects, her exams. She used to memorize and repeat every answer to each of the subjects. And she used to feel happy about my maximum scores. I used to obviously feel proud. I was not pressurized, I was not scolded, I was not thrust. But probably if she had not made me study the way she did, I might not have been very keen on studying at all.

My mom is a perfectionist, I am not!! She is highly organized, I am totally not!! I do not have even a 5 % of all the good qualities that my mom possess. But I was a kid who was loved unconditionally, who was taken care of, in a way that life was always care free, have nothing to worry about, every single thing in my life will be taken care of. All that I need would come to me and I do not have to worry about anything that comes my way. My mom is there to pull out the weeds on my way and let me move on. Later during my years after I became an adult, when I had to face issues, I see my mom as my Goddess who would always be there to solve that for me. She would trust me, come what may. You tell her I am almost always online in Facebook, doing something or the other and that I am madly obsessed with baking and that is not right. You will be banged . You cannot convince her that I made a mistake, well I might have made it, but you cannot convince her!!

So you have one doubt here isn’t it ? Why I didn’t score maximums in my board exams ? Well, some brat convinced her to let me study on my own after I was in my 6th grade. Because spoon feeding was not good for me, as she would not be able to cope up with all the subjects which would be further complicated for her to combine study with me. So, there was a drastic drift in my grades slide down, and I fought it myself and managed to come out with decent scores, but I might not have made her proud then. But today, well, definitely I have made her proud and I am making her proud every single day

I enjoyed total luxury as a kid and also as I grew up. But I somehow decided my kids will not get that. My daughter finds and picks her own stationary to be taken to school, on her own. If she misses something it is on her, and so I am a spoiled mom too , I enjoyed luxury and I still enjoy one !! It is definitely not easy to stay the same. I am now having a whole lot of books on procrastination, to ‘work on the now’, to keep things organized and much more on that front. But me and my mom still have some books to study in common, she is still open to new subjects and we both read them out and discuss things out. These days they are self help series, positivity, affirmations, tapping and so on

Long post again , so these cookies are a total crowd pleaser and confidently a best seller. They are little time consuming to make but complete fun. You will be on high when you sharpen these out and get the colours. They are yumm and crispy and addictive to grab another one.

Recipe Inspired from – Creative Ideas

1. Line up a baking tray with butter paper/silicon mat. Pre-heat oven to 180 degree C. Sift together flour and salt. Set aside.

2. Add butter and icing sugar together in the bowl of your electric beater. Beat on medium high speed for 3 minutes until the mixture becomes creamy.

3. Add the yolk and beat again on medium speed until the yolk combines well.

4. Add the curd and beat again until combined.

5. Add vanilla extract and beat until combined.

6. Add the flour mixture and beat on slow speed until flour has been incorporated.

7. Do not over beat. The dough will not come together in the bowl. They can be put together later using hands.

8. Divide the dough into two halves. Further divide one of the half into 4 equal sized portions. Add drops of gel colours in different shades into each of the 4 equal portions.

9. Knead each colour completely into each of the portion.

10. Roll out a rectangle with the uncolored portion of the dough into a sheet of 2 mm thickness. Make sure to dust your work surface with flour.

11. Pinch out 2 to 3 pea sized portions of each coloured dough and make a sausage of 3 mm diameter 4 to 5 inches long.

12. Place each coloured sausage in one corner of the uncolored rolled out sheet of dough.

13. By scrapping through the bottom of the sheet of dough, turn it over to enclose the coloured sausage completely.

14. Cut it exactly where it just covers and pull it away to further work on it.

15. Roll and smooth it out using your fingers and seal the edges that are open.

16. Repeat the same to the other sausages. Transfer them carefully onto the prepared baking tray.

17. To the remaining coloured dough, combine different colours and make sausages that will resemble multi coloured crayons. You could as well make crayons using single colours. Getting kids involved in this process is so much fun.

18. Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes at 180 degree C. If you further wish to make the pencils sturdy and strong, after the first 15 minutes of baking, reduce temperature to 150 degree and bake again for 10 more minutes. Cool on wire rack

Let it cool completely though it will be very tempting to grab one and sharpen it out while it is still hot. I broke a few in that rush. Once completely cool, go back to the olden days, use a blade or kitchen knife to hold the tip of of each cookie using the index finger of your left hand and start sharpening until you see the colored version from the inside and be gentle to get it moderately sharp. Do not be tempted to make it so perfect. In this sharpening process, you might loose a cookie or two, but its worth it. You will get used to sharpening them and will start enjoying it