Pomp and Circumstance: Use Your Words

Today’s post is a monthly writing challenge. If you’re new here, this is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once. All of the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the recipient will take them. Until now.

At the end of this post you’ll find links to the other blogs featuring this challenge. Check them all out, see what words they got and how they used them.
I'm using: aggravate ~ college ~ integrity ~ longitude ~ restaurant
They were submitted by Rena of The Blogging 911.

                          
Now I'm not saying that he's doing it just to aggravate me, but my youngest son graduates from college tonight. ★  

Granted I'm grateful to be finished with the huge bills we've been paying for the past four years, not just tuition and housing and food and books and spending money and gas money and frat dues, but airfare every time we brought him home. And let me just tell you, having a kid live in a latitude and longitude 10 hours from mine makes everything more difficult. Like when he broke his leg, when his frat brother/chef died unexpectedly, when he had a flat tire (3 in one year, actually) . . . I could go on but you get it.

So yes, the finances and the logistics have been a challenge. But what really has me annoyed, flabbergasted actually, is that I was just attending college myself about a blink of an eye ago, how can it possibly be that I'm old enough for my baby to be graduating himself? How? Really? I want to know.

Well, now that it seems inevitable, (both his graduation and my advanced age), we all enter the next phase of this journey. I am hoping that he will take a few months off before starting work, but the reality still is that my favorite (well, one of them) taste tester will no longer be spending 4 weeks in the winter and 10 weeks in the summer home with me.

Orange Sesame Thumbprint Cookies

Whichever job offer he accepts, we will set him up, make sure he has a place to live, furniture, a car and whatever else he needs. I will try, yet again, to make him understand that he needs to learn to cook a little. Fast food restaurants cannot be the source of his every meal like it has been this past year since he moved out of his frat.

But that is for tomorrow. Tonight is for reflection. Celebration. For Pomp and Circumstance and a tear or two.

It's been quite a ride, these past four years. It's been full of successes but also set-backs. It's been an eye opening experience for him, having to deal with so much on his own. And all while achieving over a 3.0 GPA with a BS in Computer Science and a Minor in Organizational Leadership Skills. Because in the end his integrity has been a beacon. We know, and he knows, that in good times and in bad (sometimes really, really bad), we have his back. But more importantly, we know that he stands firmly and solidly on his own two feet.

Congratulations, PurDude. So very proud to call you my son. ❤

Here are links to all the other Use Your Words posts:

On the Border
 The Bergham Chronicles
Southern Belle Charm
Cognitive Script 
Part-Time Working Hockey Mom 
My Brand of Crazy 
Climaxed

Orange Sesame Thumbprint Cookies

                                               ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients (makes about 30):

1 sticks butter, softened
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
1/2 tsp almond extract
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 oz sesame seeds

1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup orange jam
1 TBSP orange juice

Directions:
*Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cover baking sheets with parchment paper. 
*Separate the eggs. Place the whites in a bowl and whisk lightly. Place the sesame seeds in another bowl.
*Beat the egg yolks with the butter, brown sugar, almond extract until smooth. Mix in flour and salt.
*Make approximately 3/4 inch balls with the dough. Dip them into the whisked egg whites, then press the tops into the sesame seeds. Place on the baking sheets.
*Make an indentation into the center of each cookie. Don't press all the way through.
*Bake for about 12 to 14 minutes or until light brown. Press the centers gently to reform the indentation. Cool completely.
*Whisk the powdered sugar, orange jam and the orange juice. Spoon about 1 tsp into the indentation of each cooled cookie.