Tea Cookies Don’t Have Calories

When it comes to sweets, I am a huge fan of all of them as many of you know. So our art challenge prompt of “cookies” today, made me smile just seeing the word. When choosing what to paint, I had to giggle at myself as I adore tea cookies for entirely the wrong reasons. They’re miniature size is the cutest and due to their diminutive stature I can completely convince myself they won’t harm my waistline. It’s impressive how my mind can shut off logic in order to allow me to indulge in treats guilt-free. In truth, simply a couple of tea cookies wouldn’t do much harm, but I find it difficult to stop at just two. They’re too small to be truly satisfying that way and I always find myself sneaking enough to form a proper cookie. The two that were delicately served with tea simply become edible garnish and the two to four I sample after are the actual treat I deserved. This approach to tea cookies has caused Philippe to stop me from buying packs of them at Home Goods. So, sadly, this is just another fantasy doodlewash.

As a kid, my favorite type of cookies were the kind delivered to the door by Girl Scouts. The peanut butter sandwich cookies were my favorite and I used to love dunking them in milk first for a tried and tested number of seconds before gobbling them up. There was, after all, an art to getting them just the right blend of soggy and crunchy. These cookies were wrapped in little six packs, so opening one usually meant you might as well finish it or it would go to waste. Instead, it did actually go to my waistline and I was, as a result, a bit of a chubby little kid. Well, in the 70’s they called boys “husky” and girls “chubby,” both horrible terms that haunt many of us to this day. Yet, the boy term is still in use, mostly because nobody really knows what it was meant to actually mean or where it came from in the first place. Either way, it’s a label and those always pretty much suck. Despite my younger transgressions, a middle-school growth spurt turned me into slim, but I’ve still had various growth spurts of a horizontal kind as an adult.

What I’m come to realize is that all food is a wonderful thing when enjoyed in the right moderation. Even treats can be part of the equation as long as everything is properly balanced. It’s not only food that this applies to, but indeed life as well. For me, I just strive to strike a balance with things and hope everything else works out as it should. And I’m fully aware when I’m still giving myself ludicrous pep talks in order to justify some wild thing I want to do next. The difference now is that I can often let the thing stay in my imagination and enjoy it there instead. I couldn’t possibly have or achieve all of the things that flit through my mind each and every day. But, I always allow myself a little treat every now and again. Life just isn’t a real life if it doesn’t contain a dose of joy. I will do everything I know I should most of the time, but sometimes, I still like to break the rules. These days, it’s just a fun little game I play in my head that allows me a bit of extra pleasure. After all, tea cookies don’t have calories.

About the Doodlewash Da Vinci Paint Co.: Nickel Azo Yellow, Terra Cotta Cobalt Blue (my Da Vinci Trio, Click Here to Learn More!) + Leaf Green, Opus (Vivid Pink), and Cobalt Turqyoise. Lamy Al-Star Safari Fountain Pen with sepia ink in an A5 Hahnemühle Watercolour Book. Want to purchase a print of this doodlewash? Send me a note with a link to this post, and I’ll add it to my shop!

Charlie O'Shields

Creator of Doodlewash, founder of World Watercolor Month (July), World Watercolor Group, and host of the Sketching Stuff Podcast. Sharing watercolor illustrations and stories while proudly featuring talented artists from all over the world!

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