With just a border and two ends to be woven in between me and finishing the kitty litter cat mat my oldest son had requested, my first order of crochet business today was to finish it.
I decided that two rounds of single crochet (with three stitches worked in each corner) would do the trick, and when all was said and done, here was the result:

While I wish that it would lay a bit flatter, I realize that the cats probably will not care, and although I have every intention of blocking it tomorrow (a day of sunshine before a day of possible wintry mix), it is, for all practical purposes, done.
With the kitty litter cat mat in my crochet review mirror, I was able to focus my attention on the cookie-dough-ku project.
First, I worked on a list of cookies to be included, and a chart of what would go where:

With those details mostly worked out, I wanted to revisit the matter of squaring off the cookies. Here was my first effort:

I did not like how the cookie had flattened in the squaring off process, and my nearest and dearest just thought I was being a bit too fussy. Undeterred by their satisfaction, I tried another approach that (to my mind) better preserved the cookie-ness of the crochet cookies:

I will, no doubt have a few other glitches to work out along the way, but at the moment, I am very satisfied with the cookie-dough-ku, and I can hardly wait to finish it.