The blog redesign/merger party!

My friend Melody over at Creative Radiance is giving away one of her cool plarn bags. You should NOT go register to win because I want to win. But go read her blog and buy something from her etsy store anyway! :-D

And, because I think giveaways on blogs are fun and a good idea I'm going to copy Melody.

In honor of the upcoming holiday baking season I'm going to give away a copy of America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book (This is from me. ATK has no idea who I am as far as I know!)

Here’s how you enter (again, copied from Melody – I’m such a thief!)
You get one entry for a comment here telling me what you want me to write about most with my new blog merger.
You get one entry for a comment linking your twitter post that links to this post.
You get one entry for a comment linking to your blog where you link this post.

(You can put all three things in one comment if you want)

Then I'll number all the entries and put them in a random number generator and pick the winner!

Deadline to enter: Friday, October 9th by 8:00 a.m. central time. Winner will be announced by Friday evening as long as all goes according to plan.

It's Pumpkin Season!

It's October - which means it's the official start of Pumpkin Season (in my mind anyway - I'm not sure if there is an official pumpkin season.)

In honor of this - I thought I'd post a few of my favorite pumpkin things (as well as a few new things that I just found for this post)


1. Dunkin Donuts pumpkin muffins. YUM.

2. My Pumpkin Bread. It's good. I'll post the recipe later as I just did a search and realized I've never posted it. I'm shocked that I haven't posted it yet- I make that non-stop in the fall.

3. Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte. I just tried this the other day for the first time. I was a bit worried about pumpkin in liquid form - but it was good!

4. Those clear class pumpkin bowls that everyone sets out about this time and fills it with food. (We did a lot of cheeze-its in my house growing up as they are orange. And that matters to me.) Here is one here if you don't know what I'm talking about.

5. Actual pumpkins. Everywhere. They're a food. A decor item. A craft item. Really - very functional those pumpkins!

6. The color. Particularly as I've recently discover that I look pretty good in orange.

7. Roasted Pumpkin Seeds. Again - yum!

8. These very autumny covered pumpkin mugs from Williams Sonoma.


9.Pumpkin Pie. Traditional. Plain. With Cool Whip. The kind that has a cream cheese layer. It's all good. (And a perfect day-after-Thanksgiving breakfast food)

10. The smell - which is probably more of a smell of nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves - - but to me that smell means pumpkin - and it's heavenly.

ahhh..I can post again

So I haven't been posting because I hated how my blog looked and I didn't want to bring people here by writing a new post.

But, NOW - usn't it pretty? Blog design via Simply Yours Designs.

Now I can start posting again and not be ashamed of my blog ;-)

Note for Bakers

Yesterday I made banana bread. Yum! (America's Test Kitchen wins again with their recipe. You all really should buy their cookbooks. Maybe I'll do a give-away again. That would be a good pre-holiday cooking giveaway. Hmmm..watch for one!) I didn't have an loaf pans but did have a tube cake pan. My google-search for how to convert cooking time didn't turn up much - so here's my public service announcement for bakers everywhere.


A recipe that makes one loaf converted to a tube cake pan.


Double the recipe, increase cooking time by 1.5 (If it's directed to cook for an hour - cook for an hour and a half)


Please note these results are not scientific and your recipe could be different - but - there's a starting point!

Tessarae

In a creative wirting course in college I was assigned reading from a collection of short stories by Denise Levertov entitled Tessarae. With apologies to Ms. Levertov I do not recall any of the stories – but I do recall the title. Tessarae is the plural form of tessara which is a small piece of tile used to create a mosaic. The analogous jump to moments of our lives being tessarae is not a hard one and it is one that has stuck with me all these years. I coupled this word together with a quote I kept inside my Bible from D.l. Moody – “God can do great things with broken pieces, provided he gets all the pieces.”

In my life – those broken pieces came about in much the same way they do for many people – dreams and hopes that go unfulfilled because of lies, betrayals, and our own mistakes. For a number of years all I could see was the tessarae. The broken pieces with their sharp edges scattered about in a fashion that just looked they were trash. Pieces that reminded me of what they were before they were broken. Pieces that reminded me of how they were broken. My head knew the truth of the Moody quote. My eyes had seen the beauty of mosaics. I didn’t want a mosaic though – I just wanted the original – before it was broken.

Over the past year or so though I’ve started to see the mosaic take place. It’s not just the career change. It’s not just the new location. It started long before that. I’m beginning to see how the pieces are being re-shaped into something new. How brokenness becomes beauty. And, there are still pieces that I don’t want to surrender to the Artist. Still pieces that I wish I could see in their original form despite how much I know that original form was flawed and cracked from the beginning. Some days I’m good at letting him have the pieces. Some days I am futilely trying to put them all back together myself. The recent move actually seems to make me do more of the latter – if I had my guess into my inner psyche I’d say I’m trying to hold on to something familiar. Even if familiar isn’t what is best. The Spirit in me tells me this is all part of equipping me to offer authentic mashena and that gives me joy because now I know the intricate mosaic is so much more beautiful than any of the original pieces.

(and just as an end disclaimer – I always feel like these types of entries make me sound sad. I’m not sad. Just thoughtful. No worries!)