Autumn!

Autumn is slowly creeping in, and it's wonderful! The cooler weather feels like such a nice break from all the hot days of Summer.

One of the perks of this kind of weather is going and getting one of my favorite things-a tall White Chocolate Mocha from Starbucks! Tonight after church seemed like the perfect time to start up my winter habit, so hubby and I headed that way.

As a nice surprise, the girl taking our order accidentally made us two grandes instead of two talls, so yay! Bring on the autumn! :)

(and yes...it was GOOD! I should be up for a long time now!)

A Baking Tip

What in the world is this, you ask? Well...as you can see it sure doesn't look that great. This picture is to show that my very nice friends ate almost all of it anyway. Below is what stuck in the pan...


It looks like one of those bread bowls you get at delis-you know, the ones that have soup inside, then you can eat the "bowl" when the soup is gone. Well, this "cake bowl" was-or was supposed to be-a Chocolate Chip Cake. I got the recipe from a friend of mine, and I had made it two different times before and it came out great! Alas, I made a mistake this time...

This recipe calls for sour cream to go in the batter. Ok, no big deal, right? Well normally I buy fat free sour cream when we use it on potatoes or tacos or whatever (since I love to glop it on sometimes, I figure I should use the fat free variety!). This time I was in a hurry at the store because it was a Tuesday, the night our small group meets; and this week it was at our house and I wasn't completely ready for company yet. In my haste I wasn't thinking that I needed the sour cream for baking, so I grabbed a fat free one.

Big mistake!!

I knew from experience that anything fat free messes up the consistency in baked desserts, but I didn't even remember that until I had mixed the cake batter and baked it (this cake takes almost an hour). Only when I tried to gracefully shake my cake out of the bundt pan did I remember my mistake; instead of sliding out gently, my cake-well, the inner circle of my cake-literally plopped harshly onto the nice platter you see in the picture above.

Of course the hostess in me was expecting about 10 people to show up at any minute, and I freaked for about five minutes. I angrily shoved the ruined cake and the coated bundt pan into my large microwave to hide it until I could clean it up later. Frantic wives and husbands who have had a long day at work don't mix, so we had a few tense minutes there. Fortunately I realized I had a couple of packages of cookies I could put out in place of my disaster cake; but I still hate that I react that way to things that are really no big deal.

Anyway...nobody would have even see that cake if one of our friends hadn't asked me if he smelled "brownies or something". So, the blob on a platter came out, everyone saw the bundt pan, and everyone liked the cake! It really tasted good; you're just supposed to be able to eat it with a fork.

So, what did I learn to always, always, always remember? Use the fatty stuff when baking! No fat free anything if you're making cake, cookies, muffins or whatever. Oh, and take pictures of your baking "uh-oh's". They provide nice entertainment down the road-once you've gotten over the oopsie, that is.

I Promise I'm Still Here

A couple of pics from our family photos recently taken by Jeorgi. She did an amazing job! I have many favorites, but don't have room to put them all here. (They are on Facebook) I LOVE this one of me and my sweetheart.



It was lightly raining when we first got to the park so we had to have an umbrella pose. (If you click on the pics, you will see a much larger version.)



It feels like I haven't updated here in forever-especially since my last post was completely silly (that's me!).

Let's see...what's been going on the last few months? I've been to 2 weddings; been to Gatlinburg, Memphis, Jonesboro and Little Rock. I have turned another year older and also celebrated a 20 (yes, TWENTY) year anniversary with my dearest friends. I have been to birthday parties and a baby shower. I have seen some really good movies, and some really ridiculous ones too.

I have read books and that list includes some of the ever popular Twilight series. I have become addicted to iPhone games. I have tried to be more organized on a daily basis; sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I have had dinners and lunches with family and friends. I have seen fireworks and at least one firefly (why don't they like Murfreesboro?).

I have been both heartbroken and happy, and in those times I have tried to really grasp the meaning of resting in my Savior. Overall, I know I am eternally blessed. I have a loving Father who is always with me. I have a wonderful husband who is very sweet and supportive. I have a great family that loves me. I am in a church home that I love. God is good.

Subconscious

Warning to anyone who may read this: this post will be about the show Smallville and if you're not up to date on this season's newest episodes, you may get spoiled by some of the things you read here. And if you have never seen the show at all, this post will probably bore you to tears.

Now let me start by saying I am a huge Smallville fan...and I just recently watched nearly all 20 episodes from the current season in like a month or less. They had been sitting on my Tivo since the season started in September and I just kept forgetting about them. So maybe I have been watching a bit too much of it when it starts to creep into my dreams at night...hence the title of this post. (If you're a fan of the show, you know that every episode's title since season 1 has always been only one word...such as "Bride", "Power" or "Hex" to name a few from this season. Anyway, you probably get the point.)

Ok, so last night my subconscious took me to Smallville, Kansas. I don't know why or really what was going on there, but something bad must have been going down in Metropolis because Clark Kent was nowhere to be seen. However, Jimmy Olsen was there and he was in love with me; althought I am sure he was just on the rebound after getting his heart broken by Chloe. Of course my heart remains loyal to my own true love, but I did accept his offer of a dance...out in the front yard of the Kents' farm. Yes, very romantic.

Suddenly Lana shows up and she feels really bad that she was so horrible to Lex, so I am going to go with her to rescue him from getting killed. (This is hilarious to me!) Well, we get in some kind of aircraft and fly to his aid, all the while with Lana at the wheel firing away at any other aircrafts like ours that get in the way. We finally reach Lex and he is badly hurt, like scratches and burns all over him and everything. He seems like he is really sorry for the kind of person he was before and wants to change. My heart goes out to him and I begin crying, then grab hold of his hand and press it to my cheek.

Haha, here is where it gets good-I have a meteor power! As Lex pulls his hand back, it is completely healed of the scrapes and burns and he just stares at me. I can't believe what just happened, and I slowly reach out and touch his arm, then his face and both are healed as well. (Apparently my "power" only heals the spot I touch, not his entire body. Go figure.) And somehow, as I touch his other wounds, he also heals on the inside too. Yes, I can heal physical and emotional scars!

So then when we get back to what I suppose is Smallville again, I help convince people who are angry with Lex that he is really a different person now. Oh and also, I think at the end there Lex was in love with me too. You know, after I healed his heart and all that.

Don't worry, my husband was there, in the background nearly the whole time. It's funny how in a lot of my dreams, they may not be specifically about my sweetie, but he is almost always there anyway.

So there you have it: one journey through the crazy subconscious world inside my head. I should blog about my dreams more often. They're pretty entertaining!

The PS3 Makes You Smart!

Well, maybe not reeeeally smart, but it taught me some history! Bear with me...

I have recently become enthralled with the beautiful music of Frederic Chopin. I have heard of him my whole life, and was actually more familiar with his music than I thought. If you are reading this from my original blog page, you should be able to hear what's on my music player right now: Chopin! I only put a few tracks of his on it, but they are ones that are pretty widely known; at least I think they are.

So how did I rediscover how great Mr. Chopin is? Well, through a game for the PS3 that my darling husband got for a Valentine's Day gift from me! (Of course, he picked it out and purchased it himself, but I was with him when he got it!) It's a game called Eternal Sonata, and I actually have just started playing through it with Landon, but I watched a lot of the story as he played along by himself in the beginning.

It's totally a fantasy game, taking place in Chopin's mind as a dream. So there's lots of magic and stuff like that, and it's really fun to play with my hubby! There aren't a lot of games like this that we both enjoy together, so he was really excited when I said I wanted to play it with him. So I should also add that the PS3 not only makes you smart (which I still haven't really explained yet), but also develops better teamwork and communication within your marriage! At least in the case of this game, anyway.

Now how does it make you smart?? Well, during the game there are "interludes" telling all about the life of Chopin, and one of his pieces plays in the background while you're reading about him. I am a nerd and like stuff like that, so I was really interested in finding out more about Mr. Chopin after playing the game for a little while. I felt like I was in school again, surfing all over the internet trying to find out all I could about his life. (Only I had to do all my research during my school years via books only-I graduated in 2000 and was not very computer savvy quite yet.) But this was fun research since nobody was making me do it!

Ok, so did that make sense? I am smarter now, since my husband got a PS3 and chose a game that invited me to investigate one of history's greatest composers. I have searched online and found a couple of books on Amazon that I want to order, plus there are numerous mp3 tracks available that showcase all of Chopin's music.

I still have no idea what in the world an etude, nocturne, impromptu, mazurka or polonaise is, though. I never got that far in my piano lessons!