Any Guesses?

I am taking drawers out tonight to paint the fronts.  I’ve been looking at this cookie cutter for a few weeks, and I must confess—I have NO idea what it is!

Do you have any guesses?

I ♥ Cameron Dokey

A couple of weeks ago while we were at Alisyn’s I borrowed a few of her daughter’s books. I saw them there on the shelves and thought that I needed a good, sweet read. (Little did I know!) Then I checked some more out from the library. Since that day I’ve read about 5 of these books and I have to tell you…

I love Cameron Dokey.

I’m not sure what Cameron Dokey used to write, in her other life. It looks like there’s a Buffy the Vampire Slayer book and some teen romances. Whatever. But what she writes now?!? Sigh…Fairy Tale Perfection.

Cameron Dokey writes for a series of books called “Once Upon a Time.” Each book is a retelling of a classic fairy tale, usually between 175 and 200 pages. There are several other authors who contribute to the series, and their books have been ok. But Cameron? Her books are rich, sweet, and filled with wisdom of the heart.

I even marked some quotes for you so you’d know how good these are. From the book “Winter’s Child,” a retelling of the Snow Queen:

“No,” my father answered simply. “Nothing stays the same, Deirdre. That, too, is part of life. Sometimes, pushing against change only makes it push back twice as hard. But even the most bitter fruit may contain something sweet at its core. A taste you would never have encountered if you had not been willing to endure the bitter first.”

and another

None of us can accept all of what we may be offered in this life. Sometimes we must say no, even to love.

From the book “Golden,” a retelling of Rapunzel:

Can love happen in an instant, or can it only grow slowly, bolstered by the course of time? Is it possible that love might be both? A thing that takes forever to reach it’s true conclusion, made possible by what occurs in no more than the blink of an eye?

and later,

That is what love is, I thought. A possibility that becomes a choice. A choice you keep making, over and over. Day after day. Year after year. Time after time…

These books don’t take me very long to read, and last week it was good to have something to read that helped me feel calm and happy, even in the midst of uncertainty. So thank you, Cameron Dokey. I think I’m going to have to read your books aloud to my little girls now!

I ♥ Goodwill

Last year I lost a good bit of weight. Enough so that not many of my clothes fit anymore. I was more than happy to give my clothes away, but couldn’t afford to just go out and replace them all with new clothes. So I decided to check out the local Goodwill.

Wow! How did I not know that you can get really great stuff there? The first thing I got was a really awesome zebra striped jacket. (Ok, it’s not zebra striped, it’s black and white stripes. I’m not sure I’m quite ready for actual zebra stripes…even if I could find it at Goodwill.) Anyway, the jacket is awesome and I wore it all winter/spring.

I found new (to me) jeans, shoes, skirts, and tshirts. I loved that the sky was the limit as far as colors available at Goodwill—instead of there being only the 4-5 colors that are the colors of this season, there was an entire rainbow to chose from. And dresses? Well let me tell you, I found awesome dresses at Goodwill. I have a suspicion that the rest of the world isn’t wearing dresses as much as we Mormons are…

I augmented my Goodwill finds with a few new things, but at least half of what I have been wearing since last year has come from Goodwill.

Several weeks ago I went to Goodwill again to buy pieces for the kids’ Halloween costumes. I thought I was going to have to dye something orange for Jared, but once again Goodwill came through for me. I have no idea who on earth wore these orange clothes, but I am so grateful that they did!

The girls wanted vampire cloaks. I figured I could find some black skirts and then cut them for cloaks. Then Rachel told me how she’d really dreamed that the cloaks would be red on the inside. I wasn’t at all sure how I was going to accomplish that.

I got to Goodwill and started looking at the black skirts. I saw a couple that I thought might work, and then I saw it. A black skirt with really interesting cutwork and embroidery all along the bottom. I decided then and there that I would cut it in half and make both girls’ cloaks out of this one skirt.

Then, as I was walking around I found a red formal dress with plenty of fabric to line both cloaks. I’m not sure the dress had ever even been worn!

I thought they turned out great.

And, while I was looking to see if they had 11 year old sized boots (which they didn’t), I found three awesome pair of shoes for me.

Now, with life as we know it changing so much, I’m thinking—it’s a really good thing I’m already so well acquainted with Goodwill!

I ♥ Pumpkins

Just in case you have ever wondered if you can go from this

to this

to this,

The answer is YES!

I’ve been told many times that you can’t use a jack-o-lantern pumpkin for eating. But I am here to tell you, people, that I do it every year. We always carve our pumpkins the day before Halloween so that they will still be fresh when the festivities are over. (We learned the hard way the first year or two that we lived here that in Idaho you may be able to carve them a week before, but here that just gives you a good opportunity to study mold growth up close and personal.) The morning after Halloween I cut them all up into big pieces and cook them. This time I tried 3 ways—big pots on the stove with a quart or so of water in them, crockpots, and in the oven. The pots on the stove cooked the pumpkin the fastest by far.

Once the pieces had cooled I sliced the skin off them, drained as much of the liquid off as I could in a colander, and then smashed them to bits with a potato masher. (Actually Ann smashed most of them, which I greatly appreciate.) I put the smashed pumpkin (from this point forward referred to as “pumpkin puree”) into ziploc freezer bags, 2 cups in each bag. I now have a freezer full of pumpkin puree, made from something that I could just as easily have thrown into the compost pile. If that’s not provident living, I don’t know what it! Too bad man cannot live on pumpkin alone…

The last bit of the puree I quickly made into our favorite pumpkin muffins. Cindy Lynn vows that she had a new recipe that is better than this one, but until I can taste carbs again (10 days) I’m sticking with the tried, true, and delicious. The first batch were gobbled up by visiting friends, my kids, and a troup of girl scouts. So the next day I stole one of the neighbor’s uncarved pumpkins and made a new batch of puree and a new batch of muffins. The neighbor wasn’t sure her kids would like them but they were a hit in both houses.

Hooray for eating those pumpkins!

Made from your Jack-o-Lantern Pumpkin Muffins

1 3/4 c flour
1 c sugar
1 t baking soda
1 t salt
1 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. ginger
1/4 t. ground cloves
2 eggs
1 c pumpkin puree
1/2 c butter (softened)
1 c chocolate chips

Mix dry ingredients together in big bowl. Mix wet ingredients (eggs, pumpkin, softened butter) in another. Then combine. (Since this recipe doesn’t use baking powder, you don’t have to worry about mixing it too much.) If you are going to use chocolate chips, mix them with a few tablespoons of flour to coat them before adding them to the batter. This will keep them from sinking to the bottom!

Bake at 350 until a toothpick inserted in the top comes out clean. (I usually start checking at 12 minutes for mini muffins and 18 minutes for full sized muffins.)

[Sometimes I throw in a little more puree. I usually bake a double batch and either give away some or freeze them. Then I use 1 stick of butter and 1/2 c. canola oil or margarine. I rarely add the chocolate chips.]

Enjoy!

PS—For my pies this year I’ll be using puree from some smaller pumpkins which are probably meant for pie making. But I have used jack o lanterns for pies before and thought they turned out just fine.

I ♥ the View

Just in case you need to see the best part of that a little more closely, here you go…

I drove home from choir today with the top down. In a word, it was

Spectacular.

I ♥ reading about Joseph & Emma's descendents

I have a slightly bipolar relationship with Meridian Magazine. I think they do great work. I love some of their contributing authors. But when their magazine shows up in my inbox, day after day, I get a bit...overwhelmed.

Nevertheless, I have found things of great value there. One of my favorite is a series of articles that I happened to see over a couple of months. They were never linked together, but really should be. Three of the articles tell of the conversion of several of Joseph Smith's descendents. Did you know that Joseph and Emma's descendents weren't members of the church? I'd never thought about it, and was so surprised to realize that this work rolled on without them. It just about broke my heart to think about.

The other three articles are about a family reunion that was organized for the Joseph & Emma descendents and some interaction between the Brigham Young Family Association and the Smith descendents.

When Russ & the little kids and I went to the outer banks a few weeks ago I pulled all of these articles up on my computer and then read a few of them every now and then. The kids were so interested in learning about these people, and I felt again a renewed gratitude for the sacrifices that both Joseph and Emma made.

Here are the articles---

Missionary Moment: The Gracia Jones Story--Joseph Smith’s Great, Great  
Granddaughter 

 Missionary Moment: The Michael Kennedy Conversion Story (Third Great
Grandson of Joseph Smith)(This was quite humorous in parts. My kids are still
laughing that he thought Joseph Smith discovered Utah.

***Thousands of Hands Brought Joseph Smith’s Descendants Together***
(if you're only going to read this one, let it be this one.  I couldn't read
parts of it outloud, it touched me too deeply.)

 Missionary Moment - Emma: I was Too Tired to go West 

Missionary Moment: The Healing Letter between Joseph’s and Brigham’s  Descendants

Bridging a Rift of False Tradition: The Healing Letter between  Joseph’s and 
Brigham’s Descendants (this is a little long winded right at the end, but still
fascinating to read the rest.) 

A Happy Little Remodel

Once upon a time I was finally ready to celebrate that I had so many kids.  (It took me approximately 3.5 years to get to this point, in case you’re wondering.)  We practiced some picture poses at home and then I took them all to the photo studio so that we could get our picture taken together.  The process was painful but the result, as my mom would have said, tickled me.

I bought the decent sized picture and they gave me a little mat board to go with it.  I HATED the mat color.  But I brought it home and hung it in my bedroom, right by my bed.  Where every day I would look at the picture and think how much I loved the picture, and how much I hated that darn mat.

(This picture doesn’t do justice to how uninspiring the mat color was, so you’ll just have to believe me.  It was somewhere between khaki and peach, not a good color for anything.)

Last week I had all sorts of paints & stains in my kitchen, trying to figure out what I was going to do with the cabinets.  (Still not exactly sure…) One day I walked into the bedroom, saw the picture and it’s mat sitting there on the wall, and I said “That is IT.”  I pulled the picture off the wall, took it all out, took it to the kitchen, and I

painted that darned mat white.

After a few days of rest (to be sure the mat doesn’t deposit white paint on my picture) here is the finished result, back on the wall by my bed.

 

Ahhh…so much better.

Why on earth did I not do that 7 1/2 years ago???