I want to make my old pumpkin muffin recipe. I found this remarkably similar recipe that is gluten-free, and I plan to use a different (all-purpose gluten-free) flour and my own spices and try it out.

My recipe had baking powder too, though. What would happen if I added baking powder to this one?

Had a bit of a relapse yesterday afternoon and just felt tired and achy all over again. Plus I could not get my feet warm for anything. I had a heating pad, my corduroy quilt, and a down comforter wrapped around my feet and lower legs and they just felt like ice. That happens to me every once in a while -- I wonder whether it's a circulation thing. For the most part I do not have a problem with being cold, given all my extra padding; it is usually the other way around. But my feet - that's a different story.

I've been haunted all day by Mia Zapata because a friend posted a link on Facebook to the video that was played in the courtroom during her murderer's sentencing. I had never seen it before. I've never really taken the time to listen to the Gits before but now I am hooked. Some small part of me thinks it would be cool if she knew that there are still new people who she touches with her voice, even 15 years after her death.

I just got home from work, and I'm doing some laundry and am about to start on some homework while that goes on. It's a nice fall day.

Via Amy on Facebook, Palin is Star Wars, Hillary is Star Trek

Via theodicy, a very accurate (and reputable) personality test, whose origins I can't place, and which has been renamed with classic Hollywood beauties for this quiz. (Is it the enneagram?) ( I'm Ingrid. )

I had a chance to get back to the original mystery this morning, and still cannot find that photo I am looking for ! But, in the meantime, i found other things that just tickled my funny bone.

This is a picture of a Christening Gown I made a few years back, when i attempted to start a small Heirloom Quality sewing business. The baby modeling it is my niece The Berry, held by mi sis Dawnaree. The gown i was baptized in was almost exactly the same, and there were some specific sewing techniques involved that I am trying to prefect. ( Yes, I sew, knit, sculpt and do a billion other crafts and do them very well)



Biscuit was baptized Catholic ( we mutually decided this would be best because of family tradition), and he did not wear the dress. Instead he wore one that I made from my own wedding gown



Another from about the same time- in the infamous back pack. It worked very well for about 6 weeks, and then he would stand on the frame, grab my hair, yank and gleefully squeal every time I put him in it. The front baby sling worked well till he outgrew it.




Being a mom has brought many creative opportunities. Such as his first winter. I could not find a baby sled, so i improvised. I can be heck with a roll of duct tape and two minutes of undisturbed thoughts



As time went on , both Phoenix and i became very creative with many things. We would do a lot of scrounging, refurbishing and building. One time the need was for good, durable shelves for books, canned goods and so froth. Phoenix often doubts his abilities, but he can be heck with a screw driver ! This is perhaps my most favorite picture in our whole collection, caught at such a moment.



Two more- just cute !

Okay, so, you know how you go on those Youtube odysseys? Like, you see one video and then that leads to another, and another, and pretty soon you find the bat-shit-crazy funniest thing ever?

I can not explain how I found the following video. But this is what Saturday afternoon is like. No?

( Visuals SFW, audio not, unless your employer likes Combichrist. )

Got to head out for a second walk this afternoon. So many forest preserves...so hard to choose which one to head off to !

Last night I slept fitfully, filled with an enjoyable tension after reluctantly putting my book down at 1am. I would have continued reading if I wasn't intent on donating plasma this morning. I was certain something bad was just about to happen! And in fact, it did!

It's a lovely book, and I'm enjoying it very much. I'm glad I had some political realities clear in my head before starting, after reading the previous book twice.

Also, I am glad I am not a character in an adventure novel! I wouldn't last very long, being just smart enough to get myself in trouble, but not smart enough to foil the bad guys. Though I may luxuriate in my resemblance to the canny main characters, I bet that - put to the same situation - I'm much closer in style to the unfortunate gentleman I liked a lot, who bravely and cleverly helped the protagonists gain some ground in their quest, and just now met a knifepoint when the game took its next turn.

Well, I'm off for sushi-related reading sustenance. Which character would you likely be?

It is time, I have decided, for a new body modification. The question is what? I've boiled it down to a couple options:

1. Save for the foot tattoo I've talked about for years.
2. Industrial left ear piercing.
3. Another upper ear under the current right one.

Thoughts?

Also, CHANGELING!
1. I'll be running a LARP with the amazing Alison. Stay tuned for details!
2. I'm planning a couple-shot table top in new Dreaming. Who wants in?

Went for a walk in the woods this morning- supposedly we are at peak color this week. I say next week.

Weigh in
Me- down0.8
Son down 0.2
DH up 1.2

There's several key tasks that need to happen this weekend... but before them all, some R&R. Gabe has a weekend-long date with Paige, and I've got the place to myself. I have partaken of hummus, rare wheat-free felafel, and Friday night bellydancing at a Lebanese restaurant, and now I'm going to drink a hard cider, and read. A lot.

I'm currently reading Kushiel's Chosen, the second in the series. I'm nearing the place in this novel where I stopped reading a couple years ago, so soon I'll be entering into a story completely new to me. It's very exciting! I have a love for these characters, and for the mythos of the universe where they live. And I have so much more to learn about them!

Tonight Friday 10/10 from 7 pm till 2am (CDT), live webcams from Gettysburg
http://www.travelchannel.com/TV_Shows/Most_Haunted_Live/Webcams
This show is so bad, it's good !!!

So, I seem to have mostly gotten over the cold. I still have a bit of a cough and scratchiness in my throat, and my sinuses still ache first thing in the morning, but for the most part, I'm doing pretty okay. I did miss a couple of days of work, and one day of class, but I actually was able to keep moving more than I usually am.

School is going so well. I think part of why I kept going this week despite wanting to curl up and die in a mountain of used Kleenex was that I am so incredibly inspired this time around. We just spent a week on cabinet-of-curiosities paintings in the Northern Baroque class, and a week talking about Giotto and Duccio in the Italian Renaissance class. The religion class is interesting; the prof is at the very least entertaining and the material (Western religions, currently Judaism) is fascinating to me.

So, other than needing to find some money in the street because I'm working so much less than I was before, things are going pretty well. We're really going to have to crack down and eat many meals of beans and rice or peanut butter sandwiches pretty soon. We have still been spending too much on restaurant meals, and I spend too much money at school on coffee and lunch. I need to be better about that. Also about taking the bus more to save on gas money.

If your mamma made something this good for breakfast, you would have never left home !

Notcho mamas oatmeal- serves 2

1 cup solid pack pumpkin
1 1/2 cup water
1 cup old fashioned rolled oats
2 t cinnamon
2 apples, chopped
2T ground flax seed
2 T slivered almonds
2 T peanut butter

In a pan combine water, oats and pumpkin. Place on medium heat and stir constantly till oats thicken ( about 5 minutes). remove from heat, sptinkle 1 t cinnamon, 1 chopped apple, 1 T flax , 1 T almonds and 1 T peanut butter on each. Mix and eat.

WW points- 6 and 2 fruit and veggies servings.

An incredibly great start for the day with fiber and nutrients !

( guess what you are having for breakfast tomorrow, Phoenix ????)

Tis better to keep the curtain closed while I dry off, for keeping the warmth in the tub area is more important than letting the sticky steam out.

It's been getting down into the sixties in the evening!

All quiet on the western front here. The activity of the other day stopped, and whatever or whoever it is attempting to come through is being silent. No rush- it will come through when it is meant to come through, and there is no rushing things. Communication happens out their timetable , not ours.

I am working very hard this week to try to break out of the hormonal pattern i deal with of losing for two weeks and gaining for two. one of my better allies for this is my scale. There is a myth that you should not weigh every day ( much like the starvation mode myth) , but the truth is those who have a successful handle on their weight tend to weigh once a day. In my case I am trying to discern what exactly is not compatible with the hormone flip in the monthly cycle so that I can break out of it. The scale does not hold my identity, but it IS what my doctor and my insurance company follow as to determining my health risks. My self esteem is not tied to that number, but my insurance premiums are. That number will also determine the 'need" for various diagnostic tests in their minds, so until the FDA is abolished from this country ( and all of it's policies which are the REAL reason for the health care mess), the number on the scale and the BMI and all it's cousins does indeed mean something very important. By the way, FDA really means Freakishly Dyslexic Assholes.

In my efforts, during this week of gain no matter what I do, it has been kind of stressful. It takes a strong will to push on in spite of an increasing number. Walk a mile, gain a pound for your efforts. Eat less and gain a half a pound. But lay down with your feet elevated for 20 minutes and drop 2.5 pounds. Makes me want to scream and place Mister Scale on a catapult ! However, last night while watching The Biggest Loser and listening to the trainer Jillian scream at people ( by the way, I would LOVE to have her in that mode to get me moving !!) I had one of those light bulb moments. I remember who I was a year ago and what I felt like. I am not that person any more. I am not ruled by pain and i do not think in terms of my physical limitations. I think in terms of time constraints and wishing to learn bi-location so I can be two places at once and do two things I love. I may not be at my weight loss goal, but I feel like I am close to a different goal that runs parallel to that scale number. I feel younger, stronger and healthier. I feel like I can almost touch the me I was years ago.

Knowing this , I am going to embrace a new standard for measuring my progress. The scale is not my enemy, any more than a clothing size is. Success can also be measured by the size of the envelope that you label as life. Is it big enough for you to hold all of your dreams and ambitions ? Mine is definitely getting there with each passing day.

I could very easily spend far too much time here.

fantasticcontraption.com

For physics nerds. Or those who played with K'nex.

Oh, hi Universe!

We really appreciate the mortgage and the rent and it's been a real treat paying both but what we really need is a $1000 dental emergency!

Wow, that was fast!

Thanks!!!

I'm nearly out of the dizzy fog and I'm discovering some delightful things:

I now wake up at 9am to go to work 10 minutes away at 11am. This is a lovely, leisurely way to wake up, and perhaps even spend a bit of extra time on one thing or another. Also, I get a substantial meal since I don't eat again til 2:30/3ish.

I work from 11 to 2 most days. I enjoy it there. I'm learning the ropes, and I'm already being helpful to them.

I come home for a period of time too brief for errands, it seems, but I have gotten naps in, and I can pick Gabe up from work if he needs it. Also, study is very possible.

I have class from 5:30 til 9ish. This week, I have it four nights a week. I look forward to dipping back down to three times a week.

This is nice. I've had two more tests in school; I got a 100 on one, and the other isn't graded yet. I'm nervous now about getting the health stuff done before clinicals start -- all the things that were "supposed" to be done before the semester began, but that I need my loan money for. TB tests and background checks and blah blah blah. I should finally get that money soon, so I've got to hightail it through that to-do list posthaste.

Today's draw- 5 of swords ( this should be a fun one...NOT)

I was awakened at 2:30 am by the very loud, very obnoxious call of some bird, who proceeded to sing at the top of it's lungs for about 30 minutes. It was not one of the bird sounds that are normally heard here, and i wound up racking my brains to figure out what it could be. It was then joined by another bird either in sympathy or complaining, and the night became filled with the avian equivalent of a neighbor dispute. So much for sleep.

I decided to get up and be productive, and attempt to figure out what the heck was outside and so riled up. Best I can identify it was a green heron- or at least on of the parties was. The other may have been a kestrel. it makes sense- we have gotten an increase in the population of wading birds over the last few years as well as raptors. We live very close to a wetland preserve as well as several forests.

The last few days there has been an increase in the activity of all the birds. The wild cherry tree not far from our living room window has become like some kind of bird night club, with numerous squirrels rushing in and acting like party crashers. The fruit from the tree has long since dropped, so it must be a kind of Bird lazy boy store or something. A place to rest your wings for a few and then hippity skippity off on your migratory way. Something tells me that the increase in activity bodes for a very harsh winter in these parts. We do not normally see this many of either squirrels or birds. Better re-stock our pantry with staples.

Poll #1274376
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Do you feel a strong urge to correct people singing children's songs to children with the "wrong" melody or lyrics?