Not meant to be...

I had this big plan to walk around today and take pictures of what i do during my day. You know as a librarian girl.
Then i come to find out that i took the battery pack out of my camera to charge. UGH. And on top of that... Since there is no school tomorrow, some teachers decided to dress up today for Halloween. There were two killer costumes that i so desperately wanted a picture of. It wasn't meant to be I guess.
I myself am having a Halloween party, but not until Saturday. I am going as Fire. Like H.O.T. fire, not hot fire. Like SIZZLE fire, not sizzle fire. Like SMOKIN' Fire, not smoking fire. Are you feeling me? Better yet don't... you might get burned.

TWD~Chocolate Chocolate Cupcakes

So here they are..Chocolate Chocolate Cupcakes. These were just delivered to the teachers\staff that have to stay late for those silly little conferences. I dropped them off, hoping to make a quick drop and dash, but teachers were actually waiting for me to arrive. Can we say embarrassing! I don't know why, but i didn't want a big to-do about this. I was making cupcakes anyway, so why not bring them over to the school?

I had one on my way over and i thought they were super rich and dense. I didn't really like them. I like light and moist cupcakes (she said Moist!) and these were so thick, and a bit dry. I even added oil and sour cream. But whatevs, the teachers can eat themselves into a chocolate induced coma and I will be sitting on my couch watching The Office re-runs on TBS. Thanks everyone for all the tips, I think next time i would reduce the flour and add more sour cream, milk and oil. Or not make them at all, and just make cupcakes from a box mix. gasp! I hope that doesn't get me kicked out of TWD for saying "box mix"!!!!!

Snowy Sunday

Oh Sven, you were so right about the snow. It really is snowing today. I can handle it though. Yesterday I raked my whole yard! 11 Bags worth of dead rotting leaves that were leaving death spots on my lush greenery. So now my whole yard is leaf free! So before you jump up and down and say OOH I won the leaf contest!, I kinda left out this minor detail and that is I raked the majority of the leaves off my grass and onto the patio.

A fortress of leaves around my patio. I'm hoping this works as a deterrent from those pesky rabbits that keep falling in my egress windows. I saved one the other day, and lets not mention what happened to the other one. :(

Today is a quintessential autumnal day to just be inside and watch crap tv, clean my gross bathroom and make soup! Inspired by the trucker-sounding, lip-smacking, often annoying, bad pun and joke telling Rachael Ray. She was making pumpkin penne and she mentioned making pumpkin soup and I thought, HEY RACH, You are either onto something or on something. So thus I created probably one of the best soups ever to land in my belly (get in the belly). Black Bean Pumpkin soup. Made with the left over pumpkin puree from my pumpkin muffins.

And before i gobbled this down, I thought why not put some chives on top of it. I have a whole mess of chives in my backyard. But first i had to stop and laugh at my ensemble I was wearing. I had my favorite pajama pants, with my favorite socks,

and then i slipped on my favorite giraffe print shoes (see Mary, i really do heart me some giraffes).

Sometimes it is better not to wear all your favorite things at once, or you may end up looking like this. I was such a hot tranny mess, Marius the cat said, I have to be this photo op too!

The soup was great! I had 3 bowl fulls! And then i opened my fridge and said, I am going to take a picture of the inside. And then a picture all my condiments. Then i was inspired to take a picture of my medicine cabinet.

Well the thing is I'm just really procrastinating. I don't want to clean. And i have to go out and buy a new muffin tin for my TWD Chocolate Chocolate Cupcakes. And the thought of cleaning and\or leaving my house just makes me want to sit here and ramble on and on. But before i go here is my Black Bean Pumpkin Soup Recipe:

1 tbsp evoo (i had to write it, racheal made me)

1 clove garlic, minced

1 small onion, finely chopped

1 can black beans drained, 15 ounces

2 cups chicken stock

1 can pumpkin puree 15 ounces (i used half the can because that is all i had)

1 can diced tomatoes in juice 14 1/2 ounces

chopped cooked chicken chunks (added last minute from a can)

1 tablespoon curry powder

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

salt\pepper to taste

fresh chopped chives for garnish

Directions: Heat a soup pot over medium heat. Add oil. When oil is hot, add onion. Saute onions 5 minutes. Add garlic, saute until soft. Add broth, tomatoes, black beans and pumpkin puree. Stir to combine ingredients and bring soup to a boil. Reduce heat to medium low and stir in chicken, curry, cumin, cayenne and salt\pepper, to taste. Simmer 5 minutes, and serve garnished with chopped chives.

Not a Clue

If you look to the right of the screen you will see a picture of Sabrina from Charlie's Angel's circa 1977 (a great year to be born BTW). It says, Sabrina gets a clue.
That is a farce. I do not have a clue. Sometimes i think i have things figured out, but then there are weeks when i have no idea about anything. Life baffles me sometimes, so do people, politics, religion, and leaves. Lately I have not been inspired to write, not even about the silly fun things.
I've just had a lot of thoughts swirling around in my head. Many moments of questions and coming up with no answers.
What is up with this week? It seems like a lot of people this week are having a rough go at it. It makes me sad to hear that people close to me are not doing well.

I sometimes wish i could soothe other people's pain, like a Balm of Gilead. But i don't always know the right words to say, or if i should say anything at all. Or is it just a simple, I'm there for you. Do people sense kindness? Do they know that there are people out there that love and care for them? I wonder if people forget that? I do. Sometimes i feel like I'm walking this road all alone. But then there are simple moments of kindness from others that come trickling down upon me. Kindness and Grace are beautiful.

I have no clues, no answers. My door and heart are always open. I'm here if you need me.

"The love we give away is the only love we keep."
— Elbert Hubbard

TWD~Pumpkin Muffins

I know, I know, its not Tuesday, but since i will busy both Monday and Tuesday nights I had to do my baking on a Sunday. I was really happy about making pumpkin muffins, so very autumnal. Did I make that word up? Sometimes I think I make words up. Acknowledgement is the first step to enlightenment.

When it was time to make the muffins, I was once again faced with the fact that my muffin tin that made 12 muffins grew legs and walked off. Where would a muffin tin wander off to? I mean sometimes I used to find my muffin tin making out with the cookie cutters in a dark corner in the pantry, but to up and run away on me is just plain cruel. So i had two choices, use my silicon heart shaped muffin molds or my JUMBO muffin tin (well not mine, hey Kelly, BTW, I still have your jumbo muffin tin).

I chose to make 6 Jumbo muffins.

Because:

A) I work at a Middle School

B) My co-workers act like middle schoolers

5) giving a heart shaped muffin to a boy co-worker would = rumors

x) Jumbo muffins have Just Friends written all over them.

I pretty much followed the recipe, but instead of Buttermilk I used vanilla soy milk. I don't have dairy products in my house, except butter of course. Because lets face it, soy butter is grody.

I also am not a big fan of raisins, nuts or seeds on\in my muffins, so I sprinkled cinnamon sugar on top. The results are these ginormous, yummy smelling treats. I think they would rock my face off even more with some pumpkin cream cheese spread all over them. Yummariffic! (i so just made that word up!)

Do you have trees? and a Contest!

Do you have trees? I was asked that question yesterday at work.

This was a question asked by a new homeowner, someone who shares almost the same predicaments i do when it comes to being a first time homeowner. My co-worker and I swap stories about the perils of being a homeowner. We shake our heads, laugh, kinda cry, and point and each other and say, You too? I KNEW you would be the only one who understands my leaf hell!

At least i am not in this alone.

Do I have trees? Yes, I do. One big giant maple tree that loves to shed its leaves creating the most monstrous display of leaves one has ever seen. Although I try and keep up, there is no end in sight!

This is the public enemy number 1:

This is the first bag of leaves:

This is what i will be doing for the next 10 years:

I have now raked 2 bags of leaves. If you can guess how many bags it will take to rake up my whole yard, You will win a prize. A really good prize... like your own leaf collage that i will be making and you can proudly display on your wall in remembrance of me and my former life of a girl who once had a life.

Actually there will be a prize.. Like a gift card to Target, or something similar. I'm serious about this. I dare you to guess how many bags it will take me to do the job!

TWD~Lenox Almond Biscotti

Oh Biscotti you are so very Naughty.

Today for Tuesday's with Dorie, I was to make Lenox Almond Biscotti.

I followed the recipe to a the "t" and so far so good. The biscotti were easy to make, smelled wonderful and I even got to use my jar of cornmeal that had been sitting, sulking on the shelf since 1985. I think these would go great with some coffee. But as a lot of you know, I can't drink coffee or hair sprouts from my chest and I howl at the moon. Maybe if I'm feeling spunky tomorrow morning i will stop in at Starbucks and get a DECAF (oh i am so my mother right now) and then drink that with my naughty biscotti. ciao