Brownies That Can't Be Beet...Or Can They?

Chocolate!

Do I have your attention?

Good.  I mean, it's hard (practically impossible!) to smell food over the web, but if you could, you'd be rushing to my kitchen right now for these brownies.  And I'd probably let you nosh down about 3 of them before I told you what was in them.

These Eggs are for the Birds!

Easter is nearly here, and I know that you guys are desperate for some egg-citing ideas!

Ugh.  Okay, that's the only pun I am going to throw out today...it actually made me physically gag to type it.  I am so, so sorry.

Seriously though, Easter and eggs go hand in hand.  And, for my first time, I'm joining in on a Tinkerlab Creative Challenge!  Every other month, Tinkerlab extends an open invitation for kids to create with a common inspiration, and this month, it's eggs!

Simply Tasteful Beer Bread

High on the list of things I love includes gathering with a bunch of friends and good snacks.  High on the list of things I find crazy are paying $4.99 plus tax and shipping for a loaf of bread.  Wait, strike that, paying $4.99 plus for part of what you need to make a loaf of bread.

You may know what I'm talking about.  I'm not sure of the legal ramifications, so I'm not going to spell it out any more than that.  Anyways, it makes me crazy, and I am usually the one at those parties whispering, "I have a recipe.  You can totally do that at home for a whole lot less."  And it's true.  You totally can.  You can buy a whole bag of flour, a whole can of baking powder, and a whole container or salt for less than that one box of mix costs, and with that, you can probably make this recipe 4 or 5 times...with leftovers too.

Not only is it a lot cheaper, it's practically as easy as opening the box.  A handful of ingredients, an hour in the oven, and there you go.

Homesteading in the Suburbs - A Guest Blog

I am fortunate to be blessed with very talented friends with a wide variety of life experience in many different areas.  One of my friends is passionate about the homesteading arts, and I really admire her persistence, her knowledge, and her skills.  I'm becoming more and more obsessed lately with making the most of our yard, planting edibles and incorporating them into the landscaping, and I often turn to this friend for her opinions and advice.  Urban and suburban chicken coops are becoming kind of a hot topic around here lately, and I know this friend has plenty to say about it, so I asked her to write a guest blog about homesteading in the suburbs, especially raising chickens.  I hope that it will inspire you like she inspires me!

Homesteading in the Suburbs

If you are fortunate enough to own a home in the suburbs, you have a plot of land. Some get acres, some get a fraction of a single acre.  Most are fully covered in sod.  Sod or grass requires mowing. Some homeowners, like myself, choose to edge, spread fertilizer, and treat for weeds to make it look nice.  All of us are given a great opportunity: a plot of land.  A plot of land used to mean opportunity.  Now, to the average homeowner, it means (yard) work.

Jelly From the Weeds

I love that saying that talks about how you can think of a field of dandelions as a field full of weeds, or you can see it as a field full of potential wishes.  Not that I want that field to be my yard, personally, but it makes me smile to think about it when I see a field of dandelions somewhere else.

Dandelions also make me think back to high school, where they were the focus of a well-intentioned school project gone awry.  You see, in my advance literature class one year, we divided up into groups, each group was to read a chosen novel and then create their own project to present the novel to the class.  When I saw the title "Dandelion Wine", it called to me.  Baby, I was born this way. So, spearheading my group, I instigated several courses of dandelion edibles that we would serve as our final project.  This was back in the day before Google, so I was largely dependent on some Native American cookbooks hidden in our library.  We had crispy fritters made from dandelion greens and cornmeal, a lightly dressed dandelion green salad, candied dandelion flowers, and, the grand finale, our dandelion wine...which was a few bottles of sparkling grape juice that we shoved dandelion flowers into.  I mean, you can't being alcohol into school, duh.

The Balance

Something bothered me the other day.  Since I have a blog, and simply because I can, I'm going to work through it here.  Sometimes I just need a sounding board to bounce my thoughts off of.

It all started when a friend of mine posted a link on Facebook about lies that moms are told.  You know the kind of article.  Witty, funny, but still true enough that you feel like you've got a slightly new perspective on life...but one of the points really hit me wrong.  "Life is about balance."  As a lie that moms are told.  I think that the point the author was trying to make was that you shouldn't try to juggle everything possible, but instead, maybe focus on what matters most to you.  Which is not invalid, I guess.  But saying that life isn't about balance seemed so wrong to me.

I guess part of it is who I am, as a person.  I'm very much about balance.  I like fun, I like work.  I enjoy time alone, I love to be around others.  I pinch my pennies, but make some indulgent purchases.  And the article hurt me, because one of the things that I, over and over, tell friends of mine who are looking for advice, or who are in a hard spot in life, is "You'll find your balance, it'll be okay.".  So, have I been lying to them all this time?

How Does Your Garden Grow? Part One: Setting Up the Garden

I have a garden.  Actually, strike that.  I have a couple of gardens, my home garden and a double plot at our community garden.  Plus, I've been roped into being in charge of my kids' school garden.  Because apparently people think that I'm good at gardening and that I know what I'm doing.  Which is funny to me.

I really don't have a clue.

Which is why when people ask me to help them with their garden, I kind of shrug and laugh.  I honestly don't know what I'm doing.  But it always turns out pretty well.  Except for when it doesn't.  So, when people started asking me to write a blog post about gardening, I kind of cringed.  But because I love you wonderful readers, I'm going to give it a go.

Some people are visual learners, and can read something once and remember the information.  Others are auditory learners and can listen to a lecture and remember details from it.  These people are blessed.  I, myself, am a kinesthetic learner, which means that the way that I learn best is through the physical action of DOING something.  No, seriously.  I paid lots of money to my university to get a degree in special education to figure stuff like this out.  So I apply my strengths in whatever endeavors I can, and gardening is one of those.

These Kids Are Picky P-P-P-Picky Picky Piiiiiiiiiiiicky

Run DMC anyone?  Or else I may have already lost you.  It's tricky to rock a rhyme, to rock a rhyme that's right on time...

You know what else can be tricky?  Getting your kids to eat.  I'd say getting your kids to eat healthy food, but sometimes it's just getting them to eat ANYTHING.  Human nature tells us that everyone is unique,and therefore, I can't give you a straightforward answer on how to get picky eaters to eat better.  So what I'm going to do instead is suggest a few strategies that I've found helpful, and hopefully one or more of them can work for you and your picky eater.

So, a funny thing happened on Facebook the other day...

The following is a true story.  I'm the suspicious blonde character.  My friend lives a zillion miles away, in Arizona.  She is amazing, and has 2 sets of twins and a baby and still manages to keep a fantastic sense of humor and be awesome in every way that matters.  I just love her.  This went down, and she told me I should blog it.  So I am.  I took out the names and the pictures of others to protect the innocent, but other than that, the best way I can explain this is to just copy the "conversation".  Enjoy!

A quick introduction

So...this is my blog...