creating from scratch, and other musings

Things currently blessing me, and some random musings:

- Kiddos and I made our first homemade (from scratch) chocolate cake.  You'll never eat a boxed cake again!  Try homemade.  Really.  It is so easy.  Faster than a batch of cookies.  Any old recipe will do.  We used a recipe called "Basic Chocolate Cake".  We love recipes that have the word "basic" in them.  "Basic" works well when you have eight little hands helping.

Best part about the cake?  I was depressed (hormonal onslaught already upon me again) for half the day.  (Yes, I realize that my mentioning "hormonal onslaught" every month means my blog will not grow in readership.  Besides, to grow a famous blog you have to (A) be funny  (B) never whine unless you're only joking about whining, and (C) take a picture of a really hunky, Wrangler-Jean clad hiney, and make it real prominent like, on your sidebar.)

Let me just say, if posting my husband's hiney in some Wranglers would get me invited on a  Compassion International sponsorship mission trip, I would do it.  I really want to go.  Ann Voskamp is going in Sept. to Guatemala.  Ann is quite famous as a blogger.  And, true, she is decidedly not funny.  But she is so exceptional in every literary sense, they invited her anyway.  I can't wait to read her beautiful, inspiring words--about abject poverty, no less!

Since I am too lazy to go through my posts and replace is, are, was, were, and been with beefy, colorful verbs, I will never be exceptional.  But at least I'll be sane.  Stream-of-consciousness blogging keeps me sane.

And so....about that cake.  I discovered that throwing myself into a creation really helped with the depression.  I'm learning why so many people enjoy cooking.  Some, of course, just love food.  I'm an eat-to-live type person, so for me it isn't the food.  It is the act of creating something from nothing.  Another perk is that my creations bless my family.  Okay.  Usually, they bless my family.  I still make soggy or burnt fruit crisps, to my utter frustration.  I finally own a pastry cutter, so maybe that's the ticket.

Now, if I can only get a sifter.  Cakes, I learned, require a sifter.  But guess what?  Shhh.  Don't tell.  My cake turned out quite delicious without one.  But I'm generally a rule follower, so I'll probably get one.

A note about creating.  I am not crafty.  I do not sew, knit, paint, draw, make hanging wreaths, do needle point, or crochet.  I don't dislike them.  I just wasn't taught, and have no time to take lessons.  So, cooking is my creative thing now.  We have to eat.  And following recipes isn't all that hard.  Once you learn to read through the entire recipe first.  Before jumping in.

- It's 11:22  p.m. and my baby hasn't awoken.  Yet.

- When you make a chocolate cake, you can say to your witching-hour-affected sweeties:   "If I don't get cooperation during __________, you will not get a piece of the cake tomorrow.  For as long as the cake lasts, you can say it every night.  Works like a charm, I tell ya.

- I love nursing.  Love it!  But when my nurslings reach eighteen months, they pick at my moles while they nurse.  Ouch.  Can't they find some other comfort fixation, while they partake?  This is no small problem.  If you have a perfectly moleless torso, I congratulate you.  Toddler nursing will delight you.  I highly recommend it, either way.

And that said, I just now hear my little sweety (mole picker that she is).

Sweet dreams, friends!