A Basket of Fruit

Last fall my birthday fell during the week so I took the day off work and spent it with my mom.  She took me to Amish-country for a big breakfast and then we spent the day wandering through fun little shops and partaking of goodies at our favorite bakery.

For several months I had been on the lookout for a hanging fruit basket to put up in our kitchen.  We have very limited counter space and I am forever trying to come up with ways to go “up instead of out”, attempting to make the best use of the room we have to work with.  One of my kitchen frustrations has been the fresh produce that piles up on the counter, further taking up my already limited workspace.

One of the (many) great things about Amish-country is that if you need something for your kitchen, good chances are that you’ll find it there. 

And sure enough… I hit the fruit basket jackpot!

We found the perfect basket and I was so excited when we finally got it hung a few weeks ago! (It took awhile, but hey, don’t they always say that good things come to those who wait?)

Do you have anything hanging in your kitchen?

We're Getting There!

My blog is finally on its way to repair!

A big THANK YOU and shout-out to my friend Meg who willingly spent a few hours online with me last night helping me figure stuff out. She’s so cool!!!  Hopefully soon I'll have time to jazz things up with a new header and maybe a different color scheme.  One thing at a time though.  I'm just glad my margains are back where they belong and things are lining up better! 

And speaking of Meg, why don’t you hop over and check out her money-saving blog, Saving On The Essentials! It’s a great place to find the latest deals online and in your grocery stores.

 

I am pondering the possibility of doing a giveaway....  My original plan was to do a "100th Post Giveaway", but that obviously didn't happen...(as I see we're on #131...) so now I'm going to have to come up with another excuse!   And speaking of giveaways, Tracy at "Then I Got to Thinking" is hosting a fun giveaway!  Go check it out!

Hope all is well with you lovely bloggy people!  If you're somewhere warm (ie: somewhere there isn't a bunch of snow), than I hope you're enjoying it!  We haven't had any sunshine since last Sunday -- spring can't come soon enough!!!

Oops

Somehow I managed to make a royal mess out of my blog.

The entire template is destroyed and I have no idea how to fix it.

Any suggestions?  I'm completely lost as to what to do next. 

Anything I try just seems to make it look worse. 

The word "frustrated" doesn't even begin to cover it.

Can you hear me yelling for help?  

"Help me, help me!"

Pecan Roll Goodness

Friday 3:30 PM

I find a recipe for gooey pecan rolls that I have to try. I text hubby and ask him to take a loaf of frozen bread dough out of the freezer so I can make them for breakfast Saturday morning.

Saturday 8:00 AM

I roll out of bed knowing that those homemade pecan rolls are only about an hour away. Time to get to work!

This is the view from my kitchen window.  Snow is falling heavy and the roads look slick. There are drivers going by, headed who-knows-where, while we are tucked cozily into the confines of our happy little home. I am craving some comfort food and a hot cup of coffee.  This seems like a perfect way to spend a lazy Saturday morning with my husband.  Bring it on.

In a 9" cake pan, mix 1/2 cup whipping cream and 1/2 cup of brown sugar.  Stir it until they are well combined and not separating anymore.  Sprinkle it with your desired amount of chopped pecans (I used about 1/3 cup). 

Roll out your dough making sure it's wide enough to be rolled into a nicely filled log.  Next, in good Pioneer Woman style, slather it with some melted butter.  Now you're ready to start adding all the good stuff!  

In a small bows, mix 2 Tbs. of Sugar and 1 tsp. of cinnamon (or more, depending on your taste).

Sprinkle cinnamon sugar mixture evenly over the rolled out dough and then sprinkle with some extra pecans. I also took some brown sugar and sprinkled it over the top of the pecans, hoping to add a bit more runny goodness to come oozing out of the pecan roll after it baked. 

Now you're ready to roll 'er up!  Try to keep it tight and even as you roll the dough across the length of the log.  Seal the edge with your fingers when you finish rolling.  Gotta try to keep that ooey-gooey-goodness on the inside!

Start slicing the log into even pieces and lay them on top of the whipping cream/brown sugar mixture in the cake pan.  

I didn't raise my rolls, instead I wanted to keep them smaller.  If you do want to rise them at this point, set them in a warm oven or some other method of rising until they're the desired size. 

8:30 AM

Ready to go into the oven.

I wish I could send the smells to you through cyber-space.  Ohhhhh my goodness.   I haven’t smelled anything so  heavenly cooking in my house in… well, maybe in forever.  While these little yummies are cooking, I brew a pot of coffee to try and ward off the winter chill.  With the level of sweetness that will be coming out of the oven, I definitely think we'll be needing something to balance it out.  Ahh, and I have a bit of spare whipping cream leftover from the recipe to add to my coffee.  A definite treat!  

9:00 AM

The rolls came out of the oven bringing their sweet bakery scent with them.  I was dying to take a bite of this breakfast delight!  My recipe said to flip the pan upside down in order to let the caramel topping drizzle down onto the rolls, allowing every drop of the sweet-goodness to cover the gooey rolls.  

For the rolls to sit on, I pulled out a lovely white platter that my brother and sister-in-law gave us as part of our wedding gift.  You can't see it in the picture, but the platter has paisley prints etched into the porcelain.  So lovely!  I could see the pecans inching their way out from underneath the pan as the topping drained onto the rolls.

9:05 AM

Here they are! 

Coffee.

Goodies.

Hello Saturday.  

It's lovely when you come for a visit.

There are those days. . .

Once in awhile I think we all have days that we feel should be started over from the beginning.

And once in awhile, there are even weeks that quite possibly should be rewound and started from scratch.

Weeks where your checking account is pennies away from zero and where laundry & dishes are reaching the ceiling. . . weeks when you start seeing the glass as more half empty instead of half full.

And maybe these weeks have some more hiccups in them too. . .

Like when you have a much-awaited chiropractor adjustment, only to slip on the ice a few hours later and mess everything back up again and then some. 

Or maybe that’s when you might try to fill a prescription, only to end up in the middle of a miscommunication between your doctor’s office and the insurance company, leaving you without any script for the next two days.

It’s weeks like these when maybe a whole night passes you by, one minute at a time, only for you to finally fall asleep a mere 45 minutes before the alarm goes off and you have to get ready to leave for work. 

And then it happens again the next night.

And sometimes nights like those are followed by days at work where you’re shaking with chills because you might possibly have a fever.  And of course, you would have taken your temperature before you left for work, except that you didn’t have any replacement batteries so all the thermometer did was beep at you. 

These days of course will probably fall on the rare occasion that you don’t have any food in the house either, so you weren’t able to pack lunch for yourself like you usually do.  You can just run out and grab something real quick, but your gas tank is so low that wherever you go has to be close enough to the office that you still have enough gas to make it back home when you leave at 5:00.

Do you ever have weeks or days like these?  I did.

Days where you need an extra dose of grace?  I do.  

”Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”
Hebrews 4:16

It is often in these not-so-planned eventful days that God in all his graciousness gives me gentle reminders of His strength, His might, and His provision for me. He reminds me that I am so blessed and that the obstacles happening around me are very very very trivial in the larger scheme of circumstances.  

Sure, I wouldn’t mind having a few more pennies in my wallet and perhaps a few more hours of sleep tonight… but I am blessed, and I am thankful.

I know where I belong and more importantly, Whom I belong to.

And while I've been here pondering these things, I think I just burned my rice on the stove...