Muchness.

Do you remember this quote from that fabulous story Alice In Wonderland:

"Have I gone mad?"
[Alice checks Hatter's temperature]
"I'm afraid so. You're entirely bonkers. But I'll tell you a secret. All the best people are"

Well I need a little madness in my life, and so after I get home from work tonight, I'm going to make homemade Oreos with a friend and then we're going to go midnight swimming, sleep, and hope and pray our alarms wake us up for church.

I hope you all do something a little crazy this weekend to break up the monotony of the everyday.

This morning I woke up to rain on my window. Again. Since I've come home to Ohio for the summer the sun has shone twice, maybe three times (at least in shone on my Birthday!). At first I liked it, giving me an excuse to curl up in bed and read for hours on end with a cup of tea. Or try new recipes: Carrot buttermilk muffins, lemon custard cake, banana oatmeal pancakes, or cornmeal cake with strawberries. But day 14 of rain is dreary, and makes for slow business at the ice-cream shop.

I don't work until 5 tonight, and I finished reading Huckleberry Finn for my online class so I have all afternoon to do as I please. I decided to bake cookies, checkerboard cookies. They have to chill for two hours in the refrigerator, so while they do that, I'm going to head to Beans and get some coffee and finish A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I'll post pictures of the cookies tonight after work if I'm awake enough to bake them.
Pictures of the cookies, as promised...I took some to my brother's piano recital this afternoon since they're black and white like piano keys.

May I Recommend...

...reading Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on a rainy May afternoon with a cup of cinnamon apple tea?

I enjoy my days off.

But Stevenson's book isn't a mindless read by any means, for Stevenson explores the depravity of mankind. He explores the evil side of man

"...all human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil: and Edward Hyde, alone, in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil."

Henry Jekyll says, "I was plunged into a kind of wonder at my vicarious depravity. This familiar that I called out of my own soul, and sent forth alone to do his good pleasure, was a being inherently malign and villainous . . . "

Evil can so easily consume without the Grace of Jesus. This book has given me a renewed appreciation for this grace, grace so freely given. Only in Jesus are we free from the bondage of sin and evil that threatens to snuff out the Henry Jekyll and succumb to Mr. Hyde. Literature does indeed delight and instruct, and for that I am grateful.

One more thing. Let me share a link that I have recently found. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have lately...

http://www.moodyradio.org/brd_ProgramMainPage.aspx?id=7058

Oh, and P.S. I'm attempting to make soft pretzels tonight...wish me luck! (If they turn out I'll post pictures and all that jazz)

May Things.

1. Baking

I have an obsession with baking...and with cooking blogs, and cookbooks, and all things kitchen related...and i found this book on sale for $4! I'm excited to try making tarts!

Two of my besties came over last night and we watched movies and ate strawberries over freshly baked cornmeal cake (the recipes a keeper for sure)

Cornmeal Cake

1 ¼ cups cake flour
6 Tbs fine yellow cornmeal
2 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt

½ cup milk, preferably whole
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp grated lemon zest
2 T lemon juice

Mix dry ingredients together.
Mix vanilla and milk together and set aside.
With electric beaters, cream butter, sugar, eggs, lemon zest, juice, and milk mixture together. Beat in dry ingredients.
Bake in a 9" round cake pan for 30-35min at 325 degrees F

Serve warm with fresh fruit of your choice (my favorite is strawberries)

P.S. this cake is delicious served warm with jam for breakfast :)

2. Growing Up
My best friend and I made a trip to the DMV to pick up my new license!
And two of my good friends moved into their own apartment on Monday.

3. Books
The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler
and
At the Bottom of the River by Jamaica Kincaid

Spidery Handwriting.

This summer will be busy. Super duper.

I will be working at the ice-cream store, completing American Literature II online (which promises to be a fun class if i devote myself properly), and sifting through my Great Grandma's stories which will eventually become my Senior thesis.
Check out these hard to read pages...but it's been fun already.


Last night I discovered my Great Grandma had tea with a Danish prince.
The lady I remember with silver-white hair and a wrinkled face is proving herself to be an
exciting and classy woman.

To Mom.

Here's to my Mother, and everything's she's done for me...
From teaching me how to thrift store shop
mailing me tea and honey at college
teaching me to bake
and always being there.
Happy Mother's Day!

Summer Things

Junior year of college is completed, and I'm ready for summer.
Here's a little of what I plan to do when I go back to my little village of Cedarville, Ohio :)

1. Bicycle Rides
I love riding on the country roads around my house,
and shhhh but I love to find old graveyards and have picnics with the old folks.

2. Yellow Springs Farmers Market
What could be better than fresh jams and jellies, garden fresh veggies
and early morning outdoors...mmm i couldn't say.

3. Firefly lanterns
My brother's and my favorite pastime when we were growing up...
i plan to reawaken the firefly adventures this summer

Currently on my mind: summer smoothies and tunes. Hmm Hmm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjCa8i5JDF4

"California Sun"

Well I'm going out west where I belong
Where the days are short and the nights are long

And I'll walk a little walk I'll twist a little twist
I'll shimmy a little shimmy I'll fly a little fly
Yea we're out there having fun in the warm California sun

Well, I'm going out west out on the coast
Where the California girls are really the most

Where they walk and I'll walk They fish and I'll fish
They sin and I'll sin They fly and I'll fly
Where they're out there having fun in the warm California sun

Well, the girls are frisky in old 'Frisco
A pretty little chick wherever you go

And they walk and I'll walk They fish and I'll fish
They sin and I'll sin They fly and I'll fly
Where they're out there having fun in the warm California sun

We're out there having fun, yeah, in the warm California sun