Alphabet Soup

Hard to believe, but a little over a week ago we had snow on the ground.  Today, it's 66 degrees and windy!  Snow never lasts long around here.  Ever since the Munchkin read "Little House in the Big Woods" a couple of years ago, he begs to make maple syrup candy whenever it snows (it's snowed 3 times this winter; that's a lot for us!) and this time I finally gave in.  Needless to say, he was thrilled.  And when the other two heard "candy" they were thrilled too! I found some instructions on Shelterrific that looked good, and off we went.  I got the syrup to boiling, and Munchkin got his coat on and waited {im}patiently by the back door to collect the snow.  I did make one mistake.  I didn't let the syrup cook long enough.  I didn't take the time to make sure it had gotten to the hard ball stage before taking it off, and in fact I'm pretty sure it didn't even make it to soft ball stage.  I should've checked, because while

Okay, so after my last post you're probably going to be shaking your head when I tell you that I've joined another cooking group.  :)  Brenda of Meal Planning Magic  has revived her  Eating the Alphabet , series, and since it kind of gets back to the "roots" of my own blog, I couldn't really pass it up.  ;) So, while I do complain a bit about Pinterest, I have actually gotten some good ideas from there!  One of the recipes that caught my eye last month was these Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins from Skip to my Lou .  I made them, with some changes, and they were a hit.  While trying to decide what to post for the A or B month, I thought these would be perfect. Hey!  That's Sprout swiping one while I'm trying to take pictures.   Yes, I know, banana chocolate chip muffins are not earth-shattering, but I healthy-fied these, and that made me feel much better about the fact that we were all popping these little bite-sized tasty treats into our mout

  Munchkin Like half the people on the planet, I've recently become addicted to enamoured with Pinterest.  I've been gathering quotes I like, and while I managed to not pin this one, it went something along the lines of "when we compare ourselves to others, we lose a little bit of our own awesomeness."  I've been struggling lately.  A lot.  And with things I don't really want to bother you with.  Trust me, I'm not good at sharing my burdens with others. Anyway, through Pinterest, I was led to this post by Adriana of Just by Living .  I'd never read her blog before, but this post hit home, in so many ways.  One of the things she says in her post is "My life isn't pretty enough for Pinterest."  I want to hug her, give her a high five, and cry on her shoulder because that is so how I feel.  I've lost a lot of my own awesomeness lately by comparing myself to way too many others.  I didn't start blogging to become an inter