More Monsters

So last night, after Daniel kindly coaxed it out of a sulking me that i really didn't want to go bowling with a group of people i didn't know well, we changed plans and went to the theater with Christi. Movie of choice: True Grit. And it was awesome. Funny and horrifying and tear-jerking. Did I like the ending? No. Because it was not quite 'happily ever after'--but i can recognize that my disappointment with that it totally unrelated to the quality of the film. really, the ending was probably perfect, i just want everything to be movie-pleasant and not realistic. The bottom line is, i sometimes have bad taste and you should see this movie! :)
Today, i skipped church which is not wise, and instead spent the morning baking/listening to an Andy Stanley sermon series on "The Destination" (i realize listening to a sermon from an ipod is not the same as attending church. but it was good anyway). His main point was that "your direction, not your intention, determines your destination." in other words, you may have great intentions about what you want your life to look like, but it's your daily habits that determine whether or not you're getting there. One example he gave was, "If you want to have an awesome family life, filled with family vacations, family meals, etc...don't be a workaholic." because people may become workaholics, thinking that'll get them the money they need to do family things, or maybe they just don't realize that their daily decisions are leading them away from their ultimate goal. At one point, he was talking about Solomon and the verse he wrote about "trust in the Lord and lean not upon your own understanding, and He will direct your paths." Solomon being the wisest man in the world, and even he recognized his need to utterly rely upon God for wisdom. i've been praying to start living my life in a way that seeks to follow God and make decisions based on His guidance, but i still doubt that God really is going to be very 'vocal' about it--that somehow, it'll still have to be up to me because...He doesn't really care? so i think, "i'm praying for guidance, where are you??" and get a little angry and confused. But we really are not and cannot be in control of our own lives, and according to the Bible, God wants and commands us to trust in Him and not upon our own understanding. He's our Father, and not just shrugging His shoulders as we make mistakes. not really sure what i'm saying, but i think that part of that prayer for wisdom/guidance needs to be a believing that God is really present and really going to answer that prayer.
On another note, here is a goofy poem...about more monsters:

Mister Molli Monster
Was, upon a time, quite mean:
He'd turn off your hot water
And paint all your sweaters green.
He'd turn your cornflakes into rocks
And make you feel strange--
But when he met his One True Love,
His heart began to change.
Her name was Missie Firebright,
She had deep orange eyes
That captured Molli's own, and as
Those sparks began to fly,
He realized the universe,
Though, in some ways, a flop,
Was full of wonder, truth, and love,
And all his pranks must stop.
Hooray! For Missie Firebright
Fell quite in love as well--
They lived forever happily,
And rang their wedding bell.

Doughnuts and Taxes

Happy sunny seventy-degree Saturday!!! woo-hoo!!!! i think that even January wishes it were a summer month. i started off the day by searching for a good biscuit recipe...and found instead a delicious doughnut recipe in the Baked! Explorations book. Which I am not going to copy down for you here, because i just gave you one of their recipes and there's got to be a limit. but they were So Yummy And Easy! (nutmeg and cinnamon <3)
Salmon is on-sale at Reasors, $4 off every pound--which is too good of an opportunity to pass up! Buy Salmon! argh, blogger is being crazy. i was going to include a link to a fabulous salmon recipe. :( well, if you want me to tell you where it is on the internet, just ask! Regardless, here is a salmon poem inspired by salmon! oh yes, and after a nice lazy saturday morning, it's time to get dressed and sign on to turbo tax and get that refund (i hope!)! :)

Sir Sylvester Salmon was
A most distinguished fish--
His manners, though quite odd at times,
Were fine as you could wish.
If you were sitting on the bank
Above his residence,
He'd promptly ask you in for tea.
You'd think: "That makes no sense!"
But he knew tea was proper, so
He'd make-believe a pot,
Hand you an unseen cup and murmer,
"My, that hits the spot!"
You'd live his home befuddled,
Wearing pond-scum in your hair--
But you could never doubt
A real gentleman lived there.

Revisiting Halloween. Why? *shrug*

ohhhh may i just say, quickly, how incredibly i want this whole car-insurance/no-car thing to be over?!?! and, on a more positive note, how grateful i am for people who have offered rides, and even the use of their cars? (daniel and christi!) yea!
today, i began walking home from work and halfway there, while waiting for a light to change, one of our 'regulars' at the coffeeshop happened to be waiting at the same light and offered to give me a ride home. i accepted (even though it is a gorgeous day!! but i was ready to be home) and ended up getting a very interesting conversation about the mythology of Adam's first two wives, lilith and the nameless one, which i knew nothing about. i've read george macdonald's Lilith, but never knew exactly where she came from or anything. crazy.Anyhow, here is today's poem, harkening back to seasons of yore, or something :) :

"Listen to the caterwaul,
And look to the macabre!
Feel the corpse and cold, cold chills...
Don't cry! It's just my job!"
I'm working for a haunted house--
I need the money bad!
But when I hear the children cry,
I feel very sad.
I nearly lost my job one day:
'Dear girl, don't be afraid!
It's all a trick--I'll tell you how
Each ghost and spook is made!
The Headless Haunter's real name
Is Jeremiah Street--
He isn't Really drenched in blood,
It's just a painted sheet!
The shrieks are pre-recorded,
Except those yourself might make--
But then, I hope you trust by now
That everything is fake!'
The child smiled, but my boss
Looked furious and cross:
'You traitor! Those are SECRETS!
Would you see us take a loss?!
If no one's scared, no one will come--
And You will be to blame!
We profit 'cause folks want a fright,
So Scare them! Shame, shame, shame!'
He put me on probation
And I'm trying to do right,
So...Enter if you DARE! (and no,
The vampires won't bite.)

Alternate Universe

Well, I am Not taking a cold shower instead of a warm shower...i am, however, blogging instead of taking a cold shower...and i think that all makes sense :) (the hot water is temporarily out-of-order, but only for a couple more hours, so no worries!) Today i had one of those conversations where it is revealed to you that, had you been a little less clueless, your life could've been totally different. in this case, i suppose my lack of awareness was one of the means God used to bring about His better plan...but i'm having a little trouble being grateful right now. not much, just a little...i hope. So here's a poem about the aftermath of that realizaton:

Today I glimpsed the Second World,
Glimpsed another "I"--
Far happier? I cannot tell,
The frame went flashing by.
I wore a look I do not know,
A look I can't define--
A different depth of heartache,
Or a wiser light to shine?
The sky was dark behind the scene,
The rain beat symphonies...
And yet the storm was breaking
As I faced reality.

Monster Cookies!

So...guess which famous blogger gave herself a sore neck from dancing to n*sync and is currently driving an ancient jeep? oh, yeah. getting cooler every day. I only say that because i was SOOOO behind on the whole n*sync thing that listening to their album is pretty much a first-time experience...while simultaneously feeling pleasantly old-school. :) meanwhile, the jeep is frightening. and leaking gas, ugh. but my boss very generously leant it to me and even got it a new battery, which is awesome! i am nearly 100% mobile again!
here is a cookie-baking poem. i baked my favorite chocolate chip cookies tonight, for someone else who loaned me the use of their car (and daniel, who drove me to work this morning at 5:45!! THANK YOU!!!!!). so i think this poem derives from that as well as a weekend spent watching several episodes of both anthony bourdain's No Reservations and [someone else's] Bizarre Foods. Fun stuff! think: consumption of various and sundry eyeballs.

I'm baking cookies of a rare
And thought-provoking type.
I wish I could--but cannot--share,
So please don't beg or gripe.
They're filled with sparkling emeralds
Instead of chocolate chips,
Dyed greenish-red, and molded in
The shape of pursing lips.
They're weird, I must admit, and
Rather disconcerting, too--
But if you're totally grossed out,
Don't fret--they're not for you!
A monster special-ordered them
To give his monstrous bride--
For them, I hear, they're quite the norm,
And rather sweet, besides.
There's no accounting for the tastes
Of others--I won't judge.
Myself, I wouldn't mind a bite
Of diamond-studded fudge!

Percy Peach and Sunday Night Cake!

Howdy! It is a nice, quiet, chilly Sunday afternoon here in Tulsa. I should probably be taking a nap since i was nodding off during church today :( oops. i know i'm alot better about that than i was during ye olde college days, when it happened about every sunday! so that's good! earlier i baked a cake which, judging from the batter, will be scrumptious, so i figured i'd include the recipe here for you all! It is called the Sunday Night Cake (guess why i chose that today?!) and the title has something to do with it being so simple you can just whip it up on a sunday night without hardly thinking about it. The recipe is from Baked! Explorations by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito who own a bakery in new york city that i hope to visit someday! i think i've included one of their recipes on here before...

Sunday Night Cake
1 3/4 c cake flour (easy to do a substitution with regular flour and corn starch!)
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
10 T unsalted butter, room temp
3/4 c sugar
1/2 c packed brown sugar
3 large eggs
1 c sour cream (i substituted unsweetened plain yougurt cause that's what we had)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9" round or square cake pan with parchment paper, and butter the pan, parchment paper included.
Mix dry ingredients together.
Beat butter and sugars together until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time. Scrape down bowl.
Add 1/3 of the flour mixture, followed by 1/2 of the sour cream, then another 1/3 of the flour mixture, followed by the rest of the sour cream, then the final 1/3 of flour mixture. This should all be done as quickly as possible so as not to overbeat the batter. Make sure everything is well-blended, though.
Pour batter into pan and bake 30-35 minutes. Remove from pan and, when cooled, frost with a chocolate frosting of your choice! (today i just used a box mix which was really quite tasty, from Dr. Oetker Organics)

And, a couple poems tied together by the common theme of fruit :) i ate an inspirational nectarine. yum yum yum!

1.
A nectarine in wintertime
Might cause some folks to frown--
It's out-of-season (but sublime!)
And grown far out-of-town.
I crave the tastes of summer when
The sky is frosty gray--
That nectarine, though foreign-grown,
Quite brightened up my day!

2.
"Hi-ya, friends! I'm Percy Peach,
Yes, Percy Peach--that's me!
I'm funny, fuzzy (rub my head!)
And full of fiddle-dee!
What's that, you ask? I'm glad you did!
It's rhythm, vim, and song!
In fact, I'll sing right now, yes sir,
And you can sing along! :

'A peach was born in Georgia
He travelled a million miles,
Wound up in sunny Kansas
Where ev'ryone wore smiles!
A lovely lady took him home,
She was a farmer's daughter,
Next thing you know, that Georgia peach
Was tasty Kansas cobbler!

Ohhhh...it's good to be a peach!
(Yes sir!)
If I weren't I think I'd cry
(Oh no!)
I'm glad to be a peach
(Indeed!)
But someday I'll be a pie!
(Hooray!)'

Ursula the Octopus!

Hello!
Thanks go an unfortunate car accident, I get a snow day! I'm not actually happy about it at All, but do feel remarkably grown-up after filling out a police report, contacting insurance agencies, calling AAA, and a body shop, all by meself. It wasn't my fault, so, you all can pray that insurance things go smoothly because, although i am completely uninjured, my poor car is looking pretty bad. I'm car-free right now, so stuck at home. Which is pretty nice on a frigid day, i'm not gonna lie.
In other news, Izzy has spent the ENTIRE morning staring out the window at birds--i'm trying to keep them well-fed throughout the winter, the little pigs! Just buy a $3 bag of wild bird food at the grocery store and sprinkle some around--it'll be gone in hours, and they're so cute! The enjoyment I get out of watching them is different from miss Izzy's, i believe. :)
Haven't posted in about a week! So i included a picture of my christmas tree, Berl, who is rapidly becoming more decked-out than he ever was around christmas time. Thanks to Fa-La-La Felties, my new Christmas felt book, i've been making ornament and gingerbread/sugar cookie people, even a stocking (too small to put an orange into, though :( It's been fun!
And finally, before the poem, two reading recommendations!: The Betsy-Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace, which follows friends Betsy and Tacy (and blonde-haired, practical Tib--short for Thelma) through their lives from the time when they were five years old till when they're all getting married! They live in a small town in Minnesota in the earliest of 1900s--in the final book, World War 1 has started. The books are fairly autobiographical, with names changed though (Betsy is essentially the author). Anyway, they're just really happy and it's interesting to read about family life back in the day, how people lived before television, cars, etc. (The picture with the 3 felt finger-puppets are Betsy, Tacy, and Tib.)And secondly, the Hyperbole and a Half blog, which is hilarious. Thanks to Christi for introducing me to both of these classics! :)

Ursula the Octopus
Is nothing like you'd think:
She's shy and sweet and only squirts
Rose-scented, purple ink.
The mermaids all adore her--
She perfumes and dyes their hair,
For free, no less! She's That kind-hearted,
Simply glad to share!

Lolliduke and the Last of the Zombies

Good morning! And happy birthday Christi! :)
I haven't been spending much time on blogging lately :( schedules change and i guess it takes some time to adjust. Anyway, the first picture today is of a Mojito Cake that daniel made (recipe from Warren Brown's Cake Love)! It was de-li-cious! (or de-lic-ious?) his first cake Ever, and it was fairly complicated--involved drying fresh mint in an oven. Which, if you ever have to do, it takes a Ton of fresh mint to equal 1/3 c dried mint, stems-removed. We may have miscalculated. Still scrumptious though! Next, we have zombie baby and zombie fairy--the last of the zombie clan, besides Pumpkin Head zombie, whose picture apparently didn't get taken :( Anyway, zombie felties were a blast to make, but it's the end of an era. And finally, orange peel art! I had to draw something happy to get me through the last few minutes of my 3rd-Buffy-episode-in-a-row, before Christi came home :) it kind of worked. i didn't go hide underneath the covers or anything. Later today: Stout Pound Cake with Roasted Pecans! yumyumyum!

Lolliduke is small and sweet,
But oh! has such enormous feet
You might think feet is All he is
(Which isn't true, you crazy kids!)
He has a tongue that's one yard long
With which he sings amusing songs
That sound like garbled jibberish
Sung by a sneezing, toothless fish.
He also has two pin-striped eyes,
And one is brown, while one--surprise!--
Glows either pink or green or blue,
Depending on his present mood.
And then, he has such soft, lush, fur
That those who pet it start to purr
Like any pampered kitty-cat,
It's true! Now what d'you say to that?

Kind of Sonnet?

Zombie Bride! So cute! what follows is a fairly problematic poem, written yesterday. and....that's all for now. hope you are enjoying 2011!

Every day congruent, as the sun
Comes up, arcs steady, blinding, sinks below,
Leads purple twilight, Moon, Orion, stars--
Each day as ev'ry other--but this one.
Today the sun arose, but didn't shine,
Spark diamonds on the water, or give warmth.
So Friend becomes a thing we fear to know,
And in response we clamor for a sign

That all is not all pain or brokeness,
Or drear, mundane, and merely passionless--

For what we feel now is so much more
Than resignation, We've been called to mourn.
We fear the tears will pain us as they fall,
Or fall in shame.
Worse, never fall at all.

I'm not bitter... :)

Good evening! I am becoming a gluten-free baker extraoridnaire (sp?), so if anyone needs some delicious gluten-free recipes, i can pass some along! today's experiments included: citrus-coconut muffins, from Gluten-Free Baking Classics by Annalise Roberts; Wheat-Free Toffee Bars, Wheat-Free Pecan-Spice cookies, both from Chewy, Gooey, Crispy Crunchy by Alice Medrich who is amazing. And of course, the ever-popular extra-mooshy Puppy Chow! (if you use the recipe on the box, add more chocolate chips and peanut butter, otherwise it just doesn't cut it :( anyway, it's fun and different! this is all work-related, incidentally. Thanks to one of my friends whose family has recently gone gluten-free, i now have a tower of flour in my kitchen that reaches up to my waist! Yay baking!
Anyway, now that i have applauded my G-F baking efforts, here is a nastily moralistic poem that speaks against bragging about what a hard worker you are, when what you've done is not actually all that impressive, and you are actually fairly lazy. it's probably just annoying :)

Idle until little tasks
Come crawling to be done,
Completing each with mammoth effort
(Sweat plus Pride are one).
"Behold my works! (And praise me, please!)"
"But, children could do such!
I'm sorry, you've built up a boast
That isn't made of much.
A trash took out (how loud you groaned!)
That was but half-way full,
A picture hung--no hammer swung,
The nail was in its hole.
And for these tasks half-heartedly
Completed, you'd take praise?
I've never heard such silliness
In all my years and days!"
"But, I Could have left All undone.
I Did do Something, no?"
"But not for duty, right, nor love.
You did it all for show."

Revery/reverie

Happy 2011! I have greeted the New Year with a head cold and a good deal of general grumpiness. So i skipped church this morning for some quiet time and finished reading The Cross and the Switchblade...which was both encouraging and brought up some questions. Like, the author (Reverend David Wilkerson) would pray things like, "Dear Lord, if you want _______, then please make it evident by making _______ happen." And the signs he asked for quite often came to pass. which is not how i pray at all...because i think at some point i got the idea that such prayers were a way of 'testing' God in a sinful way, or something. or maybe more, i'm just afraid that the things i ask will never come to pass because they're the wrong things and i'll Still not know what He wants of me. of i'm afraid to give up control of my life by being more evidently Led. hm...book recommended.
Next, today's poem has something to do with--or at least it brought to mind--this poem of Emily Dickinson:

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee.
One clover, and a bee.
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.

Which was, incidentally, the last poem Mr. Estes had us memorize in 9th grade, a year of a great deal of magnificent poem-memorization. At the end of that year, alot of things changed so it is a poem charged with memory and wistfulness. Although, truth be told, the things that I long for most are things that occurred after that year i believe. (I don't know if you can tell, but in the closer version of the illustration above, there is a wilted flower and a bee flying away from it and out of the brain space.) Finally, one last bit of trivia: i cannot, after growing up in Kansas, the land of the prairie, spell the word "prairie." i mean, i can now that i've been corrected several times by spell check ('prarie' always underlined in red). Weird.

Once upon a time--to wit,
But One bright second spun--
Two eyelids dropped in reverie,
Yet, as the act was done,
Their universe tipped dizzily,
Met Dark and Light and Why?
Thus fragile reverie lost out
To doubting you and I.