New look

I changed the look of my blog again. If you are reading through google reader you should head on over and check it out :)

I must say, I was pretty impressed with myself when I figured out how to use photoshop to add pictures to the frames inside the banner. I'm definitely no photoshop pro, but I totally figured it out in a minimal amount of time! yay!

Pumpkin Pancakes and a Pumpkin Spice Latte

It may be possible that I have a real problem here:

I may or may not have bought the entire stock of pumpkin purée when I saw it at the store today. What does this mean for you? LOTS of pumpkin recipes coming your way over the next week!

I started off today with a wonderful pumpkin breakfast. First, pumpkin pancakes!

yum yum yum! These are light and fluffy with a light flavor of pumpkin that is not at all overpowering (although we all know how much I LOVE pumpkin, so maybe if you hated pumpkin it might taste overpowering, I don't know). I'm sure they would be good with maple syrup, but I'm not really a fan at all. I thought about whipping up some whipped cream to dollop on top, but decided that since I wanted to make this next treat, I would pass on the whipped cream calories this morning, and simply sprinkle the pancakes with cinnamon and sugar instead. I wasn't disappointed. :)

Next, Pumpkin Spice Latte!

Just like Starbucks, but only a fraction of the cost! (And since I used Starbucks coffee, it really was JUST like Starbucks haha). This was really simple, and turned out really good. One of my favorite fall drinks is a pumpkin spice latte, so I was pretty excited to stumble upon this recipe. All you have to do is mix a cup of coffee, 2/3 cup evaporated milk, 1/4 cup pumpkin purée, 1-2 T sugar, 1 1/2 t vanilla, and a pinch of pumpkin pie spice together, and heat in a sauce pan until hot. Put the mixture in a blender, blend for one minute to make the nice frothy topping, sprinkle with cinnamon and enjoy!

Confession here: I have NO idea how to make coffee! NONE! I don't drink it. I don't like it. I love coffee flavored drinks, but I hate plain coffee. So, I never learned how to make it. My mom gave me a small coffee pot (just in case) and I pulled it out and didn't even know how to go about pretending to use it. Therefore, I bought some of these (which you can find at Starbucks, but also in the coffee section at Target):

Individual instant coffee pouches. This was totally made for me! If I was going to make this a lot, or drink coffee more, I'd learn to use a coffee pot because it would be less expensive. But these are just under $3 for 3 packages and I figure for how rarely I would need coffee, that's not a bad deal. Plus, it's Starbucks! $1 per pumpkin spice latte is much cheaper than the $4 I'd spend buying it there, so it works for me. haha

Pumpkin Spice Cheesecake Brownies

As promised, pumpkin spice cheesecake brownies!!

Having tried these, I am not sure why a person would EVER want to eat a plain chocolate brownie again. These are delicious!! They are incredibly rich, which means you can really only eat one at a time or you might get sick (not being tempted to eat a whole batch is a good thing, I promise!). I took them to school today for our birthday luncheon and received multiple requests for the recipe. They were really easy to make, so I'm telling you, you have to go make these now! The pumpkin taste is not overpowering as it is blended nicely into the cream cheese. I promise, you won't regret making them (well, unless you love them so much you eat the whole pan, then you might regret it haha)

Pumpkin Spice Cheesecake Brownies

Brownie Batter

3/4 cup butter, melted

1 cup sugar

1 T pure vanilla extract

2 eggs

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1/4 t cinnamon

Cheesecake Batter

6 oz cream cheese, softened

1 egg

1/3 cup sugar

1 T flour

1/2 cup pumpkin puree

1/4 t pure vanilla extract

1/2 t cinnamon

1/4 t each ground ginger and ground cloves

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 8x8 square metal baking pan.

Beat together melted butter, sugar, and vanilla, then beat in eggs one at a time. Combine dry ingredients and then gradually stir into butter mixture with a wooden spoon. In a separate bowl, beat together cheesecake batter ingredients.

Spread about 2/3 of chocolate batter into prepared pan, and spoon cheesecake batter over. Dollop remaining brownie batter over cheesecake batter. Swirl both batters together by running a knife back and forth through the pan.

Bake for 40 minutes, or until center is set. Cool completely on wire rack and chill before cutting and serving. Keep refrigerated.

Enjoy! :)

Plans

The other night I had dinner with D for the first time in goodness, probably 2 months?!? It had been so long since we had seen each other it felt like we literally knew nothing about what had been going on with the other. It was definitely good to catch up! Here's the thing: once I started talking and filling him in on how things are going, it was like I just couldn't stop. And all of these feelings that I hadn't put into words just spilled out of me.

The thing I realized about my life is that I have always had a plan. That's just the way I'm wired. I live my life through a series of plans; it works for me. A plan for the day, the week, the year, the next 5 years, whatever. There is always a plan; there always has been a plan. I make plans, and then I follow them. That, to me, is comforting. There is stability in plans, and I need stability. I don't do change or uncertainty well at all. When you go to college and get a specialized degree that really only leads to one career choice, you have a plan. See the stability in that? There is no choice to be made; the plan has built in a choice for you. That worked perfectly for me. Low stress, clear plans, life was good ...

Now, I have a problem. Many of my plans have not worked out. Turns out, my plans were not all what I wanted after all. I don't have a new plan. NO PLAN. And I don't know what to do with that. My life has become (what feels like) a gigantic chaotic mess with no direction, because it is lacking in plans. (I realize I have said the word plan so many times in this I am starting to sound like a crazy person, but I sort of feel like one so just go with it). I'm just stumbling through my life in the dark. I don't know what I'm doing or where I'm going. My purpose is missing. Does that make sense? See, not only have I always had plans, but my plans have always been successful. No one else may see it this way, but this current lack of success feels like a total failure. I don't fail at things. I don't! And yet, here we are ... pretty much failing at life.

I sort of feel like the person in a movie who is frozen in place watching others zip around them. You know what I'm talking about?

The whole world is moving, and I'm standing still ...

I am working on formulating new plans. Actually, I have started to formulate part of a new plan, I just need to find a way to make it happen, and then figure out the rest. What I probably need to do is stop being crazy and live life without a plan for once, but that's just not going to happen. I feel very out of sorts without clear direction. It's not a good feeling at all.

And now to go along with the rest of my crazy I have just spilled out for the world to see, I'm just going to go ahead and throw in a nice metaphor for you.

You see, I like the paved road. The path that has already been cleared and has signs leading you the direction you need to go. That path is stable, it doesn't change, you know exactly where you are going and what is going to be there when you get there. It's stable, and there is a clear purpose. Somehow, I have stumbled off that road and have gotten lost somewhere in the trees. There is no turning back; that road is too far behind me now. It appears it is time to start forging my own trail.

And I'll be honest, I'm scared to death.

But you know what? Life is scary ... And that's okay.

Pumpkin Cupcakes

Okay so I admit it, I have a secret love affair for all things pumpkin. After I made those pumpkin muffins a few weeks ago I had been DYING to try out a recipe for pumpkin cupcakes but I just hadn't had the time. Plus, have you heard about the pumpkin shortage of 2009?!? Every time I went to the store to buy canned pumpkin it was nowhere to be found! How is that even possible?? So sad!

Anyway, I finally found some canned pumpkin at Target (although they still only had something like 6 cans of it!) and decided to get to baking.

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

The batter for these tasted exactly like pumpkin pie, it just had a different texture. yuuuummm. The cupcakes turned out incredibly moist (I think that's due to the pumpkin purée) and the cinnamon cream cheese frosting complemented them perfectly. This is probably my favorite frosting thus far (but I'm also partial to a cream cheese frosting, not a huge fan of buttercream). Will I make these again? You bet! Will I probably make them again very soon? Most definitely! Now if someone could just work on finding an excuse for me to make them again that would be great! Mom, how do you feel about pumpkin cupcakes instead of pie for Thanksgiving? hehe

*recipe available upon request :)

Stay tuned for pumpkin spice cream cheese brownies to come later this week. I'm super excited to try this recipe and have to bring something to school this week so I think it might be perfect!

So close

The other day my fortune cookie read, "An exciting opportunity lies ahead of you." It's not often that I keep fortunes, but I pinned that one to my bulletin board. It seemed very fitting.

So Close Now - Eli Young Band

I am so close now to walking away

About to walk the path I've gotta take

I am packing up, heading out

I can't sleep I'm dreaming way to loud

I'm so close now, so close now

To getting out.

Truer words have never been spoken ...

"Wimberley .. that's like Kimberley!" - Missy

I had the most wonderful relaxing three day weekend ever! Seriously, it's sort of hard to put into words just how great (and completely necessary) it was!

Friday after school Missy and I got on the road right away for Wimberley. For a 3 1/2 hour drive, it seemed to go by fairly quickly. Good company I guess :) When we got to San Marcos we needed to stop for dinner so we started to search for what was around on one of our iphones. We had almost decided to go to Texas Roadhouse because we used to love eating there in college but there isn't one close by in Houston, when we saw a Fazolis up the road. We most def chose Fazoli's over Roadhouse. That may seem ridiculous, but man we LOVE that place!! After a delicious meal there, we finished the drive to my mom's river house.

The GPS on my phone led us down this incredibly scary back road and for awhile there I was pretty certain we were going to die there. Missy later told me she was all but about to jump into my lap lol. BUT, we made it. By the time we got to the house it was nearly 9pm. There were NO lights on anywhere, and it was pitch black outside! Walking up to a house out in the middle of nowhere, in the dark, and having to search for a key is scary. My mom had told me where the key was hidden and in my rush to grab it quickly I totally knocked one of two keys onto the ground. Luckily, it was the mail key, not the house key, because it was nowhere to be found in the dark. Missy and I had a pretty good laugh over that. We would have been screwed if it had been the other way around. yikes! Once we got the key, we let ourselves in the house and started to unload the car. 10 trips later, we were in. Seriously, we had SO much stuff! You would have thought we were moving in! The walk from the car to the house is not exactly a short distance and like I said it was pretty dark and scary so we were moving fairly quickly. At one point we got back to the car to get more things (I had left the car running so my headlights would give us some light on the path) and Let the Bodies Hit the Floor was blaring from the radio. Ummmmm not good music when you are already freaking out afraid of the dark! haha The rest of Friday night was spent hanging out in the living room, drinking many mimosas, listening to the water feature outside the window, and chatting. Quite a relaxing end to the day!

Saturday morning we got up and spent some more time just lounging around. At some point I decided I needed a shower and when I turned on the water it was the most overwhelming sulfur smell ever! I seriously wanted to throw up it was so bad. Plus, the water never got hot! It was the stinkiest, coldest, shower ever! I literally stuck my head in, washed my hair, and that was it. I called my mom later and we figured out that the sulfur smell was from the water not being used in awhile (it went away after that first shower), and the reason it was cold was that the previous renter had turned off the hot water when he left (we got that fixed for the next day, no worries!). My mom was trying to walk me through flipping the breakers to try and fix the hot water problem when out of nowhere this huge male deer runs up to about 5 feet away from me. He totally had an arrow stuck in his side and I all but had a panic attack right there. He was SO close to me, all the house doors were open (trying to air out that gross smell), he was looking right at me, and he was clearly very agitated because of the giant arrow he had been shot with. I was too scared to cry. Seriously. Missy had seen this thing dark across the yard from the bedroom window so she came out to see what it was. As she came out, it got scared and ran away. Thank goodness!

After spending a bit more time lounging around on the porch enjoying the beautiful weather, Missy and I decided to head over to San Marcos for some outlet shopping. I cannot believe how long we were there! We walked the entire prime outlet side and didn't leave until it was already dark. Of course we didn't think to leave a porch light on, thinking we'd be back much earlier, so it was dark and scary when we came home again. Shopping was a lot of fun though. We both got a few cute things, and honestly just had a nice time wandering about leisurely not caring about the time or anything. We grabbed dinner at Outback since it was right there in the parking lot, then headed back home for more mimosas and an old mix tape.

Sunday we were both so glad that we didn't have to get up and drive back yet. We spent the morning just laying around relaxing, got some cutting done for our quilting projects, and had lunch in town. After lunch we ran a few errands to try and find things we needed for our quilting setup, then headed home to start quilting. We both got our entire top piece done for our quilts! SO fun!! Plus, they are both super cute! Sunday night consisted of even more relaxing, and even more mimosas (7 bottles worth of champagne at this point lol).

I really didn't take many pictures this weekend, and I the only pictures I even took of our completed top pieces were on my phone so these will have to do. This is when we had the blocks all sewn together and laid out, but had not yet sewed them all together. You get the idea at least.

My quilt

Missy's quilt

Monday we got up, did some more cutting for our next quilting project, then packed up to leave. We stopped in San Marcos for lunch at none other than Fazoli's again haha. yum! On our way back into town we stopped at ikea and picked up some fun new chairs for the kids to use in the classroom when doing read to self, and then finally made it back to my house. Missy did some lesson planning, and I went to yoga, then we picked up dinner, came back here, watched Gossip Girl and One Tree Hill, and had a Monday night sleepover.

This weekend was SO incredibly relaxing I just can't even explain it. I think we both really needed it, but we sure were sad to come back to reality. We should really make it a point to take weekends like that more often. Love you bunches Missy! :)

Leap of Faith

When you come to the edge of all the light you know, and are about to step off into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing one of two things will happen: There will be something solid to stand on, or you will be taught how to fly.

I am getting very close to taking a very large leap of faith. Most days now, it is all I can think about. At some point there won't be any turning back, only moving forward one step at a time. Hopefully when I take that first step there will be something for me to stand on, because it's scary, terrifying really, and completely overwhelming. But, at the same time, it might be completely necessary. The best things in life do not always come easily, and most great things begin by moving out of your comfort zone. I've never been one to step out of my comfort zone, and maybe that's been the problem. Maybe now it's time ...

The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. ~ Deuteronomy 31:8

Pumpkin Chocolate Chunk Muffins

Fall is officially here, and we have the weather to prove it! A crisp cool breeze blew in the other day, which made me start thinking about all things fall. My most favorite thing about fall: pumpkins! Specifically, food made with pumpkin. Pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, pumpkin spice lattés etc. You may be seeing a few different pumpkin recipes this month. :)

Anyway, tomorrow is my day to bring a breakfast snack to bible study, so I decided to do some baking today. No cupcakes this week, but I do have some wonderful muffins to share! Give you one guess what the star ingredient is ... pumpkin or course!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chunk Muffins

These are GREAT! I know I say that about everything I bake, but it's true (plus, the things I've baked that I didn't like I just don't post about haha). These are moist and delicious. A great mix of pumpkin and chocolate. YUM!! I think they are going to be a big hit tomorrow at my ABF.

For those interested in the recipe, here you go:

Ingredients:

4 eggs

1 cup sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar

15 oz can pumpkin puree

1 cup melted butter

1/2 cup applesauce

3 cups all purpose flour

2 t baking soda

2 t baking powder

1 t cinnamon

1/4 t allspice

3/4 t salt

1 cup coarsely chopped dark chocolate

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. With wire whisk, beat the eggs in a large bowl, and mix in the sugar, pumpkin, applesauce, and better. In a medium bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, allspice, and chocolate. Stir the flour mixture into the egg and pumpkin mixture until just combined. Transfer batter into lined muffin cups. Bake about 13 minutes. Cool completely on a wire rack.

Weekend in Salt Lake City

Can I just say what a wonderful time I had in Salt Lake City this weekend? Seriously, it was SUCH a good mental health break! I hadn't seen my dad since the first week in June, which I think is the longest period of time in my life that I have gone without seeing him ... craziness! Plus, Lauren and Aunt Mary Beth were there, and I got to see a lot of family I haven't seen in a long time. Dad and I were trying to figure it out, but we think the last time I saw Aunt Mary was possibly almost 15 years ago! That's an insanely long time, so it was really good to see her again. Plus I got to see Molly, Uncle Bruce, Grandma and Dick. Such a fun time!

Friday morning I flew up to Salt Lake city and met my dad at the airport. We checked into our hotel and relaxed/napped for about an hour upon checking in. Then we headed over to the park to meet up with everyone for the barbeque. I got to meet Molly's husband Adam, and I have to say he definitely got two thumbs up from the McCormack's. This guy is great, and so much like Molly! They are adorable together. So, in the park Adam did some grilling

and everyone did lots of eating. Whole foods must have thought we were crazy about kale because they sent over a MASSIVE platter. Seriously, Molly and Adam are going to be eating this kale for months to come! It was ridiculous and proportionally so much larger than any of the other platters of food. Lauren and I laughed so hard about it!

I have turned into quite the Texas girl over the years, because once the sun went down I was FREEZING! Seriously, SO cold! However, it was lots of fun hanging out with dad and catching up with Lauren. (this picture was actually taken the next night, but it's the only one I have of the two of us this trip)

The next day Lauren and I went to Adam's yoga class. He owns this neat studio there, so he had invited us to come to his class. It was a good class, but man 2 hours of yoga almost killed me! I am used to only an hour, so this was twice as long as any class I had been in! It was lots of fun though! After yoga I spent some time showering and getting ready for the day then dad and I went to lunch and drove around the city so I could see it. Having the mountains as a backdrop makes everything so much prettier! I really miss the mountains!

That evening we got dressed up and headed over to this beautiful restaurant, Tuscany, for the ceremony and reception.

It was a small group of maybe 30 or so people so it was very intimate. One of their good friends was the officiant and the whole ceremony was very Molly (and as I came to find out, also very like Adam). It was simple and very sweet. I cannot even tell you how much we all loved Adam, he is perfect for Molly and they are so cute together!

After the outdoor ceremony we moved inside for the dinner. Dinner was supposed to be outside, but the whole day had been very overcast and chilly, so it was moved inside. Thank goodness! Seriously, I would have frozen! I knew I needed a coat, but when I was packing I found that the only dressy coat I have is a peacoat, and I knew I would look ridiculous if I wore a peacoat the first weekend in October. That being said, I had no coat. No coat, and a dress that only comes to my knees. Dinner outside would have been miserable, but inside it was quite fun. Lots of yummy food and chatting with family.

Sunday morning my flight was at 8:30 so I had to get up and leave pretty early. It was such a nice weekend and a nice break from work that I was really sad to come back home. I'm thankful I got to go though, it was really a great time! Thanks Dad, love you!

kids say the darndest things

Here is a conversation I had at recess today:

Student 1: Ms. McCormack, what does vegetarian mean?

me: It means a person who doesn't eat meat.

Student 1: Oh, yeah, of course, I knew that.

me: Are you a vegetarian S?

Student 1: oh, no no, not me. are you?

me: yeah, I am

Student 2: OH NO!!!! THAT MEANS YOU CAN'T HAVE ONE OF MY DAD'S AMAZING HAND-GU-BURGERS!!

me: his what?!??

Student 2: hand-gu-burgers! He makes the best ones EVER! They are so much better than the school hand-gu-burgers!

That's right .... hand-gu-bugers.

LOVE IT!

Waiting

Do you ever feel like you are spending your life waiting for something else? Like your life hasn't turned out exactly the way you had hoped and planned it would, so rather than enjoying life and living in the moment, you are waiting around for that "something better", whatever it may be?

I definitely do. It's not that my life has turned out horribly so far; in all honesty, it's turned out pretty well. It's just not exactly what I wanted it to be. This wasn't the place I pictured for myself. I constantly find myself just waiting for this life I have built in my head to take shape, but it never does. It's sort of hard not to be disappointed when you spend your life waiting for something that doesn't happen.

Hang with me here, my thinking is a little disjointed, but it's going somewhere, I promise ...

How often it seems lately, that the things I need to hear the most, are the things that are taught in my bible study or church service. I learned a new vocabulary word this week that relates to that. My new word is rhema. A rhema is a verse or scripture that is brought to our attention to direct us in a current situation. If that doesn't describe perfectly what has been happening in my life then I don't know what does. Obviously, God is making sure I hear the things I need to.

Anyway, in my bible study we have been talking about this whole concept of waiting on God to provide us with something we feel we want/deserve/need etc. This ties in well to my previous entries about God's plan being above my own. Here is my new thinking: God has this plan for me and somewhere along the line it may or may not include all the things I want out of life. The thing is, He wants to prepare me for this life He has planned for me before He will give it to me. So, He asks me to do things, or change the things that need changing, and He waits for me to follow through. I can't just make things happen the way I want them to, I have to wait; BUT, and that's a big but, just waiting around doing the same old things is not going to get me there. He has all my ducks lined up in a row, but I can't get to them unless I follow what He has asked me to do first. He sets tasks in front of me to prepare me for what He has planned later. That's the key. He wants to mold me into the person I need to be, and prepare me for what is coming in my life. I cannot get to the big things, until I am obedient in the small things He has laid on my heart. Does that make sense?

I know good and well that God is sitting around waiting on me to get my act together on a number of things. He's got all these great plans for me, I'm sure, but I keep failing to follow through with my end of the bargain, the small things; and until I do, I will never see all the great things He has promised.

I woke up the other morning humming this song, and I haven't been able to get it out of my head since. It's one of my favorites.

While I'm Waiting - John Waller

I'm waiting

I'm waiting on you, Lord

And I am hopeful

I'm waiting on you, lord

though it is painful

but patiently, I will wait

I will move ahead, bold and confident

Taking every step in obedience

While I'm waiting

I will serve you

While I'm waiting

I will worship

While I'm waiting

I will not faint

I'll be running the race

Even while I wait.

I'm waiting

I'm waiting on you, Lord

And I am peaceful

I'm waiting on you, Lord

Though it's not easy

But faithfully, I will wait.