If you're tired of starting over, stop quitting.

Apple Cupcakes!

Okay! So, I'm a child who loves to bake, and I've been a little obsessed with cupcakes ever since I first saw the show Cupcake Wars on the Food Network. I found this recipe on the internet a while back and have been meaning to try it out for months. I finally got around to making these last night, and they were absolutely amazing.

Ingredients:

1-1/4 cups flour*

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 eggs, room temperature

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

2-3 baking apples, like Fuji or Granny Smith.

 *I ran out of all-purpose flour and ended up using about half cake flour. I don't know if it makes much of a difference.

Directions: 

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Line a cupcake pan with baking liners. Mix together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.
3. Add other ingredients except apples, stir until just combined.
4. Grate your apples with a cheese grater. (Or get whoever is standing around to do it for you. ;]) Stir apples in with everything else.
5. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan until almost full.
6. Bake until golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out dry, 25-30 minutes.
7. Transfer to a rack to cool completely.

Makes 12ish cupcakes.

Frosting:

Icing is not an exact science. I tend to just throw things together a little bit at a time until it tastes the way I want it. If that seems intimidating, normal buttercream or cream cheese frosting would probably be great with these cakes. Or, hey, just skip the frosting altogether. They still taste great without it.
 For these cupcakes, I used:
A stick of butter
A few spoonfuls of plain yogurt
A teaspoonish of vanilla
A spoon or two of brown sugar
A few cups of powdered sugar
The end result was a little runny for proper buttercream icing, but I didn't want it to be too sweet. It gets softer at room temperature, and hardens when it's cold. It should be kept in the fridge.

Enjoy! :)

It Began As Nothing.

This poem is one that I wrote last fall as a contribution to "The Scariest Thing In The Dark" EP, which is a collection of spooky stories and songs put together by my brothers and sisters and the band Insomniac Folklore. (It's been described as the most terrifying children's album ever!) The full EP can be listened to and downloaded here.


It began as Nothing
Or, rather, a pile of Nothings
That used to be Somethings

A pile of scraps

Too worn and too mismatched to be used for much
They sat, unnoticed and forgotten

'Til, one day, in a fit of inspiration,
You took the Nothings
And made them Something.

You took your thread and your needles and set to work

You created it.

You gave it a heart
You gave it two eyes
You gave it sharp teeth

And,

Whether by accident,
Or knowingly,

You gave it life.

You sat it on a shelf
And left it to be

But,

When you turned out the lights
Closed the door
Climbed under the covers

It
     climbed  
                     down.

Happy Things.

A few things that make me happy. Just because sometimes I need to remind myself that life is beautiful. 

Going to the bank. No, really. I like going to the bank and chatting with all the tellers and filling out deposit slips the old fashioned way. It makes me feel incredibly Grown Up.

Clean clothes. They smell so nice.

Learning. Foreign languages, chemical compounds, spectra of light, black holes, outer space, giraffes, the laws of physics. I adore learning about our world and how it all works.

Making things. Cooking something delicious. Sewing my own clothes. Drawing a picture. Raising a houseplant. 

Not Waving but Drowning

One of my favorite poems, by a woman named Stevie Smith.

Nobody heard him, the dead man,   

But still he lay moaning:

I was much further out than you thought   

And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking

And now he’s dead

It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,   

They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always   

(Still the dead one lay moaning)   

I was much too far out all my life   

And not waving but drowning.

 

 

Always Winter, Never Christmas

Always winter, never Christmas.

This was part of the curse that was upon the land of Narnia in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.

As a kid, reading this book, the only thing that crossed my mind was, “Oh, how sad, there's no presents,” and that was the end of my thinking.

The symbolism of it never really struck me until recently when I was thinking about the winter solstice.

Because what is Christmas, really?

December 25 is the day that has been celebrated for centuries as the return of the sun. It's when people first started noticing the days getting longer again. It marks the end of the darkness and all the fearful wondering, “Will we have enough to eat? Will my family be safe? Will we survive this? Will the light ever come back? Is everything going to be okay?"

Christmas means that all your waiting has paid off and the seasons are finally changing. Christmas means hope.

The Christians adopted this winter holiday, the celebration of the sun's birthday, to celebrate something even greater – the birthday of the son of God.

The Christ, the promised savior, who people had been waiting for for thousands of years. When he arrived, the whole world changed.

In The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, the arrival of Father Christmas meant that the White Witch's power was weakening and that Great Lion Aslan had returned to Narnia.

The waiting is over.

The King has come to set things right.

All Glory to God

From a collection of poems and prayers titled Interobang, by Norman Habel.

If I can't be honest with you, Lord

I can't be honest with anyone.

You are the only person I know

Who can take it

no matter what I say

People are offended if I'm honest.

They want to hear nice things

Sweet words of happiness

Gentle hymns to a gentle God

Smiling somewhere

on a red velvet throne

Well I'm sick of being phony

and I don't like to act

as if there's nothing wrong

with me

or my friends

or the world

or you

Sometimes I want to scream at you

and let it out

I have a million

Unanswered prayers

stuck in my craw

I want you to listen

when I yell at the sky

Pound my pillow

kick the ground

throw stones at the stars

slam doors

or swear at the world

Perhaps that's not giving

all glory to God

as others do

with folded hands and frozen face

but for me it means

I'm paying you

the highest respect there is.

It means I trust you with the truth-

all the truth.

Birds and Cages

Visual journal from a while back. Simple, but I really like the colors.

If you want her to stay,
give her a home.
Not a cage.

Pink.

I'm happy today. :)

After an extremely rough summer, I'm grateful (and slightly amazed) that I can say this.

Today wasn't anything exceptional. I'm just happy. 

I was sitting on my floor today listening to Run, Forever and flipping through old sketchbooks, feeling more at peace than I have in a long time.

I called my sister in another state and wished her a happy birthday.
After which, I cried for about twenty minutes because I miss her.
But it was good.

I sat and sorted through my art supplies with more excitement than I've managed to have in months.
Excitement about making art. Drawing beautiful pictures. The color pink. What magic I would be able to create if I had a pink marker!
Excitement . . . about life! Being alive!

I'm happy today.
God is good. :)

Alive, Almost

A poem I wrote this summer. Yay, depression!

I'm alive

In some strange sense of the word

Meaning that my self-destructive tendencies haven't quite overpowered

The grace of my God

I'm sick

And have been for a while now

Choking and unable to breathe. Adding to the misery

While a small voice in my head whispers that this is just what I deserve

After all,

I'm broken

Beyond repair

A mess of plans gone wrong and a disaster waiting to happen

I'm trapped

As the things I loved and the things I wished for and dreamed of came within my grasp

And then quietly slipped away.

All the while,

I'm struggling

To put aside these thoughts

Of glittering knives and speeding cars and venomous snakes

Whispering to me of easy ends

I'm helpless

Watching the people I love cry from things I have said

and being completely unable to fix it.

Unable to make them understand

I'm trying

My hardest to remember that even in this nightmare, even when it seems that all is lost and the daylight will never come

My God is in control.

I'm repeating

To myself what I'm trying to see as true:

This will not destroy me, He has not forgotten me, and

In spite of me,

All will be well again.