I Made A Pumpkin Cheesecake.

And I'm so excited about it. :)

I spent part of this morning smashing/grinding up an entire box of Nilla Wafers and one whole package of honey graham crackers. Then I added (a little too much?) cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves to the crumbs and some butter and mixed it all up, then tried to remember the any crust shaping techniques I've seen Lorraine (pastry chef at work) using when she makes our amazing key lime pie.

For not doing this every day? I did okay. :)

Then the filling! Lots of cream cheese and sugar (brown and white) and vanilla extract and eggs and sour cream and a whole can of pumpkin. I'm so grateful to have Robert's nice Kitchenaid mixer! One day, I will buy my own.

And it's in the oven!!! Right now!! I'm so excited. I think I'll take a picture of it when-- ooo! Timer!

***FANFARE***

YAAAAAAAY!!! I'm so excited! I want to eat it! But it has to cool now. And then sit in the fridge till like... tomorrow. But then I'll get to eat it! Yay!!!!

Speaking of eating, you should really check this out. Or just go to freerice.com and start playing. It's awesome. Especially if you're addicted to Word Twist or something like that. :)

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!!

Iron & Wine

I just made a grilled cheese sandwich. For the first time in maybe... 3 or 4 years?

Man, I've been missing out.

I bought some of that V8 Tomato soup in a box, added some herbs to it, then topped it with mozzarella. Then I made a grilled cheddar cheese sandwich, amped up with some Mesquite smoked turkey breast and voila! (Ha! First I typed "Viola!")

C'est si bon! I imagine I'll be eating that on many more rainy winter evenings. Mmmm.

Last night was good too. I went to see Iron & Wine at the Ryman. I drank cabernet out of a plastic cup and sat next to the boy who stole my heart away this summer with his saute pans and one-dimpled smile. We had great seats in the second row of the balcony and Sam Beam's voice made me wonder if his children realize how fortunate they are (assuming he sang them to sleep when they were babies).* The show was the loveliest kind of mellow-- fantastically comfortable.

While listening to one of the songs, (sorry, can't remember the name for once) I had this Fantasia kind of moment when I realized how much it sounded like rain. I closed my eyes briefly and imagined this scene with all the pitter patter of the plucked guitar strings and the gentle sporadic percussion cadence of the larger drops and then violin strings adding the harmony of all those droplets running downstream into pools. It was beautiful! But before my thought had even ended, I was struck by the beauty of my current state.

By the fact that I wasn't huddled in a ravine in some war torn country, running from explosions, or fending off hunger pangs with my mind so focused on survival that there's no room for anything else.

In that moment, I was humbled and grateful to be a such a "rich" American, with a job and money to pay for a ticket to an experience that enabled me to hear what rain would sound like if it were music.


*Apparently he did.

I Concur.

I just pulled this off my friend's husband's facebook page.

"God is like Wikipedia;
We think we know what is truth and we contribute to the discussion amongst ourselves, but we aren't 100% positive it is ever going to be right - sometimes we are just left with questions."

Silly, but it's true for me.

Thing is, I'm okay with questions and mysteries, with the supernatural and the unknown intricacies of God... but I've realized so much in the past few months that some people are really tripped up by all that. And I can't really blame them. It's frustrating. Especially when it's brand new. It's mind-blowing. It doesn't seem right. It's crazy and ridiculous and terrifying and what if I'm wrong? and what if it's real?

Denial is hedonistic, but acceptance is-- a new brand of passion, responsibility and freedom. It's the lightest burden and the deepest comfort. It is brand new perspective; eyes without cataracts that see every morning pregnant with potential that screams out to be acknowledged and ferociously embraced. It is the most fulfilling, all-compassing challenge you'll ever love.

Engaging. Provocative. Steadfast.
And deep as you're willing to go.

That's faith.

(FFWD to 2:00)

Win A Free iPod!!!

I asked off from my normal job today in order to be an Rockwell Automation Siren. Gotta mix things up, you know? $20/hr to stand around at this Automation Trade Show all day in the Convention Center of the Opryland Hotel with 6 other girls in yellow t-shirts and skirts. Our mission: encourage all the wide-eyed, wandering info tech (IT) guys (and a few girls) from ALL OVER THE WORLD to step up to our thickly carpeted, giant, plasma touch-screen littered, house music thumping display booth and help them sign up to win an iPod touch. To register, they each endured a 30 second "Factory Talk" presentation, typed in their cell number on one of the giant touch screens and we texted them throughout the day with chances to "win amazing prizes".

Now for those of you like me who are like "Automation Trade Show? Is that like... cars? Or robots? Or what?" Sort of. It's a trade show for manufacturers and IT people who own, run, design and work in plants, factories and all that jazz. Factory Talk is a line of software to help regulate/monitor/program the machines that put stuff together.

So this show was huge. Like several thousand people in attendance. You should have seen the cafeteria. I can't imagine catering something like that. Makes me tired just thinking about it! There were people from everywhere stopping by our booth. (I say booth-- it was a huge area, just slightly smaller than 1/2 a basketball court.) I talked to people from Venezuela, Bolivia, India, Denmark, England, Switzerland, Canada, China, Australia, France, Belgium, Germany, not to mention people from ALL over the US. It was insane.

It was a long day (I had to leave the house at 6:35 AM. My motivation? Chikin Biskit.) and I didn't make it home till almost 6PM, but it was easy and pretty entertaining. I do it again tomorrow. And I'm supposed to carry my phone on me all day so please feel free to write me lots of fun facebook messages so I'm not bored out of my mind all day...

Japanese. Burmese. Spanish. And Christmas.

So i've been watching-- well more like, checking in on-- THIS all day. I can't stop. They're adorable. The feisty little instigator/bully in the lime green collar Val and I have christened Chewy. He's like a little furry tank. Although Ol Yeller (Little Baby Yeller?) has some fight in him as well. Pretty positive they're Akitas? Which makes one of them Evita... but I haven't paid close enough attention to decide who.

Also, for the few hours I've been out of the house today, I've been bombarded by Christmas. It's like 55 degrees outside. I can't get behind it.

But I must say, that while I was walking through Target, I did pass through the Christmas ornaments and I started thinking about my misfit tree... and I got sort of excited. :) I think I'll write a whole post about that at some point. I gotta take some pictures first though.

Oh and-- guess what I did last night? I helped my buddy Omar transport some Burmese refugees back to Nashville from their job at a Tyson Chicken factory in Shelbyville, TN (which is an hour away). It was kind of amazing. Omar works for an organization called World Relief that helps place/reunite refugees in TN. So it was me and him in the front seat of this red Windstar minivan, driving through a rainstorm with 8 Burmese guys in green rubber boots smashed into the backseats. They didn't really speak English, so they just talked amongst themselves while Omar and I traded stories and talked about music and politics and NPR and world news and God and revolutions. Yes, me. I talked about politics and NPR. Crazy, right? But I actually really enjoyed it. And the Burmese were really sweet and very grateful for the ride. It was an adventure and an evening well-spent. :)

Tonight? Trabiendo.

Peace!

Naked Is Not The Answer.

So I'm watching Oprah's "Clean Up Your Messy House Tour". I'm a sucker for makeovers-- people, houses, cars, it doesn't really matter. I always get sucked in.

Looking at all the crap in people's closets makes me think though...

Do you know how packed most Goodwill stores and thrift stores are? Don't get me wrong, donating is awesome, but where does it all go? Where has it all gone all these years? When you consider to vast quantities of clothes and shoes being produced all over the world? There should not be any naked people ANYWHERE.

I mean, forget about what's in style, what's trendy-- have you ever thought about just the sheer amount of clothes in the world? Places like Kohl's and Sam's and Wal-Mart and K-Mart and Target carry gobs of mass-produced, relatively low-quality clothing. Not to mention all the mall stores like Gap and Abercrombie and Express and Osh-Kosh and Dillards and American Eagle and Wet Seal and Charlotte Russe that have more crap in their clearance racks than they do on the sales floor. Ever wonder what happens to all that crap when it leaves the store? I mean AFTER it leaves TJ Maxx and Marshall's? Where does all that stuff go? Is it sold or given away? Why are there still naked people? Why are there sweatshops?! That's another post.

And in addition to all our regular people clothes, there are still gobs and gobs of designer clothes piling up in the closets of the rich and famous! Garments that get worn once or twice and then junked because they aren't in style? But we feel bad throwing things away or we have emotional attachment to things... so we just build bigger closets!!!

Point: There are too many clothes. Why do we keep making so many?

I know that there are some styles of things that a LOT of people want. But something needs to change. I mean... aren't we always strving to be (or at least appear) unique anyway?

Why don't manufacturers just set an alotted quantity of each style, based on whatever purchasing numbers they have. Once they're out? They're out. You really want another one? $1000.00. Or get over it. Something like that.

Also don't release 57 styles of shirt in the same color all at once. Spread them out-- we don't need that many choices! We have a hard enough time deciding as it is! Then, not only do manufacturers not have to work as hard coming up with 4 dozen designs to release every 2 months, but consumers are purchasing pieces that are a little more original, instead 40 girls showing up in the same $39.99 dress. People might even step up and start buying things off the sales floor because they know it won't make it to a clearance rack! Appeal to America's competative spirit!

(Even though I realize that this would get out of hand and most likely result in dept. store rioting.)

We should just... make less.

It all ends up in the garbage eventually anyway.

Why do we think we need so much?

Transitions

Summer nights and fall mornings have the same effect on me.

Summer nights are when the unapologetic burn of the day finally gives way to clouds and shadow. The tyrannical warm air lingers, but inescapably charmed by the gentle coolness of the evening, grudgingly shifts to share the space. Nights of bright summer constellations, warm breezes and cricket symphonies create a lush oasis for lonely hearts fresh out of a winter solstice. Nights like that drive you desire touch, to seek company, even just a hand to hold, as nobody should trek through such beauty unaccompanied.

Fall mornings are the same.

They offer the bright clarity of summer with the crisp nose of winter. That whiff of chilliness starts you thinking about hoodie sweatshirts and Friday night football. You realized that Starbucks has purchased their weight in Pumpkin Spice syrup and you know that Christmas will be here before you can blink again. There's enough of a chill in the first few hours of daytime that you don't want to get out of bed, and certainly don't want to leave the house. When it's slightly cold, you wish it was colder, and that you had no place to be. You wish that your only appointments were with a book and a cup of cocoa, and even them, not till early afternoon. Most of all, you wish that the most fantastic creature God ever created was in bed next to you, really believing that you look perfect when you wake up in the morning, wanting to do nothing but be beside you until you both of you feel like getting out of bed.

At least that's what I wish.