Chocolate Peanut Butter HEAVEN!

This cake just may be the undoing of my Dad's long standing love affair with his lemon birthday cake.  The only problem is, every time I make it, it's gone before I can take it anywhere.

So, Dad, you might just wanna stick with the lemons.

HEAVEN'S MENU CHOCOLATE CAKE

• 2 cups All-purpose Flour
• ⅔ cups Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
• 2 teaspoons Baking Soda
• 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
• ½ teaspoons Salt
• ⅔ cups Vegetable Oil
• 2 cups Granulated Sugar Or Fructose
• 2 whole Eggs
• 1 cup Milk
• 1 cup Brewed Coffee, Room Temp.
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

Preheat oven to 350. Coat 13×9 glass pan with cooking spray. Combine all ingredients & mix on medium with mixer. Batter will be very thin. Pour batter into pan and bake 35-40 minutes, until wooden toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool completely.  Then add the frosting if you can keep from eating it straight out of the bowl.

Frosting:
1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
2 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

combine ingredients and mix at medium speed until smooth.
Spread frosting over cooled cake and top with miniature chocolate chips.

And, don't blame me when you get the jitters.

Next up!  A post about how my "year of eating dangerously" is coming to a close.  And not a moment too soon.

Save a place on the Olympic podium for Grandma!

I’m blessed to live in a part of the country where a high school kid can still play three sports a year.  My big-city friends practically have to declare their kids’ sport-of-choice during the first-trimester ultrasound, and then spend the next fourteen years buying a spot on a club team until high school try-outs roll around; but even then, it’s a crap shoot.  In fact, the Olympic trials might hold more hope for Junior.

The guy I’m married to played eight-man football in a very small town.  Which, I think, also means his basketball team had only three men and the baseball team he pitched for would, logically-speaking, have had about six in the dug-out.  To this day, our kids get a kick out of listening to his three-sport Badge of Honor, otherwise known as his rotator cuff, as it clicks and grinds into action every morning.  And, although I’m a died-in-the-wool mama bear who wishes our hard-working athletes could get a vacation between seasons, I’m proud of their dedication and ability to switch gears mid-stride; a new coach, the long drive to town for fresh gear, a skeletal tune-up at the chiropractor, a new mouth guard, collect some more cans and bottles, new tires for Mom’s car, a nod to the Les Schwab pit crew and THEY’RE OFF!

And that’s just the season opener!  Ask any elite athlete and they’ll tell you it’s the behind-the-scenes effort that makes them a champion.  Take the grandparents for instance.  By now, they too have been trained to write down all dates, locations and times in pencil, because they’ve learned the hard way that Athletic Directors have a game schedule roulette wheel in their office; and that sucker never stops spinning.  But if it does, the Pony Express is dispatched to the coaches and players.  Then a telegraph is sent to parent one and parent two, stepparent three and four and so on.  Throw travel time into the mix and it’s a wonder Grandma and Grandpa make it at all.  But, make it, they will!

Case in point: The phenomenon in our town also known as, Grandma Hulick.   If you’ve ever been to one of our high school football games you’ve likely experienced Grandma Hulick.  You might not have known it at the time.  In fact, you might have thought you’d wandered into a NASCAR stadium by mistake.  Her whoops, hollers and ear-piercing whistles might make the newbies nervous but, those of us who’ve seen her love in action know that this is just her warm up act, folks.  I’ve seen that woman jump the fence around the high school track to help an injured player on the sidelines.  No Mother in her right mind would venture toward the bench if she ever wanted her kid to speak to her again but, in a pinch, we all know that we can get important information to (and about) our precious babies via Grandma H.  And when the final whistle blows there she is again with twenty dozen cookies as our players board the bus or head to the locker room. They get a cookie in each hand and one in the mouth, along with a high five and an “Atta-boy!”

Although I’m tempted to petition the I.O.C. for a grandparent gold medal on her behalf, I’m fairly certain that her practice of never letting anyone leave her presence without feeling loved in turn fills her with a happiness that is all the present she will ever need.  Now, if I could just figure out a way to sneak her into my son’s golf tournaments.

The Billboard.

Oh Lord, we've stepped in it now!  'Cuz once the billboard goes up there's no turning back my friends.  Not that we would ever consider turning back anyhow but (holy jeez!) seeing My Man's name up in lights makes it all seem SO GROWN UP!  And so NOT like we're in grade school running for student body president just so we can petition the lunch ladies to start offering chocolate soy milk as an option for the kids who are dairy intolerant.

What?!  You never ran for student body president on that platform?!

Okay, well, anyways.  Hero Daddy is still an aspiring politician at this point.  The primary election will be in May which means he's been using every spare moment making the rounds all over this legislative district that is, no kidding, about the size of Texas!  It takes him four hours to drive from one side of the district to the other.  FOUR HOURS!  I'd like to meet the genius who drew those lines.

On second thought, maybe not.

Because, truly, the people that make up this district are pretty darn precious!  At least the ones that have come out so far to hear my man speak or have volunteered to help in so many ways.  And I'm not just saying that because I'm a political-wife-in-training either.  It's gonna take a whole lot more than endearing sound bites to train this out-spoken Mama.  Duct tape might be a better approach, in fact.

And speaking of duct tape, as much as I adore the new billboard, it wasn't my idea.  No, my idea said something more along the lines of: "VOTE FOR MIKE.  'Cuz he's HOT and the other guy is not!"  But the committee wasn't going for it.  And that is why political candidates are strongly encouraged to have an advisory committee that does NOT include their wife.

I get it.  But I would totally vote for a guy who had a billboard like that.  Especially if that guy happened to be my husband.

Perhaps he will need slightly more than one vote to win the election though.

I get that too.

It's the Pee-Chees that I miss the most.

We all remember our favorite teachers don't we?  In fact, to this day I still have a reoccurring dream that I'm in high school and it's finals week.  Only problem is, I've completely forgotten to go to Mr. Kerns' math class - - ALL SEMESTER!  In my dream I'm frantically pulling everything out of my backpack, including my Sony Walkman, brand new Bryan Adams "Cuts Like A Knife" cassette tape, my FFA scarf and Bonnie Bell's Lip Smackers Dr. Pepper lip gloss.  An hour later, my backpack is empty and I finally open my yellow Pee Chee All Season Portfolio and find my schedule taped inside.  I was secretly hoping, during the backpack emptying ordeal, that I'd actually dropped the class way back in the beginning of the semester; but no such luck.  There it is staring at me in bold letters:  Extremely Difficult Math Class - Mr. Kerns.  So I begin rehearsing my speech while walking to Mr. Kerns' classroom, certain that he will understand because, after all, he's my favorite teacher, right?!  And I'm praying in my dream-turned-nightmare that, just maybe, I'm one of his favorite students?

Then I wake up and my pillow is pulled out of its case and I remember that I forgot to let the dog out.

Which is a whole lot better than forgetting to go to class - - ALL SEMESTER!

Whew!

The Proprietor.

The thing about trying to teach a child is this.  We must first find which cookie cutter fits the shape of his brain.  But what if we can't find one?  We can break and bend him to fit into the ones we have lying around; pinching and molding the parts of him that are different until they conform.

That's one method that, believe me, I've used on many-a-day, when the teaching tasks simply must get done and the time is short and the errands beckon or Mt. Wash-More is threatening to bury the family in grass-stained jeans.

But, oh, the glorious days when we can traverse the planes of learning together without fits or force.  When the learned and the learner meet on the same page and stumble upon the form that was poured exactly in the shape of his brain, as if his unique pathways were used to make the mold.

This child.  This one-who-overflows-with-creativity, touches and feels deeply rather than ingesting words on a page.  He imagines and becomes what he seeks after until the imprint of experience is etched into his being.  Taking in the whole world around him as if it were an amusement park ride to be experienced over and over again until the inner workings of the why and the how become clear.  And then, ONWARD, to the next ride!

I am blessed to have the Disney World of home education products at my fingertips - just an internet click away.  Those brave souls who have gone before me to design and trouble shoot that which would become a balm to this teacher's soul.

 The Your Business Math Series is just one of those precious discoveries; found late one night while searching for that which would bless my children (and take some pressure of their teacher).  Simply Charlotte Mason has many other wonderful products that go straight to the heart of the matter when it comes to teaching kids.  And what kid wouldn't like owning his own pet store or sporting goods store.  Or how about a book store?

This man-child dreams of owning his own pet store someday.  So how fitting it is for him to see if he can make money or not while he's twelve.  And while the banks could care less about his debt-to-equity ratio.  So far, he's holding his own and making a little money every month.

His favorite part is writing the checks and drawing the chance cards to see if he's had any surprise customers when he was on his lunch break!  But sometimes the chance cards bring surprises of another form and cause him to lose money due to the unexpected and unplanned.  This takes the wind out of his sails and leads to many other questions about the why and the how of being a good steward, even when the chips are down.

This series can't cover all aspects of owning your own business of course.  But this Mama is trying to fill in the gaps with practical tasks such as mopping floors, shoveling snow, and other things that customers might consider important.  Like whether or not his room is clean.

Setting my Feet on the Life Path.

Don’t know about the rest of you, but I took great pleasure in kicking 2009 to the curb a few weeks ago!  It was a hard year no matter how you slice it, and 2010 has been a welcome relief on many levels.  For starters, The Ladies at the church are back from their Christmas hiatus, and that fact alone makes everything right in my world again because those ladies can pray like nobody’s business!  And I’m here to testify that if you should find yourself in the cross hares of their mountain-moving prayer chain, you might want to get yourself saved, and be quick about it.

These, God-expectant, God-ready women are just like you and me, except for their halos.  You know them too because there’s at least one on every street.  And like the kindly ones in your neighborhood, these saints decided some years ago to do away with the man-made shackles of religiosity and approach the Throne of Grace with transparency and tenacity.  And, while they were at it, why not do it together; discovering somewhere along the way that God-hungry lives are everywhere just waiting to be invited in.  And, lo and behold, what splendid friends those searching souls become!

I’m not the only Mama who relaxes the moment I arrive, and even on the days when life is throwing up every road block to keep me away, I’m never sorry I knocked and entered in to huddle under the umbrella of warmth these truth-seeking women throw open to the weak and weary, the numb and angry, the hopeful and the hopeless.  Others come with babies in tow and dark circles under their eyes, barely able to stifle a yawn during the hymn and announcements.   But, true to their reputation, everyone leaves just a little more whole than when we walked in - a little prayer and Word-study, a song or two, lots of laughter and general whooping-it-up with the grannies.  Well, not all The Ladies are grannies, but enough of them are to make me want to sit up straight and not use cuss words when I request prayer for my sub-par mothering skills or my terrible fear of all things medical.  Not that they would care, but they make me want to grow up to be a steadfast mentor instead of a whiner and a grouch.

When those ladies prayed my Sister-in-Law through her cancer ordeal, all I could think to say was, “Hot damn, she’s cancer free!”  I mean, “Hot diggity!”   See?  I just want to be like them!  Help me to be like them Lord, all strong and suffused with grace.  I bet they never yelled hysterically at their kids while driving a car and scowling into the rearview mirror…or maybe they did...

And maybe, if I hang around The Ladies long enough, their hard-earned tenderness will rub off on me, too.  Because, let’s face it, none of us are getting off this life path without some difficulty and suffering, and it will absolutely change us all.  We’ll either become bitter or better.

So, I’ll never stop running, like a woman with her hair on fire, to be with The Ladies at the church!  In hopes that I, too, can one day be available to a living heart that simply longs to be touched by the better angels of our nature.  And if that young Mother shares her deepest, most humiliating parenting faux pas, I’ll just smile and let her think that I, too, probably never ever acted like a complete idiot in all my mothering days either.  And then, I’ll casually adjust my crooked halo when she’s not looking.

I been everywhere, Man.

When the alarm goes off I'm hoping to see dawn breaking, but the calendar works against me yet again.  January mornings still require a headlamp for running and chores in the barn.  But every morning I see the sun coming up just a tad sooner than the morning before.  A promise and reminder that winter doesn't last forever.

Since Christmas, it seems like I've been everywhere but here.  In the car, at the kitchen sink, over the stove, manning the ovens, trying to learn guitar with the kids.  Same kids who yearn to be shuttled hither and yon - to volleyball, youth group, orthodontist, shopping trip to use gift card RIGHT NOW.  Swishing the toilets, vacuuming the stairs, sorting the laundry, hoping for a moment to sit and knit or read or write.  But those escapes don't come as often as I'd like.

I tolerated a birthday in there somewhere too.  Another year gone by at the exhilarating speed-of-kid light.

Then a computer crash and efforts to rebuild my digital existence.  Or maybe not?  Just chuck the whole thing and join the ranks who have no e-mail and no desire to do so.  Then remembering how attached I am to the 3,000 pictures sitting on that external hard drive (thank God).  So I choose to boot up again, this time with a kinder, gentler operating system that anticipates my every need.  I'm calling him Big Mac, because he's fast and delicious and bad for me if I spend too much time with him.

Slowly, I greet the new year.  Hoping for better, sweeter and wiser days to come.  As surely they will because I'm older now.  Older and wiser and faster.