Hot Morning Coffee

Every morning I treat myself to a hot latte, and usually it comes with a yummy treat, like the one shown in this photo. I found a recipe online for latte mix (it's really good!) and recently tried a new coffee cake recipe, as shown. If I tried this at a coffee shop, the latte would be $3.50, and the treat $3.00....making the weekly total well over $50!! So I am saving big money here!

Okay, so I must confess that usually I don't light candles and have the nice place setting when I drink my coffee in the morning, but really, how relaxing would that be? aahhhhh :-)

I wanted to share the recipes I used. The latte is a Pumpkin Spice Latte, and it ends up kind of frothy after you stir it up, and the cake is a Coffee Coffee Cake, which recipe I found in "Better Homes and Gardens" issued in April 2006. I put off trying the cake, because it calls for strong brewed coffee, and Matt REALLY doesn't like coffee, but it turned out that even HE likes it! So it must be good!

Pumpkin Spice Latte Mix

• 1/2 cup instant coffee (slightly heaping)
• 2/3 cup sugar (slightly less than full)
• 1/2 cup instant nonfat dry milk powder
• 1/4 cup powdered coffee creamer
• 1 teaspoon Pumpkin Pie Spice

Add all of the ingredients into a dry bowl. Use a fork to combine everything evenly. Put into a resealable container. To enjoy a latte: Add two heaping tablespoons latte mix into your favorite coffee mug (this is assuming it is a large mug!) or to taste. Pour hot water into the cup. Stir, and enjoy!

**NOTE: I generally double this recipe since I pretty much drink it every day, and use 1/2 regular and 1/2 decaf coffee granules.

Coffee Coffee Cake

Heat oven to 350 degrees, grease and lightly flour 10" fluted tube pan (bundt pan)

Whisk together in a bowl:

• 1 1/2 cups strong brewed coffee
• 1 cup sugar
• 2/3 cup cooking oil
• 1/2 cup honey
• 2 tablespoons vinegar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Add 2 eggs, slightly beaten - whisk until combined.

In another bowl stir together:

• 3 cups flour
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Whisk dry ingredients into coffee mixture until combined. Pour batter into prepared pan.

Bake in preheated oven 1 hour or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool on wire rack 20 minutes, remove from pan to serving platter.

**NOTE: the recipe in the magazine called for a "coffee-hazelnut syrup" to be poured on top of this cake, which I did not prepare because it sounded sickenly sweet and sticky. I was going to shake powdered sugar on top, but never got around to it. This cake is good heated in the microwave with butter on top.

New Gadget!

So I added this new feature to my blog, called "Reactions" What you do is after you read a post, you can put a checkmark by your "reaction". Easy!

Do you Agree?
Do you think you will Try It?
Do you think it's Neat?
Are you left asking What?!

Wanna add this feature to your blog? I learned how by reading the 11/6/08 post on http://buzz.blogger.com/

Interesting Reading

I found this linked in one of the blogs I am following:

http://hindsfeet.blogspot.com/2008/08/allow-allow-god-who-am-i-to-allow-god.html

I thought it was well-written and it also made me think.

What about you?? Any opinions?

Look Who's Walking Now!

Check out this video of some of Cora's first steps! I took this video this morning. The quality isn't great since I took it on our camera, but it'll have to do!




Here's the story:

Sunday night, Mommy was sitting on the couch and Daddy was sitting on the floor about 5 feet away, leaning against the loveseat. Cora has a tiny stuffed Pooh bear and a tiny stuffed turtle, and she was chewing on the turtle, then crawled to Mommy and handed it off to her. On a whim, I handed her Pooh and turtle, and said "go hand those to Daddy!"

Who would have guessed it, she teetered off, a toy in each hand, and walked all the way to Matt! She did this several times, going back and forth, bringing those toys, first to daddy, then to mommy. :-) Little, tiny baby steps, but our little girl can walk now!

How exciting! It's a little sad, because I was holding on to her being my little baby as long as she wasn't walking, but I am very happy to see how she's growing up! She's so special to us, and soon she'll be walking EVERYWHERE! For now though, it is still faster for her to crawl :-)

Sorry for holding out so long to tell you all, but I really wanted to make sure I got video footage of her doing this for "proof" Hope you can view it! It took a really, really, really long time to upload!

Helper

One of my goals lately has been to make a conscious effort to have Cora (my 1 year old daughter) help me around the house.

How can a 1 year old help her mother?? Well, it's not so much that she is ACTUALLY helping, but by her doing the things that I know she can do, that I have asked her to do, perhaps she believes she is.

• When I am carrying her when I leave a room, I ask her to please turn out the light (then I quickly walk away so she doesn't get a chance to flip the lights on and off a whole bunch!). This actually takes a very long time, because she hasn't quite figured out the "physics" of the way a light switch works 100%. But Mommy asks her to please turn out the light, eventually she does, and I thank her for doing it
• When I sweep the floor in the dining room, I have her help by moving the chairs out of the way. She loves doing this. She doesn't always (ever!) put them where I would have put them, and she needs guidance to put them back where they belong, but Mommy asked her to move them, and when she complied she got an enthusiastic thank you.
• Over the weekend, Matt and I treated ourselves to a cup of ice cream, and I had dropped my spoon. I asked her, "Please hand Mommy the spoon, so you can have some Ice cream with us" And she VERY QUICKLY did just that! So she proved that she is able to follow simple instructions (especially for a little ice cream!)

Cora really enjoys picking things up and handing them to people, or emptying containers (or drawers!) On rare instances, she will re-fill the containers that she just emptied, but generally not fully. I will try asking her to please put all the kitchen towels back in the drawer she just totally emptied. oh, and to fold them back up first! Do you think it will work?! :-)

Anyway, this may seem all silly, and it may in time prove not to work. I am hoping that by really fostering her will to help me, that she will continue to want to do so after she actually CAN help me. Soon she will have the ability to empty the dishwasher, sweep the floor, and so on, but will she still desire to help me if I prevent her from "helping" me now?

My hope is that while it is taking me longer to do things now by having Cora "help" that I will foster in her a desire to serve that her mother didn't have. I clearly remember being a stubborn, ungrateful child who REFUSED to help on cleaning Saturdays (sorry mom and dad!) I am really hoping to be able to avoid at least some of that kind of selfish attitude in my daughter. It may or may not work, but it can't hurt to try, right?

Does anyone have any other ideas for how I can have Cora help me around the house?? I'd love to hear your suggestions!

Three Blogs?!?

Am I nuts?

well, probably, but the reason behind me writing three blogs is because I just have too much variation. I don't want to bore people with stuff they don't want to read about, so I will need to be more specific in each blog.

This one, A Day in the Life http://adayinthelifeofnicoleblog.blogspot.com/, will mostly focus on family and home-related stuff.

Then there's Adventures on Arabee http://www.adventuresonarabee.blogspot.com/ which covers all things horse-related. Read about my venture into Endurance Riding, my dream for driving carriage, training, riding bitless and barefoot, and other horse things.

My newest venture into blogland is My Indiana Home http://www.formyindianahome.blogspot.com/ No "real" posts yet, but I plan to use it to talk about farm-related things. Raising livestock, why I think it is totally moral thing to eat meat, and why farmers (in my opinion) both crop and livestock are some of the more misunderstood people in our country, and probably worldwide.

Of course, each blog will likely include things from the other two, because really it is all so intrinsically related in my life that I won't be able to help but have some drift.

Just FYI

Getting Brave-r!

Check out Cora the cutie! She's GREAT at standing up by herself, but just hasn't *quite* got the guts to take more than 2 or so leaning/reaching steps of walking. I love this picture - doesn't she look like she just is seriously considering walking to her daddy?



But, I was there. Right after the picture was taken, she dropped to her knees, and CRAWLED.


She's still my little baby for a little while longer...

Camping Stuff

I posted previously about how my family went camping for the first time over Labor day weekend in 2008. We enjoyed that, and being as Matt's hobby (jeeping) is easier to do on a camping weekend, as well as my hobby (endurance riding?) also requires camping (but with the horse!), we figured we'll be doing lots more of it.

For Christmas I had requested some camping stuff - dishes, utensils, some Lodge cast iron cookware, and got it, and was scratching my head as to how in the world to store and transport it.

Then, I remembered one of the wedding gifts we had received (july 2005). It's a "picnic cooler/caddy" and it came with 4 plates, cups, spoons, forks, knives, a cutting board, a "cheese" knife, salt and pepper shakers, and a wine bottle opener. All the utensils have special straps to secure them with, and there is a nice-sized insulated zipper pocket. Would all the new camping stuff we got fit inside???

Yes! It does, it is perfect :-)

**This is the picnic caddy filled up, with enough plates, cups, and silverware for 8 people! Plus some handy utensils for dinner prep! The thing on the left side is an insulated wine bottle holder! What a fancy picnic that would be :-) hehe. I'm guessing we won't be using it for the purpose it was intended for!


**This picture shows it mostly zipped, with a view of the insulated cooler section, which is holding 4 bowls and 4 cups. There is still room for more, if needed. Another view of the wine holder, and the back shows that it's intended for use as a backpack, but I have stuck a tablecloth in the straps instead. There's another carrying strap on the top I can use.
Not bad for a once-forgotton wedding present, hey? :-)

customization in progress...

You can expect to see some aesthetic changes in my blog in the next while.

I've already changed a bit, but it isn't "perfect" yet.

More changes to come!

2009

Happy New Year everyone!

Well, my family certainly didn't stay up to see the new year in....we were all in bed by 9! Between Cora's teeth coming in (all of them at once, it seems...she is miserable) and me just coming up from being sick, and Matt running around taking care of the both of us, we were all so tired!

I don't usually make New Year's resolutions, but I think this year calls for at least one.

A little background first: There's a place called Stream Cliff Farm nearby our home, that I love to visit with friends and family (mostly women....it's almost too girly for the guys, but not quite). Everyone always says it's so relaxing to come there and dine in the tea room, and wander through the gardens, check out the gift shops, and it IS lovely place. I try to go as often as I can, they are only open in the gardening months, and I usually make it three or four times per year. A visit to Stream Cliff leaves a refreshing feeling.

My little family lives on the farm that was built by my husband's great-great-grandparents, on top of a hill, with a beautiful view all around of pastures with the charolais/angus beef herd, the goats and horses, the pond, and the river. There's a creek that runs through one of the pastures at the bottom of the hill, and when it's not too dry you can hear the water running peacefully into it. Since I started staying at home (and after we had done quite a bit of landscaping work around the house) my Dad began marveling each time my parents would come for a visit how nice it is to be at our home, that it's a peaceful place. (below is a photo Matt's uncle took from his paraplane of our homeplace)

Anyway, at a recent visit to Stream Cliff, a friend of mine remarked that she'd love to be able to come there all the time, it was so relaxing, and what was it about the place that made it that way? It got me thinking, and I can't really think of a good reason why our homes can't be that place. Can't we make our homes peaceful havens of rest from a busy and hectic world? I think we can, and that is part of my New Year's Resolution for 2009.

This has been a goal of mine for quite some time, but I think that now with things in our world being so crazy it seems, that 2009 is a great time to pounce on that opportunity. I actually wrote out a list of 6 goals I had (on january 31, 2007) and it's posted on my bulletin board by the computer, it's full of good stuff, and I may share the entirety of it some day, but here is #3 and 4 on that list:

• Make our home a pleasant place to be. Keep it clean and tidy, decorate it so that our surroundings are pleasing to the eye, all without spending too much money.
• Grow a flower garden around our home and landscape it in a pleasing way, so that we can enjoy our yard and feel proud of it, and eat produce from our vegetable garden.

I've already got a good start on some of these things, but there is always more that could be done. I think this is something that really starts in the heart. Somewhere in Proverbs it says that it is better to live on the corner of the rooftop than to live in a house with a quarrelsome wife. (imo the same is true of the rest of the family members, but I know it seems women can be more.....irritable, and mouthy!) So, I will start with attitudes, then work from the inside of the home out.

What ideas do you have for creating a "homey" "peaceful" "resting" feeling at home?

What New Year's Resolutions are you working on in 2009?

looking forward to your comments :-)