Pumpkin Cookies

A few weeks ago I made pumpkin muffins and I went with a recipe that uses coconut oil and it turned out that they weren't that great. If you have a pumpkin muffin recipe, let me know!

Two weeks ago, I made pumpkin donuts because they were requested by the kids and then...no one ate them. Honestly, they weren't that good. I followed the recipe, I made them in a donut pan, they had no flavor. I used regular flour instead of GF. 

This past weekend, I made pumpkin cookies. 

I'm on this kick where I've been radicalized against the school lunch and a lot of processed food in general so I thought I would start baking again, with winter (hopefully) on its way. I also thought that if I made baked goods, Wells would eat them for breakfast because anything is better than school breakfast (for real, I could talk about this for days right now...)

Neither kid liked the cookies. This is the recipe I've been making my entire life. Wells didn't like the "sour cream" frosting (cream cheese frosting) and Sutton touches things once with one finger, says "I don't like this" and runs off. 

So. 

I'm in the market for reliable baked good recipes if you have any to share. 

Pumpkin Walnut Cookies
makes 3 dozen

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 t. vanilla
1 t. fresh lemon juice
1 t. freshly grated lemon peel

2 1/2 cups flour
3 t. baking POWDER
1 t. salt
1 1/2 t. pumpkin pie spice
1/4 t. ginger

1 cup chopped walnuts

Cream the butter and sugar together.  Add in the pumpkin, eggs, vanilla, lemon juice, and lemon peel.  Mix well.

Mix all of the dry ingredients, minus the walnuts, together in a bowl (sifting is suggested, but I usually don't).  Add the dry mixture to the wet mixture in three batches while mixing at a low speed and scraping down the sides of the bowl.

Stir in the walnuts.

Dollop onto a greased cookie sheet and bake at 375 degrees for 10-14 minutes.  They should be just starting to brown when you pull them out.

Cool before frosting.

Perfect Cream Cheese Frosting
This will make more than enough for this amount of cookies.  Consider doubling the cookie recipe or halving the frosting recipe.  I halved the frosting recipe.

1 tub of whipped cream cheese (8 oz.)
1/2 cup butter, softened (1 stick)
1 t. vanilla
about 3 cups powdered sugar (I don't like giving exact numbers on the sugar.  You know the consistency you want.)
1 T. meringue powder (Optional, but will help the frosting harden.  Found in the wedding aisle at Wal-Mart)

Cream the butter and cream cheese together, using a hand mixer or the whisk on a stand mixer.  Add the vanilla.  Then, add the sugar until you reach the consistency you want.  Add the meringue powder last.

Frost the cookies as soon as they're cool and refrigerate or freeze any leftover frosting.

Weekend stuff

You'll laugh here: I actually meant to write this about last weekend, never got around to it, so I just deleted the text and started over. Apparently nothing too interesting happened last weekend?

I also was working on the same outfit post all last week and I never got around to posting it. I'm literally just going to call it "September and October Clothes" at this point. 

This weekend started with an idyllic trip to the pumpkin patch.

There were definitely no stomping feet, dramatic flounces to the ground, or "I don't like this"s. Anyway, I take the blame for this, partly. I didn't want to drive 45 minutes to a (potentially) more fun pumpkin patch so went to the usual one and it was way too hot and way too dry and dusty. Literally, I was covered in dust by the end. Plus a lot of the attractions were broken. So I don't blame the "I don't like this"s but at the same time, our parents never took us to pumpkin patches for goodness sake. Kids today expect a level of entertainment that is something else. 

Speaking of "kids today" and being old, I wore heels that were a little too high this week and I hobbled around for 3 days afterward. So I ordered a new pair of slippers because my old ones were worn out and I need, apparently, a sturdier footbed. I went with something trendy but did not splurge on the Uggs :/ Usually I buy a new pair each late fall/early winter because that's how exciting I am right now. I'm afraid if I bought Uggs, they'd get destroyed and I'd be super irritated. 

(destroyed by the owner of those paws ^ if expensive slippers would happen to be destroyed)

Then I tweaked my neck so I've been dealing with that. I'm not sure how I did that but the motrin and the warm compresses help, I guess. 

Saturday ended with fall pictures.

It went super well. (Just kidding)

We bribed with everything imaginable and that's the thing about Sutton: she's too smart to take a bribe. She has nothing but time on her hands so she'll wait you out. She can also sense when you want something out of her. Wells earned ice cream for his participation. He was the same way at 2, though. He wasn't an awful toddler but when he turned 3.5-ish is when he became someone I could truly reason with. 

And then, Scott ran into Starbucks (Dunkin was closed already because that's the kind of town we live in) for coffee pre-pictures and I asked him for a cold brew. He got me a pumpkin spice cold brew. I think PSLs taste like warm garbage water. This wasn't much better but at least it was cold. 

And ended with a relaxing day of football and cleaning and cooking.

Just kidding.

We went to the grocery store and Sutton skipped a nap :)

I also, though, have resolved that I'm not bringing school work home anymore. I'm going to try it for the 2nd quarter now that we're officially one quarter into the school year. I legitimately fear that it won't make a difference in a lot of ways. Which means all the time spent working at home was for nothing, you know? I actually think I'm going to stop taking my tote bag to school so I'm not tempted to bring things home. Thoughts?

Why I didn't like Sandwich + the real problem in our country

*Spoilers ahead*

I mentioned a few weeks ago why I didn't like the book Sandwich. It was a vague rant because no one likes unnecessary spoilers. Well, here's the spoilers, so read if you want to. 

The MC (main character...I don't even remember her name) was portrayed as zany, emotional, and scattered. It was all blamed on menopause which, fine. However, as the story unfolded, it became very obvious that her trauma, which was a focal point always alluded to, was self-inflicted. You see, she had grown up in a stable, loving home. She had married. She had had two children. Then she got pregnant a third time and had opted for an abortion because she was so overwhelmed with two little kids and couldn't imagine loving a third the way she loved her first two. I say "opted for an abortion" because that's literally what she did: She chose to kill her baby without telling her husband because she was tired or something. She treated it as an absolute choice, the way you would choose between two different brands of prenatal vitamins. 

After that, she realized oh hey, I do want a third child and they tried for years to get pregnant again and she had a miscarriage, adding to the tRaUmA load she was experiencing. I don't doubt that miscarriage was traumatic for her; starving her 12 week old baby to death with a cocktail of prescribed drugs was probably traumatic for the baby too. And, if you read the book (eh, don't), she still made that all about her. There was a 12 week old baby dying inside of her and it was all about her fEeLiNgS. 

This whole book really was about her and her messed up thought process. I really don't recommend it. It actually depressed me and I was incredibly irritated for the next day or so. 

While I don't really believe in karma, I believe this MC absolutely got what she deserved when it came to never recovering from this trauma because she never understood the implications of her actions. That is why she sucked so much. She seemed to think she was the innocent victim and it was everyone else's fault. She never actually grew up and realized what she'd done. There was no repentance or regret for her mistake.

It gets worse.

There was a 20 year old daughter who clearly had some issues and it was alluded to that she'd spent time in the hospital after a suicide attempt and also she was a lesbian. This daughter was just "the best" though and I did wonder if the mother's manic parenting brought on by her self-inflicted trauma had led to the daughter's problems. You know, "loving her kids too much" and all. Loving them enough to kill the third, that is.

There was a 24 year old, or so, son who had a girlfriend he'd been with for years and the major plot point was that she was pregnant and they didn't know what to do or something. They were on the path to marriage but weren't ready for kids or whatever. This girl had already had one abortion when she was in high school just because and it was talked about with the nonchalantness of going to the doctor and getting an antibiotic for an ear infection or something. They then kept referring to the current situation as "oh I don't know what we're going to do with it". 

The son, a real knight in shining armor, said to his mom that he was okay with whatever the girlfriend decided to do and the mom was all like tHaT's WhY i'M sO pRoUd To Be YoUr mOm or whatever. 

This is what I mean by these people sucked. 

Adding to this, the MC's parents were Jewish and had many relatives killed in the concentration camps. What toxic combination of culture and greed led from Jews protecting life at all cost and striving to survive to killing off their offspring on purpose in one generation? 

The major climax was supposed to be when the MC told her husband that oH yEah, I killed our third child 18 years ago because I couldn't handle it, sOrRy I never told you please don't leave me. And the husband just shrugged. 

The MC also made it known that even though her husband had a great professional career, she was the one who brought in all the money as a work-from-home writer who also cared for her two kids full time, yet we never got an inkling of information about what she wrote (that I recall anyway). 

Sure, Jan. 

In the end, the son and the girlfriend got married and killed their baby. That's literally what I got from the last few pages of the book. If anyone else saw something different in the writing, let me know. 

My real problem with the MC is that she treated her grown children like they were 10 years old and therefore, never let them grow up and make mistakes in a healthy way. A child who is parented well wouldn't assume the best scenario is to murder their own child. 

Even when the MC came out and told everyone oh hey, I killed your sibling... this is probably why I'm so unhappy (jk she didn't say that last part), they were just like oh, okay. you did you and that was important.

So the cycle continued. 

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This is the problem with the mindset of many people today. They would rather believe in the fictional right to kill a child than not. I've spent years at this point trying to figure out why and I can come up with a few reasons.

1. They themselves have had abortions and feel such guilt that they can't help but defend their choice instead of telling others not to make the same mistake.

2. They don't actually understand what an abortion is: pure ignorance. Here's simulation videos and descriptions. Go watch.  Let us not forget that even though we have been fed the lie that abortion is "safe", it is never safe for the baby and mothers can die too. 

3. They are totally okay with it. They know what it is and what it does and don't think it matters. 

It's likely #3. This is why  a group of people build an entire political party around the idea that you should be able to kill a baby at any point in the womb. The fact that that is the number one issue for this particular set of voters, like our main character (suburban white women), is damning. When a suburban white woman posts that they cannot imagine their daughter not having the right to kill their child and that is why they are voting for the most pro-abortion politicians...I can't help but think they are completely blinded and have no cognitive dissonance. Discernment is a power ability that, apparently, few of us were actually gifted with. 

It's all gross. It's a death cult. It's the mark of an ignorant person to say "but abortion..." when voting for a politician. If that is your number one issue, you are an uninformed voter. I think that's my hill to die on this election cycle. I cannot take, and will not take, you seriously. 

Abortion is also really really bad for women. This information will blow your mind. 

Illegal immigration, the lack of a border, insane government spending, inflation, the economy, overseas and international conflicts: we seem to forget all of that when someone mentions potential limits on poisoning and dismembering our society's future citizens. 

And that is why Sandwich was a terrible book. 

Friday things. 10/11

I wanted to post some outfits this week...I've been taking pictures often but never post them for some reason. The week got away from me for sure. Scott has a 4-day weekend and I don't even have a 3-day weekend and it's 90 degrees during the day again so I'm a little disheartened and don't really feel the motivation or whatever. I had to stay late at school for an event last night (why do we do this to teachers? why can't families just stay home at night?) so motivation is at a zero right now. Add in Halloween, report card prep, extra coursework I'm required to do, keeping up with the house...plus I've had a sinus thing going on for about 3 weeks maybe. It's the change in weather, for sure. 45 at night, 85 during the day isn't good for anyone right? 

Let's see what I found on my phone that apparently was interesting to me this week...

1. I've been tracking hurricanes like it's my job. It's a foreign concept to me, my only time by the ocean being in Alaska and that was not a hurricane zone. 

Did you know there's multiple hurricanes out there all the time this time of year? I wonder how this one turned out. 

There has to be a word for disassociation focused on a niche topic that has nothing to do with you. 

Scott was in North Carolina a few weeks ago when Helene hit. He had been on the coast but was redirected on his way back to Missouri. 

I cannot believe the devastation and turmoil that weather can cause. 

2. I mailed our absentee ballots back to Alaska. Make sure to vote early! You have no idea if there'll be a natural disaster coming your way (is apparently what we're learning these days). 

3. This is our fourth fall here so I know to mark time by when the trees I see every day start to turn. 

4. Here me out: Alex Clark annoys me to a point of no return. But. She has really great guests and such a variety of important topics on her podcast. I have been completely radicalized against the school/government lunch program (I'm going to get up and pack two lunches right after I post this). This episode is worth your time. 

And this episode of Joe Rogan will blow your mind. It's from this week. 

Alright: that's enough doom and gloom for Friday ^^^

Amazon in September

Gold under-eye patches. This is one of those super frivolous things that I would've laughed at 5 years ago but when you have a 2 1/2 year old who still doesn't sleep through the night, they become a necessity. I've tried a few different brands, styles, ingredients (rose, green tea, caffeine, etc) and these 24K gold patches are the best ones. I didn't intentionally try different ones for fun...it's just always "oh time to reorder, let's get these ones because they look good" because I'm buying them anyway and they all cost about the same. This is my 3rd or 4th repurchase of the 24K gold ones. They're a winner. 

Pacifier replacements. Because if we run out of pacifiers the not-sleeping-through-the-night might get worse :) 

Shiatsu Back Massager. Scott drives a lot. He got this to put in his truck. We tried it out at home and it's pretty amazing. Definitely recommend. The kids love it too because it lights up. 

The Boxcar Children. I ruminated for weeks over what my next read aloud book should be at school. In a world of Goosebumps and Dog Man graphic novels, I picked something they'd never pick for themselves. I owned a copy of this once but I think it's at my parents' house. 

Stamp pads. This was something I needed but they do not smell as strong as I would like. I have another from a different company that has a great strong grape smell and these aren't as good. 

Wet erase markers. Necessary for school. I've found a lot of folks don't know about these. They are so much easier than dry erase for certain surfaces (laminated pages, for instance).

Stickers. I'm not giving out candy this year. It's stickers. 

Ruffle socks. Sutton's white ones from last year were too small and also super dingy. 

Rosemary Repel kids' hair spray. I read about this on a blog and thought it might be a good idea. I use detangling spray anyway. 

Luminex white strips. Loved these. Definitely better than traditional white strips. 

Pillow covers. I actually just got these the other day because I realized I wanted to extend the life of the pillows I got recently. They're really nice. Definitely worth it if you need pillow covers. 

and a replacement clasp for my fitbit. It took me weeks to order this after mine broke. It was too easy in the end. Mine is pink but they make you buy all of them in a pack. 

Tomorrow starts the Prime Day sale and I have my eye on a lot of things for Christmas. I took some screenshots to see if the prices are actually dropping though! 

Bentgo boxes, Legos, toy cash register, toy doctor kit, this bag as a gift, this toy carseat, this bag for myself. 

We'll see! 

Linking up with Tanya for Prime Purchases! 

Three September Books

 

Sandwich

1 giant star.

I started this on a Saturday morning and finished it by late Saturday afternoon, reading here and there, entirely on my phone. It was awful. I was hate-reading by the end. 

I'm 99% sure I got the recommendation from this link-up, but I'm genuinely sorry if you liked it. This was a me problem and a terrible character problem. The main character was a really, really (really) sucky person. All of them were sucky people. Except maybe the main character's parents. But all of them: sucky. They were all so incredibly unhappy and it was incredibly obvious why and they were blind to it. They sucked. All of them. 

But, I persisted because it was a short book and I hated them all so much that I wasn't emotionally invested in the story. 

Anyway...

It gets worse as you go so I guess the first couple of chapters are okay enough to pull you in. Not nearly enough to redeem it though. 

I won't say what I disliked so much because #spoilers and all. 

They were just awful people. 

The Widow's Husband's Secret Lie

3-4 stars

This was meant to be satire, completely tongue-in-cheek, making fun of her own genre. A quick story and I definitely didn't LOL but I guffawed or groaned a few times. It was cute the way she put it together. I recommend if you like the thriller genre. It would make a good spoofy movie for sure.

Into the Drowning Deep

4-5 stars

I simultaneously did not like this book and absolutely loved it at the same time. With Sandwich, I hated it because the characters were awful. With this one, it was so out there that investing 17 hours of my life into the audio was a little embarrassing. There's nothing wrong with sci-fi, but this was like sci-fi meets Final Destination meets the true crime genre meets The Walking Dead. And, I swear, there is not one of you out there who would not spend an entire weekend on the couch watching an 8-part limited series if Netflix ever picked this up. I honestly don't understand why this isn't on TV yet. 

Anyway, mermaids attack a ship. I don't usually go for books that require a lot of visualization and imagination but this was one I could "see" and I liked that. 

Like Mother, Like Daughter is fine but I'm not that far into the audiobook yet. I'm excited to get farther into The God of the Woods because Long, Bright River was an amazing book. Both are library books though so I'd better pick up the pace...

However, this makes me wonder: Are you a normal person or do you read multiple books at a time like I do? I was actually reading all five of these at the same time at one point.

Linking up with Share Your Shelf! 

Skincare, currently.

Since Beauty Counter is not available for purchase at this time, I've had to swap out almost all of my skin care products. I've found it's cheaper, in the long run, but also hit or miss with some of it. I'm trying to not buy expensive unless I have to, which I don't think I do right now. Here's what I'm using if you want some recommendations...

Wash: La Roche Posay. I use this in the morning to wash my face and sometimes when I do a double-cleanse at night. Super gentle and not drying at all. I follow it with a toner or a serum, sometimes both. I love all their products and have tried so many over the years. 

Adel Blue Lagoon cleansing oil. I use this at night in the shower. It does not make your skin oily but it moisturizes it instead. I think I was over-cleansing with washes before.

Toner: I've been using this e.l.f. toner since last winter. I love it. It smooths out my skin and almost filtered my face when I first started. It's super gentle. Highly recommend for the price. I use it once or twice a day, depending. 

Serum: I miss my BC serums the most so I've had to get creative. I bought this moisturizer from Adel but it's more like an oil. I mix a drop of it with a gentle moisturizer and I use it at night only. 

I also grabbed this at Walmart and I love it. It's $14 and it's a perfect vitamin C serum. Even smells wonderful. It's worth a try if you need a new product or are between products and don't want to spend a lot. I'll probably buy it again. I've been using it for about a month. 

Moisturizer: I was looking for the most basic, non-greasy, unscented, gentle product I could find and I landed on Vanicream. I like it a lot, mixing the moisturizing oil with it. 

Tretinoin: I have a prescription for this that I'm supposed to use for hormonal acne but the breakouts have been much fewer and farther between since I've started using cleansing oil(!) <<< the $29 for the cleansing oil would be worth it for anyone, in my opinion. 

But I do use tretinoin all over once or twice a week. I also spot-treat if needed. It is way, way too drying to use more than that so I use it sparingly. Also, the next day, it's usually better to stay out of the sun. I definitely learned this the hard way over the summer. I ended up basically burning my face and having to use vaseline for a few days as a moisturizer. 

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So what's where we are at 38 years old and 2 little kids + 3 pets and a full-time job. (does stress affect our skin? absolutely.) I also use those gold eye patches in the mornings and occasionally ice-roll. I'm not a mask fan, and I have no interest in actual invasive procedures. I started drinking the GreenSynergy probiotic from Arbonne because it's also supposed to help your skin, overall. I try to drink a lot of water but probably am not getting nearly enough. Such is life. 

What is your favorite skincare product right now? 

Friday, Fri-yay (I hate that word)

 

I don't know if I'm going to replenish the Arbonne supplements. I do like the Green stuff though. 

Watching: I finished The Perfect Couple last night. It literally took me two weeks. I've never read an Elin Hildebrand book and I likely never will because if I wanted to, I would've by now. The show was fine but it wasn't so good that I kept going after each episode. I would like to think that Greer is what Nicole Kidman's personality is in real life. I just can't picture her as anything else for some reason. 

Reading: I have a few different books going and maybe I'll finish one this weekend. I did finish my first read aloud of the year: The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane and, honestly, I don't know that a more perfect book has ever been written. I moved onto The Boxcar Children (book #1) because I always enjoyed it and I feel like if I don't introduce kids to this simple way of life in a railway car with blueberries, pine needle beds (they didn't know what a pine needle was until we googled pictures), bottles of milk in a "refrigerator", and gathering dishes from the dump, I have no idea who will. I'm doing Little House on the Prairie later this year for the same reason. I get worried that they'll never read/hear these classics otherwise. 

Eating: Nothing interesting. I am placing a dinnerly order for next week because I can't handle the mental load of dinner and we need some inspiration. What I like about dinnerly is it is real, raw ingredients. It's not half-prepped food. It can easily be recreated if you save the recipe. It's also the most cost-efficient of the kits, I think.

Plus, Scott accidentally unplugged our deep-freeze so we lost a lot of convenience foods I had stashed away for "emergencies" (weeknights).

I have been packing both kids' lunches this week because I'm starting to deep-dive into ingredients (something else I don't have time for but I feel this is important) and I've noticed Wells isn't as hungry when he comes home from school now. Sutton, like with most things I try to make life easier, has shown no change. But I've been packing her lunch since school started. 

 

Wearing: I need to do a full round-up on false fall outfits. I have had the same tan booties since 2019 so I  had to buy a new pair for this year. I was torn between Dr. Scholls and Lucky Brand. The Dr. Scholls are more of the style I wanted: ankle boot instead of a really low-cut one. 

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Recaps and things.

I didn't mean to just take off there. 

Honestly, speaking out loud is just so much effort lately. I talk all day. And all night. And all weekend. I don't have the effort to find the words to type. You can find me sharing my thoughts on Stories almost all the time though. Sitting at my computer usually means I'm doing some sort of school work. 

To recap the last couple of weeks...it's been hot, as usual. 

Scout had a rough hunting trip last week so he earned himself a special trip to the vet. Scott thought he was actually dying for a day or so there. Ugh. The vet told me there's nothing wrong with him....I'm not even kidding. She just said "he's 11". He still has a bit of a limp but seems to be okay.

Sutton at daycare. 

If I could recommend one professional development activity for you, it would not be LETRS. This course is, yes, full of useful knowledge. It's just incredibly impractical to be taking in all this information and be in the classroom at the same time. It's a huge time suck and I get absolutely nothing out of it. Last year I got a stipend for passing part one and now I'm in part two. Absolutely not worth a few hundred dollars. The amount of at-home work that needs to be put in...it's multiple college credits' worth.

And yeah, we meet at a restaurant this year. 

I jumped on the Arbonne train for this supplement. I like it. I'm giving it 30 days and we'll see if I feel like investing more than that. 

Lunch-packing. Sutton gets breakfast too. I wish I could get Wells to eat breakfast at home but he's never hungry. I've started packing both lunches now and I'm hoping to grab some more bentgo boxes in the upcoming prime sale in two weeks. 

I found the Daniel Tiger toy! It was 100% in the barn but now I'm looking for a piece to the Skip Hop table so I can sell it. 

Also these great pieces of fake food that you sort by color. 

Still looking for that black skirt (RIP). 

I've been buying these lately. 

This is such a bargain. Just used up the last of the bag so it's going on the Costco list for next month. 

Neither of my kids really like candy corn so that's good for me. 

Last week was *Farm Safety Day* at school. Among other things, they showed the kids the safe way to get someone's attention if they are on a zero-turn mower or a tractor. (Out in front at a 45 degree angle, wave your arms.) It's rednecky for sure, but this has definitely come up at our own house so maybe Farm Safety Day is for us after all. They didn't go over what to do when your dog won't stop jumping up on the tractor or mower though while it's moving. Which is something that comes up here a lot.