Mmm . . . it's Peep season again.

I love peeps.  And it's always good to be up on the latest research on these things.  Thanks, Rob.

sheep

too good not to post

maybe I should get back to playing Sheep

seven quick takes, volue 090313

things that make me happy edition

1.  Euchre, in its many variants.  Especially 5-handed.
2.  Sour Cream Pound Cake * 
3.  Scrabble on Facebook--except, of course, when I've got a fistful of one point tiles.
4.  Re-reading a good book.  By my definition, it's not a really good book unless it's better the second time.  And the dozenth.
5.  Lolcats
6.  Artwork on my walls and mantle.  I'm thankful every day for those with the call, skill, and patience to add beauty to our lives.  My father, Ando Hiroshige, He Qi, Vincent Van Gogh, Ruth Lampi and others.
7.  Dvorak's Sixth Symphony

*from All-American Comfort Food

1 1/4 cups butter, softened
3 cups sugar
6 eggs.
3 cups flour
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1 8 oz. carton sour cream
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1-2 tsp. other extract**

Grease and flour 10 in. bundt pan.  Cream butter and sugar.  Add eggs one by one, beating well.  Combine dry ingredients.  Add to wet alternately with sour cream.  Add vanilla.  Pour into pan.  Bake at 325 for 90 minutes.

**  for whatever flavor you want to make it.  The cookbook suggests almond, but I don't like almond.  I've succesfully used this cake as a base for coconut, pineapple, and rum pound cakes.  

If you want to be really decadent, glaze it:  1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup water, and 1-2 tsp flavored extract.  Boil 1-2 minutes.  Loosen cake from pan and pour over.  Remove cake when glaze is soaked in.  

7 quick takes is hosted by Conversion Diary.  Like you didn't know that yet.

7 quick takes, volume 090130

1.  Thank  you Kate for the picture on the left.  It's made my week.

2.  You can watch my dad on TV!  Episode 2808, Lumberjack Fan Carving.  In my entirely biased and correct opinion, his work is pretty cool.

3.  I'm sorta geeked over the announcements of the 2009 Caldecott and Newbery Award winners.  New books to get for--my kids.  Right.  They're for the kids.

4.  If I had time and energy to kill on post-graduate studies, one of the master's theses that I'd like to write is the argument that much of the best literature these days is being published in the YA category.  I think that one of the reasons that this is so is because there is still pressure to keep literature aimed at 10-13 year olds clear of "adult themes" and "adult content."  In other words, an author can't write voyeuristic, profanity strewn, pulp and have it sell just on that basis.  YA writers actually have to write good stories.  

5.  Barna Study:  1 in 3 "Christians" say Jesus sinned.  Um . . . do they not even understand that that defeats the point?  Theology, people, theology!

6.  English departments all across the U.S. would be better off if they just admitted that modern lit-fic is just another genre, and not morally superior to all the genres out there.

7.  my children are home today on yet another snow day, and I'm completely baffled.  We had no new snow the other night.  It's not warm, exactly, out there, but 10 degrees now with a high of 18 this afternoon and a 30% chance of snow hardly seems to warrant cancelling--and the roads were fine when I was out on them last night.  I especially wish that if there was going to be a cancellation that I could have found out about it when I still had a chance to go back to sleep, and hadn't gotten up, had 2 cups of coffee, fed my daughter breakfast and had her getting ready to go while I called to check on her car pool before I found out about it.

7 Quick Takes Fridays are hosted by Jennifer F. at Conversion Diary

UPDATE:  My kind husband pointed out that my take #6 had the exact same link as #5 . . . that it did not, in fact, pull up the fascinating article by Julian Gough that I intended to reference.  That's now been fixed.

It's all there from the very beginning

Mahna Mahna