Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

I’ll grant you that calling a sequel competent might come across as damning with faint praise, but I’m apparently too tired to think of a better description.  (“More of the same” seemed worse to me.)  And really, it’s a good description of The Memory of Lemon.  Neely from The Cake Therapist is right about where we left her, working to make her bakery a success and divorce her philandering football player husband; another story from the past shares the spotlight.  (I liked that story a bit better than Neely’s this time–mostly because the situation with Luke dragged on a bit long for my taste–but it covered more ground than its predecessor, and that possibly cost it some detail I would have appreciated.)  Fans of The Cake Therapist will enjoy The Memory of Lemon, in the same way we enjoy seconds of a good dessert.  The question now is whether the ending left enough room for a sequel–and I’m honestly not sure of the answer.

We had dinner at my in-laws’ on Sunday, and since the weather’s been delightfully cool and I’ve been REVELING in the autumn-ness of it, I decided to make a pumpkin dessert.  (The decision was aided by the fact that the apple and maple dessert I was eyeing required a trip to the store, and THAT wasn’t happening.)  I looked around a bit and decided on these Pumpkin Pie Bars, because I tend to like my pumpkin on the cream cheese-y side but can’t deal with the recipes that call for two 8 oz. packages of it.  (Cream cheese is not as cheap as it used to be.)  I did leave out the pecans and add more oatmeal, because I love my oldest daughter and I’d like to keep her around, but other than that I made the recipe as is…believe it or not.

I have to say, they were tasty.  I want to love pumpkin more than I do, honestly, but these were a nice mix of pumpkin and creaminess, and it’s hard to go wrong with buttery, sugary oatmeal baked on top.  I will say that despite the specific baking instructions, I wish I’d left them in a bit longer or turned the oven to broil for a minute or two; the topping wanted to be browned and more crispy on top.  (It also, in my opinion, wanted cinnamon.)  Overall, though, if you want a dessert that tastes sort of like a pumpkin pie crisp, give these a try!

I was trying to gear up to review tonight’s new dessert, but all I ended up thinking about was how grateful I am for the blessings in my life.  I spent the day listening to inspired counsel from my church leaders–surrounded by family.  We had lunch at a park–the nature kind, not the playground kind–where I tailed my two-year-old as she walked back and forth on the bridge over a pond while the rest of my kids played with cousins.  I cross-stitched a little, I exercised, I read a bit, and I visited with family and friends.  I have more incredible family less than a day’s drive away, and I have a car that will get us there.  I have amazing friends…and five library cards at my disposal.

How do you adequately give thanks for the people in your life?  How can we ever spend enough time being grateful for the everyday things we enjoy?  Why do I ever complain?

Now, lest I sound phony, I absolutely will.  I’ll gripe a bit about what to have for dinner tomorrow when my number 2 has dance from 4:50-5:50.  I grouched this morning because I was trying to hurry to get ready to go and the steady flow of interruptions was especially impressive.  I’ll get discouraged at how easily my lower back starts to ache–again–and at how much work it seems to take to keep my house only as messy as it is.  I’ll grit my teeth and growl at my middles, who are currently doing the “he’s kicking me/she’s bothering me” thing with each other on a regular basis, with spectacularly frustrating results.  My two-year-old will take toys from her brother and yell at me for cruelly trying to, say, feed her breakfast, and my oldest will use her “why do you make me suffer by asking me to clean up after myself” voice, AGAIN.  These things are also reality.

At this moment, however, I am bowled over by what I have, and I am grateful–so very grateful–to my Heavenly Father for it all.  May we all have such moments in our lives!