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As I recently mentioned, I’m Back in the Baking Game.

And since we moved, I have only replaced my baking sheet, and don’t have any cake or muffin pans, and therefore have only baked cookies or brownies in our baking dish.

And for the past several weeks, I’ve been completely off processed sugar, which unfortunately for my tastebuds means NO CHOCOLATE.

And I want dessert! I want cake! I want something YUMMY!

And, as I’ve already mentioned, I’m Back in the Baking Game.

So, I bought some unsulphured molasses since I’m no longer buying brown sugar (did you know that brown sugar is only white table sugar with some molasses added?) and I like that molasses flavor in some things (like oatmeal), and it came with recipes. Yummy looking recipes.

One of them is called: Old-Fashioned Gingerbread. And so I made it, and it HIT THE SPOT.

Here’s the recipe:

Old-Fashioned Gingerbread

1 3/4 cups plus 2 tbsp flour (whole wheat, of course!)

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

2 1/4 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground cloves (I used nutmeg)

pinch of salt

5 tbsp butter, softened

1/3 cup sugar (I used about half of that in granulated stevia and the rest organic evaporated cane juice)

1 large egg

3/4 cup molasses

3/4 cup cold water

powdered sugar (again, I used granulated stevia)

Heat oven to 350F. Grease an 8×8 cake pan ( I used my cast iron pan, remember: no cake pan).  Sift together the flour, baking soda, spices and salt. Set aside.  In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter until light and creamy.  Add the sugar and continue beating until light and fluffy.  Add the egg and beat until well combined.  Pour the molasses in a slow, steady stream, beating all the while.  Add half of the sifted dry ingredients and mix just until well combined.  Mix in the remaining dry ingredients.  Slowly pour in the cold water and stir until well incorporated.  Pour batter into the prepared pan and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 35-40 minutes.  Let cool in the pan about one hour before serving.  Cut the cake into squares  and dust with powdered sugar.

I couldn’t wait a full hour.  It’s even better when it’s still a little warm.

Enjoy!

Do you have a hobby?

It’s so easy to have EVERY.POSSIBLE.MINUTE.FILLED. when you are a busy mom. I totally get that. And, as a result, my stress levels remain higher than they need to be, and my spacey mommy brain remains (unfortunately) in charge most of the time.

Yes, hobbies or relaxing time are GOOD for your health.

For the past two years or so, the only hobby I’ve had is writing this blog.  Which I certainly haven’t done much of for quite a while, what with moving 7 of us across the world and all.

I do have lots of things I like to do, or would like to learn to do,  if I ever “have extra time” (HA HA).

I love to do jigsaw puzzles.  I love to read.  I’d like to take an art class, or just sit down and try to draw what I see. Once I learned to crochet; I don’t remember how any more but I could see learning that again.  And for some reason, I’ve always wanted to make a patchwork quilt. I even decided to start one by hand, without a machine (since I didn’t have one). I was determined.

I didn’t get very far.

Of course, if I had a machine….I could make things. You know, in all my spare time.  When I was little, my mom taught me to use the sewing machine.  She was not very experienced, but she did make me a few costumes and uniforms; I figured if I could make super hero capes for my kiddos, that alone would be worth a ton!

I started thinking about getting a sewing machine.  I looked on Amazon, I browsed at Wal-mart, and then…I got a surprise hand-me-down sewing machine out of the clear blue sky!

Completely clueless, I watched YouTube videos over and over as I muttered under my breath trying SO HARD TO MAKE THE BOBBIN THREAD GET PICKED UP!  I finally figured it out, and then surprisingly never found any of that free time laying around, and so I never did anything with the machine.

It just sat there, lonely on my bedroom desk, asking me to come use it. But on what, exactly? I had next to no skills, and no ideas. Except…..I have all these old marbles my mom’s been holding onto with some of my other toys (some of them were even her marbles-how cool is that?) And the kids would have oh so much fun playing marbles “for keeps” if I could divide them up…..but what to put them in?

Aha!

I did it! My very first sewing project. I watched this:

And I did it. Not much sewing, which is right for me. I did put the wrong sides together (well, one right side and one wrong side), making it have one side look inside out. Kind of cool that way though….I can pretend I meant to do that, right? NOTE: the picture above is not my bag. I’ll swap this picture out for one I take of mine when I get around to it.

I figured I could make several small ones and I’ll divide all the marbles and distribute, so each child can have his own marble bag.  And for other toys too…..army guys, etc. that don’t have a home.

I feel good about it.  It’s so nice to do something creative and fun and practical. And, I even wrote this blog post about it, so I actually did TWO hobby type things. Go me!

And someday, in that “back to basics” kind of way, I’ll attempt some actual clothes. For the kids, of course. Maybe pajamas….or a cute little girl dress. This could be good.

I watched a movie last night with my hubby.  You may have heard of it; it’s called Julie & Julia and it stars Meryl Streep and Amy Adams.  I’d had it recommended to me several times, and found it offered at the library and…I’m SO glad I watched it.

And here’s why.

The movie is actually two stories in one.  How Julia Child became “Julia Child” was really interesting to me; I really didn’t know very much about her and enjoyed seeing that even someone of her expertise wasn’t always an expert.  In fact, she didn’t even know what she wanted to do and went from one hobby to another before she pursued her passion.

The other story is about an average housewife; a regular homemaker who found herself frustrated and unfulfilled in her everyday life and wondering what she might be able to do to help herself find that spark, the passion she was missing.  She was a huge fan of Julia Child and loved to cook; her husband suggested that she start a blog about cooking. (She was also a writer though not working in that capacity).  So, she undertook a challenge-type project: to cook her way through Julia Child’s cookbook in one year, blogging as she went.

The movie intertwines these stories and shows their parallels in a most delightfully entertaining way.

And now that I’ve promoted the movie, I’ll tell you why I really enjoyed it.

Both of these women, like me, “didn’t know what they wanted to be when they grew up.”  At least, that’s how I feel.  I know what I love to do, I know what I long for, but I don’t know how to put it all together and how it’s supposed to look in the end.  And in the meantime days, weeks, and months go by without my moving forward and working on the things for which I have a passion.

I really like blogging.  Part of that is because I love to teach, and have a passion for helping people learn about health.  I also am just like you; I struggle with changes and enjoy the feeling I get from knowing I’ve got friends out there learning and growing , just like I am.

Another side of it that I think really helps me more than it might help whoever is out there reading this is that I  really love to share my thoughts, feelings, and experiences.  I’d say “I love to write”, but I’m not a writer and never aspired to be one.  However, I do indeed like to type it and send it “out there.”  For me.  Sure, I like to know that there’s someone out there who enjoys reading what I write.  But even if NOBODY reads my blog, I want to write it, because it helps me be a better me.  It’s an outlet for my creativity, a commitment to a project of which I can be proud.

So, what can I do to make the progress I like to make?  I’ve probably mentioned it in another post, but the main thing I need to do is to not be a perfectionist.  Just like Flylady says, perfectionism really does rob your life of joy.   If I have something I want to share, then I should do it even if I don’t have the time to do research and answer the questions I may pose.  And even if  my post doesn’t directly relate to health and wellness, I should not skip it.  I do not have the time to run more than one blog and so I’ve got to put it in this one or I won’t write it at all.

I look forward to doing this more often again.

What’s a passion/desire/hobby/goal of yours that you’ve been putting off/neglecting/shying away from that you can start (or re-start) now (or soon)?