Why I Love My Mini-Muffin Pan

For the last week, I've studied the fine art of mini-muffin making.  I think I'm getting better in the kitchen! 

Every few days, we make another batch and fill snack bags with a few for lunchboxes.  Muffins freeze and defrost so well, and I reasoned that a homemade version would save us a fortune.  Instead of the grocery store's Little Bites, we made our own. I call them Little Nibblers!

I love the idea of packing a lunch box, opening my freezer, and finding shelves upon shelves of homemade goodies to tuck inside. 

It feels so cozy somehow.  It feels so nurturing.  

But it's an art form.  I had to think beyond blueberry. So far, we've made coconut (of course), strawberry, peach, and chocolate peanut butter.  Next we'll try pumpkin, raspberry, and blackberry.  Oh, the possibilities of my mini-muffin pan!

Living with flair means you make little homemade treats because it feels good, saves money, and makes lunch packing easy.  Maybe I'm making a memory for my daughters as they recall their mother covered in flour and berry stains as she gets ready for back-to-school lunches. 

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Journal:  What else can I make homemade?

It Doesn't Look Like the Picture Says It's Supposed To

My oldest wants to make a raspberry cheesecake.

No problem!  We have a cookbook for children that shows delightful pictures of perfect daughters pureeing raspberries and making lovely designs on their cheesecakes.

My daughters make a mess of a creation. At least the cheesecake is actually in the pie pan.  

My daughters say, "It's our original design, Mom."

It doesn't look like the picture.  I have to remember that it won't.

As the school year begins and I fret and am tempted to compare my children to everybody else, I will remember this picture and the cheesecake we made.  We are originals.  We won't look like the picture I have in my head of what we're supposed to be like.

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Journal:  Do you struggle with things not looking like they are supposed to look? 

Why Not? (The Story of the Green Apple Cupcakes)

This year, I've learned to be a little gourmet.  My children taught me that with the hamburger cupcakes.  I'm learning to try things that fall way outside of my natural gifts and abilities.

Take green apple cupcakes, for example.  My youngest can't wait to bring in cupcakes to kindergarten this week for her birthday.  She wants gourmet cupcakes, just like her sister's hamburgers.  We search the internet together and find a lovely cupcake blog that features green apple cupcakes. 

I'm nervous about this.  We get the ingredients for cupcakes, and then I'm told I just need green sprinkles, a pretzel stick stem, a mint leaf, and some brown sprinkles to resemble apple seeds.  I'm supposed to take a little spoonful of sprinkles away to make it look like somebody took a bite out of the apple!  I have to admit that, in theory, this whole thing has the potential to be adorable. 

Slow and steady.  I follow the directions, and voila! 

I'm so happy I could burst.  It's the same way I felt when I followed the directions to thread my old sewing machine.  I sewed doll pillows with my daughter just by following directions.

Slow and steady.


Living with flair means we do things we wouldn't normally do.  We enter unusual worlds (like sewing and baking) and find pleasure when we simply follow directions.

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Journal:  Is there a project I should try?

An Environment for Personal Growth

For years and years, I've tried to bake with yeast.  I'm rarely successful in getting my dough to rise like I want.  But today, I try again.  This time: pizza dough for homemade calzones.

I read a specific detail from this new recipe that explains my failure.  This new recipe insists that I add the yeast and make sure the dough rests in a 70 degree kitchen.

That's what all the other recipes meant by "warm place!"  That's the simple explanation for my failed efforts!   My winter kitchen isn't always that warm (sometimes it's actually cold), so I put my bowl on a kitchen chair right by the heater (set at 70 degrees).

We check on our dough after an hour.  It fills the bowl--abundant, glorious, fluffy!   My first successful rising! 

It keeps on growing.  Tonight, we'll feast.

When I think about my own failed attempts at growth in various areas of my life, I have to remember the role that my environment plays.  If I'm in an environment that prevents my maturing, maybe I need to change something in order to create the kind of conditions that foster growth.

I like asking myself that question today:  What do I need in my environment to spur me on to become the person God wants me to be?  What do I need to purge?  What do I need to add?   I just asked my daughter the same question.  We have so much to talk about! 



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Journal:  What needs to change so I can grow?

Licking the Blender Whisk

It's a snow day in our county, and the children and I make cookies to frost.  The girls crowd around me and eagerly reach for the blender whisks after I've made the vanilla frosting. 

I hand the whisks down, and I purposefully arrange some extra frosting on each one. 

A child licking the blender whisks reminds me of Henry David Thoreau's famous quote about sucking the marrow out of life. Back in July, I wrote about how the "Live with Flair" blog was my way to "live deep and suck all the marrow out of life." 

When my daughter licks the blender whisk, I see her searching out every last drop.  When she hands it back, it's as if it's been cleaned in the dishwasher. 

I want to search out the beauty in this day, relishing every part.  God hands me the whisk, and I sit back and enjoy it. 


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Journal:  What good thing has come my way today? 

Christmas Disorder (This Place is a Disaster!)

Gingerbread Disaster

I'm decorating gingerbread cookies with my 5 year old and her little friend.  A blanket of frosting and sprinkles covers the counter tops, and as I observe the smear upon the floors, the walls, and probably the ceiling, I exclaim: "This place is a disaster!" 

The small child before me, the one shaking bright red sprinkles upon everything but her gingerbread man, responds: "When it's this messy, it just means we are working really hard."

I consider the truth of her words.  The Christmas disaster all over my kitchen and living room--tissue paper in shreds, manger scenes all discombobulated, and crafts partially completed--I realize the beautiful work of Christmas and the mess we leave in our wake.  Our schedules are in chaos; our diets reconfigure to include ridiculous amounts of gooey treats; our family issues bubble up to the surface; our cats have scattered ornaments all over the house.  Messy, messy, messy. 

Sprinkles!

But something is happening in the mess.  Something beautiful and right.  When it's this messy, something is working really hard. 

A lot of things about Christmas are messy--even Jesus arrives in the filth of a manger in the chaotic way that disorders a whole world back to order.

I'll clean up in 2011.  Right now, I'm disordering the place into the kind of Christmas order we need.  When it's this messy, something's right.