Homemade Coconut Pecan Cupcakes

My sister had 2 baking tries tonight, one a super weird fail and then this one, a rousing success. She went with her old standby 1950s Betty Crocker cookbook, changed up the flavorings,  and yum, delicious cupcakes with homemade vanilla frosting. My favorite thing about historic cupcake recipes is that the crumb has an amazing spring to it, which you can kind of see in the second photo. I...

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Woodworms, barking dogs, The Lord of the Rings, and more

Garfield and I have so much in common. It's a blustery day in Colorado so I'm praying that we don't have any trees blow over. That happened right before Christmas with a terrible windstorm. A neighbor of ours lost 3 of their gorgeous trees, part of their fence, and a bit off their roof, so it was some intense wind.Just a couple more brief life updates.1) Dad's surgery is going ahead as planned,...

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Work Changes, family update, and overall restlessness

 I don't know about all of you, but exhaustion seems to be the order of the day for me. Part of it is the continued reality of Covid and how it is has changed the emotional landscape of all our lives. Now, a large portion of it is the invasion of Ukraine. As you already know, yes, I am in support of Ukraine in this conflict. I can't be anything else. I have an issue with unprovoked invasion....

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Ukraine: How did it come to this?

Does this sound familiar to anyone? Never before has Theoden been more relevant than he is today. This is where Ukraine stands right now. A tiny kingdom in Europe with its people fighting back invaders.Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Theoden King in our modern age. Some things never change. Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings as a reflection of the wars in Europe that he miraculously lived through....

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