Stories Down Snowy Gravel Roads

A highway runs near our house.
South on the road takes you to my favorite little town; head east and the next town is the one I  frequent most.
North lies the town I visit least often, only if I'm running a specific errand.
"Getting the best coffee in the county" is one such specific errand.

So it was that yesterday, 2 whopping degrees that it remained (-windchill, but we're not going to talk about that okay, okay), I found myself in the backseat of my sister's car, she and Grandma discussing the weather.  To be fair, it was pretty #extra even for Iowa on this particular day.

From the gravel to the highway and north to coffee we traveled.  You may remember hearing about this place before, but if you haven't, I'll direct you here: Coffeeshop Chats
Also, if you, noting the temperature, thought that I would have ordered hot coffee to combat my chilled fingers and face, you underestimate my love of iced coffee.  Holding mine in gloved hands, my two older, wiser companions burning their tongues on their hot drinks, we began driving home.

~~~~~

One of the great things about growing up in the same area as the previous three generations of your family is that your family members are founts of knowledge.  I swear my grandma knows the family trees of half the people in the area, and the surrounding land records down to the 1/4 section for the past 60 years.

"Right down this road," Grandma started between sips of her mocha, "is the farm where your great-grandpa played for barn dances."  She continued, pointing out farm places in the neighborhood.  From these anecdotes, I'm not sure how much of a dancer my Great-Grandpa Ed was because they all revolved around him accompanying on his accordion.

Morgan turned onto the next gravel road, her car adapting the conditions.  As close to a square-mile grid as you can get, it's pretty easy to locate farm places, even with certain pieces of roads having been demoted to B-level maintenance, or removed altogether.

A few different buildings sat on this acreage, including the one featured in the above photo; they varied in both age and structural integrity.   The barn we were meant to see rested at the bottom of both comparisons.  One side had collapsed long before our excursion, the other three remained mostly upright.  However, the barn which held so many social events was, as we might have guessed, no more.

It's a weird sort of nostalgia to miss things of which you never took part, like barn dances which, decades ago though they were, took place less then ten minutes from my house.  Like the people who gathered there, the buildings are no longer with us, certainly not like they used to be.  But the events live on in stories passed down, and in four-wheel drive adventures on snowy gravel roads.

- Grace

December Mixtape // Christmas Edition

It's Christmas.
Yes, you people who started listening to Christmas music on the Fourth of July, it is actually, literally, positively, STILL Christmas, the second day, to be exact.

So here are my favorite Christmas songs and a handy dandy playlist of them for you: Life of Pies Mixtape

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Deck The Halls - Mannheim Steamroller
It's really not the beginning of my Christmas preparations until I've played this song, preferably as background music while decorating the tree.  It's the most memorable Christmas song of my childhood.  While you're at it, listen to every Mannheim Christmas album because it's the peak of Christmas music, in my honest opinion.

The 12 Days of Christmas - Straight No Chaser 
It's the song you love to hate, in a version you'll immediately love.  You're welcome.  I usually play it on repeat until I'm asked to change the song.  If I interrupt one of your Christmas songs with another song, you may blame this song.

Underneath The Tree - Kelly Clarkson
This is a rather new addition to my playlist, a guilty pleasure, secular holiday song.  It's my jam.  It's also on a playlist titled, "Festive Pagan Tunes" if that makes you feel better.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas - Michael Buble
This whole album is a joy to hear.  Allow the beautiful sounds to bless your eardrums this holiday season, starting with this great cover.

Baby Boy - For King and Country 
I admire any artist who steps outside the normal realm of Christmas covers, and enters the world of new and original songs.  If you're a fan of covers, their rendition of Little Drummer Boy is probably my favorite one that exists.

White Christmas - Bing Crosby
It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year - Andy Williams
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas - Frank Sinatra
Listed here are a few of my favorite classic Christmas songs.  They need no description, but they all deserve to be added to your Christmas playlists.

White Winter Hymnal - Pentatonix
Their style is so appealing to me, and it always seems like their music is even better around Christmas.  Harmonies like these make me happy. <3

(There's No Place Like) Home For The Holidays - The Carpenters
I was only introduced to The Carpenters in the past year, and I'm slightly salty about it because I missed out on so many years of listening to their beautiful music during the holiday season.

A Charlie Brown Christmas - Vince Guaraldi Trio 
This one is an album from my favorite Christmas movie of all time (except maybe Die Hard [I kid, calm yourself])

As a note, if you wish I would've made this list longer, you have my distinct permission and even recommendation to listen to the full album of each these songs, so long as you do so in the order they are listed.  We can't have any of those full album-shuffle disasters.

What are you favorite Christmas songs?
Is Die Hard a Christmas Movie?
Leave your answers in the comments section.

- Grace

Secret Recipe Sugar Cookies

'Tis the season for Christmas baking, and these cookies are on the top of my list every year. 

My favorite kind of recipes are the ones passed down from each generation to the next.  They're most often titled with the name of the first person to make them, or at least the first to make them famous amongst our extended family.

Though I don't remember my Aunt Eileen, I always think about her when these sugar cookies show up at a family event during the holidays.  They are the perfect cut-out cookie with a secret ingredient which keeps them soft, even though they won't last long in your house.

They are so incredibly easy: one bowl, no sifting, no nonsense, just straight-up sugar cookies meant to be made and decorated and devoured (not always in that order, if you're asking the cookie dough thieves in our family).

Our favorite way is to take a can of white frosting (I know, *cringe*, but just roll with it), whip it in a bowl to make it go further, divide it into 8+ little bowls, make a bunch of fun colors, grab some sprinkles, and go to town.

I highly recommend Wilson brand paste dyes for your frosting.  When you want true red for your candy cane stripes, you'll thank me that you needed a little blob of dye instead of an entire bottle of the drop kind.

They're really fun to make with kids, and even more fun to decorate with friends and family.  Try them out with your favorite baking comrades during these 12 Days of Christmas.

Sugar Cookies
Makes 12 dozen cookies (this varies based on the size of cookie cutters you use, the thickness, etc.)

Ingredients: 
1 C butter
2 C white sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp almond extract
5 C white flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 C sour cream

Directions:
1) Cream butter and sugar with a mixer; next, add eggs, vanilla, almond extract, and mix together.
2) Add dry ingredients and sour cream to the bowl and mix to combine.
3) Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
4) Roll out with plenty of flour to between 1/8" and 1/4", and cut into desired shapes.
5) Place on a greased baking sheet, or an ungreased baking stone.  Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes or until lightly browned.
6) Cool, decorate, and enjoy.

- Grace

When the Childhood Magic of Christmas is Gone

It's almost Christmas. 

The first real, sticking snow in our area rests on the evergreens around our house.

I can see the magical, white blanket continue across the road onto the rolling hills of our neighbor's horse pasture.  We will have snow for Christmas.

Our Christmas tree is set up, the living room rearranged for the holidays, and a few wrapped presents sit beneath its limbs.  The rest of the wrapping will be done today.

The stockings are hung, the nativity scene is set up, and the advent calendar is almost complete.

But sometimes, it still doesn't feel like Christmas.

The general consensus among my generation is simple: Christmas, at some point, stopped feeling like the Christmas we remembered.  The magic has disappeared.

But what kind of magic did we feel then that we're missing now? 

A commercialized frenzy of viewing, asking for, and receiving the newest toys?

The joy of fresh powder long before we were handed snow shovels?

The thrill of waiting for a creepy old guy to break into our homes while we slept?  To be honest, I'm really not sure how my paranoid-self ever accepted this story without question.

Now that I reflect on the past excitement of Christmas, I can divide it into two categories: one is timeless and true, traditions based on the story of Christmas which hasn't changed in 2,000 years; the latter is gone as soon as you catch your parents putting presents under the tree at 1:30 AM.

It doesn't surprise me to hear that my generation no longer feels the joy of Christmas when the joy they were sold as kids is built only on the love of presents and a twisted story of Saint Nicholas.  It only sets up children for disappointment later when they realize that the only traditions they know are as superficial as the mall santa's beard.  

This is not to say that you shouldn't teach your kids to appreciate the fun of Christmas, or watch Frosty the Snowman movies, or watch them experience the excitement of "Santa gifts."  But no matter which traditions you make with your kids, old or new, please teach your kids what Christmas is really about.  It is about Jesus Christ, who was born in a manger, who came to earth to live the life we couldn't and die the death we deserved.

Take them to church on Christmas.

Read Luke 2 with them.

Tell them more about Jesus than you do about Santa Claus.  

Teach your children what peace on earth looks like: Christ in the manger. 

Teach your children what real love looks like: Christ on the cross.  

Share with them the joy that is true and the peace which surpasses all understanding.

These things can't be outgrown.

- Grace 

A [Book]case of the Re-reads

The Book List

It never gets shorter.
It only grows with each conversation I have, no matter the topic of the conversation.

The topics: the religion of the Founding Fathers, indie novels by other bloggers I follow, Russian literature, theological books from various centuries, and, yes, John Green's entire bibliography.
I enjoy the eclectic aspect of life.

We live in a world where all of these are free at the library, or, at the least convenient, 2-day free shipping away.
So why does the list ever grow, taking only one off for every five I add to its length?

I have a case of the rereads, a whole shelf, actually.  A seemingly unorganized collection of bent-cornered paperbacks with unfortunate dog ears, not from intentional abuse, but from bumping around in my backpack on a trip or sliding into dangerous car seat pockets.

The worst offenders on my shelf of rereads:
- The Iliad and The Odyssey
- Little House on the Prairie
- Anna Karenina

It is a simple joy to reread books many years after you've read them for the first time.  You are able to compare yourself at a younger age to yourself now, the development in the time between, in relation to a book which hasn't changed.  You may even find yourself relating to different characters.

There is also odd comfort found in the worn pages of a softcover book which is too far past keeping "nice" that is it is now best used to riding around in a purse or backpack.  It's a companion edition not meant for shelves, the misfit of the bookcase.

Will I have cross every book off my list when my life is over?  I don't know.
I will add new stories to the list, and I will reread my favorites because both are enjoyable to me.
These things I know.

Comment below: do you reread your favorite books?

- Grace

Images of an Autumn Gone

This autumn was like the leaves on these trees, bright and beautiful and fleeting and now gone.
Since these photos were taken, it has given way to the Advent of winter, the dry and cold preparation before the beautiful, white snow comes to cover the ground.
However, the intense colors of autumn leaves are still firmly engrained in my head, along with the memories that accompanied them. 

- Grace

Not The Angel's Food Cake

Recipe books, faded with time, many of pages falling out, once lived in this cabinet.

My great-grandma's favorites books, newspaper clippings, and magazines filled the bottom right drawer, just below the spice canisters.

Some of these books made their way to my grandma's house, including one dedicated to desserts.

"Could I borrow this?" I asked. 

"No," the response.

So, I made my great-grandma's chocolate angel food cake by hand, from scratch, reading the instructions off a photo on my iPhone because it's 2017. 

For reference, all three of these houses are located on the same farm, each less than a mile from the other.  I made the cake in our house last night.  The lighting was not ideal or I'd have photo proof that I whipped the egg whites by hand, but alas, 'twas not aesthetic.  You'll just have to believe me.

I think I need to whip them firmer next time, but that means I'm using a hand mixer.

It's phenomenal, light and fluffy on the inside, sticky on the edges, and with a thin, crunchy top. 

I think I'm going to make strawberry sauce and whipped cream for it for supper tonight. 

Chocolate Angel Food Cake

Ingredients:

3/4 sifted cake flour (or 3/4 cup all-purpose flour, - 1.5 TBSP flour, + 1.5 TSBP cornstarch, sift together a few times)

4 TBSP cocoa

1 1/4 egg whites

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp cream of tartar

1 1/4 cup sifted granulated sugar

1 tsp vanilla

Directions:

1. Sift flour once, measure, add cocoa, and sift four more times. 

2. Beat egg whites and salt with a flat wire whisk (or a hand mixer). When foamy, add cream of tartar and continue beating until eggs are stiff enough to hold up in peaks, but not dry. 

3. Fold in sugar carefully, 2 TBSP at a time, until all is used. Fold in vanilla. 

4. Then sift a small amount of flour over mixture an fold in carefully; continue until all is used.

5. Pour batter into uncreased angel food pan and bake for 30 minutes at 275 degrees, then raise the temperature to 325 degrees and bake for another 30 minutes.

6. Remove from oven and invert pan 1 hour or until cool.  If you have a handy old fashioned glass soda bottle sitting around, they work perfectly, as do beer bottles, etc.  

7.  Once it's cool, you can run a knife around the edge, and flip it onto a plate.  My pan is in two pieces, so I lifted the cake out of the pan with the bottom piece, and then ran a knife around the bottom of the cake, placed a plate on top, and flipped it over. 

I can't wait to finish this cake for dessert tonight. 

Make this cake for one of your Christmas shindigs; it's fantastic.

If you ever make my recipes, I'd love to see photos of them. <3

- Grace

November // Side A

November.

The month of autumn skies and early sunsets, and featuring the extra hour of sleep rudely taken from me in the spring.

The month in which pie is elevated to its proper status as the finest of desserts.

The month unfortunately taken over by the early playing of Christmas music.

The ensuing argument, "there are no Thanksgiving songs".

Yes, there are.  Page 993 of the LSB.  Vince Guaraldi's Thanksgiving Theme.  But I digress.

The music I listen to in November isn't holiday related.  It's my after-dark playlist, which is especially perfect since we have more moments of waking darkness each day.

Black Cadillac by Shinedown

The first song on my playlist, this intro and song sets the mood for the rest of the playlist.  The Amaryllis album might be my favorite, but this track is a gem.

Favorite lyrics: "I got a mind full of inspiration, and I ain't livin' in the past no more", and "So feast your eyes on the big, blue sky. . ."

The Last of the Real Ones by Fall Out Boy

This song is brand new, only about two weeks old.  It's all of the creative lyrics and great beats you expect of Fall Out Boy, with a little more polish and guess what, still a long title. Favorite lyrics: "I was just an only child of the universeAnd then I found you."



How Did You Love by Shinedown

One of the reasons I enjoy listening to this band is their lyrical depth.  It's poetry in rock music, and this is where two of my favorite things combine is the most excellent way.

Favorite lyrics: "You can have a sound of the thousand voices calling your name

You can have the light of the world blind you, bath you in grace
But I don't see so easily what you hold in your hands
'Cause castles crumble, kingdoms fall and turn into sand."

Mess is Mine by Vance Joy

This song describes one of my favorite aspects of relationships, be the romantic or otherwise: the idea of bearing one another's burdens.  This applies specifically in the context of marriage, when one's mess truly is the other's, they are each other's, mess and all.  Late night listening brings out my deeper thoughts.

Favorite lyrics: "Well hold on, my darling.  This mess was yours, now your mess is mine."



Car Radio by Twenty One Pilots

Ukulele screamo rap doesn't float everyone's boat, and I understand that.  This song fits with the rest because of its lyrics, and the message of hope in the darkness.  It's also relevant because I was listening to it on a late drive home one night. . .through my phone speakers, because get this: the radio in the car didn't actually work.  Go figure.

Favorite: "Sometimes quiet is violent."  "I find over the course of our human existence one thing consists of consistence, and it's that we're all battling fear."  "Peace will win, and fear will lose."



There's the first half of my November suggestions.

Check it out here: Life of Pies Mixtape (and comment if you follow me because my followers are anonymous and I'd love to know pls and thx)

Drop your favorite Thanksgiving and after-dark songs in the comments. -->



- Grace 

Fields of Green Turned Gold

Harvest is beautiful in photos.  It is orange moons and fainting sunsets.  It is also golden fields and green tractors; well, they should be green.

Unfortunately, harvest is not just the aesthetics of frost on fields.  Harvest is the frost on the truck windshield which you have to scrape off to drive to the load-out field before the first truck.

Harvest is chaos of noise from two tractors and an auger, and a truck driver holding a conversation with my dad above the rest of it.  But it is also rolling up polywire fence for the livestock and hearing the soft hum of the combine across the section.

Harvest is wearing four layers for the 6:30 AM truck, and a wearing a t-shirt by the 4:30 PM load.  It is keeping my hair up in a hat and still brushing out corn chaff that night.  The evil, pink glitter gets everywhere, including the pockets of nearly every sweatshirt I own.

Harvest is taking food out to the fields during the day, and eating supper late.  To make the first part of this operation work as smoothly as possible, we have a map on the wall by our fridge on which each field is numbered.  Snacks and coffee to field 14 it is.

Speaking of coffee, harvest is not the time to bring up the coffee consumption of those special few running the equipment.  The number of beat-up thermoses you've poured in the past twelve hours might be high, but I promise you- they don't care.  They're running on caffeine and ever-present fear of bad weather or breakdowns (because, you know, those two things can never come at the same time).
Give them coffee.
Say nothing.

Harvest transcends all other schedules.  For instance, I had homework to do this week, but I did none of it when we were loading trucks.  This makes for a slightly-stressed me, but I had the least amount of farm work in our family this fall, so I don't worry too much.  For the record, the homework is done, for now anyways.

Harvest, however, is not.

- Grace

Blueberry Pie + Haikus

Pie-kus

It'd been just three weeks

Since Farmer's Market ended;

I couldn't take it.

I missed the rolled dough

And the finicky top crust

Well, not that so much 

An empty crust says

The world is yours to fill

With art or berries

The outside seems good,

The filling inside needs work.

It resembles me.

This blueberry pie marks the first pie crust rolled out on my marble board, and that definitely merited photos.  Though our kitchen has an much natural lighting as a cavern, I love taking photos of the food I make.

Food is an art form, I am convinced.

My favorite medium is pie. 

- Grace

The Only Way to Write (Like You're Running Out of Time)

"How do you write like you're running out of time?  How do you write like tomorrow won't arrive?"
Alexander Hamilton's creative process astounds me.  I often wonder what made it so easy for the treasury secretary to spill words onto paper, especially considering that I would likely spill the bottle of ink before finishing one page.
Hamilton had internal and external motivations to write, the revolutionary war, and his political involvement and successes being the main ones.

I have much different ones, obviously: the knowledge that accomplishment will feel good, the joy of growing word counts (even when I edit away 30% of what I write), and feedback from those who read what I write.  Unfortunately, I think the only things that have a 100% success rate in motivating me to write are looming deadlines.  If it doesn't have a date on a calendar, odds are that it won't be a priority.  This means that college writing assignments get done on time. Always. They have to, after all.

Any creative writing pursuits, though, those are the ones that get pushed off.  Between reading and writing, I'm used to choosing the book.  Between blogging and working on my own story, well, here I am, nice to see you here as well.

When it's winter and I escape to the bookshelf-surrounded couch in our basement, hot chocolate in hand, writing seems to come easily. This phase lasts roughly from Thanksgiving to New Year's and dies a painful death along with my joy for life once spring semester begins. Between March and October, I don't think I wrote anything that wasn't academic.  It was weird.  I missed it.
I think the reason I have a hard time with it is because writing is simultaneously my most relaxing and most difficult hobby.  I just got back into my story recently (I'll refer to it as The Story for now).

The Story has the potential to be novel length, and will be the second piece of fiction I've ever written.  I never realized how much fun it could be to write what you want to read.  On the other hand, writing is a grind.  I give props to the people who make it through NaNoWriMo (writing 50,000 words in the month of November), because my record word count in a single day is around 1,300 words.

But I go back the next time and write 800.  When I have a few spare minutes, maybe I get 150 words.  And then 500, and 257, and 48 here, and 386 more that I typed into a note on my phone before I forgot the idea.

Sometimes it's barely a sprinkle of words, other times it's a flood.

How do you write like you're running out of time?

You write.  Period.

Happy writing!

- Grace

October // Side B

It's not the second week in the October, but it is the second installment of my music recommendations.

You can find all of this month's songs here: Weekly Mixtape

Angela by The Lumineers
This was one of those songs I listened to where you think, "If I keep listening to it this much, I'm going to hate it forever."  We're now 11 months into that experiment, and so far it's not true.  The Lumineers are one of my go-to bands, and this easily ranks in my top 5 of their songs.  It fits the "let's go somewhere, anywhere, across the globe or across the state" vibes, so it's on my road trip playlist.  The details of the lyrics are what I love;
Favorite lyrics: "When you left this town with your windows down and the wilderness in sight", "but you held your course to some distant war in the corners of your mind", and "home, at last". 

Flicker by Niall Horan
I probably won't cover the same artist, let alone the same album in consecutive weeks, but this album just dropped and it's been the majority of what I've listened to since Thursday night at 11:02 pm EST.
Acoustic guitar fingerpicking is the way to my musical heart, but lyrics make or break the song.  You can't write a ballad for a girl and have it be a menagerie of cut-and-pasted, overused Pinterest quotes (@ too many artists to list here).  Funny story about misheard lyrics: I initially thought the line was "I think of the stars, and it echoes a spark," so I put it on a playlist envisioning an crisp autumn night, looking at stars.  As it turns out, I heard wrong.  The song is still great. 
Favorite lyrics: "Then I think of the start and it echoes a spark. . . Then I look in my heart, there's a light in the dark, still a flicker of hope that you first gave to me. . ."

Autumn Leaves by Ed Sheeran
It's Ed Sheeran.  It's all of the fall vibes.  This is not surprising in the least based on the title.  I love it when song titles say what they mean.  It's like the introduction of a paper: it's main job is to tell you what the rest is going to say.  Don't be like Fall Out Boy and make your entire thesis statement the title, (or something random to avoid a lawsuit).
Where were we? Right: Ed Sheeran.  It's an extra track off the deluxe edition of +, and it's a great addition to your October playlists.
Favorite lyrics: "Another day, another life passes by just like mine"

Poison & Wine by The Civil Wars
Just do me a favor and appreciate the simple harmonies, the beautifully paced build-up, and the soft drum cadence this song offers.  It's a work of art for your ears.  Good duets are in short supply, what with every compilation lately being a bad mix of syrupy pop vocals and autotune.  If you know of any and you're so inclined, my comments section is always open for suggestions -->
Favorite lyrics: "I wish you'd hold me when I turn my back" and "I don't have a choice, but I still choose you."

All Too Well by Taylor Swift
I'll spare you the saga that is my thoughts on Taylor Swift, but here's a summary: I listened to the new single.  I laughed.  I went back to the Red album because it screams fall with every part of its being.
To me, All Too Well song is the climax of Taylor's songwriting.  There were good songs written before it and after it, boring tracks early in her career, and some rather confusing ones recently, but this song stands alone.  It's poetic the descriptions are vivid and tell a story.  You hear it and envision "plaid shirt days" and "dancing in the refrigerator light."
Favorite lyric: 'Cause there we are again on that little town street. You almost ran the red 'cause you were looking over at me.  Wind in my hair, I was there, I remember it all too well."

My personal favorite attribute of this song is that it's five minutes long. Let me explain: In this era of music, most songs are written with the hope of being radio singles.
They are 3.5 minutes long.
Snappy intro. Verse 1. Chorus. Verse 2. Chorus. Maybe a bridge, rarely a key change. Chorus again.
Recycle.  Reuse.  Repeat.
The method works; look at 1989.  Thirteen songs, six singles: all top 20 on Billboard, three of them hit #1.  Song lengths range from 3:13 - 4:10.
Now go back to Red.  It had seven singles out of sixteen tracks. However, the song length ranges from 3:12 - {5:28 minutes}.  There are four songs that are over 4.5 minutes long.
Does this mean that short songs are bad, or the reverse?  No, it's not a measuring stick for quality, but I use it to guess the purpose of the song.  All Too Well was, so I'm told, 10 minutes long initially.  It had to be shortened into it's final form, cutting excess verses, but still coming out with a number of them.  In fact, from looking at the lyrics alone, it's hard to segregate verses from pre-choruses, bridges, and transitional lyrics.

The song is a masterpiece because it tells a story without worrying about how catchy the chorus will be.  The chorus is the heart of the song, but the verses are the rest of the story, and they aren't forgotten when the repeating lyrics come back around.

Honestly, I don't think some of my friends imagined a day when I praised a song by Taylor Swift, but here it is.  You know who you are.

- Grace

My Spirit Animal is a Chicken

Somewhere between the early bird and the night owl on the avian sleep scale is the lowly barnyard hen.  There are no poems about her, no sayings using her sleep schedule as motivation to wake up earlier, or work later into the evening.

The hen isn't up before dawn with the sole intention to chase worms, or staying out after dark to prey on night crawlers. She's too far down on the food chain for that nonsense.

No, the chicken has her own routine:

She wakes up, jumps down from her roost, and eventually makes her way to the nests, where she lays her (almost) daily egg.  The rest of the day she is eating, drinking, being pestered by our one-year-old border collie/heeler mix, scratching the seeds out of my garden, looking for bugs, or whatever else her tiny heart desires.  As the sun goes down, the chicken will make her way back to the hen house along with the rest, and by dark she will be sitting comfortably on her roost.  The next day is like the one before it.

I appreciate the chicken's way of life:
Eat when hungry.
Sleep when it's dark.
Lay an egg most every day.
Sing when happy.
Chase insects because it's fun.
Run from danger.
Let the world know when you're distressed by making obnoxious noise until something is done about it.

I think I've found my spirit fowl.

So, I will take the unspoken advice of the barnyard hen.
I will follow my daily routine because it is useful to me,
and beneficial to the whole,
however simple or repetitive it may seem.

"It is no bad thing to celebrate a simple life." - J.R.R. Tolkien

- Grace

October // Side A

Playlist-making is one of my favorite art forms.  I'll compile them for any event, occasion, season, time of day, mood, or weather.  My friends usually ask me to for music suggestions, so they recommended I share it here.

It's a misty, cool October Day, and all of the changing leaves are under a week of on-and-off rain, but the autumn vibes are still in the air, college football is on our TV, and these songs are all on my fall playlist.
Spotify link: Weekly Mixtape

Landslide by Fleetwood Mac
It's a classic for a reason.  Stevie Nicks is somewhat of an idol of mine, and my reasoning for that can be summed up in the simple elegance of her vocals on this track.  A good song tells a story.  A great song tells a story well.  A work of art uses every note to make the story known, every word and its inflection to show you the story in detail.  From the intro, the piano accompaniment is used to provide movement, the song rising and falling with the repeating melody, giving life to the lyrics about climbing mountains and about being brought down by them.
Text painting is an underutilized tool in modern music, but this song is a great example of its importance.

Suit And Jacket by Judah & The Lion
It's your average screamo, hip-hop song with folk instruments, summarizing the millennial generation's collective abhorrence of being told to "trade their youth for a suit and jacket."  It regrets that life moves quickly, but recognizes that tomorrow isn't promised.  While mourning how many people have exchanged their dreams for practical pursuits, the lyricist is comfortable to stand alone in clinging to the idealistic visions of his youth.

It is a fact that I watched Peter Pan too many times growing up, but this song resonates with me for many of the same reasons that caused me to wear out that VHS tape.

Gone, Gone, Gone, by Phillip Phillips
I judge songs by their percussion, and this one caught my attention the first time I heard it because of its driving beat throughout.  This eventually building towards the lyric "like a drum, my heart never stops beating for you."  This was the first song I heard by the unfortunately-named songwriter, but it wasn't the last.  Who knows, he might show up on another of these posts in the future.

Speed of Sound by Coldplay
You know Viva La Vida.  If you're my parents, that's where your knowledge of Coldplay begins and ends.  This song just sounds like a fall evening to me, the dark skies and the cold nighttime air.
There are times when I choose songs because of their deep, poetic lyrics, but other times I choose them purely for the vibe they create, much like instrumental soundtracks.  This is one of them.

Too Much To Ask by Niall Horan
This is the most recently released song on this week's mixtape.  You've probably heard it on the radio if you listen to any stations of the pop/rock variety.  There are plenty of singer-songwriter ballads in the world, many of which I could live without, but this one pulls me back in with its unique vocals (his Irish accent is more noticeable on this song than his other tracks) and soft electric guitar slides which remind me of one of my favorite artists, John Mayer.
There's an explicit label, but as it exists, I think it's a beautiful song.


I'd love to hear any thoughts you have on these songs, so feel free to drop them in the comments.

- Grace

Apple Products & The Apocalypse

*Thwack*

Another apple falls on my head. 

The season is appropriately named.  

We have two very small trees, each just three years old, which have produced a grand total of approximately eight apples in their short existence.  Maybe down the road my future kids will be able to pick from these trees.

For now, I'll be thankful for neighbors who let me drive over whenever I'm out, hauling away bushel baskets of apples for free so long as I pick them myself.  

Before

If you're looking for "after" you won't find it because I got distracted convincing one of the guys in my family to help me carry it in the house.  I fully support "independent women who don't need no men" but I will also never turn free labor-I mean help-when I can get it.

This peeler is the best invention since the bread slicer.

It peels.  It cores.  It slices.  It's named as such.  It's a magical tool. 

We have two: one from my dad's grandma, one from my mom's grandma.

One works. One I misplaced.  Unfortunately, those are the same.

I found this spiffy, brand-new version of the same gadget in a thrift store.  I bought it because I understand its value.  The store selling it did not, but I didn't feel the need to explain.  

Future Apple Pies

I've been fascinated with canning since I made strawberry rhubarb jam for 4-H in sixth grade.  Now I make it to sell jam at the farmer's market.  At least three times this summer, well-intentioned adults asked me "did your mom make this"?  No, actually, because I, a millennial, not only know how to make food from scratch, but I enjoy doing so.

For the record, mom and I both processed the apples pictured above, Train's Save Me San Francisco album providing background music.  She probably helped me because I told her I'd do the rest of the steps if she'd run the Peeler-Corer-Slicer thingy.  I told you it was a magical tool.

I love canning.

You make food, you seal it in jars, you put it on shelves and use the contents when it suits you. 

It doesn't take up fridge or freezer space.  It's the ultimate in food prep.

If there's a zombie apocalypse in our future, guess who has three varieties of salsa in her pantry? That's correct, I do.  Even if there isn't an apocalypse, you can still have apple pie from your neighborhood orchard in March. 

That's reason enough for me.

 - Grace  

Hallmark Scripts & Coffeeshop Chats

Last weekend, I ventured to the middle of somewhere in Nebraska to visit my best friend, who doubles as my coffee date.  We had talked for weeks about the places we'd visit.

The chain stores and the originals.

The barista with purple hair who didn't miss a beat if you wanted a drink off the menu, but with seven alterations from the normal recipe.

The one where you couldn't order to-go because the vanilla bean lattes are better in real mugs. 

The newest location for a town favorite. 

The list was long, but we pride ourselves on drinking coffee like Gilmore Girls when we're together. 

It's been ten days, and while I miss most everything about that visit, the coffeeshop conversations play back in my memory.

Every story has three things: a main character, a best friend, and coffee. 

Oh, wait, that's just every Hallmark film. 

Regardless, those are the trinity of their script-writing, and I can see why.

It's the only real plot that Hallmark uses.

Two friends sit down with giant, steaming mugs of coffee.

Forget the beauty-&-brains friendship common of storytelling, these are all about person with a problem and her counselor.

The main character is the one who begins the movie single and glasses-wearing, or with a guy who wears a suit.  Nearly seventy-five percent of the way through the movie, she will ditch either the glasses or the CEO, depending on which one she starts with, and end up with the small business owner/single dad/guy she liked in high school, you get the picture

But how, HOW does she make the life-altering decision to break off an engagement with a future billionaire or switch to contacts permanently? 

Her counselor friend helps her decide over coffee.  Without these conversations, the stories would never climax.  So, the coffee scenes in Hallmark movies will continue.  They will change settings, problems, and maybe even have peppermint hot chocolate in-season, but they will be there.  

We will be here to mock them while enjoying our beverages and discussing our own life issues.

~~~~~

But these photos aren't from my road trip through no-man's land; they're from my lone trip to our local coffeeshop.

It's a relatively new place on the corner of main street in a gorgeous, renovated brick building.  To be honest, it looks straight out of a movie.  I normally grab my coffee while I'm running errands or something and don't stick around.

This past Saturday, though, it rained.  To be clear, it had rained for four days, and I can only take so much of my house before I lose it, so I grabbed a book and went to the coffeeshop. 

It was actually fairly dead, the only sound apart from the owner's shoes being the door as the previous lone customer left, and the ISU vs. OU game playing on the the big screen.  Thus, the quiet, hipster coffee shop mood you've envisioned dies, and is replaced with more realistic, small town Iowa vibes.

I traded my six-month regular order, an iced english toffee white mocha, for something more worthy of the dreary, fall weather: an iced salted caramel white mocha.  I'm a creature of habit.  

And so I spent part of my afternoon reading a book on my list entitled: Books I Should've Read Growing Up, But Never Did.  Yes, I plan to read them all.  Yes, I'd love to discuss them afterwards.  Yes, if you spoil something for me, I will hate you forever.

Coffeeshops will continue to be beautiful places to me.

With friends or in solitude.

In big cities or small towns.

Rain or shine.

Hot or iced. 

- Grace

A Berry Out of Its Element

Strawberry Sweet Rolls with Cream Cheese Frosting

A baking post, huh?

Will it be *spins the wheel of fall desserts*
1) Pumpkin Spice
2) Caramel Apple
3) Apple Spice
4) Pumpkin Caramel
5) Pecan-whatever-Starbucks-invented
6) Peppermint from someone far too gung-ho for Christmas this early in the year

Nope.

Food is the one thing for which I tend to follow the seasons.  Late spring tastes like fresh peas and new potatoes.  June is for rhubarb, summer is for berries, fall is for chili and cinnamon rolls, and the cycle continues.  The rhythm of the foods in my garden is as regular as the days on our family calendar.  But then there are days when you look at the gloomy, we've-had-rain-for-three-days weather, and you think "I want food that doesn't make me wish humans hibernated."

For everything, there is a season, and for strawberries, it is not October, but yesterday, I didn't care.

This past week, one of my dear friends gifted me this marble board.  It's without a doubt the coolest kitchen item I've ever used.  If I had an espresso maker, this might be a more difficult statement to make, but as it is, it's the coolest.

I love dough.  If I didn't, I wouldn't make pies for the farmer's market all summer, so this is fairly obvious.  It's one of my great joys in life and the biggest wall between me and eating paleo, or keto, or any of those diets which are probably fantastic for overall health.  I choose joy.  I choose white flour pastries.

None of the recipes I found on Pinterest really fit what I was looking for, because canned strawberry pie filling does not float my goat.
I took strawberry pie and cinnamon roll recipes from two friends and combined parts of each into one of my proudest original creations.

Ah, the difficulties of kitchens without natural lighting.

Strawberry Sweet Rolls with Cream Cheese Frosting

{INGREDIENTS}

Sweet Roll Dough:
1 C warm milk (105-115 degrees F)
1/3 C butter, melted
2 eggs
4.5 tsp yeast
4.5 C white flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 C white sugar

Strawberry Filling:
1/2 C white sugar
1.5 TBSP cornstarch
1/2 C water
1 C strawberries, fresh or frozen, hulled

Cream Cheese Frosting:
4 oz cream cheese, softened
1/4 C butter, softened
1.5 C powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla

{DIRECTIONS}

Option 1: Place all dough ingredients in a bread machine on the "dough" cycle (skip to step #6).

Option 2:

1) By hand, or in a mixer with a dough hook, stir together the milk, butter, half the flour, yeast, salt, and white sugar

2) Mix in the eggs.

3) Add the remaining flour, and stir to combine.

4) If you're using a mixer, allow it to mix for 4-6 minutes.

If you're making this dough by hand, you may have to dump it onto a counter (or snazzy marble board) to incorporate all of the flour.  Knead by hand 4-6 minutes.  

5) Allow to sit, covered, for 10 minutes. 

6) Stir together sugar and cornstarch in a small saucepan.  Add water and strawberries, and stir.  

7) While cooking over medium heat, crush berries with a potato masher. 

8) Bring to a boil, and then lower temperature and cook for two minutes, stirring often, until thick and translucent.  

9) Roll out dough into large rectangle, roughly 20 in. by 16 in. 

10) Spread strawberry filling thinly, leaving at least 3/4" of each long wise uncovered.  You may have extra, but too much filling makes it impossible to roll them up.  It's okay, we'll get to the leftovers later.

11) Roll up, starting at one of the long sides. Pinch seam closed.  

12) Slice using thread or a knife, into 12, 18, or 24 rolls depending on preferred size.  

13) Place in 2 buttered 9 x 13 pans, cover with towels, and allow to rise for one hour.  I preheat my oven and let them sit on the back of the stove where it is very warm. 

14) Bake at 375 degrees for 17-20 minutes or until lightly browned. DO NOT OVERBAKE. 

15) Cream all frosting ingredients together and spread onto cooled rolls. 

Have fun with your baking adventures, friends.
May they be delicious, and as in-season as you wish them to be.

- Grace