Changes in latitude, changes in attitude . . .

Happy, happy Friday morning to ya, sweet friends and readers!

Two BIG things:

1) Changes in latitude - Today is the day we pick up the keys to our First! Ever! House! Nine years of apartment living have been, well, okay. God has provided exactly what we needed at exactly the right time. But from the day we stepped off the plane from our honeymoon and drove home to our Married Student Housing hovel apartment, I've had a burning desire and unceasing ache in my soul to have a little house to come home to. We are literally changing our latitude by a few clicks on the compass as our move will take us from the very south edge of our little Hill Country town all the way up to the north edge. I am so excited for a new neighborhood! You can be sure there will be more on this later . . .

2) Changes in attitude - SO! What do you think of SortaCrunchy's new look?! I am so thrilled by Jules's work! The most gorgeous surprise in all of this was that I had told her that my favorite color is purple, but I wasn't sure how that could fit into the overall vision I had for SortaCrunchy. Imagine my delight in how she found a way to make it work perfectly!! Thank you, thank you again, Jules. And for all my blogarina friends who are thinkin' about a makeover of your own, I cannot say enough good things about working with Jules!

Hand in hand with the new look here will be some changes to content. For a long time, I tried to focus my posts on parenting issues - natural parenting, specifically. At this point, however, I feel I am not being true to the complete picture of my sortacrunchy self because I have refrained from incorporating my spiritual beliefs in my writing. I know it's taking a slight risk because I know that several (many?) of my readers differ from me in spiritual backgrounds and beliefs, and so I hope I don't drive anyone away with this new direction. My overall vision is to allow this blog to represent the intersection between a faith in Christ (and what that looks like lived out) and choosing natural living as part of life on this planet. I am a little scared but mostly a lot excited to see how this will play out.

Thanks for being such amazing readers and friends. Stay tuned!

Some of the best

The plan today was to post a Thursday Thirteen listing all the reasons I am looking forward to my thirties (the big 3-0 is on Saturday!). Or some such nonsense along those lines. But then this morning I read an entry from Megan over at The Velveteen Mind that stopped me in my tracks.

If you have just a few minutes, go grab a cup of coffee or pour some sweet tea over ice and sit yourself down. This is some of the best personal writing I have read in a while. Delicate in its subtlety, powerful in its truth. So beautiful, it will make your heart ache . . . Victor Vito.

(sorta) Wordless Wednesday

Love makes little things grow . . .

Pardon me while I freak out

A few things on my Freak Out list:

Freak Out Number One - Twelve weeks from today, we are scheduled to welcome Little Sister into our little family. Twelve weeks, ya'll! Do you know how not-really-all-that-long that is?! Do you know how utterly unprepared I am?

Freak Out Number Two - This is a really great, really fun kind of freak out. I am working with Jules of Everyday Mommy (and Everyday Design) to bring a brand new look to SortaCrunchy! We had a great chat yesterday about the plans, and I am so thrilled that she and I are on the same page. I absolutely cannot wait to see how it all comes together!!
(In case you were wondering, she is behind the brilliant designs at Rocks in My Dryer, Velveteen Mind, Chili Tried, and other lovelies!!!) A very, very good freak out, indeed.

Freak Out Number Three - (Okay, this really isn't a freak out at all. I just find lists of three to be more complete than lists of two.) Just wanted to be able to say that nine years ago today, on a gorgeous Oklahoma summer day, within the walls of my hometown church, surrounded by family and friends, The Coach and I became husband and wife. (And I mean literally surrounded . . . I had eight bridesmaids, ya'll. EIGHT. The Coach had to do a little creative thinking to come up with an equal number of groomsmen.) Happy anniversary to my hubby (who already beat me to the anniversary greeting by texting me before he went to bed last night). I cannot wait to see what the next nine years hold in store for us.

Father's Day Giveaway!

Can you handle one more post from me today? I hope so, because by the end of this week, I am sure to be knee deep in boxes and soaked with sweat . . . not a pretty place from which to write.

I wanted to let everyone know that Jules at Everyday Mommy is honoring both daddies and mamas of boys with a really neat Father's Day Giveaway!! I've already emailed a heads-up on this giveaway to my mama friends here in town who are raising up some amazing young men, but I want to make sure my online community sees this, too. Meghan! Colleen! Karen! Lori! Keara! Amanda! Mandy, Devon, Yan, Nichole, Sara, Lauren . . . and anyone else I left out -- this means you! I have heard stories of your wild boys and been fortunate enough to actually meet a few of them. I so hope you will take a minute to write up something for the masses to read and enjoy. And hey - you just might win what looks to be a spectacular book!

The Blogging Story of SortaCrunchy

Check me out, ya'll! I am on a roll. Three posts in one day! Try to contain yourselves. (Oh, don't worry. I am still getting plenty done on The Great Purge and Pack of 2007. But a mama's gotta take a break, especially when she is besieged by painless but plentiful Braxton Hicks contractions.)

So many of my fave bloggers are participating in Chilihead's Blogging Story Carnival that I just had to add my little story to the fray. Here goes!

How did you start blogging?
I am looking back at my first post and remembering that originally I just wanted a place in which I could write. I am a frustrated, lazy writer, and I think at the time I thought if only I had a space to write, oh surely the magic would just flow forth from my fingers.

I chose Blogger because I am big, fat HTML dummy and even before the New! Improved! Blogger! was rolled out, it was really easy to work with.

Did you intend to be a blog w/a big following? If so, how did you go about it?
Not at all. I don't think I even told anyone about it for months. I think my readership is about ten or twelve people at any given time, but having a big readership is not a goal for me. The handful of readers who do read faithfully are mostly all a part of my mommy boards. I do put my blog address in my signatures on the various and sundry message boards I post on . . . perhaps in hopes of picking up a few readers here and there? At this point, it's not a priority.

What do you hope to achieve or accomplish with your blog? Have you been successful? If not, do you have a plan to achieve those goals?
Such a pivotal question for me right now!

Originally, I just wanted to have an outlet to write and place where I could blather on about how much I love to practice natural family living. But in the past few weeks, I have given much thought to taking SortaCrunchy in a new direction.

So I think I have been successful in doing lots of babbling without any direction or real purpose; however, I am going to need a more concrete, well-thought-out plan to see my new vision for SortaCrunchy actually take shape and come to life.

Has the focus of your blog changed since you started blogging? How?
Not too much, for now. When I got pregnant, I obviously added in more preggo talk than I had expected to, but I've tried to stick to the parenting focus.

Again, I am at a point where I want and need a change of focus and direction . . . just not sure of what that will look like.

What do you know now that you wish you'd known when you started?
One of the most fun and rewarding ways to bring traffic to your blog is to read other blogs and leave comments. Even if that person only stops by once, it's still fun to know someone is reading your posts! And like I said, it's really rewarding to allow yourself to build little friendships in the blogging community. Quite warm and fuzzy.

Do you make money with your blog?
No. I don't understand how all that blogads stuff works and it kind of gets me overstimulated just thinking about it. So no.

Does your immediate or extended family know about your blog? If so, do they read it? If not, why?
My sister and husband both know I have a blog, but I am confident neither has read it. I have sent them the URL, but I think they were probably both bored to tears. Someday I may share the blog with my sister-in-law, but I don't think anyone else would be too terribly interested.

What two pieces of advice would you give to a new blogger?
As I said above, you will find all sorts of fun, thoughtful, witty, and inspiring blogs out there when you just click around. Read all you can and leave comments!

And try to set a reasonable goal for how much you will write. I try to blog at least once a week, but then there are days like today when I can get three posts in! For right now, I don't think daily entries is a workable goal for me - but it's something to work up to. Having a minimum posting goal really helped me give the ol' blog at least a little TLC every week.

Blogging advice, The Momma Code, and a GIVEAWAY!

DONE AND DONE!

Somehow, amazingly, I have finally gotten caught up on my blog reading. Thank you, dear Google Reader, for allowing me to skim thoughtfully read and reflect upon all sorts of wonderful posts from the vast array of feeds you deliver so faithfully to me everyday. And WHEW! I feel a great burden has been lifted now that I am caught up. I didn't get to comment as much as I would like to, but please know I have read.

Anyway, a couple of posts stuck out to me as I was reading from the last week:

1) I hope each and every one of you have, by now, added Scribbit to your feeds because she is just the coolest. Last week she published Ten Housekeeping Tips for Your Blog. Definitely check this out! Even if you don't feel you want to or can incorporate everything she suggests right now, this article still offers some great direction and advice!

2) Another treasure from last week was Shannon's republication of The Momma Code. Very much worth the read! Such truth.

3) Finally, SO EXCITED to tell you about Stephanie's latest giveaway!! A $75 gift certificate to MamaKanga!!! Don't ya just love how easy (and generous!) Stephanie's giveaways are?

Now, if the babywearing gods smile gently upon me and I should somehow win this giveaway, oh what would I buy? I have to say I am torn. For wearing Little Sister, I have a trusty pouch and several lovely ring slings. I am thinking with $75 to spend, I would want to go with a Mei Tai. Or maybe a wrap. No, definitely a Mei Tai. But I hear such great things about The Gypsy Mama wrap! But I have never tried wrapping before, and I feel a little intimidated. But look how lovely! Ahhhhhh, the choices. So fun to shop and drool.


So those are my highlights from the week. If I can possibly fit it in, I am hoping to participate in Chilihead's Blogging Story carnival. Such fun to read everyone's blogging stories!

Have ya'll made that chocolate cake yet? Let me know when you do.

No such thing as a bad chocolate cake

I have so enjoyed all the comments on my SortaWhat, Part Two post. It's really surprising to me just how many mamas lean the "sorta crunchy" way . . . we just don't talk about it. I would love to see those conversations taking place on playgrounds and over coffee instead of being limited to LLL meetings and health food stores.

Anyway, speaking of health food . . . I've got a little recipe to share with you. I realize most everyone is doing their Meal Plan Monday for the week. We are still in packing/moving limbo, so my meal plan consists of going through the freezer and pantry and inventing meals out of what I find inside so we can transport as little food as possible to the new hacienda. But over the weekend, the need to bake consumed me once again, and I turned to this scrumptious recipe I had re-discovered last week.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Cake
(from the Taste of Home 2003 recipe collection; recipe submitted by Elaine Medeiros of Wamego, Kansas)

2-1/4 c. all-purpose flour
1-1/2 c. sugar
1/3 c. baking cocoa
1/2 t. salt

1-1/2 c. water
1/2 c. vegetable oil
4-1/2 t. white vinegar
1-1/2 t. vanilla extract

Peanut butter batter:
4 oz cream cheese, softened
1/4 c. creamy peanut butter
1/3 c. plus 1 T sugar, divided
1 egg
1/8 t. salt
1/2 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 c. chopped pecans

In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Stir in water, oil, vinegar and vanilla, mix well. Pour into greased 13x2x9 baking pan.

In a mixing bowl, beat cream cheese, peanut butter, 1/3 c. sugar, egg, and salt until smooth. Stir in chocolate chips. Drop by tablespoons over cake batter; cut through batter with a knife to swirl the peanut butter mixture. Sprinkle with pecans and remaining sugar.

Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack before cutting. Refrigerate leftovers.


What? That doesn't sound like health food, you say? Au contraire, my friends. It has peanut butter in it and peanuts are an excellent source of protein, ya know. And did you see that it has vegetable oil? Oh, it is surely health food indeed. If nothing else, it's great mental health food, particularly if you are self-medicating from the stress of a move coupled with the tireless demands of an already-needy-two-year-old who is teething those awful molars.

(As the cake finished cooling on the rack, I discovered The Coach hunkered over the pan in the kitchen - in the dark. He stopped forking cake in his mouth long enough to say, "this is awful . . . you probably don't want to eat any of it. Don't worry about it . . . I'll take care of it . . .")

SortaWhat? Part Two

Wow, I will tell you what . . . There is nothing like being out of town for the better part of a week to allow a mama to see how much she does around the house on a daily basis! D and I got home Friday night and I am just now climbing out from under the piles of laundry and dust bunnies.

(And on that note, I am so terribly, TERRIBLY behind on my blog reading. Reading the blogs of both my friends and the amazing women whom I have "met" in the blogosphere is such an important part of my day. I am suffering from tremendous blogger guilt and frustration in not being able to read and comment as much as I would like to, and Google Reader is just taunting me by reminding me I have 100+ posts to peruse! Anyway, soon and very soon I will be back in the swing of things.)

So to continue the conversation on why I choose to identify myself as "sort of" crunchy (yep, Katherine, as in granola-y . . . mmmmmmm, granola . . .), I am just going to outline the natural family living (NFL for short, but not the kind of NFL your man wants you to appreciate) practices that are an important part of my life.

Natural Family Living Philosophies/Beliefs I practice:

* child-led weaning
I used to say "extended breastfeeding," but I have taken a step away from that term for now. Breastfeeding advocacy is very important to me, but at the same time, I want to emphasize that I believe in a mutual weaning process. I have friends online and in my community whose babies simply would have nothing more to do with the breast after nine months or six months or some age earlier than a year old. In these cases, the breastfeeding mother would have loved to have practiced "extended breastfeeding" (general term for breastfeeding past a year), but saw the need to balance her desire to breastfeed with her desire to respect and follow her baby's desires.

I found that Kellymom was a great place to start in researching common questions and concerns regarding breastfeeding past infancy.

* cloth diapering
I have a ton of posts about cloth diapering which you could easily access through my Blogger tags. When it comes down to it, I love cloth diapering because I think it is best for the environment, best for baby's skin, and definitely best in overall cuteness. :)

* babywearing
Although that particular "label" may be new to some, the art of wearing a baby is as old as time. You've no doubt seen mainstream versions of babywearing in the form of Baby Bjorn and New Native carriers, but those carriers are just the very tippy-top of the babywearing iceberg.

I had toyed with idea of buying a carrier before D was born; I had no idea the high-needs baby about to be delivered to me would make it a necessity rather than luxury to have some kind of device by which to keep her on me for the majority of the day. I have worn D in ring slings, pouch slings, Mei Teis (Asian Baby Carriers), and my personal favorite for toddlerhood - the Ergo.

TheBabywearer.Com offers a vast array of babywearing information. These articles say it all much better than I ever could!

* emphasis on whole foods (organic when possible)
I feel guilty even mentioning this because pregnancy triggers within me non-stop cravings for junk! and sugar! and junk! and comfort foods! and junk!

But in my normal, non-pregnant life, I try to make the healthiest cooking and eating choices available to me and my family. Last summer, The Coach and I went vegetarian for a while and really enjoyed the change. D is a born vegetarian (seriously, the only meat the child will eat is turkey lunch meat and corn dogs from Sonic *red-face*). We love to shop the local farmers' market and are thankful we don't live near enough to a Whole Foods Market to shop there because we manage to spend astronomical amounts of money on each visit to that holy mecca.

* shared sleep (co-sleeping)
EDITED - It wasn't until I went upstairs to lay down with D for a nap that I remembered that we also practice shared sleep!
We never intended to be co-sleepers, but again, it was one of those things that just sort of happened. Now I cannot wait for Little Sister to be here so we can snuggle a wee one between us in bed again. Big Sister sleeps in her crib full-time now (well, with the rare exception - like last night when a bad dream awakened her and her daddy said, "Just let her sleep with us . . ."), so I miss that snuggle time at night.

The Sears site has some great information (including VERY important safety tips) on co-sleeping.

* Attachment Parenting
One need not practice NFL in order to practice Attachment Parenting, but by and large, the same parents who are drawn to natural living also find they connect with the Attachment Parenting philosophy. I will not try to reinvent the wheel here on what AP is. A great deal of information is available at askdrsears.com including What Attachment Parenting Is and What It Is Not. Some time ago, I also shared how it came to be that Attachment Parenting chose me.

Natural Family Living Philosophies/Beliefs I Do Not Practice (or Why I Am Not One Hundred Percent Crunchy)

At this point in time, we believe we are led to send our children to public schools. There are many in the NFL community who choose to homeschool for a variety of reasons. The Coach and I feel a special call to have our children in public schools, but we are open to whatever God leads us to do at any given time for any of our children.

Also at this time, if we are blessed with a son, we will choose to have him circumcised. This is very unusual in the NFL community as a whole, but it is an issue about which The Coach holds strong feelings and I am at peace in following his leadership in this area.

D has been vaccinated on schedule. You will find many families who practice natural living choose not to vaccinate their children. After much discussion and thoughtful consideration, we feel vaccinating is a good choice for us at this time. The two of us are currently in negotiations over whether or not Little Sister will be vaxed on schedule. I would like to follow a delayed vax schedule, but that is not set in stone yet.

Finally, as I have recently talked about, I am choosing an elective repeat c-section for Little Sister's delivery. As much as I fully support and strongly believe in the beauty and power of a natural vaginal delivery, there are factors that complicate and muddy my situation that have turned what could be a black-and-white issue into a big gray area for me.


So there ya have it! A fairly concise picture of me straddling the fence between crunchy and mainstream. Thankfully I am not posting an actual picture of me straddling anything! My big ol' pregnant self does not need to be shown straddling anything at this moment in time.

That reminds me, I think I owe ya'll a belly shot . . . no fences. I promise.

SortaWhat? A little insight . . .

Welcome to SortaCrunchy! If you are curious about the name of this blog, you aren't the only one! Allow me to share with you the story behind the name, as well as the vision I have for my home here at SortaCrunchy.

(Much of what I am going to share comes from two posts - SortaWhat? and SortaWhat? Part Two.)

Why on earth would someone name her blog SortaCrunchy?

When I first started this blog, I had chosen "sortacrunchy" as my screenname on a private mommy board on which I am very active. I didn't take too much time back then to explain why I had chosen that name because all of my friends on that message board know that I really am pretty much a sort of crunchy kind of mama. And because to this day my message board friends comprise about 98.9% of my readership, I have been sort of lackadaisical in taking the time to share with any other readers who have clicked over here what makes me a sortacrunchy kind of lady.

Here's an excerpt from one of my very first posts that shares a snippet of background:

In this blog, I am hoping to be able to share some information on natural parenting practices that I have taken up in the past 18 months. Some of the NP stuff I am into include cloth diapering, babywearing, and extended breastfeeding. I hope to also share information on circumcision, vaccinations, homeschooling (and unschooling) and other topics relevant to NP.

So, what makes me "sorta" crunchy?

Natural Family Living Philosophies/Beliefs I practice:

* child-led weaning
I used to say "extended breastfeeding," but I have taken a step away from that term for now. Breastfeeding advocacy is very important to me, but at the same time, I want to emphasize that I believe in a mutual weaning process. I have friends online and in my community whose babies simply would have nothing more to do with the breast after nine months or six months or some age earlier than a year old. In these cases, the breastfeeding mother would have loved to have practiced "extended breastfeeding" (general term for breastfeeding past a year), but saw the need to balance her desire to breastfeed with her desire to respect and follow her baby's desires.

I found that Kellymom was a great place to start in researching common questions and concerns regarding breastfeeding past infancy.

* cloth diapering
I have a ton of posts about cloth diapering which you could easily access through my Blogger tags. When it comes down to it, I love cloth diapering because I think it is best for the environment, best for baby's skin, and definitely best in overall cuteness. :)

* babywearing
Although that particular label may be new to some, the art of wearing a baby is as old as time. You've no doubt seen mainstream versions of babywearing in the form of Baby Bjorn and New Native carriers, but those carriers are just the very tippy-top of the babywearing iceberg.

I had toyed with idea of buying a carrier before D was born; I had no idea the high-needs baby about to be delivered to me would make it a necessity rather than luxury to have some kind of device by which to keep her on me for the majority of the day. I have worn D in ring slings, pouch slings, Mei Teis (Asian Baby Carriers), and my personal favorite for toddlerhood - the Ergo.

TheBabywearer.Com offers a vast array of babywearing information. These articles say it all much better than I ever could!

* emphasis on whole foods (organic when possible)
I feel guilty even mentioning this because pregnancy triggers within me non-stop cravings for junk! and sugar! and junk! and comfort foods! and junk!

But in my normal, non-pregnant life, I try to make the healthiest cooking and eating choices available to me and my family. Last summer, The Coach and I went vegetarian for a while and really enjoyed the change. D is a born vegetarian (seriously, the only meat the child will eat is turkey lunch meat and corn dogs from Sonic *red-face*). We love to shop the local farmers' market and are thankful we don't live near enough to a Whole Foods Market to shop there because we manage to spend astronomical amounts of money on each visit to that holy mecca.

* shared sleep (co-sleeping)
We never intended to be co-sleepers, but again, it was one of those things that just sort of happened. Now I cannot wait for Little Sister to be here so we can snuggle a wee one between us in bed again. Big Sister sleeps in her crib full-time now (well, with the rare exception - like last night when a bad dream awakened her and her daddy said, "Just let her sleep with us . . ."), so I miss that snuggle time at night.

The Sears site has some great information (including VERY important safety tips) on co-sleeping.

* Attachment Parenting
One need not practice NFL in order to practice Attachment Parenting, but by and large, the same parents who are drawn to natural living also find they connect with the Attachment Parenting philosophy. I will not try to reinvent the wheel here on what AP is. A great deal of information is available at askdrsears.com including What Attachment Parenting Is and What It Is Not. Some time ago, I also shared how it came to be that Attachment Parenting chose me.

Natural Family Living Philosophies/Beliefs I Do Not Practice (or Why I Am Not One Hundred Percent Crunchy)

At this point in time, we believe we are led to send our children to public schools. There are many in the NFL community who choose to homeschool for a variety of reasons. The Coach and I feel a special call to have our children in public schools, but we are open to whatever God leads us to do at any given time for any of our children.

Also at this time, if we are blessed with a son, we will choose to have him circumcised. This is very unusual in the NFL community as a whole, but it is an issue about which The Coach holds strong feelings and I am at peace in following his leadership in this area.

D has been vaccinated on schedule. You will find many families who practice natural living choose not to vaccinate their children. After much discussion and thoughtful consideration, we feel vaccinating is a good choice for us at this time. The two of us are currently in negotiations over whether or not Little Sister will be vaxed on schedule. I would like to follow a delayed vax schedule, but that is not set in stone yet.

Finally, as I have recently talked about, I am choosing an elective repeat c-section for Little Sister's delivery. As much as I fully support and strongly believe in the beauty and power of a natural vaginal delivery, there are factors that complicate and muddy my situation that have turned what could be a black-and-white issue into a big gray area for me.


So there ya have it! The "why on earth" behind SortaCrunchy!

Vision for the future of SortaCrunchy
For the first eighteen months of this blog, I didn't include many thoughts that are reflective of my spiritual beliefs. This began to feel unnatural and unauthentic to me because my faith in Christ is so pivotal to why I live the way I do. The simplest way I can think to state my vision for SortaCrunchy is that I would like for it to represent the intersection between Christian living/parenting and natural family living. Thank you for joining me on this journey. Ya'll are welcome back anytime!

SortaWhat?

Over at Raising Five today, Katherine continued the conversation about commenting on blogs. I linked to her previous post about Checking the Box, but she has a further insight I hope all my new-to-bloggin' friends will check out as well!

So within her post, Katherine makes mention of checking out blogs based on unique blog titles, and wonders "why on earth someone would name their blog 'SortaCrunchy' "? hee hee hee. Great question!

One of my big plans for blogging is to play around and fix this place up so it's more user/reader-friendly. I have even thought about packing up and moving to WordPress, but I just can't quite commit yet. Anyway, if I ever do get around to gettin fixed up, one thing I want to include is a little background on why SortaCrunchy . . .

When I first started this blog, I had chosen "sortacrunchy" as my screenname on a private mommy board on which I am very active. I didn't take too much time back then to explain why I had chosen that name because all of my friends on that message board know that I really am pretty much a sort of crunchy kind of mama. And because to this day my message board friends comprise about 98.9% of my readership, I have been sort of lackadaisical in taking the time to share with any other readers who have clicked over here what makes me a sortacrunchy kind of lady.

D and I are headed out of town at this very moment, so I don't have the time to go into as much detail as I had hoped to (when I started this entry three hours ago!). Here's an excerpt from one of my very first posts that shares a snippet of background:

In this blog, I am hoping to be able to share some information on natural parenting practices that I have taken up in the past 18 months. Some of the NP stuff I am into include cloth diapering, babywearing, and extended breastfeeding. I hope to also share information on circumcision, vaccinations, homeschooling (and unschooling) and other topics relevant to NP.

In my next entry (whenever that might be! hopefully later this week) I want to go into this a little further. But if anyone should happen to click over from Raising Five today, I hope this will serve as a brief explanation as to why on earth . . . :)

"Dear Children" Group Writing Project!

Just a heads-up for all my writing mama friends . . .

Very Cool Jordan over at MamaBlogga is hosting a fantastic Group Writing Project this week. Here is what you need to know. I am so hoping to put together an entry, and I really can't wait to see what everyone comes up with!

Amongst my little circle of friends, there are some fabulously talented writing mamas. Girls, I expect to see your entry there!

Happy writing everyone. :)

Pregnant Lady Bakes

No menu plan this week . . . and maybe not for a few weeks. The month of June will be devoted to an in-town move for the SortaCrunchy household, so things are going to be a little bit crazy. I found some great tips and tricks from Laura at Organizing Junkie that I fully intend to use!

Anyway, last Friday night I found myself overcome with the urge to BAKE! The Coach loves peanut butter cookies (and there literally does not exist a cookie that I don't love) so I decided to whip some up. I searched through my wildly unorganized recipe files and simply could not find the peanut butter cookie recipe I usually use.

(This particular recipe was given to me by my mother-in-law years and years ago when The Coach and I were newlyweds and I baked up some cookies for my darling groom for the first time. Hard as rocks. And just about as tasty. He lovingly suggested that perhaps I should "call Mom and ask for her recipe." Once I finished licking my wounds, I made her recipe and they were really good!)

But alas, that recipe is currently Missing In Action, so I did what every super mod bakerina does in such a crisis . . . I googled "best peanut butter cookie recipe!" And I discovered this gem of a recipe that The Coach has not only requested become our permanent house recipe for peanut butter cookies, he also wants me to send the recipe to his mother!! Love it.

Anyway, these are really, really fabulous. We both could not stop eating them. They are gone now, nothing but some peanut-y crumbs as trace evidence of their existence. I am going to post the recipe as it was written, with my notes to the side.

2.5 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 lb. (2 sticks) salted butter (I never have salted butter on hand, so I used two sticks unsalted and added 3/8 tsp of salt to the recipe)
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup crunchy peanut butter at room temp
2 large eggs
2 tsps. vanilla extract (I am lucky enough to be able to keep Mexican vanilla on hand. Oh dear LORD that is some powerful stuff.)
1 cup roasted salted peanuts

Preheat oven to 350. Grind peanuts in food processor until they resemble bread crumbs, about 14 pulses; set aside. Line two large cookie sheets with parchment paper. (I don't have any parchment paper - shame on me! not a real baker, I suppose - but I baked these on my nonstick cookie sheets and they came out fine)

Whisk flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in medium bowl; set aside.

Beat butter until creamy. Add sugars; beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes, scraping down bowl as necessary. Beat in peanut butter until fully incorporated and then eggs, one at a time, then vanilla. Gently stir dry ingredients into peanut butter mixture. Add ground peanuts; stir gently until just incorporated.

Scoop into balls with about 1.5 Tbsps. dough per scoop and drop onto parchment about 2 inches apart. Press criss-cross design into the top of each ball using a fork dipped in cold water. (I, of course, added the requisite sprinkling of sugar to the top of each cookie)

Bake 10-12 mins until cookies are puffed and slightly brown along edges but not on top. Cookies will not look fully baked! Cool on sheet until set, about 5 minutes; transfer to wire rack to cool completely. The ground peanuts add a lot of flavor and surprisingly, do not add grittiness. I don't like peanuts in cookies as a rule, and I don't like crunchy peanut butter, but I love these cookies. When my mom makes them, she likes to make a glaze of powdered sugar with a little milk and a small amount of creamy peanut butter and drizzle it over the finished cooled cookies.
(I followed her baking instructions and it took about 10.5 minutes for them to reach perfection in my oven. I also didn't make the glaze, but that sounds delish, too!)

Again, these are so, so good. Enjoy!

On comments and email

Something has been puzzling me. Well, a lot of things puzzle me, but the solution to this particular puzzle may be enlightening to some of my friends and readers.

Two of the bloggers I so enjoy reading - Michelle at Scribbit and Katherine at Raising Five do a spectacular job of sending a quick email to me when I leave a comment for them. I love it! It makes me feel really connected to them and their writing and it definitely inspires me to stay tuned in to what they have to say.

No amount of head-scratching and Blogger searching turned up an answer to my question of "how are these ladies doing this?" so I just up and asked them both. Both had the same reply, but I am notoriously awful at explaining things, so I am going to direct you to Katherine's post on the topic - Comment Mystery Solved - and let you read for yourselves. Read the comments, too, as they have some extra insights.

Thanks to Michelle and Katherine both for taking the time to solve this mystery for me.

And gentle readers, if you would like to hear back from me after having taken a little time to leave me a comment, then make sure you have your "show my email address" box checked, too!

Super! Cool! Contest!

Oh, friends. This is exciting!

First of all, thanks to AnnaLiza at Ventanahoos Candid, I have had the joy of discovering yet another amazing and super cool blog. And this blog mistress is having a very cool, very fun contest - but it ends Friday morning at 9 CST, so hurry, my friends! Hurry over Adventures in Babywearing to enter her giveaway to Mason & Matisse! Since we are having a little baby boom in my online community, I know I don't have to twist anyone's arm to browse the hip and chic collections Mason & Matisse carries . . . and while you are there, check out this toddler bedding! Rad, right?

But, so yeah - how I have not stumbled across Adventures in Babywearing before tonight?! Although I don't write about it nearly enough here, babywearing is a serious passion of mine. So looking forward to reading more from this cool mama. Ahhhhhh, yes. Babywearing. That reminds me. I've got some serious shopping to do . . .