Hesitant, Hopeful

It's been absolutely beautiful here lately. Rather than suffering triple digit heat, its been in the 80s the last few days. Today, it only made it to 70 degrees and it has been raining all day. It's been a long time since it did that. I'm feeling a little bit down again, but I'm trying to soldier on--my Mexican chocolate coffee with caramel Bailey's is helping, if I'm being honest.

But, the fact that we're having an early autumn here is making me feel a bit lighter. You know, I say that now, but it's probably going to go back to sweltering before fall really, truly arrives. For now, I'm choosing to believe it'll stay nice. The weather is innocent until proven guilty. Besides, autumn won't technically arrive anywhere for two more days, since the autumn equinox isn't until September 22 this year.

That said, in an effort to embrace the lovely weather, I decided to ring in the autumn season, which happens to be my favorite. Screw waiting until it's really fall. And, there's no better way to do that than baking. Even if baking gets me into trouble with my scale, which scolds me by suggesting that I may have gained a few (*cough*) extra pounds this year. But, screw the extra pounds too, that can of pumpkin puree has been mocking me for too long. It was time I whipped it into something edible and I saw this recipe on Facebook... who doesn't bake recipes on the word of Facebook people? So, I tried it.

Delicious.


It's one of those two recipe cakes. It called for yellow cake, but I used white because that's what I had, and a 15 oz. can of pumpkin. It makes an 8x8 cake, and it should have been cooked longer than the 28 minutes the recipe called for, but it came out really well. Even Matt liked it and he doesn't like pumpkin, at all. Though I think it was the caramel apple glaze he liked the most (1 1/2 c. powdered sugar, 3 TBSP. apple cider, 3/4 tsp. pumpkin pie spice, 1 tsp. caramel extract). So it was a hit and it made me feel like I was celebrating the approaching season. Wich, in turn, made me feel a bit less gloomy.

Now that I've baked something seasonal, I want to bake more seasonal goodies, which isn't necessarily a good thing since my clothes seem to be shrinking... eh hem, yeah, that's it. But, I'll probably do it anyway, screw the calories. I've been getting more exercise lately. Fortunately for my thighs, I can't bake anything else until I go to the grocery store. I'm mostly out of baking supplies, since I don't much bake all year. Oh, I also made my own pumpkin pie spice from a recipe I found online. I halved it, since the full recipe called for 1/4 c. cinnamon, which is a heck of a lot of cinnamon. I was pretty proud of myself, but now I have to buy all the spices that go in the pumpkin pie spice, which will probably cost more than just having bought the pumpkin pie spice to begin with. But, whatever.

So, it's almost eight o'clock and I've been up since two-thirty this morning. I think it's about time for me to get to sleep. Weird schedule, but it seems to be working for me. Awake all day and half the night, it just happens to be the wrong half of the night, but again, whatever.

Good night.

PS. Before I forget, it's looking like I'll be going to CA again during the first week of December as my mom's surgery is scheduled for the week of Thanksgiving. More on that later.