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Happy, Happy, Happy

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Hmmm, is there such a thing as being too happy to write? If so I think it applies to me. Today I’m taking the kids to Chick-Fil-A after a week of Spring Break resting. It doesn’t really matter what we do after that because hanging out with my girls is so.much.fun.

I think I’d like to backtrack a bit here and explain why I’ve been mostly absent from blogging and social sites…

This past July I was doing what I had been doing for years. Blogging, trying to get people to read my blog, posting random thoughts on Facebook, anxiously waiting to see if anyone thought that what I wrote was witty and checking Facebook 85,000 times a day to make sure I wasn’t missing anything.  I began to feel restless and dissatisfied. The Chick-Fil-A kerfluffle really annoyed me and I found that the screaming of friend’s opinions in my stream of consciousness annoyed me- greatly. I realized that my kids never had my full attention. I realized that my husband never had my full attention. I realized that God never had my full attention. And *I* never had my full attention. The lure of counterfeit community clouded my brain constantly. And so I deactivated my Facebook account and blogged less. I heard no mandate from the Almighty that said it was something I had to do, I simply got tired of living in a way that was constantly distracted and I had to do something about it.

At first I was so relieved and relished my un-distracted time with my family. Then there was a pull back to FB…just to see what everyone was doing. Then I just wanted to move my pictures over to Photobucket but it took way longer than I thought it would and I started checking in to see what was happening- and I became very miserable very quickly. So, I had Facebook send an archive to me and deleted my account “with no hope of recovery”. That’s how they phrase it and I find it dramatically funny.

Being out of the FB world suddenly made me realize how really isolated I had become in life. And so this season with new friends and a new Life Group is just amazing and very special and I’m just so happy.  Today, I think that the most fun, the most rewarding things in my life spending time with my kids and husband- even if it’s just sitting on the couch watching TV with them.

Now, if this makes you feel defensive of FB, I’m sorry and that’s not my intent. I’m just excited that I feel free and happy. I’ve never, ever told anybody that they should be like me. I also don’t I mean to imply it. I think that everyone should want to be like Christ and that’s it. I’m simply explaining my absence. I have a Twitter account but Twitter isn’t addictive to me like FB was. Twitter is also how I find out what’s going on in my oldest daughter’s life- you know, if she’s sick or something, since that’s the only way I find out those things. I also have a Google+ thing but for the life of me I can’t remember to check it.

In short, I plan to continue to blog. I still love blogging as long as it doesn’t distract me. The Button Casa (the actual house) has some big, big changes coming and for the lovely people that have followed my blog forever I’m sure you’ll want to know about those. It would probably be easier to hit the “Follow Me” button in the side bar so you know when I’ve posted something.

Blessings,

Amy

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Plum Skillet Cake

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I love to read magazines and they’re so full of good ideas that I also hate to get rid of them- much to the dismay of Travis and Amanda. I subscribed to Martha Stewart Living a while back and found a recipe for a plum skillet cake that looked uh-mazing. So I saved it- for two years.

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I’m partial to anything baked in a skillet- for a couple of reasons. When I was in high school I made a pineapple upside down cake in my mom’s cast iron skillet and I loved it. I don’t remember whether or not anyone else did but I was on quite a pineapple kick for a while. I also love skillet cakes because they aren’t fussy- the ingredients list is small and they’re really hard to mess up. Which is good because after I got all of the ingredients out I decided to measure my skillet and realized that it was 2 inches bigger in diameter than what was called for. Oops.

So I did what any good baker that hates math would do- I doubled the recipe. I mean, I could have (tried to) figure the volume and use the geometry skills that I don’t possess to figure it out but I just wanted to eat plum cake. And what could be better than plum cake times two?

So, I mixed up some yummy things in my Kitchen Aid. Which for this recipe isn’t remotely necessary but it’s already sitting on the counter and I’d have to dig for my hand mixer. I’m also a least resistance sort of gal.

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Then I let Chloe and Halle arrange the plums on the batter. I think it looks like a flower.

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Then we baked….for a bit longer than suggested because I’d doubled it. Then I had to cover it with aluminum foil because the cake needed a bit more time but the top was getting too brown. Ahem. If I’d been really smart I could have just used a cake pan with the right diameter- but I wanted to use a skillet, dangit!

All’s well that ends well…

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Mmmmm. It was so.good. The cake is lightly sweet and the plums are beautifully tart. All of the Buttons loved it and have requested it again. I think I’ll make it the next time we have overnight guests because it goes great with coffee.

I’ll give you the recipe and you can follow Martha’s recipe instead of my shenanigans. It will probably work better that way.

Martha Stewart Living, August 2010

  • Prep Time 15 minutes
  • Total Time 1 hour
  • Yield Serves 4

Ingredients

  • 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for skillet
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour, plus more for skillet
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • Coarse salt
  • 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
  • 1 large egg
  • 1/2 cup low-fat buttermilk
  • 2 ripe medium plums, thinly sliced

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Butter an 8-inch ovenproof skillet (preferably cast-iron); dust with flour, tapping out excess. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Beat butter and 3/4 cup sugar with a mixer on medium speed until pale and fluffy. Beat in egg. Add flour mixture in 3 additions, alternating with buttermilk.
  2. Pour batter into prepared skillet, and smooth top with an offset spatula. Fan plums on top, and sprinkle with remaining 2 tablespoons sugar. Bake until golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Let cool slightly.

Enjoy!

Fun Friday

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On this Fun Friday I’m going to re-purpose a tiny fragrance jar to use for the myriad of tiny blooms Halle brings me. Sometimes it’s a tiny flower, a tiny weed, a tiny clover or it could be a full size bloom that she’s picked with a really short stem. Regardless of exactly what it is though, it will rarely fit into a normal bud vase.

I can’t do the whole, “Thanks, Halle, I love it” and then toss it in the trash- she knows and will ask about it and it hurts her feelings. In fact, I have an autumn leaf getting crushed in my purse right now that I’d forgotten about. I love that about her.

I usually buy different fragrance oils to burn for each season and I’ve just recently used up most of my summer ones. Normally I throw the jars away but I’ve always hated to because they’re cute. Recently though I wondered if I could use them for a tiny little vase.

It was easy as pie to pop the stopper out, then I washed it and had my very own bud vase.

I thought about removing the label but decided I liked it better this way.

So, how about you? Do you have a favorite unconventional vase? A friend of mine put a bunch of summer blooms into a glass Orange Crush bottle and I loved that.

Have a Great Weekend!

Amy

Lessons

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I’ve been absent from this blog lately. Perhaps you’ve noticed, perhaps you haven’t and either is fine. I expected to blog a lot this year, about what I wasn’t completely sure. What I didn’t expect was to be healed.

Really, amazingly healed.

I didn’t realize how it was going to change things.

It has changed what I’m able to do. I don’t have to sleep late because getting up early no longer causes me to crumple into an exhausted heap. I don’t have to rest for hours after a shopping trip. I can walk around an amusement park for two days without needing to sleep for two weeks afterwards (we just got back from a trip to Dollywood).  My life has changed dramatically very quickly.

I was reading the book of Nehemiah recently and the whole book is about rebuilding the walls surrounding Jerusalem after the Israelites had been in captivity for 70 years. As I read I noticed the details about how they were rebuilding and the description of Nehemiah rehanging the gates to the city and I was struck by the importance of something that could be passed over as trivial to someone looking at it from a 21st century perspective.  As I looked around my own house, at my own life and the rubble that surrounds me from these last 12 years I know that I have to rebuild. I have to rehang gates.

Today rebuilding looks like vacuuming the living room and sweeping the kitchen.

It’s not glamorous but it is necessary.

I never expected being healed to usher in a season of  new focus, of new direction but it’s here and I want to do the very best that I can with what I’ve been given.

Which means I’ll be here less. I could call it a hiatus because I’m not sure what anything looks like right now.  But I do know where my focus needs to be- right here…doing the un-glamorous. All the while knowing that I’m sowing into something eternal.

Blessings,

Amy