Earl Grey Poppy seed Muffins

I made these muffins from this recipe by rasberri cupcakes (one of my favorite baking blogs).  They came out just as delicious and satisfying as promised in the blog post.  I made them mini-size, and used the rest of the batter in a mini-loaf.  Why mini?  Perhaps I wanted to be different.  Or maybe I wanted to be able to eat more of them, telling myself it was OK since they're so small.

Here is my rack of muffins:

I followed the recipe as written, using Apricot Preserves for the glaze.  Don't skip this step! The preserves or marmalade give the muffins the right amount of extra sweetness - the muffins themselves are not too sweet.

As ordered in the recipe, I enjoyed a small pile of muffins with a cup of tea :).

Where are the Women?

I love this guy!  This is a video from a hearing in February on the HHS mandate.  This is the same hearing that prompted one of the Democrat representatives to ask of the Republican majority, "Where are the women?" (You may have seen that quote floating around).  I've been watching pieces of it, and apparently the Democrats were mad because Sandra Fluke (the Georgetown Law student) was not accepted as an appropriate witness.  Having no professional experience in the topics of the hearing - freedom of religion, medicine, church and state, etc - she was rejected.  It is also noteworthy that she was only presented as a requested witness 2 days after the cut-off for new witnesses, and less than 24 hours before the hearing.

For Mr. Gowdy's part, I watched from about 2:20:13 to 2:25:45.

Where were the women at that hearing?

Here.

Woe..

Well, I just had an unexpected emotional blow...  I won't go into details, because there is so much I have to sort out and decide for myself, and it feels so personal.  Basically, my faith in an institution that was so important to me has been shaken.  My first instinct was to defend them, which resulted in a backlash from people I thought would understand.  Now I am doubting myself and everything I have believed about this entity.  How can something so close to home be guilty of their charges?  I can't believe it yet - I must be patient and take the time to understand the full situation before judgement can be made.  What does this mean for me, my family, and my future daughters?  I have no idea, but right now it doesn't look good.


I have to channel this emotion to something else right now, or this will consume me for the rest of the weekend.

Mother's day is tomorrow, and I just found this amazing idea:
DIY Glass Etching

You can etch anything into any glass dish!  I with I had time to do this for my mother or grandmother tomorrow, but it will have to wait until the next birthday, or maybe Christmas.

I'm thinking of etching names into the sides of some of my mom's many many pie dishes..

So cute!  And it looks easy.  In the comments, people have said that contact paper works instead of vinyl.  Now all I need is to buy the etching cream, and 'borrow' some dishes from my mom...

Update:
I did it!  Well, not exactly.  But almost.

I started shopping around at Joann's for the etching cream, but they recommended a hardware store instead.  They didn't carry it, and neither would Michaels (for reasons involving vandalism!).  I bought a couple of vases, deciding to etch them if possible but if that failed I could at least get flowers for them.

I headed over to Lowes, and hoped to find it without having to ask someone for help.  I just feel like it's so obvious I don't belong in there.  I have no idea what I'm doing, and the last thing I want is for someone to try to help the 'lost little lady.'  That's exactly what I had to ask for, but they didn't have it either.  They recommended Michaels.  This being Saturday night (I can't do anything unless its the absolute last hour, apparently), I was a bit desperate.  The very helpful Lowes employees (yes, it took two.  Slow day.  Who shops at Lowes the day before Mother's Day?) showed me the spray paint aisle, and pointed out a 'frosting' spray for glass/plastic/mirrors.  Obviously, the item I used it on would no longer be oven, microwave, or dishwasher safe, but it would work for a vase.

Results:

This first one is for my grandmother.  On this side is her name, and the other side says 'Sittie' (what we call her).

Here is my mom's vase - the other side has her name.

I used contact paper instead of vinyl, and followed the directions for cutting the words.  I have become somewhat skilled with an exacto knife, so it wasn't too bad.  Then I took them outside and sprayed them a few times with the froster.

Some things I learned:

1. Cover the whole vase with something plastic.  I cut larger than necessary pieces of contact paper so it would cover all sides of the vase.  Then I taped plastic from a bag to the top, closing the top.

That way, no frosting spray gets in where it shouldn't.

2. Make sure you take the top layer of contact paper off of the cut-out layer.  The instructions have you place a whole piece over the cut-out, then remove the cut-out backing and put the paper in place on the vase.  This keeps things like the holes in a's, o's, e's, etc. in place.  After it's on the vase, take off that top layer so you're not spraying (or spreading etching cream, if you ever find it) on the plastic.

2b.  Check your closed letters!  The a, e, o, b, d, etc will have a tiny circle that needs to be on the glass in the right spot, or you'll end up with your letters filled in.

3.  If you want to spray a bit, go inside, come back later and spray some more, make sure you don't wait too long.  I did, and some pieces of the contact paper at the cut edges was peeling back a bit.  I though it wouldn't make much of a difference, but the letters ended up a bit blurred and I had to scrape away excess with a knife.  That said, if it was etching cream and it blurred, there would be nothing I could do to fix it.

This was a really fun and not to difficult project.  When I finally get my hands on some etching cream, I am totally personalizing all my pyrex dishes.

Online Misery

This is me - taking one of these 3 paths to internet despair.  I won't venture over to reddit, but this article is pretty funny.


The three paths are:


"a) Reading the news.
b) Caring about the news.
c) Trolling Planned Parenthood’s Facebook for 2 or 3 minutes."


I have done all three of these things, and I have never come out of it feeling better about anything.  Reading and caring about the news, and reading the snide, hateful, degrading posts that are published every day on Planned Parenthood's facebook page put me in such a bad mood.  (Really, take my word for it.  Don't go there and drag yourself down too.)


This blog recommends the r/atheism page on Reddit as a place to find humor in opposing opinions.  The blogger, Marc, says the site is funny (in a sad way) for these reasons:
"Every post is either
a) Obliviously and embarrassingly wrong, in which case much joyful correcting can be made.
b) Blisteringly right, in which case everything the Church has been saying is wrong with modern Christianity is vindicated.
c) Hilariously cliched, which lends itself to ecstasy of mockage, mimicry and spontaneous singing. (Oooooh, that freedom of religioooonnn means freedom from religiiooonn! ladadadaday!)"


Heehehe..


Follow the link if you want to see some reddit examples of poking fun at Christianity, but I'll share my favorite image from Marc's post:

:)