A buck late, a day short... wait. Strike that. Reverse it.

Well, this blog has proven how little time/motivation I have for the upkeep of this blog. But seeing as it is now autumn, a transitional time of the year, I have decided to once again at least *try* to keep some sort of records of my experiments with cooking/baking/crafting and other such nerdiness.

Quite a bit has happened in the past few months, so rather than bore everyone with the endless droning of run-on sentences, I've decided to give a pictoral guide of our summer. (With perhaps a few recipes and significant songs thrown in for good measure.)

JUNE

Marcus's favorite song:

Stevie Wonder - Superstitious

Mood/Events:

Scared. Trapped in a laundry hamper.

JULY

Marcus's Favorite song:

Beethoven - Ode to Joy

Mood/Events:

Confusion. Blue Angels are LOUD.

AUGUST

Marcus's Favorite song:

Aaron Copland - Rodeo

Mood/Events:

Exhausted! Weddings, fake birthday parties, and too

many dang airplanes.

Applesauce Cake
(We tripled this recipe for a 9' x 13'' pan, it fed about 20 people!)

1 cup flour
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1 t cinnamon
1 cup applesauce
1/4 cup shortening
1 egg
1/2 cup raisins (optional)

Grease a 9 x 13 pan
Preheat oven to 350
Mix wet ingredients, stir in dry
Bake for 35 to 40 minutes
Decorate like a Casio to the best of your sad little ability. (Oh wait, that's just what *I* did!)

SEPTEMBER

Marcus's Favorite song:

Michael Jackson - Thriller

Mood/Events:

Busy. Sick with Cold-O-Doom. Excited for fall.

Dave's wedding in TX, MHAFB Air Show, first trip to the "beach",

and most importantly, MARCUS TURNS ONE!

So that's about it. I have about twelve recipes I've been meaning to put on here, plus some pictures of some crafts I've been doing. (Not to mention Marcus's Halloween costume I am making... he will be a lawn gnome. This weird idea brought to you by the letter J, which stands for Joe.)

Also, I'll try and mention how our new budgeting system is going. After re-installing Quicken, (and seeing how much money we've spent on travel these past few months... yikes) I've decided to implement a new spending system. I've allocated certain amounts of cash to certain envelopes, one for gas, groceries, incidentals, etc. It will be interesting to see how it goes -- especially the grocery part. I'm not going to deny it -- I am a grocery junkie. The produce section is my Tiffany's... I almost can't help myself.

And now I must be off, as Joe has informed me only very recently (read: today) that there is a chili cook-off tomorrow. So instead of making my mom's famous chili, which takes about three days to make... we're faking it. If it turns out somewhat decent and our marriage is still intact, I might just put the recipe on here!

Until next time!

-C