Seven Quick Takes

A quick roundup of links-that-I-thought-were-awesome from this week.

1. An starkly honest, and yet surprisingly joyful, post from a mother who celebrated four years of sobriety this week:

There is a slight tremor in her hands; these days it appears if she goes mere hours without a drink. She is vaguely scared at this idea, but not nearly as scared as she is of stopping. She cannot imagine life without alcohol.

can’t give it up, she thinks. It is the only thing holding me together.

Read the rest at One Crafty Mother.

2. A quick post reminding me of how easy it is to find God, if I just take the time to look for him:

One muggy Tallahassee day, I was resting at a picnic table when suddenly a strange, disheveled man plopped down right across from me. Without exchanging hello’s he stared deep into my eyes and boldly shouted, “I am Jesus Christ! Your Lord and Savior, who died for your sins!”

Read the rest at The Thin Veil.

3. I love the idea of Creating Children’s Spaces in Every Area of Your Home:

I mean really, how cute is that? Very Montessori, to have this environment of things that are at-the-kid’s (literal, physical) level scattered throughout the house, and having an environment that is prepared for their learning and exploration. Right now Garrett is confined to our living room, but now that he’s older than a year (and I’m not nearly as hyper-vigilant about WATCHING. HIS. EVERY. MOVE.) I’m thinking I’d like to childproof the rest of the house and let him explore more – and find little places that are just for him, all through the house.

4. There was a whole lotta hoopla around a recent essay by LZ Granderson about how parents need to learn the lost art of the “The Look” to instantly shut down any and all irritating behavior in public. I could tell you what I think about this parenting philosophy, but I’m not going to say anything that hasn’t already been said, and I happen to think that this post says what I’d like to say best, so I’ll just link ya to it.

People are scratching their heads about all the bullying happening…tragic, traumatic bullying that causes kids to choose suicide over living…without realizing that the seed of bullying comes from this idea we have of what ‘good parenting’ looks like. If we continue to bully our kids to be “good” “quiet” and “meek” by using physical force (however mild), withdrawal of love, and conditional acceptance, then we are to blame.

(You know, it’s rather efficient not taking the time to express myself, and instead just linking to web content that closely approximate my feelings on the matter. I wish I could do this all day at work and just link my colleagues to an appropriate blogpost or macro. “Here’s what I thought of your memo. And no, I WON’T work on Caturday.”)

5. On a much lighter note, I finally found the almost-perfect recipe for cobbler:

Ingredients
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups fruit, fresh or frozen

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Pour melted butter into a 9 x 9 inch baking dish.
2. Blend together flour, baking powder, sugar, milk, and vanilla.
3. Pour batter over the butter, do not stir. Sprinkle fruit on top of the batter, do not stir. Bake for 1 hour or until golden brown.

I say the recipe was almost perfect because I added the vanilla. Also, and this may just be because my oven is dumb, it took nearly and hour and a half to get a nice brown crisp-on-the-edges crust.

I suggest you get to bakin’.

This is what’s left of the blueberry cobbler I baked on Tuesday. It is clearly the most awesome cobbler ever because it’s almost gone and I’m the only one who’s been eating it. (Well, Garrett helps when he can.) Seriously, I look forward to a bowl of warm cobbler and cold vanilla ice cream all day long.

I can’t tell y’all how in love I am with Pinterest. Ever since Megan introduced me to the site, it’s been an endless source of time suckage amusement and inspiration. I keep telling my friends that it’s like you took the very best fashion, home decorating, craft, and design magazines, took out ALL THE ADS and stupid ideas, and all you’re left with is row upon row of total and complete awesomeness. I am overwhelmed with ideas and my creative juices are all… runny. (Ew.)

I mean, look at this reading nook (in a wee one’s nursery! I could die of cute). JUST LOOK AT IT!

(Gotta give props to the designer, Elizabeth Sullivan. Dear Liz, you rock, call me!)

And then there’s this coffee table… with a chalkboard top (from DIYideas.com):

“BRILLIANT!” you say. “I KNOW, RIGHT?” I say.

Seriously, I may need a pintervention soon.

7. Okay, I have lots more links I could share with you, but I have no more time to write interesting things about links because I need to finish packing for a quick trip I’m taking to Baltimore this weekend. I’ll get to see a dear friend and maybe do some tourist-y stuff. At the very least, I’ll be nomming at One Sweet Moment, Baltimore’s best snowball stand.

Go see Jen for more Quick Takes!