Monday moanin'

Ok enough!
Salt, sugar and fat that is. I am off today with big plans with the Mr. to take back a few Christmas items and then to make arrangements for my Christmas Gift to be delivered. Alas, here I am in pajama pants and sweatshirt with my hair in a messy pony tail. The holiday fare has finally caught up with me and my stomach has launched a revolt. A shot of pepto has calmed things a bit but I think I have to give up and consider myself home bound for the day. Good thing I enjoy being home bound, in fact there are days when I wish I was just a little ill so I'd have a reason to go no where. But I was kind of looking forward to a little time around town with the Mr.
So as you can see, I've made good use of my time between trips to the you-know-where by redecorating my blog. This is the kind of thing the home obsessed blogger does you know, redecorate one's blog to match the season. I started off attempting to personalize it a bit by uploading (downloading, transferring, importing?) a picture from Lake Michigan that I took in October to my header but once done, it was just slightly smaller than the actual Lake Michigan and one had to scroll down approximately 4 miles to get to the actual post. Having no delusions of grandeur, I doubted people would be that committed to finding my thoughts for the day. I figure I got about 3 seconds to lure you in and scrolling the waters of the Great Lakes would work against me. Yes yes yes I realize there is a way to fix this. I even tried the good people of Blogger Help who talked about pixels and J pegs and peg legs and such but I just wasn't that interested. So here you have a canned blogger background but redecorated nonetheless.
Having no more more to share than my blog background and and the current status of my colon, I leave you with a few points of interest. My favorite dessert discoveries of the holidays. Those of you who are on my future bakery payroll will appreciate my ongoing efforts to present the world with a never-ending supply of baked goods.
The rest of you will just have to tolerate me and be glad you are not swimming across Lake Michigan in search of my latest post.
The Pioneer Woman, Ree, has a cooking section to her blog (link at right) and I've yet to try a recipe that wasn't wonderful from her recommendations. This year I tried the Nantucket Cranberry Pie and Coffee Cake (Literally!) The latter I have renamed Espresso Cake despite the lack of espresso in the actual recipe since coffee cake brings to mind, well, coffee cake. The cranberry pie is easy easy easy and the Espresso-free cake is not difficult but more advanced and time-consuming. Both were big hits & here are the links to each...

COFFEE CAKE (Literally!) or Espresso Cake or Espresso-Free Cake

NANTUCKET CRANBERRY PIE

Give either of these a try next time you are looking for a sweet something and I promise you won't be disappointed.
Now I do believe I will take a shower and change into some yoga pants. Have a great day, whatever your plans.
Grace!

Image: My Espresso-Free Cake. Note the antique tin cake plate, I heard the Mr. telling my brother-in-law, "I got that for Sara, you know she loves antique stuff." Also note, by getting that for me he went into the attic and brought it back down and handed it to me. One of the benefits of living in the Gerhardstein-Trent-Smithsonian. It's like our own antique shop and you never know what you might find.