Author: keepinthesunlightblog@gmail.com

Pumpkin Cookies

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Pumpkin Cookie recipe

My mom used to make pumpkin cookies every Halloween season, and every year I wonder if I’m going to find the ‘right’ recipe that tastes as good as the ones I remember.  And, somehow, every recipe seems to be delicious!  But I thought I’d mark this one this year, so I can keep track a little better.

Pumpkin cookies with cream cheese frosting?!  Yes, please!  These taste wonderful fresh, but I’ve also frozen leftovers with great success.  They probably aren’t ‘best’ right out of the freezer, the way some other stuff is, but with a little time on the counter or in the microwave, they’re golden.

We also sprinkled a bit of pumpkin pie spice on top at the end, and my daughter really wanted to add roasted pumpkin seeds as well.

 

Dia de los Muertos

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I have to admit that I held zero interest in this holiday for years, simply because I was not a fan of seeing skulls and skeletons.  (I know, I know.  That’s me, freaked out to see the skeleton in science class when I was growing up.)  While other people were getting super trendy with their colorful skull decorations on patches and shirts and mugs in recent years, I didn’t even think to explore what this holiday was about.

So, thank goodness for a few things.  Love, Sugar, Magic has been a favorite book series around here for the past year.  And because of it, our daughter really took to the idea of Dia de los Muertos.  She set up a mini ofrenda of photographs of our loved ones and sprinkled flower petals outside leading to our door.  As I learned more about this holiday from the books and research (and Coco, of course), I realized just how much I LOVE love love this celebration.

As we reflected on some of the symbols of this holiday, we realized that although Halloween and Dia de los Muertos may share things like skeletons, cemeteries, candles and so on, Halloween tends to take a spooky twist, whereas Dia de los Muertos is about honoring and respecting these things.

I think we’ll be adding to our own traditions for Dia de los Muertos as the years pass, but I was excited to try some new things this year.

Some of what we’ve already done to celebrate as newbies to this holiday:

–Putting up photos of the loved ones who have passed away.
–Lighting a candle for them.
–My daughter also wanted to put out a food offering.
–Sprinkling rose petals outside in a path to our door.  (Traditionally, the flowers for this holiday are marigolds, but we made do.)
–Buying Pan de Muerto at the local bakery (The panaderia was closed all weekend, so I’m glad we went ahead of time and froze the bread for today.)
–Running in a Dia de los Muertos race.  (I’m NOT a runner.  At all.  But I loved the idea of working towards something and dedicating a run to a loved one who has passed.  There are virtual options, but check for local ones too!)
–Visiting a cemetery.  (Maybe this sounds odd, but we weren’t visiting to be creepy or disrespectful.  We visited to show our children what a cemetery and headstones look like.  We read some markers and talked about some of the traditions of burials and so on.  It was a beautiful fall day and an enjoyable visit.)
—Making churros (Not sure these are a traditional food for the holiday, but, any excuse for churros sounds good to me!)
–Reading some books that tied in with the holiday.

Some traditions I hope to add:

–Making bottle cap candles like these, so each of our deceased loved ones has a candle we can light.
–Collecting stories, quotes, favorite memories from other family members throughout the year about those who have passed, so I can compile these and we can watch or listen to them on the holiday.
–Having a bigger fire, whether in our fireplace or around a fire pit.  (One family I talked to has a fire in their fire pit.  This would be a great opportunity to share stories and memories.)
–Face painting!

 

Obviously, Dia de Los Muertos isn’t the only celebration of deceased loved ones.  There’s the Obon Festival in Japan (in August), Qingming in China (in the spring), fantasy coffins in Ghana, Jazz funerals in New Orleans, and more!

Churros

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Churro Recipe

I remember when a student of mine brought in homemade churros for a school party, and I was in complete awe.  I had had churros at zoos or theme parks, but homemade??  Wow.

It wasn’t until years and years later (well, last year, to be exact) that I actually tried making these.  They’re a bit time-consuming, as most fried things are if you don’t have the equipment or experience to do them quicker, but they’re also super simple.  (My daughter made them all herself.)  We had made these once or twice before, but my daughter asked to make these today, for Dia de los Muertos.  Bless her, because churros are so flipping yummy!  I definitely couldn’t eat these often, but they sure are a delicious treat.  We could barely keep enough on the plate to take this picture.  They go fast!  Give them a try sometime!

Rump

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Rump (2013) by Liesl Shurtliff

Rumpelstiltskin had never been a fairy tale I’d paid much attention to, but in my 20s I read a hilarious books of six short stories by Vivian van Velde called The Rumpelstilskin Problem.  I adapted it into a short play for the class I was teaching at the time, and so this tale has been on my radar ever since.  Rump was published in 2013, but I only just found it.  I think I read two chapters the first night, and then the second night I stayed up waaaay too late so I could finish the whole thing.

In this story of Rumpelstiltskin, ‘Rump’ is an extremely sympathetic character, given only half a name and seemingly trapped by circumstances and fate.  But as Rump finally comes into his inner power at the end of the story, we see the strength and courage he has in creating his own destiny.

I was surprised that the author was able to incorporate all the elements of the well-known tale in ways that flowed with the story.  There are so many bizarre elements to Rumpelstiltskin, so Shurtliff’s cleverness in getting these to connect with Rump were truly impressive.  The book was a page-turner, for sure, and such a pleasure to read.  But it actually wasn’t until the Afterword by the author that I cried.  Names have been on my mind these past years, and her words really touched me.

I’m so eager to read the other three books in this fairy tale series!

More Composting Confessions

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Back in January, I finally started our family’s composting system.  I was super excited!  As mentioned in this post, I had had attempts at compost before, but frequent moves and lack of composting knowledge led to a lot of ‘learning experiences’ that never quite worked.

I started composting with much enthusiasm.  I LOVED that the food scraps were going into composting bins and eventually back into the earth, instead of into landfill spaces where food emits harmful greenhouse gases as it breaks down.  Recycling food?  I couldn’t believe I hadn’t given this more of a chance before!  I LOVED having the excuse to ‘have to’ go outside every day to empty our kitchen compost.  A nice opportunity to take a breath, get outside, and feel like I was taking helpful steps for our planet.

Weeks went by, and soon the bins were full.  All three of them.  Like, maybe it wasn’t even weeks.  They filled up fast, and it was a huge wake-up call as to how much food we used to throw in the trash.  Albeit scraps and peels, but still.  And then I got discouraged.  I wanted progress.  I wanted to see SOMEthing happening.  And it felt like it wasn’t.  We’d maxed out the bins and nothing was happening!

I was saddened each time we threw a peel away in the trash instead of our compost, as I tried to figure out what was going on.  I wish I could give a timeline here of how and when things happened, but I’ve forgotten.

What I will say though, is that the compost needed time to start its process.  And I grew impatient too quickly.  It also needed more attention.  I was happy to throw stuff in there, but I must admit that I otherwise neglected it.  eeps.

So, when I finally started checking in more regularly and turning the pile and giving it water, it ‘miraculously’ started looking better.  It was incredible!  I became addicted.  I don’t think a pile needs to be turned more than once a week (?), and perhaps it shouldn’t be, but I found myself going out there far more often to spend time with the compost.  I marveled at this beautiful, dark mixture that had been created from our food waste.  Wow!  It’s probably a good thing we don’t have a lot of visitors right now, because I have become very proud of this compost heap.  I would probably be dragging people outside to show off this incredible compost.

Now, I’ve backed off a bit.  I’m not as obsessed as I was a few months ago, but I tend to the compost regularly, and I’m still in awe of it.  Mixing the compost has become sort of a meditation for me.  I enjoy it more than I thought I would have.

 

Ok, some tips.  And I’m sure to learn more as I continue:

–I dedicated a pair of gardening gloves to wear while I was turning the compost, and that was a game-changer.

–I also dedicated a small gardening rake-y looking tool to turn the mixture.

–I regularly water the compost to keep it damp.

–I say Yay! to bugs.  Maybe not all, I don’t know yet which are good and which are harmful.  But the ones in there this summer were wonderful!  They did a lot of work in there.  And there were a LOT of them.

–I started taking note of which ‘compostable’ items break down easily and which need some help.  The plastic-y-looking compostable produce bags from our natural food store break down beautifully!  It’s incredible.  The brown bag the potatoes come in that says it’s compostable is still there…  Now I cut/break more things into pieces first.

–I started two new bins!  We have full bins, and I am surprised how quickly the matter breaks down, but we had two bins in the garage with broken bits.  Since they weren’t going to be used for their original purpose and probably couldn’t be donated, I figured this was a good chance to use them!

 

I’m learning as I go, and I’ll continue to post as I learn for any other intimidated newbies out there!