Comfort Food

It is pure cliche to cozy up in the kitchen come October and become a one-woman factory of pumpkin spiced everything consumable but here I am: an autumnal cliche! I've been whisking up heaps of goodies and it feels so good to be working the node in my noggin' that is not used for grammar or creative discipline.

Some highlights from my baking adventures: Pumpkin Creme Brulee (excellent) - I made an oreo crust on the bottom of this messipe. Pumpkin smoothie Candy Corn bark

We finally got to host a soup swap at our place and it was so lovely. Everyone brought either several quarts of soup, a few dozen cookies, or a few loaves of bread -- all homemade (FTW!). And everyone went home with somebody else's spouse! Oh...and I kid. We gathered with three other families that are also suffering raising up joyfully the small children who live with them, so we ate at the same time that nursing homes start slinging the jell-o for dinner and everyone went home with a whole mess of food for the week. It was so clutch.

Except for this guy. He was bored out of his gourd.

Fall

The kids have been getting back to serious play. You know, flipping your bike upside down to make ice cream. Sitting on the rock in the flower bed and using it as your cash register in your flower shop. Serious business, this imaginative play. I've been a more than willing participant, because if the kids need play, then I am a wilting flower wanting for the water and sunlight of being outside with sidewalk chalk. I think the oven temperatures of summer, complete with the ticks, mosquitoes, and other pestilences are on the wane ::knocks on wood:: The hot summer can really hamper children's play is what I have learned. We don't even have cable but the mediated life has a way of eclipsing the active imaginative life that it sort of atrophies. Shameful, really.

So I am welcoming the cooler temperatures (even though it is still hot enough to sweat whilst walking at mid-day here) and I am welcoming afternoons that are still sunlit.

Looking forward to this fall: - Going to Gatlinburg with six other families - Soup Swap - Chattanooga Market and all the harvesty produce and merch therein - My sister and her beaufriend visiting and watching my sister ace a half-mar in October - Running a 5k in early November - Cousin Justin from Canadia coming for Turksgiving - Going back to Fork & Pie for pumpkin pie

*** Some snaps from our outing to Rock City which is totally awesome and you all have to come to #CHA and experience!

Obama 2012

My name is Kendra.I live in the belt buckle of the Bible Belt. I am an evangelical Christian mother of two. I am voting to reelect President Obama on November 6, 2012.

*** This is not a post about my reasons for voting on the Democratic ticket. This is about my cherished freedom as a woman to exercise my voting right. This is about my love of a country where my second generation parents have succeeded and my immigrant in-laws came to operate their own business while still observing sabbath. This is about my excitement as a campaign volunteer.

Today I phonebanked for the Obama campaign. It was inspiring. There were just a few volunteers at Tennessee headquarters. I used my Google Voice phone to call battleground state voters and I had some pleasant exchanges with my fellow Americans--many of whom were not planning to vote for Obama.

The other night I watched the DNC Convention from the same place. There were black faces, white faces, old, young, middle-aged. There were students and professors and professionals and nurse anesthetists :) We whooped and clapped and some people invoked the name of Divinity in response to the high notes of speeches delivered live from Charlotte, NC.

My experience as a volunteer for a highly divisive campaign has been heartwarming. It has reflected the best of what I believe a two-party system can achieve on its best days. I was inspired to think warmly today about a country that I already love. Sometimes I don't like America, but I will always love this great nation.

Whomever you are planning to support in this election, I hope you are registered to vote and will get involved in the campaign. I expect you will not regret it!

*** And she did not just caption that "Call Me, Maybe."