Let The Baking Begin!

I mentioned yesterday that I'd tell my story from last year about our neighbor, a raccoon, a koi pond, and cuckoo accusations. But, I don't have time for that tonight. So, instead, this...

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

Measure and combine in food storage bag the dry ingredients: flour, salt, baking powder; ground cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg & cloves. Shake bag.

Measure and combine in large mixing bowl; sugar, oil, eggs, vanilla extract, and pureed pumpkin. Spoon mix.

In large bowl with wet ingredients, add dry ingredients from storage bag. Mix well.

Lightly grease baking dish. Pour pumpkin mixture in dish. Place in pre-heated oven. Set timer for 50 minutes. Done when inserted toothpick comes out clean.

I know, this is your basic, everyday pumpkin bread recipe that everyone makes around this time of year. My son prefers this recipe - nothing too complicated.

Tomorrow, I'm making it my favorite version... adding chopped walnuts, semi-sweet chocolate chips & chopped dates. Yum.

"You Do You, Mom."

It was after dinner and before the sun had set behind the Santa Rosa Mountains range when I realized it was November 1st. Am I up to even giving NaBloPoMo a go, I wondered. October effort ended as soon as it began, with only one blog post the entire month. In fact, today is the first time that I've logged on to a computer since October 2nd.

Glancing down to check the time just now and discovering that it is only 9:59 PM convinced me to give November blogging a try. So here I am and it may as well be midnight, although, I'm usually up way past midnight... Rambling. Here I am, sitting in front of an over-sized, brightly lit screen on this giant 17" laptop that I borrowed from my husband and wondering where to start.

Just noticed double spaces after each period. I learned to type in the olden days... 1970s. I've heard this practice is frowned upon to the point of ridicule these days. Need to go back and fix that... Rambling.

I mentioned to my son that I was thinking about participating in NaBloPoMo for BlogHer, but that I had no idea what to write about today. "I might just type out a bunch of random words.", I said. To which my son reassured, "You do you, Mom. You. Do. You."

COLORFUL CANDIES
Image by L. Carilo, November 2015

November has arrived in my sandy, arid corner of the world, and the first day of the month coinciding with end of Daylight Saving Time - a short, well spent Sunday. The only drawback was the mid-day temperature outside... 90 degrees here in the Southern California desert.

I love November. One of those reasons is the close of daylight saving time, I love nightfall arriving earlier and earlier as we get nearer to year's end. I just wish it got a bit colder - okay, a lot colder. There is so much to look forward to this month: family time, special birthdays, Thanksgiving... but first, let's see where tomorrow leads.