life is short. eat cake. (via Mowser)

I love this dessert. The mother prefers just plain pumpkin bars, but I really like the addition of the oats.

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Peter Pumpkin Squares

CAKE:

1 16oz. can (plain) pumpkin
1 2/3c. brown sugar
4 eggs
3/4c. oil
1 1/2c. flour
1 1/2c. oatmeal
1 T. cinnamon
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt

FROSTING:

3oz. cream cheese
1/4c. margarine
1 tsp. vanilla
2c. powdered sugar
1/2c. nuts*

Cake: Combine pumpkin, sugar, eggs and oil. Add flour, oats. cinnamon, soda, powder and salt. Mix well. Pour into grease pan. Bake at 350 for 25 to 30 minutes.

Frosting: Beat together cream cheese, margarine and vanilla. Mix until well blended. Gradually add powdered sugar and mix until smooth. Spread over cake. Sprinkle with nuts*. Cut into squares.

* I use pecans. Of course, you may use whatever kind you like. But if you like anything but pecans with pumpkin, you are wrong.

-- What do you mean "what am I doing"? I'm hiding, duh!

Two ways I know the mother is cool with my church ... last night Relief Society came up in conversation. The mother: "You know, Kim, you should see if you can get in to that ... in to Relief Society. I think you'd enjoy it." Indeed -- oh, if only there was some way around their stringent application requirements!

Oh, wait.

And another way I know the mother is cool with my church ... when my home teacher calls me, the mother ends up chatting with him longer than I do!

We had a wonderful, low-key Christmas. My cousin (Cousin#3 for you old-schoolers) announced her second pregnancy. She's been through a lot of fertility problems, so yay for #2!

I am getting a power chair. It took me a while to warm up to the idea. At first it seemed like a power chair signified even more physical loss. I have weird links and causations floating around in my head. My brain is a fantastically strange place.

See, I used to walk and dance and ride a bicycle (oh, I miss that so so so much), etc. Then I progressed to the point of needing a walker. Oh, the humanity! Old people use walkers -- not 20 year olds! Then I progressed to the point of needing a wheeled walker, which was 9000 times worse than a plain old regular walker. I loathed it until I realized I could do so much more with it. But I fell and there was no progression towards a wheelchair, it was just *boom*. It's been 10 years, so I probably should have been thinking about a power chair and, yet, I wasn't.

But the longer I mulled over the thought of a power chair, the more I realized that -- short of a cure -- this could potentially be the BEST THING EVER. I could get in and out of my house whenever I wanted. The threshold is too high to maneuver without help now. I could go to the library or the mall or wherever by myself because all of the city buses have lifts and with a power chair, I can get to the (1/2 mile or so away) bus stops. I wouldn't have to bend over backwards to find online classes or classes in the same or nearby buildings because of how difficult and time consuming it is to maneuver around campus.

I mean, really, U of Iowa. Who has an almost entirely uphill (God help me if I have classes on the Pentacrest), 1900 acre campus that is bisected by a freaking river???

Nobody else is interested in a lecture? I can go by myself. Nobody else is interested in a class? I can go by myself. Nobody else is interested in a museum exhibit? I can go by myself. Nobody else is interested in a movie? I can go by myself.

I am excited for the things I can do now. It's not that the mother or sister refused (usually...) refused to take me somewhere for something ... it's just that now, I can go myself. Even a small whiff of increased self-sufficiency is a delight.

Plus, the new chair will be lime green.