What do you do when one of your favorite people lives 10 HOURS AWAY and you just don’t want to fly?  Well you find someplace in the middle and meet up of course!

Even better when that person is your husband’s sister and just awesome to hang out with!  I forget sometimes that they are related.  It’s great though, because she is the only person who can possibly make him uncomfortable with conversation!  And she backs me up when he is not quite seeing the light

So we decided we would go on a girls trip by our selves, for some sister-in-law bonding.  Since it was her birthday, she got to choose the location.  Asheville, NC to see the Biltmore House!

I must say, I was all geared up for a cute little town in the Blue Ridge mountains… I did not expect a huge art community and adorable (and tasty!) coffee shops and restaurants.

In the middle of the town was a huge outdoor amphitheater.  apparently all summer local folks just setup there with their drums and everyone else just comes down and dances!  It is truly surreal.  We stumbled there after dinner and I tried to get a photo…

and then the skies opened up!  WOOSH!  RAIN!  I forgot I was in NC until no less than 3 cars stopped and asked us if we needed a ride to get out of the rain.  WOW!  Luckily we were only about 3 blocks from the hotel but we were pretty much DRENCHED by the time we walked into their swanky lobby.  Not sure if it was the squish of our shoes or the giggles and laughter that had people staring at us – either way – we didn’t care!  We were on vacation and having a great time!

The next day we headed to the Biltmore.  This house, it’s not so big, I could totally live there.  Well, as long as I also had the original amount of staff that ran the place.  WOW was it impressive!!  Still, you could see how folks could easily live there – it just had a homey feel in spite of the grandeur.   We did a couple of the extra tours which were completely worth it!  And even had lunch in the old stable, now a bustling restaurant with fantastic food.

We spent all day there and only toured the HOUSE!  I think perhaps another trip is in order to check out all the other places to tour… the gardens, winery, other restaurants, and gift shops!

I don’t know why it never occurred to me to make it when we went home.  It wasn’t until years later and after I was married that I wised up and asked for the recipe.  And even then, I only made it for the first time about 2 weeks ago!

Of course, then I just had to change it up!  It will never match the pumpkin bread made in my grandmother’s kitchen, so I am excited to experiment a little and create a version that suites me and my family.

SO – instead of a loaf  (or two) I made them into muffins, added some cranberries, and used whole wheat flour – and man are they tasty!!  The list of ingredients looks long, this is likely part of why I put making this off for so long… but really, it’s EASY!  I promise!  it’s just a lot of spices, but you dump it all into one bowl and use your mixer.

mmmmmm, muffins…

Pumpkin Muffins with Cranberries and Walnuts

Makes 12 muffins (plus a little extra)

2 Cups of Whole Wheat Flour
1 1/2 Cups of Sugar
1 tsp Baking Soda
3/4 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Nutmeg
1/4 tsp Allspice
1/4 tsp Cloves
1/8 tsp Ginger
1/4 Cup of Vegetable Oil
1 Can (or 15oz) of Pumpkin Puree
1/3 cup Water
2 Eggs
1/2 Cup of chopped walnuts
1/2 dried cranberries
Sparkling Sugar (aka decorator sugar, completely optional but PRETTY and adds crunch)

Preheat Oven to 350F

1. Sift together the first 10 ingredients into the mixing bowl
2. Make a well and add gthe vegetable oil, pumpkin, and cold water
3. Blend on medium until incorporated
4. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each
5. Fold in walnuts and cranberries

Let batter rest while you prepare the muffin pan!  (This allows the baking powder/soda to work it’s magic!)

• Start by lining the pans with muffin papers sprayed lightly with cooking spray.  Or you can skip the papers and just spray with cooking spray and coat each of the muffin cups with cinnamon sugar!  YUM!
• Fill the muffin cups to nearly the top of the paper/edge.
• Bake for 30-35 minutes, turning half way through baking time. Muffins are done when a tooth pick in the middle comes out clean or with a few crumbs.  Remove from the oven and transfer to a cooking rack as soon as you can possibly handle them!

I used a mini muffin pan for my left over batter and made minis!  they cooked up in about 20 minutes – gotta watch them closely because the bottoms tend to burn.  let’s just say they are good to taste so you can save the big muffins for sharing!

I was reminded of this when we went to my mom’s for a little vacation.  When we were growing up, my sister, my best friend, and I would all sit around the table with my mom and talk and laugh and paint little ceramic or wood things.  Random things my mother would pick up on sale at craft stores (haha past tense, like she doesn’t still do this!  She SO does).  Once in a while we would *gasp* make our own plaster creatures using molds.  But the fun was more in the painting and chatting!!  Bonus – mom was up on allll the latest high school gossip!  (or bonus was we got to do crafts?  win/win either way!)

Honestly, I kind of forgot how much fun that was until we were at my mom’s last week.  8:30pm two days before we were set to leave and she breaks out the CUTEST little guys to paint.  I should have gotten a picture of the huge box of paints.  Let’s just say the 4 colors that comes with the set are not sufficient (and not enough paint!) to make cute critters!

AAhh ok guess which one my artist husband painted and which ones I painted?  I admit it, I was intimidated when he sat down to join us.  He has actual talent, not to mention training!

The best part?  It soooo doesn’t matter!  We had a great time just painting and chatting

(ok ok!  in the picture of the four, he painted the 3rd one and I painted the rest!  My mom was too chicken to send me a picture of the ones she did.  *ahem*)

I cleaned a little bit this morning – just enough to be presentable, but not as much as I would have liked.  I suffer from the-more-I-clean-the-more-I-need-to-clean syndrome and knew I had someone coming over at 8:30 9:30 this morning.

Once here, Catherine and I spent the rest of the morning making the changes to her site with my guidance.  It’s a work in progress, of course, and she got some nagging items checked off her to do list along with more knowledge of how to make changes on her own.  She is such an energetic and inspiring person!  I always learn something and am more energized after our meetings.

Finally, I checked something off my list – I bought a sofa!  Ok, technically it’s a love seat because our living room is tiny.  We have been without one for months now while I have been researching (‘research’ is code for ‘picky’).  I am looking forward to sitting next to my son and maybe my husband.  (ok , I am really excited to rearrange all the furniture in the living room multiple times.  This is normal, right?)

The rest of the day was spent with technology – caught up with neglected facebook friends, chatted away on IM and twitter all while browsing the random links!  Guilt free!  I’m technically on vacation!  (all about the technical)

I acknowledge that I didn’t necessarily accomplish my task list of de-cluttering and reorganizing my house.  But I DID help a friend, make a major household purchase, and reconnect with the people in the computer.  That’s more important to me anyway.

I prefer people to dust bunnies.

So, YES – today was very productive and worth every bit of the 8 hours of vacation time!

What would you do on a guilt free day off? 

I started with a recipe from my very favorite, King Arthur Flour, for Lemon Squares.

Since I didn’t actually have any lemons, I decided the sensible solutions was to use the limes.  And then blueberries.  Fruit is good for you!  This should count for a fruit serving, don’t you think?

Lime and Blueberry Squares (adapted from KAF)

Crust
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1 cup All-Purpose Flour
1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar
zest of 1 lime (or two, or lemon!)

Topping
4eggs
2 cups granulated sugar
4 tablespoons lemon juice (approximate, I used the juice of 2 limes)
4 tablespoons All-Purpose Flour
a pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 350°F

Make the crust!

Cut the butter into the flour and confectioners’ sugar and press into a 9-inch square pan. Bake 25 minutes or until light brown.

Make the yummy topping!

While the crust is baking, combine all the topping ingredients into a bowl and mix well.  When the crust comes out of the oven and is still hot, pour the topping over it and put it back in the oven to bake for about 30-35 minutes.

Let it cool and then cut into squares, dust with confectioners sugar and devour!

I am a total sucker for gadgets and technology.  This crosses over into my  my love of cooking.  Ok mostly I love baking, but occasionally I actually cook something.  This leads to my passion for local and organic produce, eco-friendly, and green technologies.  (Full circle with the technology!).

I am also married to an artist.  While I have always appreciated good design and art, I never really understood WHY until we met.  He has encouraged me to pursue my creative side, hence my random craft projects, photography, and paintings!  It’s ok to laugh, and I hope it inspires you to just try something for the fun of it!

All of this comes together (haha) with social media!  I find my self devouring lots of social media information and then turning it around to help people when they get stuck in their small businesses and collegues in larger corporations who aren’t using this stuff every day and are then asked to ‘make it work’ (easier said than done, for sure!)

So if any of this is remotely interesting to you – go click on that ‘subscribe’ button over there and comment often!