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Blueberry Coffee Cake and other ‘blues’

July 19, 2010 by Edie Wadsworth 29 Comments

I’m making blueberry coffee cake this morning. Number one, because I came home to a nearly full container of slightly shriveled blueberries. And number two, because baking is like therapy for me. And tomorrow my old house will no longer be mine. And today, I have get everything last little thing out of there. I went over yesterday to assess the workload and nearly lost it. The new owners are painting and making the place their own. It was all I could do to hold in a river of tears as I reminisced about ten years of memories, ten years of life well lived within those walls. I know that house like the back of my hand, every nook and cranny. Oh the meals that were prepared, the babies that were rocked, the crafts that were made, the books that were read, the trees that were planted, and the walls that were painted and painted and painted. The new owner reminded me not to forget the guitar in the upstairs bedroom.

Oh, I won’t forget.

I will never forget.

Goodbye sweet house of mine.
Recipe for coffee cake:
1/2 cup butter,softened
8 ounces cream cheese
2 ounces almond paste (or 1 t. almond flavoring)
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 1/2 c. flour
1 1/2 t. baking powder
1 1/2 t. salt
1 3/4 cups blueberries tossed in 1 T. flour and 2 T sugar
Lemon Glaze:
2 cups powdered sugar
2 T. lemon juice
2 T. heavy cream
1 T. softened butter
Preheat oven to 350. Combine butter, cream cheese, almond paste and sugar; beat until fluffy. Add eggs and then flour, baking powder and salt. Then fold in blueberries. Bake in a well-greased bundt pan for 35-40 minutes. While it cools, combine ingredients for glaze and stir until smooth. Drizzle over pound cake and enjoy!!

You probably shouldn’t read this post

July 16, 2010 by Edie Wadsworth 47 Comments

Warning: This post is supremely unimportant and should only be read if you’re bored, caught up on all your laundry and have recently cleaned out your fridge.

Now proceed.
If you’re a regular reader then you’re likely confused. I’ve been playing around with my blog design today so don’t worry, you’re at the right spot. I made a new header and logo in photoshop and am trying to decide if I should have a sidebar or not. I think the heat in Houston is getting to me. I will likely choose to have one just because I don’t know where else I’d link to my favorite radio show Issues Etc. But tell me, do you really use the sidebar? What if I shuffled some of the sidebar items to the bottom of the blog? Do you like having certain posts right at your finger tips? Do you really care what books I happen to be reading? I really like the simplified look with no sidebar but I want this space to be functional too. It’s kinda like trying to decide if you should have a lazy boy with a cup holder in the living room. I usually vote no but in this case, I’m willing to hear you out. To sidebar or not to sidebar? That is the question.

BTW, I blame this all on my friend Darcy, who wrote a perfect post on blogging pet peeves. And she struggles with the sidebar question too, although not in her recent pet peeve post. I think for fun, I’ll add the sidebar randomly throughout the weekend.

Because I’m just that spontaneous.

“Houston, I think our problem may be solved”

July 14, 2010 by Edie Wadsworth 15 Comments

Pastor Matt Harrison and the Wadsworth clan

Greetings from Houston!

I’m sitting in the lobby of the Hyatt this morning, so as not to wake the members of my family who can sleep past 6a. We’re here for the national convention of our church (the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod) to which my husband is a delegate. So while he goes to long meetings everyday and votes on important issues that will affect our church for years to come, the girls and I are never at a loss for stuff to do. I’m such a geek, that if left to my own devices, I’d watch every second of the live stream of the convention proceedings, but my children like sight seeing and swimming and food and such. Our church is voting on a massive restructuring that would give the Synod and the president more power. We are against the restructuring but it has all passed by very slim margins.

Then there was the vote for president yesterday. Steve commented that he hadn’t been so nervous about something since he got his med school board exam results. I sat on pins and needles all day myself. We were hoping and praying for Rev. Matt Harrison to win and were so thankful to witness the historical moment when they announced him as president-elect. His acceptance speech was amazing. In part of his speech he said, “You’ve kept your perfect record of electing sinners as presidents.” He’s a brilliant theologian and a confessional Lutheran (translated: clings deeply to the Bible and the Lutheran confessions despite growing pressures in our synod and our world to be ‘relevant’) who’s authored many books, plays the banjo, and greeted everyone at a reception last night with such humility and grace AND with a Heineken in hand. You gotta love Lutheran pastors!

So, this convention has been a mixed bag for those of us in the conservative, confessional camp of Lutheranism. The massive restructuring passed but our candidate won.

And more importantly, being the stalker that I am, I met Mollie Ziegler Hemingway (beautiful and brilliant writer for Get Religion.Org and my new BFF), Will and Cindy Weedon (I’ve quoted Pastor Weedon many times before and he’s a regular guest on IssuesEtc. He’s hilarious and I was so happy to finally meet him and his kind and beautiful wife Cindy), Brian Yamabe (the tech-guru behind the site Witterberg Media) and was blessed to finally meet the man behind the mustache —-Pastor Matt Harrison.

Hope you’re having a good week and if you have any spare time this weekend, read Lewis’ The Problem of Pain so we can talk about it next week.

Love to you all!

4th of July, part 2

July 9, 2010 by Edie Wadsworth 23 Comments

Caiti brought her boyfriend Cody along……

Taylor brought Morgan……

and of course, Marcus and Katilin joined us…..

My sister hosted our family renunion at her spacious and gorgeous house…..

—where we ate too much of this…..

and got to meet baby Piper!

and got to visit with our out-of-town relatives…..

we ended the night with a bonfire and smores.

and although my kitchen is still not quite done, I did get the old pantry converted to a small half bath. This is my favorite little bathroom in the house. We all fight over it!

Tales from the 4th of July, part 1

July 8, 2010 by Edie Wadsworth 17 Comments

We started out our holiday extravaganza by picking up Mal from the airport. He’s the oldest of this large brood of children and we feel so lucky that he took time off work to come and visit. We know that these times of most of us being all together will get fewer and farther between.

then we wasted no time heading to the water to play on this……

and this

and this……

Our sweet neighbor invited our gang for dinner!?! We enjoyed wonderful food and company and then went back to the lake to watch fireworks from the boat.

The boys enjoyed some ceeegars.
The girlies got excited about the fireworks.

And the dogs went a little crazy.

BTW, dogs + lake = stinky.