Tidbits of wisdom, A recipe that will fatten you up and send you to the grave and My cute 2-year old sings.

I've learned two things today!

1.) If you have a long forehead you are supposed to have bangs. I was also told that I have a short forehead; therefore, I am allowed to not have bangs. Good thing because I hate having bangs and will never have them again (even if it becomes the fashion again where everybody is curling their bangs and teasing them to see how high they can get them to stay).

2.) When making yogurt if you want it to have live cultures you have to buy yogurt (as a starter) that already has live cultures in it. I guess today's batch will be without live cultures!

I don't know if anybody else will find these tidbits of wisdom helpful but I thought I'd share just in case.

Now I have a recipe to share with (almost) all of my readers. I've been debating on whether or not I should post this recipe or not because...well, I'm pretty embarrassed for you to read it. It should probably be labeled a health-hazard and is most likely one of the foods (non-foods) most detrimental to one's health! Mrs. E, PLEASE don't read this! Skip down to the bottom where there are no more pictures of coffee mugs...PLEASE!!

Ok, so why exactly am I going to post it anyway? Why am I willing to risk the future health of my bloggy-readers? Because it's just awesome to know that you can make chocolate cake in the microwave. And tasty chocolate cake at that!

I'm being totally serious. In 5 minutes from now you can have a coffee mug full of moist chocolate cake (if you own a health-destroying microwave, that is). So here's how you make it...just promise me you'll only make it this once. If you do make it more than once then promise me you'll forget that I'm the one who taught you how to make it...especially if we ever get into a conversation about how destructive things like white sugar, white flour and microwaves are to one's health.

Now that you've promised me the above let's move onto step #1 of making your 5 minute chocolate cake...

Step 1: Find a coffee mug and place on counter.

Step 2: Add 4 Tbls. flour, 4 Tbls. sugar & 2 Tbls. baking cocoa and mix well.

Step 3: Add 1 egg and mix well.

Step 4: Add 3 Tbls. milk, 3 Tbls. Oil and mix well.

Ok, I'm tired of taking pictures.

Step 5: (without picture) Add 3 Tbls. chocolate chips (or nuts) and a splash of vanilla. Yeah, mix well.

Step 6: (with picture) pour half of batter into 2nd coffee mug (only if you're like us and own regular size coffee mugs. The original recipe called for one large mug but ours are too small so the batter overflows while cooking in the microwave).

Step 7: Place mug (or mugs) in health-destroying device (known as a microwave) and cook on high for 3 minutes.

Step 8: Eat your moist chocolate cake! Some friends have complained that it isn't sweet enough and added more sugar to the recipe or ate it with ice-cream. I prefer it without the extra sugar but to each his own!

Step 9: Forget you learned it from me.

Karis and I have been listening to music this week now that we finally found our cd's and cd-player! It's nice to have some new songs to listen to and sing. I've been trying to teach her some new songs lately but the one she's picked up on is my favorite hymn "Because He Lives". I guess I sing it around the house more than I realize! Anyway, I went to bed at the same time as she did the other night (and she is sleeping in our room on the floor these days because we have a teenager staying with us while his parents are in the village these next 3 weeks!).

I went to bed early with her because I am still getting up at 5:30am every morning to meet and walk with my walking buddy MJ (who is the one who imparted to me all that wisdom about bangs this morning).

And I am still managing to get up in the mornings because I am, believe it or not, losing a bit of weight. Not as much as I would be had microwaveable cake not entered my life, but still. Some progress is better than no progress and I've been living with no progress for quite a while. Therefore, some progress is enough to keep me motivated and waking up at such an ungodly hour in the morning:-)

There was a point to the story. Let me scroll up a minute...

Oh yeah, so as I lay in bed the other night while Karis was talking herself to sleep she began to sing "Because He Lives" as enthusiastically as an almost-3-year-old can. It was so sweet!

I had to bribe her to get her to sing it for the camera today but she managed. She got distracted at the end and didn't sing it nearly as enthusiastically as she did when she knew she should be sleeping but it's still cute.