Slow on the uptake...

So, the difference between muffins and cupcakes is that the latter not only are iced but are sweet?  Because I am on my third muffin recipe and none of them has been sweet.

But can you see how moist these Cinnamon Apple Muffins are?

I did tinker a bit with the recipe a bit.  For starters, it had no nutmeg.  How can something cinnamon-apply not have nutmeg?  That's just wrong!  The other thing I did was to dress it up a bit.  I browned some butter for the top, for a bit of a nutty flavor.  Then, I sprinkled on some of my always-on-hand cinnamon sugar mix.  [When a girl's got to have some cinnamon toast she cannot be hindered by having to mix cinnamon and sugar together.]

I liked them.  It is interesting how just a few grains of sugar can add a significant touch of sweetness to something.  Anyway, a part of me could just spend the rest of the evening pouring classes of milk and working my way through the rest of the muffins.

The time was really off on the recipe.  I had to get up off the couch four times before they were actually ready to come out of the oven.  Amos, however, barely noticed.

 

My shadow has learned how to burrow his way atop and yet beneath the electric blanket.

Anyway, I believe I have mastered the muffin, don't you think?  I have two more recipes that I would like to try, one a streusel and the other a very complicated eggnog thingumajig.  However, I think that I will not be able to buy eggnog for a long while yet.

I forgot to note how I finally got the Gourmet Gardens® tubes to stop falling over in the refrigerator.  I set my beef jerky to work as a corral fence!

I made up a fresh batch last night, while the gyro flatbread dough was rising. I thought it might warm the lower oven, where the dough was, but the ovens must be really well-insulated.

One of my current struggles is to the left of the beef jerky, behind my beloved butter and adjacent to the all important activated charcoal.  You see, Target could not get the erythromycin.  Their supplier was tapped out.  So, I was forced to go to CVS.  Not only was the medication more expensive and the pharmacy actually charged for the flavoring ($2.99, plus tax), but they did not have either a dispenser bottle, like Target has been giving me (one that works with a syringe) or a measuring tube!  Somehow I'm suppose to figure out how to measure out 3/4 teaspoon all by myself.  I have been using an old syringe and tilting the bottle, but that is not going to work for much longer.  Plus, it is not very sanitary to put a syringe into the medicine again and again and again.  I am really hoping that Target is able to get the erythromycin by next Saturday.  I pick up the rest of my prescriptions on the 27th, so I plan to ask Target if I can have one of those measuring tubes.  SIGH.

Electrician Man got me out of bed early (in my world) to put on the proper switch plate cover ... and to have a Dr Pepper and check out the carrot muffin.  [He liked them.]  He had finished one job and was about to head off to lunch.  I learned something in his stopping by:  Amos will let me know if someone is at the door when I am in bed.

I tried very hard to go back to sleep after he left, but my pillow had been wet since about 8:00 this morning.  So, I tackled a few tasks:

• readied two packages for the post office;
• found the receipt for the glass container that has a broken lid (I somehow missed that when I bought it);
• put the packages and the container in the car;
• filed the papers that had stacked up a bit;
• wrote two very belated thank you notes;
• paid two bills;
• called the Medicare insurance company (my drug premium was not taken out of disability and my personal check mailed on the 8th was not received;)
• typed up the five recipes in Michelle's cookbook that I want to try; and
• read the Book of Concord for a while before settling on two snippets, one posted today and one scheduled for Thursday.

The Holy Spirit dwells in the elect, who have become believers, as in His temple. He is not idle in them, but moves God's children to obey God's commands. Therefore, believers, too, should not be idle, much less resist the work of God's Spirit. They should practice all Christian virtues, in all godliness, modesty, temperance, patience, and brotherly love; and they should give all diligence to make their calling and election sure. They should do this so that the more they find the Spirit's power and strength within them, they may doubt their election less. For the Spirit bears witness to the elect that they are God's children. Sometimes they fall into temptation so terribly that they imagine they can no longer perceive the power of God's indwelling Spirit, and so they say with David, "I had said in my alarm, 'I am cut off from Your sight'" (Psalm 31:22). Yet they should, without regard to what they experience in themselves, again say with David the words immediately following (as is written in the same place), "But You heard the voice of my pleas for mercy when I cried to You for help."

Our election to eternal life is founded not on our godliness or virtue, but on Christ's merit alone and His Father's gracious will. He cannot deny Himself, because His is unchangeable in will and essence. Therefore, when His children depart from obedience and stubble, He has called them to repentance again through the Word, and the Holy Spirit wants by the Word to be effective in them for conversion. When they turn to Him again in true repentance by a right faith, He will always show His old paternal heart to all who tremble at His Word and from their heart turn again to Him, as it is written:

If a man divorces his wife and she goes from him and becomes another man's wife, will he return to her? Would not that land be greatly polluted? You have played the whore with many lovers; [yet returned again to Me,] declares the Lord. (Jeremiah 3:1).
~BOC, FSD, XI 73-75


I did have another gyro for a late lunch.  I am getting far, far, far better at rolling them out, don't you think?

Then, it was the muffins ... and this post ... typing with a sleeping puppy dog burrowed beneath the blanket that is now in my lap.  A snoring puppy dog.  Snores make me chuckle ... even when tears are falling down my face.


Lord, I believe.  Help my unbelief!