If God is Love, and Love is Real...

too many things to think of, I must sleep.

Delicious Vegan Maple-Pecan Shortbread Cookies

This is a found-and-modified recipe!

Delicious Vegan Maple-Pecan Shortbread Cookies

1 cup pecans (heaping!)
1 cup rolled oats or spelt flakes
½ cup unbleached white flour
½ cup fine Corn flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
1/4 t. cinnamon
1/3 cup earth balance, softened
1/4 cup maple syrup/agave syrup
2 t. vanilla
optional: whole pecan halves to press into top before baking

In a blender or food processor, place the pecans, and pulse a few times to roughly chop. Transfer 1/3 cup of the chopped pecans to a small bowl and set aside. Add the oats/spelt flakes to the remaining pecans in the blender and process to finely grind them together. Add the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon, pulse a few times to combine, and set aside. In a medium bowl, place the earth balance, maple syrup, and vanilla, and stir the mixture until smooth. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir well to combine. Add the reserved chopped pecans.

Using your hands, roll into 1” balls and flatten, pressing pecan half into top, if using. Bake at 325 degrees for 10-15 minutes or until lightly browned on the bottom. Cool on the cookie sheets for 3 minutes before transferring them to a rack to cool completely. Store the cookies in an airtight container.

This recipe would also be easy to make gluten-free if needed. Replace white flour with sorghum flour, and use rolled oats. EASY PEESY.

Ches- the Prancing Pony

this morning I delighted myself by sitting in the first booth in the prancing pony- in the light that was pooling onto the table, and reminiscing in such sentimentality for those mornings, days, afternoons, evenings of studying in there for Hebrew, listening to chatterings about Romans and Galatians, some silly group of sophomores playing Justin Timberlake in the next booth, many wrapped muffins, the dark wood, the tiny flashcards.
I miss it all. The silly group of sophomores thing actually did happen today, so I had something real to work with...
And then lo and behold, Shlomes himself pops around the corner, awaking in me the realization that I forgot the vegan cookies I was going to bring to him this morning before his test and flight. woops. But there he was, which made the small fantasy world more real, though we were missing some real treasured people to make the moment complete. One of those things being... time.
...Oh well, right? I'm not so sure I'm okay with all of this slipping away so fast.

I miss so many things. This weather has me caught by the throat I feel, I can't let it go because it has me against my will. though I do relish in the memory moments.
And, I miss so many things. Like, I miss them; I miss the occurrences. I'm too busy sniffling and blinking and counting that I miss things that happen. Maybe it is because of the things that I long for, I don't know.
But I'm thoroughly at the point of loneliness. And on my teabag paper tag yesterday there was a quote from mark twain (I think it was) something along the lines of 'true loneliness is in not being comfortable with yourself.'

and I thought, how poignant.

Vegetarianism... and Parenting

Every factory-farmed animal is, as a practice, treated in ways that would be illegal if it were a dog or a cat. Turkeys have been so genetically modified they are incapable of natural reproduction. To acknowledge that these things matter is not sentimental. It is a confrontation with the facts about animals and ourselves. We know these things matter.

...

I won’t measure my success as a parent by whether my children share my values, but by whether they act according to their own.

--Jonathan Safran Foer
in THIS ARTICLE, which was given to me by Shlomy on why and how he gave up meat.

Two great words of wisdom.

I’m a collector of interesting voices.

Ears:
my bits of tiny fly paper
pink and sensitive, scratched hard.
with elbows on wood, a table set
for Kings, Joshua, Judges,
Ruth.

And being so easily persuaded;
my fall is too hard and my rising too heavy
without your help.
Please, don’t let me speak. I repel even those who love
the lowest.
Just support me with your frame-
for here’s a setback in refinement,
as iron on iron no longer inspires.

I am isolated but for a costly few-
what have I given of myself?
please save me! I’m crying all the time!
I’m at the threshold of your door,
beneath your windowsill.
Let me inside!—or rather, let You inside of me!
You know where to saturate
and satiate completely.

I am that table, and God-
He was at one time, the tablecloth;
pouring out my mouth like a trembling April moth,
drawn to the light outside the door-
the drone entering my sticky tunnel;
binding to the walls with such strength.
But he’s not in there anymore.
oh, here’s just a platter of numb disciples portraying a band-aid.
no one is here.
No one is here to notice the unclothed table:
the silverware is gone, gone. And the dishes-
they are gone too. but the wine glasses;
the wine glasses, the wine glasses,
they are filled.