What fall tastes like...

My friend Nancy makes these wonderful pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and I decided that I'd give it a whirl. The recipe is from a blog called Joy the Baker. I thought I'd give it a try, and share my adventures in baking with you, my faithful and gentle reader. (BTW...I just tasted one from the first batch and they're delish!)

They look yummy already!

(This is only the second time I've ever used my mixer, and I've had it almost a year!)

Mmmm...looking more and more yummy by the minute!

Wow, those are big cookies!

The worst part of baking..

THE BEST PART!

Moving...

The time has finally come. It's time to pack up my tiny apartment and move. My lease is up at the end of December and I'm getting married in April so I can't stay here. For three and a half months I will be living in my childhood bedroom. This should be an interesting experience. I love my family very much, but they are a little different from me. I like to come home most afternoons and just sit in silence for a little while. (I teach in a high school. I hear this cacophony of noise all day long.) It's not so quiet at my parents' house. There's also the fact of living in just one room. Most of my stuff will be taken to Steve's house (where we'll be living after the wedding) now, but it will be quite an adjustment to live in just one room. I can't believe the wedding is only 5 months and one day away, and starting to pack up my stuff makes it seem that much more real and so much closer.

I love my apartment and I'm a little sad about selling some of my stuff or getting rid of some of it, but I just have to. Steve and I have a lot of stuff between us. Since I'm moving out, I thought I'd take this chance to share my little apartment. It's been a good place to live. (BTW, if anyone wants to buy or knows someone who needs a couch and love seat let me know!)

An open letter to Maura Kelly

This blog was recently published on the Marie Claire website and this is my response.

Dear Maura,
I am deeply offended by your blog. I find it to be ignorant, discriminatory, and narrow-minded. Being a big girl, I am used to stares, whispers, and jokes. I can even laugh at a genuinely clever fat joke, and occasionally make some myself. What you did in your article is not funny. It is mean spirited and hurtful. You claim that you have suffered from an eating disorder so you should know, better than anyone, that sometimes it is difficult to control your eating habits. Is the answer to lose weight to exercise more and eat less? Of course. But if it were truly just that simple there wouldn't be a single fat person in the world. Who would choose to be pointed at by children, have to wear ugly ill fitting clothes, wonder if the chair will support them (or even if their ass will fit in it?), or have to read hurtful blogs like yours? Am I making excuses for being fat? I am not. I just want you to realize that eating too much and exercising too little aren't the only factors at work here. There's also genetics, chemicals in your brain, coping mechanisms, learned behaviors, and there is even some research that links obesity to OCD. I understand that I'm fat and I take responsibility for that, but eating and exercising aren't my only problems.
Finally, fat people deserve to find love in their lives. I waited a long time to find it and I found it with a man who is also overweight. I love him for who he is, ALL of him and he feels the same way about me. I love the show Mike and Molly. I think it is a sweet show. I am always happy when anyone finds love in this world. There's not nearly enough of it, so why trash it when you see it? (BTW, I understand these are fictional characters. I'm speaking on behalf of all of us in big relationships). Celebrate love, no matter what it looks like, even if it's two fatties.
A.