Tiptoe through the tulips

with me...

(Al Dubin)

Doesn't that just sound like an amazing idea?

These pictures were taken at our local library. Every year they do a new tulip planting arrangement; different kinds, different colors, different themes. 

And then after the season is over, they have a sale. Which I've written about before. Because of it's rather cut-throat, first-come-first-gets-everything status.

And yes, these last pictures are of tulips. Aren't they spectacular? 

They smell as good as they look, too. If you can believe that. 

I may have to camp out overnight at the library before the tulip sale this year. In hopes of snagging a few of these.

We'll see...

Despite the cold, cloudy, snow-flurry...

that's right, I wrote snow-flurry...weather the past few days,

Spring is here.

At least that's what my patch of Daffodils is telling me anyway...

What to do on an early April day...?

When it is warmish and sunny in the morning, with a pale blue sky and fast moving clouds,

you could:

Admire the Crocuses coming up in your front yard.

Go for a wind-blown walk.

End up at a nearby park where there is spread a carpet of blue.

Pick flowers.

Walk home, clutching them so tight they nearly don't survive.

But they do.

So you could put them into myriad size vases and arrange them on the table.

Then, in the afternoon, when the dark clouds arrive and the wind grows cold and rain drops slash and spatter the windows, you could make Gluten Free Churros.

And you eat them, wrapped up in a sleeping bag, on the floor.

Sitting next to a very contented cat.

Seven Stanzas at Easter 

By John Updike

Make no mistake: if He rose at all

it was as His body;

if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules

reknit, the amino acids rekindle,

the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,

each soft Spring recurrent;

it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled 

eyes of the eleven apostles;

it was as His Flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,

the same valved heart

that — pierced — died, withered, paused, and then 

regathered out of enduring Might

new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,

analogy, sidestepping transcendence;

making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the

faded credulity of earlier ages:

let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,

not a stone in a story,

but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow

grinding of time will eclipse for each of us

the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,

make it a real angel,

weighty with Max Planck’s quanta*, vivid with hair,

opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen

spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,

for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,

lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are

embarrassed by the miracle,

and crushed by remonstrance.

HAPPY EASTER.

I think I have mentioned before that around here March is Birthday central.

Also, Birthday cake central.

Seriously.

There has been a WHOLE LOT of cake over here.

None of which I am able to eat, though.

So, when I came across a recipe for a Paleo Lemon Almond cake, I was definitely up for just a little more baking.

And it was worth it.

I made it twice in one week, it was that worth it.

I modified the recipe a little. Using Olive oil as my oil of choice. And a Flax Egg instead of regular Eggs or a Chia seed Egg.

(A Flax Egg is 1 Tablespoons of ground Flax seed mixed with 3 Tablespoons warm water and left to set up for anywhere from 15 minutes to overnight in the fridge. For this recipe, if you go the vegan route, you'll need to triple it.)

Also, because I figured there was a chance, what with the Honey and the Lemon juice and the Olive oil, and no real Egg serving as a binder, if I went ahead and added the Blueberries the recipe called for, my cake might get too moist.

So I left them out of the baking and just threw a few fresh ones on before eating.

With a good dollop of coconut cream for good measure.

Though, to be honest, the cake needs neither. And is perfectly delicious on it's own.

http://www.greenkitchenstories.com/blueberry-lemon-almond-cake/