Remember when I made almond milk and posted a recipe on the blog for you all, oh, almost a year ago? Well I told you to save the leftover almond pulp, so you can go ahead and pull it out of the freezer because I'm coming through with a raw cookie recipe for you just like I said I would.

Jacob and I eat pretty well. I love starting from scratch, like grinding my own wheat berries scratch. I love the long road of fermentation. Processed food consumption is so far from my radar, I forget it exists. We eat a veggie-centric diet accented by pastured dairy and meats and soured grains and sprouted quinoa...you get the picture. I have all kinds of opinions about eating that I mostly keep off this blog because I find soap-boxing about that kind of thing very annoying. I'm not a nutritionist nor a scientist, and thus feel I have little authority when it comes to diet advice. So you're welcome.

But one of the food philosophies that I will divulge today is that I am (almost morally) opposed to cheater foods: like diet sodas and anything sweetened with artificial sugars. I'm a purist when it comes to sweets. And my purism is this: when you eat sugar, eat it. Own it. And eat it.

If you put Sweet'n'Low in your coffee, I will still love you. Mostly because I probably won't notice because I'm kind of oblivious, and if I did notice and you saw me notice, I'd probably get drastic and go delete the above paragraph from my blog now that I realize you read it AND you use fake sugar because I'm mortally afraid of coming across as judgmental. Fyoof. Ok. Moving on.

Despite being all granola, I'm also against when "health" foods dress up like ice-cream sandwiches or some such. But I will now be giving you recipe for a "healthy dessert" that will fly in the face of that pet peeve.

I'm consistent like that. Always.

I compromise with my no-faux dessert rule in this specific situation because the frugalista in me is huge, I don't really understand it, but I'm pretty sure it's something deep. Like gene-deep. Like I would have to watch out for hoarder tendencies if I wasn't equally obsessed with not accumulating things in the first place, but now I'm getting distracted because the point, the POINT, is that I would probably have a heart-attack if you made that almond milk recipe and then threw away the pulp. I'm twitching just typing that.

With a little more adieu, I will tell you that these are about what you'd expect: not that amazing. The almond milk is utterly delicious, and consequently I will keep on making these in the aftermath. And Jake thinks they're as good a "tookie" as any, and I sneak them all day long and skip the Klondikes, so there's that.

Coconut Chocolate Almond Pulp Cookies

1 c. almond pulp (left over from making two batches of Almond Milk)
1 c. dried shredded coconut
1 T. Chia seeds
2 T. Cocoa Powder (this is a guess because I do half cocoa and half carob...because well...yeah)
2-3 T. Coconut Oil
3 T. Maple Syrup

Mix all the ingredients together. If it's warm you might need to refrigerate the dough for awhile before you attempt to work with it. Form into little balls and roll in more shredded coconut. Flatten them down or don't, it's up to you, but DEFINITELY freeze them and position them between you and the ice cream. And you're done in a jif.



Or maybe a toddler is helping you and it will take a very long time. 

Honestly, I've made so many variations on this recipe, I feel weird nailing it down. There are so many places you could go instead: peanut butter chocolate chip cookie dough bites being an excellent option. I pretty much just guessed on ALL those proportions up there and I encourage you to do the same.

There. Aren't you happy you visited The Rhodes Log today now that you're one mediocre recipe richer? I thought so.

7 Quick Takes

- 1 -

I've had a gloriously relaxing week. Jake's naps have been long and so have his nights. The garden is growing and the yard is peppered with pink bougainvillea petals. The jacarandas are blooming all over. The promise of a move in the nearish future keeps me from committing to any house projects, or any other projects, or anything at all really except trying to see friends before we skip town forever.  So life has been pretty much entirely comprised of minor housework and Pinterest. 

- 2 - 

Pinterest has an entirely new appeal now that house ownership in the next couple years isn't a pipe dream but a probability. The thought of owning a place and renovating it and decorating it and doing whatever I want to it, literally keeps me awake at night with excitement. It's pretty much all Jacob and I ever talk about.  My recent obsession can basically be summarized by the walls and ceilings of this place.

His recent obsession is along the lines of tiny houses. Tiny as in:

Tiny as in: load it up on your trailer and park it at the sunset.

- 3 -

If you've been reading this blog for a long time now you probably remember that my husband comes from Mennonite stock. Old-order Mennonites. The horse'n'buggy, no electricity, Pennsylvania Dutch type. I haven't written about it much because I keep thinking one of these days I'll do a whole series on it since it is indeed such a big part of Jacob's history. I'd explain the whole situation: how Jacob's dad ran away as a teenager, how Jacob's mom up and moved the kids back when they were in high school for a year, how it's possible to have triple digit cousins, etc, etc. And perhaps I will someday, but I'm always intimidated away by how the road of Jacob's childhood is a forest of relocating and tent-living and gurus and meditation domes because Jacob was raised by a hippy.

- 4 -

I know this because I read through a buzzfeed of 29 Signs You Were Raised by Hippies (Beware any link with "Hippies" in the title will always sport some naked people. Be warned today and everyday after.) and they were all pretty much spot on. I even called to him in the next room while I was reading it and asked:

"Honey, do you know who Buckminster Fuller is?"

And he replied in a deliciously ironic you've-got-to-be-kidding me tone: "Um...yeah..."

- 5 -

So the last two takes got me all kinds of distracted because the REASON I started talking about the Mennonites in the first place was because of the house-buying possibility. Jacob has a dream that involves getting us some land and chartering a bus and bringing all his cousins down for a good old fashioned barn raising.

It will be a party of beards and suspenders and some weird iced "tea" that tastes like peppermint but apparently isn't.

- 6 -

So the Jake-ster has moved into imaginative play. He will call a screw a horse and run it around the coffee table. Meal time ends with him and his crumbs in some type of circus. Everything - including everyone Jake knows - "falls down in the ocean" at least once a day. The kid is going through some type of growth spurt and his appetite has doubled since we got back from Texas. He eats more than me and (consequently) his little sister combined. Eating is great and all, but the diaper situation is out of control: we're talking 3-4 bombs a day, people. TMI? Probably. But this mom has got to mom-vent somewhere. He also answers all his own requests for things: "Oatmeal? Yeah? OK." And nods.

- 7 -

The other day Jake was in the bathroom while his dad was getting out of the shower when I heard him say this:

"Papa's butt...Papa's butt...Papa's BIG butt!"

It pretty much made my life. (And lucky you if you're reading these takes early because I'm almost sure Jacob will make me delete it as soon as he reads the post.)

Now feel free to go back through this post and edit out the overabundance of adverbs and then have an awesome holiday weekend. See you at Jenn's!

Late to the Bloglovin' Plunge

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

I couldn't manage a fancy button, so a link will have to suffice.

See you with some Takes soon because it's Friday and I'm joining the party even if Uncle John still has our good camera and I'll be mining the iPhone for photos.

7 Quick Takes

- 1 -

We've been all over and back since I last posted on the blog. We had family in town. I finished school. Little man and I were in Kansas City and Wichita and visiting the folks in the TX Hill Country where Jacob joined us. We've made some big decisions. But here are some iPhone snapshots and some good memories from the past weeks and a couple pieces of news.

- 2 -

First things first: I'm done teaching, and for the foreseeable future I'm joining the ranks of SAHMs. This is beyond exciting to me. I've only ever worked part-time but it was enough to stress me out and I'm very ready to test the waters of home-dom. My students were all very sweet at the end. One even bought a present for the baby - and professors don't often get presents so I was giddy over it.

- 3 -

Jake and I got to spend a weekend with my sweet goddaughter
 

when we went to my friend Mary's wedding which was pretty much perfect in all ways. The sweetest service and homily (which I got to sit through AND enjoy because I was all-adult and got a babysitter for my not so Mass-friendly little man) and reception. Chatting with old dear friends that I mostly only see at events like this. I also met the bride's sister-in-law, the illustrious Mrs. Patton herself, and even managed to track her down for a chat which was awesome...but since I've been mildly obsessed with her blog for pushing three years now, I did feel kind of like a nine year old meeting a high school cheerleader.

- 4 -

After Wichita we moseyed on down Texas-way and spent a week with my family. One of my brothers and my sister were home the whole time and my older brother decided he'd come down for the weekend after he saw a picture of Jake on my mother's instagram  and realized we were in town (we're GREAT communicators). So four of the five were home for Mother's Day which is probably the best showing since...2007?

- 5 -

Here's some less than impressive photographic evidence of the visit.

Swinging with the great G

Reading with "Aunt-uh Leelee"

Blurry picture of us watching things like this:

fall from the sky.

California ain't got nothing on Texas thunderstorms, y'all.

Jake's precious (?) camera-smile after being reunited with his dad after a week.

- 6 -

On the bigger news front is the fact that The R Log is moving its homebase. Baby #2 was a bit of a game changer since it ousted me from the college adjunct workforce in the fall. One salary doesn't quite cut it for us in the big LA. So we had to make some decisions. And a work opportunity came up for Jacob in Houston, and so come July we're saying goodbye to the land of movie stars and relocating to the fattest city in America.

We ultimately want to settle closer to my family in the Austin area, so Houston will probably just be a couple year stepping stone, but I'm more than excited. If only for this reason and that reason  - two VERY dear friends in the area. And the blogger in me is excited for this reason even though she probably has no idea who I am, but I've been stalkerishly obsessed with her older daughter's hair for a couple years now.

- 7 -

The other bit of news is that we scored an ultrasound in my parents' clinic and found out that we're balancing the scales this fall because Jake is having a LITTLE SISTER! Pink and ribbons be mine.

And that, my friends, is all my news. Happy Friday. Head on over to my soon to be neighbor for more takes.