Holiday kindness

Please remember this holiday season, and throughout the cold weather, life is very hard for our outside friends. You can help make their lives infinitely easier by providing a little extra sustenance for them. Of course full birdfeeders are always helpful and greatly needed. The squirrels, rabbits, chipmunks, possums, racoons, mice, voles, etc., all need to survive, too. Just throwing out a little extra food can make the difference between life and death, or even misery and comfort for a critter who is working their hardest to stay alive. I find the most consistently (and quickly) eaten are the peanut butter crackers I put out each night. I make 3-4 sandwiches, using multi-grain saltines and a very thick layer of peanut butter. This is healthy and provides much needed fat for them. Any past-prime bread, crackers, popcorn, etc. will be enjoyed. A lot of the slightly past-prime fruit and veggies are good too. I've had luck with apples and carrots. It takes so little time and energy, less than five minutes a day, to save and drastically improve someone else's quality of life--so why not?!

Also think of the shelters, especially this time of year. Any little extra you could spare makes a huge difference to them, and again, may mean the difference between life and death to an animal. Simply foregoing two or three Starbucks' (ridiculously priced) drinks gives you an extra $10. That's not much to most of us, but really adds up to those organizations who are providing shelter, food, and care to our homeless animal friends (who are there, of course, because of OUR species and not due to anything they have done). Almost all of us could scrape together a little extra to help others, with very little (to no) sacrifice required on our parts. If you aren't ready to make this a monthly occurence or way of life, at least try to do this over the holiday season. PLEASE!!

Luciana and I made our first batch of cupcakes from our "Vegan Cupcakes" book. We started out very simple--a chocolate cupcake with a fudge buttercream frosting. I'm suprised to say that they are good! Not that I doubted the book, but I doubted my ability to produce anything that looks that perfect and delicious. I've never made cupcakes, let alone made them from scratch. L. was a great helper. She was really looking forward to frosting the cupcakes, as we were using a pastry bag with a decorative tip. As it turned out, though, she didn't quite have the hand strength yet to make it work. I helped salve her disappointment with frequent frosting squeeze directly into her mouth. I'm pretty sure since they are vegan, they're not fattening. ;D

Tomorrow I will spend the entire day cooking for the xmas eve party at my mom's and for xmas breakfast, which is at my house. I'm hoping I can draft L. to help me, as it's so much more fun to have her with me than to spend the day in the kitchen alone. We'll be making swedish 'meatballs' (over pasta), and the gravy for them, tofu scrambler, biscuits and gravy, and sweet rolls.

We got the girls' gifts wrapped and under the tree today. It will be very nice not to have to worry about dealing with that on xmas eve!

Scraps, our latest adoption. She loves to sit on the couch with us; loves it even more if we pet her or give her forehead kisses!

Look at that adorable little face!

And here's Thumper, peeking out from his favorite little cave.