Very exciting new recipes

There is a whole world of food blogs out there, such as one that I just discovered called Coconut and Lime (just love that name), which posted her original recipe for cranberry pancakes. This is dinner for us tonight. I have a whole Costco bag of cranberries waiting for tomorrow and while my family of 6 eaters will make a dent in it, that's about all that will happen and I'll be left with 3/4 of a bag of cranberries, desperately hoping I find the time to pop them into the freezer before they go bad.

Another new recipe I'm going to try is Thanksgiving bread, except I'd like to substitute mashed sweet potato for the pumpkin. We had sweet potato pie for the first time ever a few weeks ago and I was just floored at much it tasted like pumpkin pie. Ever since, I've been using sweet potatoes in any recipe that called for pumpkin....like pumpkin pancakes.

I read an article this morning about how a typical person gains around 7 lbs. from Thanskgiving to Christmas. The author recommended simple ways to add extra activity to our days to combat the additional calories from these yummy meals.....such as taking a brisk walk in the morning and before and after eating, to increase our metabolism. I know there were other suggestions but that was the one that resonated with me because frankly, it's the only one that's even reasonably possible right now. I guess the sit-up and push-up competitions sound like fun but I'm not ready for that kind of humiliation by my lovely kiddos....

So I say, s'il vous plaît...if you will, take a stroll with your loved ones and strive to be conscious of and thank God for all of our gifts and blessings. I'm really a C.S. Lewis wanna-be....I really believe there's little that is as lovely as walking and talking for miles....the discussions can just be remarkable.