There Must be a lot of Us Not Baking Much Anymore

because in the last two hours I have had 8 people come to my blog while searching for "how to get lumps out of brown sugar". They were from:

1. Topsham, Maine
2. Saginaw, MI
3. Chicago, IL
4. Sdewickley, PA
5. Columbus, OH
6. District of Columbia
7. Clementon, NJ
8. Berkeley Heights, NJ

I had to chuckle a bit because, I, too, bake way less than I used to and I often have lumpy brown sugar.  It's good to know so many others have similar problems.  Good luck to all of you trying to save your brown sugar in the last hours before your Thanksgiving feast. I wonder, are you making sweet potatoes with brown sugar or pumpkin pie? For those of you in distress who find this post when you search, I have posted my  method of dealing with lumpy brown sugar  here .

Right after work today, I threw a load of laundry in and went out to cut down some greens for my holiday decorating.  It is supposed to snow/sleet/rain for the next few days and I wanted to get the greens before all the branches are weighed down.

I headed right to the big pile of branches left from the recent tree that fell down. I snipped a lot of  nice little branches of different greenery.

 Then I clipped some of the shrubs near the house that I grow just for this purpose.  I ended up with two nice pails full of assorted greenery.

Sometimes procrastination pays off.  Since I have never cut down all of my dead flowers, I have tons of interesting seed heads, like these black-eyed Susans:

I snipped a few of these, some Sedum Autumn Joy and some .......oh, my.............

what is that white feathery stuff......I just hate when I forget the name of a plant......it happens every fall/winter. .. as soon as I am done gardening, my mind moves to other things...............ahhh...it just came to me.........astilbe!

At the moment I have no idea what I will do with all of this.  I am posting it now so that I will be forced to do something with it.  That is one of the great things about a blog. In order to have something to post, I must actually turn all of these branches into some sort of decoration now that I have said I will.  I am hoping to create a few beautiful arrangements soon.  Right now I have to go check on the laundry.

Let's Start with Lumpy Brown Sugar

During my recent baking spree, I opened a new bag of brown sugar only to find it full of hard lumps. Don't you hate that?

Wait! Don't throw it away! I have a little trick that may help someone out there who thinks you have to toss out the lumpy sugar.

Put some water in a cup and the sugar in a bowl or jar. Put them both in the microwave at 15-second intervals. After each 15-seconds, give it a good stir and try to squash the hard lumps. Keep doing it until the lumps are gone. It took mine about a minute and a half.

The water will throw off steam, providing moisture to soften the sugar. With just a little crushing of the spoon against the lumps, you should be able to use the sugar.

There. My little brown sugar man is smiling again. Hopefully he does his job and keeps this sugar lump free now that it's in a covered jar.

Remember my oriental lady vase that I bought a few weeks ago for 70% off? I finally used it Monday night to hold some tulips DH bought me.

Isn't it just the most unique flower holder? I love it. If you want to see the whole table I did, just click on my tablescaping blog in the right side bar. (I'm too lazy right now to hyperlink it)

After work yesterday I had my nails done. I decided to match them to that pink/orange/white jacket I showed you a few weeks ago.

I think that's a pretty good match. I will have to wear it sometime during the next two weeks.