I recently found myself in possession of a box of Reduced Sugar Fruit Pebbles. I won't say much about how they came to arrive at my home, other than the story involves the kindness of at least one anonymous soul, the further generosity of a local church and the health kick of a neighbor who has more sense than I. Anyway, we eat very little cold cereal around here and the Boy Wonder was disinclined to experiment with the genre solely on the basis of perusing the box (he is not, after all, familiar with the Flinstones and so felt no compunction to patronize their cereal, unlike what his response might have been to, say, a Buzz Aldrin cereal).

I remembered back in my college days my dorm mates and I making a batch of Fruity Pebbles treats - nothing more than your basic Rice Krispie treats subsituting the Pebbles for the Krispies. I thought this would be a fun way to use the Pebbles as a super-special kid treat, something we could make and enjoy and never speak of again. Since I couldn't remember the marshmallow-to-Pebbles ratio I googled the recipe. Imagine my surprise to end up on a page of something called Recipes of the Damned. Damned? Sure, they're not, you know, like, actual food or anything, but "damned" seems rather harsh.

In the end we were not disuaded by their accursed status and made the treats (for the record: 4 tablespoons of melted butter, 40 large marshmallows, six cups of Fruity Pebbles and one, ahem, hell of a mess). No one liked them very much, but that stopped none of us from having more than one three or four.

In further news, we have decided to have an egg hunt next month. I have several dozen of those stuffable plastic eggs, lots of room to run around and know any number of four year olds we can let loose in search of the hidden eggs. So an egg hunt seemed the obvious thing to do. We're not doing the traditional brunch, mostly because I don't need that kind of stress, but rather will serve what I call "treats" - cake and cookies, maybe fruit skewers with a yogurt/maple dip, veggies and hummus and probably some kind of crostini or something. The cake will be carrot, natch. In thinking about it, I dimly recalled a long ago episode of Martha Stewart Living wherein a cake was prepared to look like a garden - crushed Oreo paths, white sugar paste gate, tiny marzipan veggies. I just adore marzipan and figure that alone is reason to make the cake, not even taking into account its thematic appropriateness.

So I googled the recipe and immediately found a page on...can you guess?...Recipes of the Damned.

I wish I was making this up. Two hits to apparently damned recipes within the space of no more than three days. I do not know what this means in realm of culinary spirituality but it cannot be good.

I once heard or read a story about a woman who, upon her marriage and subsequent acquisition of a cat, informed her husband that women should not clean cat boxes for health reasons. No, not pregnant women but women in general. Why he didn't think about all the many women who look after their cats without the benefit of male company, or even the origin of proverbial Cat Lady, I do not know. So he cleaned the cat box for years until one day someone, his sister or boss perhaps, mentioned that, being pregnant, she was no longer going to be handling the cat box at her house. The resulting conversation put a quick end to his wife's delegation of that particular responsibility. No longer could she get away with that little sin of ommision.

I've been thinking about this story because I've been giving a lot of thought to getting away with stuff. Not crime or anything like that, but rather in the ways my life is changing as I get older. It's true that while on the one hand age has given me the smarts and guile to get away with some new things I don't think I can get away with quite as much. It's been only recently, for example, that I cannot claim to be in my 20s. Not that I did so a great deal, but it was a nice fib to trot out from time to time as needed.

I can no longer get away with waiting for my phone to ring. In years past I had no trouble filling my days from offers for lunch, dinner, movies, shopping, trips and even jobs. The world beat a path to my door and it was fun. Now I need to be much more proactive in building the life that I want. Now I think I understand what aging actresses are talking about and I am learning what it means to really put myself out there.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not in mourning for my lost youth or anything like that. I rather like having developed the self-knowledge and self-worth to be able to choose wisely for myself rather than suffer what I now recognize was a certain level of insecurity that caused me to run around always being "on" - making good conversation, singing for my supper, telling funny stories and rolling out the dry sardonic wit when called for. It takes some level of courage to create space for oneself, to put a border between where one stands and the world. Age helps in this regard and I am increasingly grateful for my acquired years.

So when my March Vogue arrived yesterday I noted with amusement that I am now more or less dead even, age-wise, between the models and the intended recipients of advice doled out by the apocryphal Mrs. Exeter. More and more I find myself nodding in agreement with the recommendations and encouragement offered in response to a writer, inevitably a femme d'un certain âge who wants to know how to interpret the latest hot looks in a more appropriate, ahem, fashion. This month's column concerned the best ways to incorporate "global chic" into a more conservative and less colorful wardrobe - what, in other words, is a mature woman to do about hippy skirts and beaded ponchos?

It occurs to me that I can no longer get away with sartorial inappropriateness in the name of fashion. No more concert tees under suit jackets, among other insanities previously filed under "personal style." Just the other day I mentioned to my husband that I wanted to head up to Talbots to see if I could pick up a pair of nice wool trousers, that I was tiring of my wardrobe of jeans and turtlenecks. And what did he think if I bought a couple new scarves and maybe some loafers as well?

The next morning, as he pulled on his new tweed blazer with elbow patches, he encouraged me to make the shopping trip. "Don't get the pants in brown or black," he said, "You're a grown-up, but there's no need to be dull about it."

Mrs. Exeter would be proud.

With a star tip and enough 10X sugar I could rule the world.

This was Entropy Girl's birthday cake. My inspiration for the bright saturated colors was cakes I saw at Aroma's in Williamsburg when she was just a few months old. We had gone to meet my parents for a long weekend to recover from the post-partum haze and pneumonia that darkened our spring. We stopped for lunch at this quirky little cafe and fell in love with the cakes - all bright and cheery, happy and a little silly. Those featured more mature themes - makeup and rock music - so I didn't copy them exactly but I went all the way with the color and loopy piping. The cake itself was chocolate with chocolate filling, at the Boy Wonder's behest.

My baby is one.

Making the cake was a little anxiety producing because my mom - who thinks nothing of producing in a single weekend a five-tier wedding cake to feed 400 - was visiting and I assumed that she'd be all over me about the cake. But she was very respectful and stayed out of the kitchen, coming in only to pour a(nother) diet coke and comment how well everything was coming along. Her, well, I don't want to say approval but I can't think of a better word, was a pleasant surprise and she made me very happy by having two pieces after the birthday dinner.

The only other issue was one that I hadn't considered or planned for. I used 7 colors on the cake, most of which required both writing and star tips. I have two writing tips but only one star tip, and only four pastry bags so the actual decorating was held up for several washing and drying episodes. I also used every small bowl and teaspoon I have for mixing colors. The very next day I found myself at our local craft place and bought three more 10 inch pastry bags. I don't know that I'll ever use so many colors on a single cake again but I want to be prepared should the occasion present itself.

Many thanks for your comments and e-mails after my angst-ridden post about careers vs. family vs. location for same. Much of the last week was given over to continued discussion of these issues and we think we've come to some kind of resolution, if only we have the guts to actually follow through. Time will tell.

I'm still here and I have tons to say, but so little time in which to say it.

Back soon with a tale of a stew gone wrong and another Hot Water Bath Q&A. Good times for all!

This morning I made pumpkin pancakes for breakfast with the last of the pumpkin puree I froze from last summer's volunteer vine. I added just a bit more milk and some white sugar (since we like our pancakes ever-so-slightly sweet) and they were great - thick and substantial, spicy and smooth. And lovely with some pink grapefruit marmalade spread on top.


In taking the pumpkin out to thaw the other day, I noticed that I am down to one bag of frozen pesto (made from my own basil), one bag of (home-grown) cilantro cubes, one-each bags of blueberries (not home-grown, but local and home-frozen at least), cherries (ditto) and raspberries (another ditto). We have already finished what at one time looked like way too many pints of tomatoes and even more spiced apples. This is, of course, what happens as winter marches on - freezers and canning shelves empty as we enjoy the bounty of previous seasons and simultaneously make room for the hoped-for abundance of the coming year. It's the rhyme and reason of the seasons and I've been incredibly lucky to be able to experience it to the extent that I have.


This year, though, my empty shelves and freezer may not be filled the way that I've enjoyed recently. We are at a crossroads, professionally and personally, and must (quickly) decide if we are to leave Virginia and seek our fortunes elsewhere. If we move our family and possessions, it will be so that I can continue what I am told may be a promising career and so that my husband can establish his credentials - we will likely make some money and gain greater and better reputations than we even now enjoy. If we stay, it will be to continue a life that has proven so satisfying in so many ways - room for our children to run and play, space enough for a large garden to fill our bellies in the immediate and the aforementioned freezer in the long-term, a house that is only now beginning to shape up to what we hoped it could be.


Each choice has its negatives, to be sure. On the one hand, a family life and, on the other, the financial security - however illusory - that comes with "a job". For a variety of reasons I will not bore you with, these paths are mutually exclusive and, despite our hopes that with enough time they would be combinable we are realizing that we are running out of time and waiting even longer might remove the choice altogether.


Our conversations on the topic are beginning to become wrenching and rather heated. Every time we resolve to follow a certain path we see what seem to be signs directing us the other way - strong signs, virtually undeniable as to their message. Neither of us desires to spend our lives tethered to someone else's desk, moving at another's command. At the same time, we would rather enjoy the money required to not stay awake nights worrying about the electric bill, braces and our son's desire to play pee-wee hockey.


And then there are the lines. You know, the ones we're all supposed to color inside.


I have an MBA. With good research results my husband will, within months, have receive a Masters degree in Tissue Engineering. I have always said that one should not attend college to get a job but rather to get an education. And I stand by the statement. Sort of. It's just very hard to tell you mother that you're pretty sure you're not going to go to work for the Fortune 100 big-pharma that's been calling because you'd spend too much time away from your kids and your garden and the furniture you've been wanting to refinish and even though the money is good, you'd be working like 90 hours a week so what's the point. And it's even worse to try and explain to your mother-in-law that, yes, even though her son is a credentialed engineer and an excellent researcher and he's loves the field, he's more interested in highly theoretical stuff and being more a kind of crazy inventor guy is really more his speed.


And then you watch their heads explode. When their heads stop exploding they tell you how you're throwing away perfectly good educations that you've been lucky to receive and how you're ruining your kids' lives by not earning every cent coming to you and what kind of example are you setting anyway? That it's o.k. to just be happy when life is about work? Is this what we taught you?


And we dust off our resumes again. Because somewhere in there we recognize the kernel of truth, even if it makes us wince.


This is where we are today. From pumpkin pancakes to existential crises in one stream-of-consciousness blog entry.