Milestone

My daughter (She's the one on the left.) turned 16 last Friday. It's so cliche to say that I can't believe it, BUT I really can't believe it. I won't say that every moment of her life has been a joy to us, but most of them have been. My husband used to say when she was little and so willful that she was like a thoroughbred horse. I remember one time when she wasn't even two yet. She was messing with the phone, which she wasn't supposed to do, and evidentally had punched in some numbers because she suddenly got quite angry and said to the phone, "No, I will not hang up and try again!" She wasn't going to let some automated recording tell her what to do. Two of her favorite people in the world, my sister and my sister-in-law (you know tha's you, Ann) get a kick out of her; partly, I think, because they both know me so well and think I deserve to have a daughter who is as headstrong as I am.
She had a nice little party for her birthday. After playing in her high school basketball game until seven o'clock, she had her best friends come to our house to spend the night. They played "Sing Star," on her brother's Playstation. We didn't even complain that they sang so loudly and off key (our opinion) until nearly midnight. Then they watched movies until who knows when...I baked her favorite--carrot cake. I used the recipe from Cook's Illustrated's The New Best Cookbook. In the morning most of the cake was gone, but I hid a piece for myself. It was delicious, if I do say so myself.

Carrot Cake

2 1/2 cup flour
1 1/4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp soda
1 1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tp. freshly grated nutmeg
1/8 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. salt
1 pound carrots (6 to 7 medium) peeled
1/2 cup crushed pineapple (optional)
1 1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed light brown suger
4 laerge eggs
1 1/2 cups safflower, canola, or vegetable oil

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 13 by 9 inch baking pan with non-stick spray.

2. Whist together flour, baking powder, baking soda, spices, and salt in a medium bowl, set aside.

3. In a food processor fitted with the large shredding disk, shred carrots; add the carrots to the bowl with the dry ingredients and set aside. (The book says to wipe out the food processor, but I see no reason to do that!)

4. Process the sugars with the eggs until frothy and thoroughly combined. With the machine running, add the oil through the feed tube in a steady stream. Process unitl the mixture is light in color about 20 second longer.

5. Scrape the mixture into a large bowl and stir in carrots and dry ingredients. Pour into the prepared pan and bake until a toothpich inserted into the cener of the cake comes out clean. 35 to 40 minutes.

6. Cool on a wire rack for about two hours, then frost with cream cheese frosting.

Mari had a contest on her site a couple of weeks ago and I won! I love how bloggers have yarn give-aways. I won a scrumptious skein of alpaca yarn. Thanks Mari! Now I just have to decide what it's going to become.

This is in no way meant to be an afterthought, but since I've kind of used this blog as a semi-journal of my life, I want to mention that my father-in-law died a little over a week ago. It wasn't a surprise to us, but despite the doctor's gloomy predictions, it did seem that maybe he would somehow prove them wrong. I am so greatful that Russ flew back to spend that week with him before he died. I don't really want to write about it that much. I've known him since I was nineteen years old. He was something of a character, (that's an understatement) and especially in my younger years, I didn't have a lot of patience for that. Despite his excentricities, his legacy is one of kindness and devotion to God.