27

The end of September means the end of another year of my life. As of this past Tuesday, I'm no longer 26.

I've gotten to the point that birthdays aren't that meaningful. I feel like I already have too much stuff, so gifts aren't that exciting. I got a mushroom-shaped desktop vacuum and a vegetarian cookbook. I'm not a vegetarian, but I do think we (including me) eat too much meat. Fortunately, this cookbook is written by a non-vegetarian, so it doesn't have the holier-than-thou attitude of many vegetarians and especially vegans.

I've been getting ahead on my work for the Women's Discourses project, so my current boss gave me permission to keep working on things for my previous boss, Assistant Church Historian Reid Neilson. This week I was researching things to write an epilogue for an upcoming book. Having studied linguistics, editing, and geology, I never expected to become a historian (or "an historian"), but that's what I've become, at least somewhat.

Anyway, Reid Neilson was nice enough to put my birthday in his calendar, so he made cookies for me! I was quite flattered that the Assistant Church Historian was so thoughtful of me. I got in an elevator with him on my birthday, and he told another passenger that it was my birthday. He asked how old I was, and when I told him 27, the passenger said I looked 17. This is what I actually looked like at 17:

Last Wednesday I had to put up a "mural" in another building in my stake; we put it up the previous week but it disappeared. We were pleased with our work this time:

But the next day I went into my own church building and found that the one we had done in our building fell down.

I'm not sure what to do anymore, if these keep falling.

I enjoyed conference weekend, since I didn't have any responsibilities to do. I must say I was disappointed the speakers didn't speak in their native language this time. "Made clay with the spittle" sounded like "Made clay with the speedo." I'm excited to hear from new Apostles; Elder Rasband came to my mission with Elder Bednar.

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Pumpkinundation roundup!

 Have you ever had the cereal Puffins? It's very much a hippie cereal, and it tastes like it. I think people only buy them because they are associated with the most awesome bird. (That's certainly the only reason I've ever paid attention to them. I have met one person who loved them, but only that one person.) As far as Puffins go, these Pumpkin Puffins Cereal might be better than most varieties. They do have real pumpkin and cinnamon. What I liked about these was the leftover milk--it tasted like pumpkin and cinnamon. The milk was better than the cereal (which is true about a lot of sugary chocolate cereals, too).

 Hershey's Pumpkin Spice Kisses have been around for a few years, but I don't quite understand why--years ago they made candy corn Kisses, and those were better than these. I don't hate them, but I know some people do. They're waxy and artificial. But I still eat them.

 This year, the Pumpkin Pie Blizzard is Dairy Queen's Blizzard of the Month for both September and October. It's fantastic, although it's hard to go wrong with pumpkin shakes. I think they're one of the things that popularized the pumpkin flavor.

 These belVita Pumpkin Spice Breakfast biscuits use pumpkin and spices. They're like graham crackers in that they're best with milk. They're pretty good. They're not as good as Nature Valley Breakfast Biscuits, but I don't know what belVita usually tastes like. I was struck by the packaging--a lot of pumpkin spice products have cinnamon sticks on the packaging, but this is the first one I've seen with ginger root (at least, that's what I think it is).

 These Archer Farms Pumpkin Corn Tortilla Chips have pumpkin powder--I don't know if that means it's in the chip's flour or if it's in the chip's seasoning. They taste pumpkiny, with enough sweetness that you can eat them plain, but they're still savory enough to use with salsa.

 

 This Kodiak Cakes Pumpkin Dark Chocolate Minute Muffin was pretty good for how convenient it was. Just put in some water and throw it in the microwave for a minute. But I didn't pay attention to how much it cost, because I randomly found it on a shelf at the grocery store.

 

 For the first time in my life, I bought a fresh pie pumpkin to cook with. I cut it up and put it in a recipe from my new cookbook, Argentinian pumpkin soup. It has pumpkin, vegetable stock, dried apricots, red peppers, potatoes, onions, cream, and corn. It was pretty good considering it was mostly vegetables.

I made seeds from the pumpkin, using various spices. I know that jack-o-lantern seeds aren't meant to be used for eating, but I think jack-o-lantern seeds are better than pie seeds. None of them were in one piece once you took the shell off.

 I also made pumpkin waffles, but I just used canned pumpkin. These didn't call for any spices, but I later added some, although I couldn't taste it. This was the first time I've ever made waffles from scratch, and I was quite pleased with how they turned out--although it's certainly more work than using waffle mix. The recipe called for a maple cream cheese syrup.

 Put a little Easter in Halloween, and you end up with Caramel Apple, Candy Corn, and Pumpkin Spice Peeps. Now, first off, I really dislike the idea of the Peeps shape for holidays other than Easter. No matter what color or flavor they are, chicks are still an Easter thing. Why not use one of their existing Halloween shapes? Furthermore, these aren't even regular Peeps shapes, because they're not stuck together. They're also really wrinkly and look shriveled. And when you use the chick shape, you diminish the Halloween (or other holiday) feel, but you also diminish the Easter feel at Easter, because they're no longer unique to Easter. Shapes aside, they're decent but a little weird. The caramel apple ones have a caramel-flavored fudge on the bottom, and it's kind of salty. The others have a white fudge which is kind of buttery. The candy corn ones are a little ironic--both candy corn and Peeps are basically pure sugar, and people love them or hate them, so it's weird to have them flavored after each other. (What if they make Peeps-flavored candy corn? I don't hate Peeps or candy corn, but I mostly like them because of their seasonal status.) The pumpkin spice ones were the best of them. If these were different shapes (and sold in bigger packages than three), I would be much more likely to get them again. This shows me that the flavors are fine, but the shapes are the biggest drawback for me. Weird, I know.