Tuesday, November 24, 2020

Safe at Home

 
 
Celebration Cupcakes for the holidays, birthdays, or any celebration. Moist chocolate cupcakes are filled with marshmallow crème and multicolored sprinkles. | Recipe developed by www.BakingInATornado.com | #recipe #cake
 
You can't go home again. It's actually the title of a Thomas Wolfe novel published (after his death, and using his notes) in the 1940s. 
 
It's also come to be a well-known expression, full of nostalgia and making a point about change. We all have childhood memories, some pretty accurate, but others glossed over by the rose-colored glasses of time.
 
When I go home, I will often drive by the house where I spent my childhood. At first I'm taken aback by how different it looks. Why would anyone take out those beautiful rhododendrons along the front window? Oh, and they took the screens off of the big screened in porch at the side of the house and turned it into a deck. All signs that although you can sort of go home again, it's not the home of your memories. In fact, it's someone else's home, where they've made their own mark, erased some of the embodiment of your very childhood, turned it into what will be fodder for their own future reminiscences. And so it goes . . . and so it goes.
 
Covid, of course, took a wrecking ball to the meaning of that old saying about not being able to go home again because, quite literally, we could not. What a shift there was in the paradigm. Priorities became crystal clear. Memories, landscape, it all took a back seat.
 
 
You CAN go home again | Graphic designed by, property of, and featured onwww.BakingInATornado.com | #home #MyGraphics


I don't like repeating the same stories on this blog because it's my hope that many of you read it often and I don't want to leave you rolling your eyes and thinking "yeah, yeah, you told us already." But I'm going to have to give the backstory here, bear with me.

My older son went to college an hour away. He's local and I am (well, most of the time) grateful. My younger son went to college 10 hours away, and it was a tough 4 years of missing him. When he graduated, he had job offers in different states but the offer with the best company was right here at home. I'm not going to lie, I was more than a little excited. He got a loft downtown and was about 30 minutes away. Not too close and not too far.

But after just one short year of having him back home, his company moved him 8 hours away. It was bittersweet because although he'd be gone again, Boulder is a young, vibrant, fun area, perfect for him. He moved on September first. 

A few months later we were together again, I flew him home for Thanksgiving, but shortly later we started hearing about Covid. It quickly became clear what a threat this disease is. He started working from home, I started staying home. 
 
With him not going into the office, I wanted him here. He knows no one there, and you can work from home anywhere. But the numbers sky rocketed in Boulder, then here, then in both places and it just wasn't safe. I spent months frustrated, shaking my fist at the stars. For endless months I could have been cooking for him, baking for him, celebrating every minute he was here, were it possible, were it safe.

The hard truth was, though, that for the first time ever, I did not know when I would see him again. Thanksgiving would be an entire year.
  
 
Celebration Cupcakes for the holidays, birthdays, or any celebration. Moist chocolate cupcakes are filled with marshmallow crème and multicolored sprinkles. | Recipe developed by www.BakingInATornado.com | #recipe #cake
Celebration Cupcakes
 
There is such a huge difference between not going home knowing that you can versus the knowledge that you cannot. Can is hope, possibility. Cannot is frustration, despair.
 
It wasn't safe to fly, we didn't know what the weather would be the week of Thanksgiving so we didn't know if he could drive. Through the months he started working once a week, and just as that was about to be twice a week, the surge in Covid cases forced them to work exclusively at home again. He self quarantined, we self quarantined and a little over two weeks ago, on a 70 degree fall day, he drove home.
 
You can't go home again? How much has changed is meaningless, the dissolution of rose-colored memories is meaningless. Home, ever changing though it may be, is where your family is. 
 
This mom, with a full heart, knows one consequential fact: 
 
You CAN go home again. And if it's safe, you should. 
 
Baking In A Tornado signature | www.BakingInATornado.com | #MyGraphics



P.S. No matter how you celebrate, who you celebrate with, I wish you the gift of much to be thankful for. Happy Thanksgiving.

Celebration Cupcakes        

                                                       ©www.BakingInATornado.com

Printable Recipe

Ingredients: 
1 box chocolate cake mix
1 box chocolate instant pudding mix
1/2 cup canola oil
1 cup milk
4 eggs
 
2 jars (7 oz) marshmallow creme
1 TBSP milk
2 TBSP multicolored sprinkles
3 TBSP powdered French vanilla flavored creamer
2 TBSP decorating sequins (can substitute multicolored sprinkles)
 
Directions:
*Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 18 cupcake cups with paper liners.
*Beat the cake mix, pudding mix, oil, 1 cup milk, and eggs for 2 minutes.
*Scoop the batter into the cupcake liners and bake for 20 to 24 minutes, or until the center springs back to the touch. Cool completely.
*Making sure not to go all the way to the bottom. use an apple corer to make a hole in the center of the cupcakes. Keep the cupcake plugs that you remove.
*Lightly spray a spatula and the inside of a gallon size plastic bag with nonstick spray.
*Mix one of the jars of marshmallow creme with 1 TBSP milk and 2 TBSP multicolored sprinkles. Scoop into the plastic bag.
*Snip the corner of the bag and pipe the fluff into the cored-out centers of the cupcakes. Press the tops of the cupcake plugs on top.
*Mix the French vanilla flavored creamer into the remaining jar of marshmallow creme. Dollop onto the top of the cupcakes. Sprinkle with decorating sequins or more multicolored sprinkles.
 

22 comments:

  1. I miss all these sugary, sweet treats (Type 2 Diabetic), but I will definitely share with others.

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    Replies
    1. I don't eat as many of them any more myself, but I do love making them for family. Thanks for the share.

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  2. These sound amazing!! I may need to add some chocolate on the menu for Thursday!

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  3. Hope you get to see your son soon. Such a bittersweet time for many families.

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  4. Tears here, Karen! I'm so beyond happy that you have your boy home! Now let the air out of his tires and make him stay. (Or do it your way and feed and love him into a reluctance to leave!)
    Those cupcakes look divine! Saving the recipe to try with my grands!

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    Replies
    1. The time is flying by, he'll only be here another 10 days. :(

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    2. Yes, actually there's a conversation coming up in the next Fly on the Wall that ties into this. You'll know it when you see it.

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  5. I guess I am home. We are having our version of Thanksgiving. I bought a turkey, .49 a #, could not resist. I bough prepared and frozen dressing, yummy right, I will have gravy for the dressing and green beans, not the casserole. It will be my youngest son, my youngest grandson and me. My DIL is working and my next to oldest son is going to his fiancée parent’s. The rest are scattered in different states. Saturday,
    My next to oldest and his fiancée will come and if the man does not come to clear the limbs from the falllen tree, we are going to have a bonfire and roast hotdogs. Happy Thanksgiving! Don’t let him go back.

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    Replies
    1. Sounds like you have a great meal planned, Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family too.

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  6. I am diabetic but that doesn't s to p me from enjoying such sweet things just in moderation
    I rarey go out so I am safe at home
    Home is moren a building it is family and our safe place

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    Replies
    1. Yes it is, and I'm glad you're staying home and staying safe.

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  7. My son has never lived more than 20 minutes away from me. I can't imagine him being far from me, and I feel for you with all the worry this year brought. We had Thanksgiving with him two weeks ago when we had a lovely stretch of weather and were able to eat outside. So Thanksgiving will be just the two of us. I am grateful that neither of us are introverts and that we have each other. Alana ramblinwitham.blogspot.com

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    Replies
    1. As difficult as this time of covid is, I'm grateful that I, my family and friends like you, are healthy and safe.

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  8. Wow, what a gift! My hope is that as long as all his work is remote, he can stay with you.

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    Replies
    1. That was my hope too, but he has to go back, I'll end up getting him for a month and although I was hoping for longer, I'm incredibly grateful.

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  9. Your cupcakes sound wonderful. Too bad there would be way to many for our very small Thanksgiving dinner.

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  10. French toast is my all time fav breakfast food. I recently found out I have a cinnamon allergy but I'll still find my substitutes for this breakfast food where I can get them. Hope your holidays get a great start.

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    Replies
    1. I know this comment was meant for my next post, where I have a French toast recipe so I'm not sure how it ended up here instead, but let me just say that I'm so sorry you have a cinnamon allergy, I don't know what I'd do, I use cinnamon in so many recipes.

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