Friday, April 9, 2021

Multifaceted: Secret Subject Swap

 

Lemon Filled Strawberry Cupcakes, features spring flavors. Fluffy strawberry cupcakes, filled and topped with lemon frosting. | Recipe developed by www.BakingInATornado.com | #recipe #cake

 

Welcome a Secret Subject Swap. This month 5 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts. Read through mine and at the bottom you’ll find links to all of today’s other Secret Subject participants.

My subject is: What if April flowers brought May Showers?

It was submitted by: Sarah of the ever-changing identities, whose current incarnation is What TF Sarah. 
Secret Subject Swap, a multi-blogger writing challenge | developed and run by www.BakingInATornado.com | #MyGraphics
 
You can change your name all you like, Sarah, I'll always find you. In a non-threatening, non-creepy way, of course (please don't get an order of protection against me, I'm harmless, I swear).

What isn't harmless, though, is the rain. As spring settles in, water from melting snow adds to the rain and for the last couple of years, this has been a problem for us. The side of the house where my lilac shrubs await the warm sunshine is also where the sump pump from our basement drains. And drains and drains and drains. It's gotten to the point where it's dug a gully resulting in mud puddles in our and our neighbor's back yards. Not pretty. Not good for the lawn either. 
 
Multifaceted | Picture featured on and property of www.BakingInATornado.com

We've had to extend the drainage tube all the way into the middle of our back yard, at least stopping the mud from pooling in the neighbor's yard, but not a solution. So if April flowers bring May showers, meaning a deeper canyon in the side yard and a second round of mud puddles, my first thought is "crap!"

Despite crap being my first thought, it's not my final answer. Because, flowers.
 
Multifaceted | Picture featured on and property of www.BakingInATornado.com

 
I've spoken before about the flowers I have in my yard and those I plant in pots both on my front porch and my back deck. They've always brought me joy, not just in their symbolizing the end of another long cold winter, but in the gift of the colors of their blooms. In the one year plus of my Covid isolation (I'm still not fully vaccinated) the beauty of spring has become even more meaningful. I've mentioned that the only way I could safely buy plants for my pots last year was to go to an outdoor nursery in the early morning of a pouring rainstorm.

So if the price of having these in my life (and my surroundings) . . . 
 
Multifaceted | Picture featured on and property of www.BakingInATornado.com
 
Multifaceted | Picture featured on and property of www.BakingInATornado.com

Multifaceted | Picture featured on and property of www.BakingInATornado.com

Multifaceted | Picture featured on and property of www.BakingInATornado.com
 
. . . is dark and wet and dreary days, even if it's a repeat of the mud slide and all of the required clean up, I'll pay it.
 
It's also because of the rain that I can sit on my back deck between showers, looking out over the green lawn and the woods behind the house . . .
 
Multifaceted | Picture featured on and property of www.BakingInATornado.com
 
. . . contemplating the marriage of cupcake flavors . . .
 
Lemon Filled Strawberry Cupcakes, features spring flavors. Fluffy strawberry cupcakes, filled and topped with lemon frosting. | Recipe developed by www.BakingInATornado.com | #recipe #cake

Lemon Filled Strawberry Cupcakes
Happy Birthday, Mom
Lemon Filled Strawberry Cupcakes, features spring flavors. Fluffy strawberry cupcakes, filled and topped with lemon frosting. | Recipe developed by www.BakingInATornado.com | #recipe #cake


. . . and being treated to sightings of all of the wildlife that emerges after a storm.

Multifaceted | Picture featured on and property of www.BakingInATornado.com

Multifaceted | Picture featured on and property of www.BakingInATornado.com

Multifaceted | Picture featured on and property of www.BakingInATornado.com

Multifaceted | Picture featured on and property of www.BakingInATornado.com

Multifaceted | Picture featured on and property of www.BakingInATornado.com

Multifaceted | Picture featured on and property of www.BakingInATornado.com

Multifaceted | Picture featured on and property of www.BakingInATornado.com

Multifaceted | Picture featured on and property of www.BakingInATornado.com
 
And as if all of that isn't enough, there's the aftermath of the storms, painted on the skies.
 
Multifaceted | Picture featured on and property of www.BakingInATornado.com


And out front, the colors of the night sky serve as a reminder that even if tomorrow brings rain, it will also bring so much more, as long as you remember to look for it.
 
Multifaceted | Picture featured on and property of www.BakingInATornado.com

In this time of absolutes in terms of our opinions about each other, I hope that we can all temper our judgement with the lessons taught to us by Mother Nature. Rain has the ability to cause destruction, it also has the capacity to be nurturing, to bring life and beauty. We, like rain, are multifaceted.


Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swap posts. Sit back, grab a cup, and check them all out. See you there:

Wandering Web Designer 

Climaxed 

Part-time Working Hockey Mom 

What TF Sarah



Baking In A Tornado signature | www.BakingInATornado.com | #MyGraphics





Lemon Filled Strawberry Cupcakes
                                                              ©www.BakingInATornado.com



Printable Recipe


Ingredients: 
1 box (15.25 oz) strawberry cake mix
1 box (3 oz) strawberry jello mix
1 cup milk
1/3 cup oil
3 eggs
1 can (1#) vanilla frosting
1 box (3 oz) lemon pudding mix
2 TBSP Strawberries and Cream liqueur (can substitute milk)
1 TBSP lemon juice
 
OPT: decorating sprinkles and/or sugar pearls

Directions:
*Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place cupcake papers into 18 (for extra large) to 24 (for regular sized) cupcake pan wells.
*Beat the cake mix, jello mix, milk, oil and eggs for 2 minutes. Divide the batter into the cupcake pan. 
*Bake for about 15 minutes for regular sized cupcakes or about 18 minutes for extra large cupcakes, until the centers spring back to the touch. Cool completely.
*Using an apple corer, press down from the center of the top to about 3/4 of the way down into the cupcakes. Twist and gently remove, leaving a hole in each.
*Beat the frosting with the pudding mix, liqueur or milk, and lemon juice for 1 minute. Place into a piping bag. Pipe the frosting into the hole in the cupcakes made by the apple corer. Swirl the remaining frosting onto the tops of the cupcakes. Decorate with sprinkles and/or sugar pearls if desired.

22 comments:

  1. A SO important lesson to remember, Karen. Nothing in nature is absolute. Everything, even the violent and seemingly unforgiving, is multifaceted. We should be the same!
    Love your pictures! You live in a most beautiful place!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, Diane. If I had to be isolated for a long time, at least I got to do it in a beautiful setting.

      Delete
  2. I’m insanely jealous of how beautiful that is! I’m the harbinger of death when it comes to plants. I wanna sit on that deck and just listen to what nature has to say.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The surroundings are actually what sold us on the house.

      Delete
  3. If for once I don’t copy my comment and save it in case it won’t go through…
    I said I love your back yard as it seems to be a fabulous adventure park, gorgeous plant, cute animals and colorful rainbows and cupcakes included!
    Hope the rain won’t cause too much damage this season!
    Happy Friday!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I love my back yard too. The rain will most certainly cause us problems, but I'll still take it as the price I pay for being surrounded by beauty.

      Delete
  4. Under another severe thunderstorm watch, enhanced a new term this year. It means camping out in the storm shelter. It is thundering and my phone is telling me heavy rain in my area and lightning. Can we skip the April showers,I think we have had our share.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's already been a tough spring and it's barely started. Stay safe, Donna.

      Delete
  5. Great lesson and even greater photos. Wow! I even have strawberry cake mix in the house (but not most of the other ingredients.) Nature gives (flowers, rain) and takes away (deer that eat the flowers). But that is life. Alana ramblinwitham.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My allergies are really acting up but nothing lessens my enjoyment of seeing everything start to green up and bud.

      Delete
  6. You have a beautiful home and grounds! Only an extremely ill wind blows no good, and even people we disagree with about some things have good in them and often great ideas on how we can all work together. It's just a matter of being willing to discuss and find the areas of agreement and compromise.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Under normal conditions, I'd agree with you, but as far as our government is concerned, I'm not sure there's an honest willingness to discuss anything. Hope I end up being proven wrong.

      Delete
  7. We had a gully like that when we lived in a house. Every once in a while I would fill it in and hope for the best, but it was always a temporary solution.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, we're afraid if we fill it in it'll just create more mud, we need to talk to someone at a nursery.

      Delete
  8. Great beautiful plants. I have one Yucca plant which I adore because it never dies. Makes me want to go and buy some more.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I love your home and yard! We had a huge rain storm yesterday but today the sun is shining and the flowers are all blooming. Last night, we drove through a tornado!! Today perfect. Also, the lilacs made me remember my childhood bedroom where my dad planted two big lilac bushes and I could smell them at night as I lay in bed. I love that smell and it's still one of my favorites!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The lilac scent is a childhood memory of mine too. These are right outside a window in our stairway.

      Delete
  10. What one woman's flower is someone else's poison, right? Rain. Water. Drought. It is constant battle in California. And elsewhere. But...flowers. Yes.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I haven't really been able to get out and garden as much as I used to since I've been sick. and my cats have always had the run of my house, but with my stimulus money this last time, i was able to finally redo my bathroom and keep them out of it. and now I've added quite a few plants. I don't have anything as colorful or beautiful as these flowers, but me and the ladies have a routine of hanging out together while I listen to true crime. it's been good for me to get back into it! bring on the rain if the result is all that beauty.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I hope you can get out and back to gardening soon. At least you were able to bring some plants indoors.

      Delete

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