But when her Double Coconut muffin recipe came out, I knew I could do her one better.  I offer you, triple coconut muffins.

In addition to the coconut oil and the unsweetened coconut flakes, I also decided to swap in some coconut flour.  Yum.

These muffins actually are rather different from Deb’s.  The unsweetened coconut on top of the unsweetened yogurt means that in the end these muffins aren’t very sweet at all.  But they are delectably moist, and just a touch tangy… which is just my cup of tea.

I also used one of my new favorite discoveries – Traders Point Creamery yogurt, a local yogurt that I have been buying almost exclusively as of late.  It was the only place that I was able to find organic, full fat, and unsweetened yogurt (without having to make my own) for this precious munchkin:

Anyways, this yogurt has barely any cane juice in it for sweetener, and it is full fat, with some mango and banana puree mixed in.  So it added a slightly pina colada tang to the muffins (just barely).  Normally I would just have used regular, but you could also use sweetened vanilla yogurt and end up with sweeter result, if that suits your fancy.

If you wanted to get kind of crazy you could use coconut milk instead of milk and go for Quadruple coconut muffins.  At that point you might just need to go eat a coconut.

Triple Coconut Muffins

Ingredients:
1/2 cup coconut oil
3/4 cup 50/50 proof bread flour (or half whole wheat and half regular)
1/2 cup coconut flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup full fat yogurt, any flavor, although I really believe plain or Greek is best or at least something unsweetened
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup milk or almond milk
1 egg (or two teeny eggs, which is what I used since my farmer delivered extra tiny ones this week)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup shredded coconut, unsweetened, plus more for sprinkling on top

To prepare, heat oven to 375 degrees and grease up a muffin pan.  Set out your yogurt and your egg to come to room temperature.  Heat your coconut oil in a saucepan until barely melted (NOT hot).  Or, if you have an oven with a vent up through one of the burners that gets super hot, like I do, you can just set it in a glass bowl on the burner while the oven preheats and it will melt for you nicely.  All this is necessary because coconut oil liquifies at 76 degrees, so if you whisk a cold egg and yogurt into the oil it will resolidify, making your batter difficult to work with and possibly leaving you with chunks of unevenly distributed coconut oil in your batter.  Some chunks are okay and almost unavoidable (unless you have a super hot kitchen) – you just want the batter to be as even as possible.

Whisk together flours, shredded coconut, baking powder, and salt.  Whisk together yogurt, sugar, milk, egg, vanilla, and coconut oil.  Mix wet ingredients into dry ones until combined.  Pour into muffin tins and sprinkle with a bit more shredded coconut.  Bake 20 minutes.  They will get a touch crispy on the outside but still be incredibly moist on the inside.  And you will love them.

I loved that she didn’t just say “she’s not the same.”  She said “she’s not herself.”

I remember days feeling that I was having some kind of out-of-body experience, where I watched myself think and act and do and wondered who that was.  It wasn’t anyone that I recognized.  It wasn’t just a different person, it was no one.  I felt an absence of personality in my life.  An absence of identity.  A vacuum where there once was a whole world of ideas and interests and talents.

On the other side, I know that I was never lost.  I was still in there, somewhere.  But it was like a bulb planted in the cold ground, lying dormant and waiting for the right conditions, for new warmth and light and life to make it grow.

It’s true, I’m not the same anymore.  But it’s the same me.  I’m not a different person, just a new one.  When I began to awake from the winter of my struggles and sufferings, I found that the dead branches had been pruned and the healthier ones had begun to leaf.  God was cutting and shaping my heart even when I didn’t remember that it existed.  He was resodding ground that had lain dormant for more than the length of my lostness, and when I awoke I remembered more about myself.  I began to rediscover my true self.

My days are filled with new things – studying nutrition, tutoring math, painting walls, revamping old objects, beautifying boring ones.  I didn’t know that I liked to craft, I didn’t know that I could delight in 13-year-old faces understanding a new mathematical concept, I didn’t know that I could find the impact of B vitamins on the body so fascinating.  But they fit into my life; they match pursuits I forgot I dreamed of as a child.

The wilderness times gave a chance for the old growth to burn and the buried roots to take life again.  I am a truer version of myself than I remember being since I was 11 years old.

And here I am.  With this baby that I pray learns to stay true to herself from the very beginning; to not allow the weeds of poor friendships and the thorns of pressure and the chaff of busyness make her forget what she loves and who she wants to be.

And here is my blog, with new things added to the old favorites.

The Rules:

1.  What is your favorite pair of shoes?
2.  What kind of car do you drive?
3.  How would you describe your style?
4.  What is your favorite color combination?
5.  What would you have for dinner tonight if you could have anything?
6.  Walk or run for exercise?
7.  Most treasured possession?
8.  Favorite vacation memory?
9.  If you were having a daughter right now, what would you name her?
10.  Favorite way to spend an evening?
11.  Favorite song?

I’m tagging Liz, Anna, and Tierney!

I’ll give you a little break while you take a deep breath and marvel over her absolute beauty.  I’m not kidding.

But on to my other baby.  My darling, pet project.  One of those things you generally want to do but never do… and I did!  Here it is:

It’s hard for me not to break out into a rendition of “Isn’t She Lovely” here.  This is my hideous, almond colored 1990s fridge that works too well for me to contemplate replacing it.  Now, it is a fun chalkboard ready for Ida to get bigger and draw all over it while I make dinner!  A fun chalkboard ready for my weekly menu!  A fun chalkboard ready for notes written right on it rather than post-it notes stuck to the handle for Andy and my sister in the mornings!

It was a piece of cake to make, actually.  I used three thin coats of Rustoleum’s Magnetic Primer, and then two medium coats of Valspar’s Chalkboard Paint.  It took one afternoon – I gave the three priming coats 30 minutes to dry between applications (the first coat was the hardest, but after that it was easy peasy), and then took a break to run some errands for a few hours before I applied the chalk paint which meant it was good and ready.  Then just another 30 minutes between the two layers of chalk paint and it was done!

There was then a minor disaster in which I decided to purchase chalk markers instead of regular chalk, and the ones that I bought brutally stained my lovely new chalk finish in neon colors.  All it took was a paintbrush and a little more chalk paint to cover it up, though.  So now we’re back to normal and we are using only regular chalk from here on out!

The only difficulty, really, was working with the magnetic primer.  It was very grainy and hard to get smooth, so that combined with the already textured surface of the fridge left a slightly rough finish to my chalkboard.  It’s no harm, just means that the chalk is a little dustier than it would need to be when you write with it and it takes a little extra effort to get it perfectly clean again (the chalk wipes off easily with a damp cloth, just leaves a little bit of a dusting behind in the grooves if you do it quickly).  When I was covering up the stains with a paintbrush, though, I found that the result was much smoother than working with a roller, so if you’d like a smoother finish I suggest doing your last coat with a brush instead of a roller.

Cost was less than $50 for the primer, paint, and a small roller/tray kit.  I also had to spend $5 on frog tape which put me up above $50 but if you have it on hand you’re good to go.  Beats shelling out $1500+ for a new stainless steel fridge, huh?  And I think it adds a fun, whimsical character to my kitchen.  I’m in love!  What do you think?

So in an afternoon, I updated fourold picture frames and gave them new life and gave myself the warm fuzzies of happiness while I did it:

This one was so easy – just laying scrapbook paper over the mats in two frames and cutting it to fit.  It looks even cuter in person!  These frames will not stay near each other because the colors don’t match, but for now it’s fine!

This one was fun to do!  (I apologize for the reflections in the photos).  It’s a 12×12 opening and I just cut a piece of fabric to fit and traced on “S” onto another fabric to lay over top.  The contrast isn’t everything I wish it could be, but it looks very cute for now.

This project was my favorite!  I simply took a frame that had two 5×7 openings and covered it up with scrapbook paper, then laid a wedding photo and a map of Pennsylvania overtop, with a heart marking the area we got married in.  I love the way this looks on my wall (perhaps I could add some trim on the top and bottom sometime), and am planning to make a matching one with slightly different paper, a map of Ohio, a heart over Cincinnati, and a photo of Andy and I with our baby Ida.  I’ll then hang them on either side of this mirror in the dining room:

They will add some character and some history!

Well that’s a few imperfect projects for you today.  It took 2-3 hours total while Ida took an afternoon nap and after she went to bed one evening to get those done, and it made a huge impact on my living room and my general happiness with my house!  Try it today!