Southwest Montana…
…it’s starting to look like Wyoming.
Northern Wyoming.
And the requisite “sunset over motorhome in rv park” to finish the day.
Corn muffins: Mexican style
It is no secret that Karl gets royal treatment and has since I brought him home at 7 weeks of age. But, although he has shared my tidbits from the table, he does not take from the table!
But then… I made a batch of corn muffins.
Digressing a bit, the recipe comes from this cookbook, circa 1976:
This was a church women’s project from a Silver City, NM church.
I love this recipe. I often make it as muffins. I tinkered using 1 cup frozen corn instead of canned, jalapenos instead of green chiles (the canned green chiles we get are bland) and I put 1/2 the batter in a food processor and blend it smooth so the muffins are slightly less “chunky” than the original. It takes about 5 minutes to mix and get in the oven.
Karl LOVES these corn muffins! Jalapenos and all.
Seriously, he knows when they come out of the oven and anytime I grab one he is right there. He gets more excited over jalapeno corn muffins than meat… jalapeno!! – they are “hot”!
Corn muffins: Mexican style.
Alpenglow on the road
We took the “Looking for Alpenglow” show on the road last evening. The start was visible on the mountain tops that we see through the trees but neighbors are in residence making the usual loop off limits.
Temperatures stayed very cold and skies very clear all day. As the sun set behind Blacktail Mountain, west of the valley, the glow started low.
The telltale pink hit some low clouds.
Some of the pink hit the mountain tops.
And the light lit the road home.
Mountain mystery
Karl’s and my Christmas Day tradition has been a decadent breakfast followed by a long snowshoe run. It continued this year.
Snow is scarce in the valley. We headed around Flathead Lake on the way to Blacktail Mountain Road and higher elevation.
Driving along the lake, a few mountain peaks of the Continental Divide were visible in sun holes in the cloud cover.
We drove up the road through the low inversion layer of foggy clouds and emerged above it all.
It was a world of sunshine, snow ghosts and mountain mystery.
Looking toward Christmas
The season of Advent: Christians believe that the season of Advent serves a reminder both of the original waiting that was done by the Hebrews for the birth of their Messiah as well as the waiting of Christians for the second coming of Christ.
I love this time of year – the waiting and expectation of Christmas, of snow and real Winter. There is excitement in all of it – remembering childhood Christmases so full of anticipation and then the growing of faith and the wondering of all that Christmas means to me now.
I like to savor every moment of this “time before” – the knowing of this celebration as our Heavenly Father wanting to enter our world and our lives.
On this quiet morning, I sat enjoying. The light from my little indoor tree softly lit small treasures from childhood, first years on my own and more recent finds that speak to me of the joy and wonder of this time of year. I sat…looking toward Christmas.