This recipe is easier than you could imagine, and it’s quick enough to whip up when a friend drops by for coffee or tea. What could be better on a chilly, rainy Spring day?

Raisin-Applesauce Snack Cake

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup unbleached flour (or you could just use 2 cups unbleached)
1 cup sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg
1/4 cup canola oil
1 1/3 cup natural applesauce
1 cup raisins
1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional, but who wouldn’t want ‘em?)

Mix dry ingredients together; add wet ingredients and mix well. Stir in raisins and nuts. Pour into greased 9×13-inch baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Drizzle with glaze (recipe follows) or simply dust with confectioners’ sugar.

Glaze:
1 cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted to get lumps out
2 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
2 tsp light corn syrup
1/2 tsp vanilla
2-3 Tbsp whole milk or cream

Combine sugar and butter. Add corn syrup and vanilla, stirring to combine. Drizzle in milk a little at a time until glaze has a nice consistency for drizzling over cake.

The next Recipe Round Up date is May 15, and it’s being hosted by Ann from Whatever Things…. Her chosen theme is Recipes Around the World. Sounds great, doesn’t it? She’s calling for “recipes unique either to the part of the world or country you live or where you’re from originally.”

Ann is adding excitement to the Round Up by adding a GIVEAWAY! You’ll have to head over to Whatever Things… to check out what she’s giving away and find out how you can be part of the Round Up with your regional recipe.

I’m looking forward to all the Around the World recipes, so be sure to add yours to Ann’s buffet! See you there on the 15th!

There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea. ~Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady

My new header is a painting by Mary Cassatt, titled 5 O’clock Tea.

Blessèd assurance, Jesus is mine!
O what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.

Refrain:
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior, all the day long;
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior, all the day long.

Perfect submission, perfect delight,
Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
Angels descending bring from above
Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.

Perfect submission, all is at rest
I in my Savior am happy and blest,
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.

~Fanny Crosby, 1873

It’s been snowing all day, sometimes heavily, and I’m guessing we have about 6 inches so far. The Dependable Weather Man said it would stop at 10:30 this morning, but since it’s after 3pm and it’s till coming down, I’m doubting his dependability.

Our daffodils are covered with snow, poor things. Otherwise, I shouldn’t complain because we definitely need the moisture. Everything is ‘tinder dry,’ and there have been several fires in various parts of Colorado already. It’s a good, wet snow that will sink into the ground quickly. So as Martha would say, it’s a good thing!

P.S.  My hand/arm burns are healing quickly and I have only slight pain now. Thanks for caring about me!

This passage spoke to me this morning…

Every duty calls for more grace than I now possess,
but not more than is found in Thee, the divine treasure
in whom all fullness dwells.
To Thee I repair for grace upon grace,
until every void made by sin be replenished
and I am filled with all Thy fullness.
My my desires be enlarged and my hopes emboldened,
that I may honour Thee by my entire dependency
and the greatness of my expectation.
Do Thou be with me, and prepare me for all
the smiles of prosperity, the frowns of adversity,
the losses of substance, the death of friends,
the days of darkness, the changes of life,
the the last great change of all.
May I find Thy grace sufficient for all my needs.

When slightly warming a lemon in the microwave so that it gives off more juice, the operative word is slightly. I turned to do something else and left it in for about 30 seconds. Big mistake. When I reached for the lemon, it exploded and shot juice onto my hand and arm, leaving a bleeding burn. Ouch.

Once burned, lesson learned!

Jesus Your name, Prince of Peace;
Quiets my soul, treasures the least.
In perfect rest You will keep
All whose hope is in You.
Jesus, Your name can silence the storms;
The strivings that trouble our world.
Jesus Your name reveals you as Lord: Oh powerful name!

Jesus Your name, Counsellor;
Wonderful Way, Life’s Comforter.
Spirit of Truth defending me,
Though in me was the blame.
Jesus, Your name has stood in my place
And freed me from hopeless shame;
Jesus Your name now fathers me; With joy I bear His name.

Jesus, Your name, Mighty God;
All Pow’rful One, ruling in love.
There is a King upon the throne
Earth cannot overthrow.
Jesus, Your name, great banner of hope;
Steadies the knees of the weak.
Jesus, the name all nations will praise; Oh glorious name!

Keith & Kristyn Getty & Ian Hannah, 2004

ht: Getty Music

The season of spring is welcome in its freshness. The long and dreary winter helps us to appreciate spring’s genial warmth, and its promise of summer enhances its present delights. After periods of spiritual depression, it is delightful to see again the light of the Son of Righteousness. Our slumbering graces rise from their lethargy, like the crocus and the daffodil from their beds of earth; and our heart is made glad with delicious notes of gratitude, far more tuneful than the warbling of birds.

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Psalm 150:6

“And of all words that ever were spoken, were there ever any gentler, tenderer, humbler, lovelier than these? ‘Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and you shall find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’

He wants us to have peace—his peace—peace from the same source as his. For what does he mean by, “Take my yoke upon you and learn of me?” …He means, Take upon you the yoke that I wear; learn to do as I do, who submits everything and refers everything to the will of my Father. Yea, have my will only insofar as I carry out his will; be meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest for your souls. With all the grief of humanity in his heart, in the face of the death that awaited him, he yet says, ‘For my yoke, the yoke that I wear, is easy; the burden I bear is light.’

What made that yoke easy—that burden light? That it was the will of the Father.

Alas! for poor men and women and their aching hearts! Come, then, sore heart, and see whether his heart can heal yours. He knows what sighs and tears are….Beloved, we must get rid of this misery of ours. It is slaying us. It is turning the fair earth into a hell, and our hearts into its fuel. There stands a man who says he knows; take him at his word. Go to him who says in the power of his eternal tenderness and his pity, ‘Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’ (Matthew 11:28) ~George MacDonald, from his novel,The Curate’s Awakening