Please take the poll on the left hand side of the blog

Some of you might be wondering why I never posted about the meeting I went to where I was invited to represent the underclass for the new website design of my university's social work website. Before I get to it...yes, I am the queen of the run-on sentence :) I went to the meeting the day after we got back from the blues trail excursion...which was great, by the way. So I was kind of dogged out and admittedly not very coherent. It seemed to me that they were not at all interested in or impressed with what I spent the entire summer working on. It seemed to me they were only interested in getting it done the easiest and quickest way possible, even though I offered to go sit with the IT people and learn how to do the coding. In all fairness I can understand the mindset...not having an on staff programmer would make you opt for the quick, easy and simple route. But the reason why I haven't posted about it until now is that in the course of the discussion one of the instructors from the PhD program said that my site promoted plagiarism. Ouch! Punch me in the gut why don't ya :) Now, I cannot for the life of me see how providing links to valuable resources promotes plagiarism so I have stewed on it and gone through all the grief stages about it and have finally decided to put up a poll to see what my readers think. According to sitemeter there are about a thousand or so of you out there. It would be great if I could get a few of you in here to respond to the poll before I lose my mind over this :) Thanks so much!

Yeah!! A Cold Snap! Finally We Can Move Again, Here in the Deep South!

Finally the first cold snap! I was beginning to wonder if it would ever happen. Here in the south one of the things we think about doing when the weather turns cold is cooking. We love to cook and we love to eat. I thought it would be interesting to find out what other people like to cook. I started a thread last year in a forum I visit regularly and got many great recipes from it for holiday dinners. So I will start it off on my blog this year. Anyone is welcome to post their recipes here in the comments. This recipe also makes great cupcakes, just put a hershey's caramel kiss on top while still warm for the topping. :)

Better Than Sex Cake

1 butter recipe yellow cake mix
4 large eggs
1/2 cup oil
1 1/3 cup water
1 small pkg instant vanilla pudding
1 8 oz container sour cream
1 bar german chocolate
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup shredded coconut
1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

Topping

1 large bag Rolo's candy
1 - 2 tablespoons milk

preheat oven to 350. grease and flour large bundt pan. In large bowl combine cake mix, pudding mix, oil and water. mix until well blended. add eggs one at a time blending well after each. place german chocolate in small nonstick skillet and heat on low until in a soft melt state. mix into cake batter. fold in sour cream. fold in chips, coconut and pecans just until evenly distributed. pour evenly into bundt pan. bake for approximately 55 minutes. check at 45. may take longer. cake is done when inserted knife comes out clean. allow to cool in pan for 15 to 20 minutes. invert onto coverable cake plate and allow to cool completely. cover tightly and let sit for at least two days, if you can wait. if not, it's great warm. but the waiting allows the flavors to mellow some. in a large nonstick skillet unwrap rolos and place the candies big side down add 1 tablespoon milk. heat on very low heat stirring occasionally. add milk until just able to stir and no more. if it's too thin it will run right off the cake. allow to cool then pour evenly over cake. i usually use a 2 cup glass measuring cup to do this. makes it easier.

I was about 25 when I discovered this recipe and was experiencing a particularly long "dry spell" and at that time I had a really hard time trying to say that it was not better than sex