Just Horsin' Around - Thoughts on Central Texas Real Estate and More

When I was a little girl, growing up in East Texas, there were many events where bringing food was simply "the thing to do".  Since my mother was a preacher's wife, it was even more mandatory that she do so.  One of her favorite standbys was a rum cake (using rum flavoring instead of actual rum, of course!).  This is one of my fond memories of childhood, but somehow I'd never tried to make one myself.

This New Year's, I decided I wanted to do something a little bit different, so I go online and started hunting.  Finally, I found the following, which DOES use rum, and which I think comes close to my childhood memories (with a bit more "kick" to it).  I combined several similar recipes (variations on a theme) to come up with this.  It's easy, and good, keeps well (I'm told it will freeze well but I have to make one especially for that, I think, in order to have enough left to try it!), and was VERY popular. It brings back memories of my mother and her own special rum cake, as well.

This would make an excellent welcome to your new home gift, as well! 

GOLDEN RUM CAKE

1 cup chopped pecans (or walnuts)
1 package yellow cake mix
1 package (3.4 oz) instant vanilla pudding mix
4 eggs
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup dark rum


Glaze (Directions below):

1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup water
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup dark rum

1.  Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

2.  Greaste and flour a 10-inch Bundt pan.  Sprinkle chopped nuts evenly over the bottom of the pan.

3.  In a large bowl, combine cake mix, pudding mix, eggs, 1/2 cup water, 1/2 cup vegetable oil, and 1/2 cup dark rum.  Blend well.

4.  Pour batter over nuts in the pan.

5.  Bake at 325 for 60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. 

6.  Remove from oven, prick cake with fork while still in the pan, and brush 1/3 of the glaze mixture over the bottom of the cake, allowing to soak in between brushing.  Take your time with this! 

7.  Let sit for 10 minutes in the pan, then turn out onto the cake plate.  

8.  Prick the sides of the cake with a fork.  Brush glaze over top and sides.  Allow cake to absorb glaze, then brush again, repeating until all glaze is used.

9.  To make the glaze:  Combine 1/2 cup butter, 1/4 cup water, and 1 cup sugar in asaucepan over medium heat.  Bring to a boil, and continue to simmer for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.  Remove from heat and stir in 1/2 cup rum. 

10.  Slice, serve, and enjoy!

The Executive Director of TxDOT and Governor Rick Perry announced today that the dreaded Trans Texas Corridor is dead as originally planned. 

The megalithic roadway/railway planned to cut through some of the best farmland in Texas on its way to Mexico stirred much controversy.  People living in its path faced losing farms that had been in their families for generations.  During the many years it took to determine even a possible path (and a definite one was never determined), no one knew if their land would be impacted, or how, or if they could sell their land, or if they should buy land that might be condemned for the planned 1200 foot wide strip of asphalt and railway covering the earth.  

I was used to seeing, in my travels through the countryside, signs warning that TxDOT employees were not welcome on this or that piece of land and that trespassing would be dealt with severely.  (That's paraphrasing; firearms were mentioned on the standard sign.)

A group of small towns (Bartlett, Holland, Little River-Academy, and Rogers) that were in danger of being overrun by the Trans Texas Corridor united to form the Eastern Central Texas Sub-Regional Planning Commission (ECTSRPC) to at least delay it, if not stop it outright.

All in all, the people most impacted by this behemoth were not in favor of it, but Governor Perry and TxDOT pressed on. 

Now, it's been declared dead.  But these things have a way of being resurrected in a new guise, so those concerned are not relaxing yet. 

However, tonight - a wake for the Trans Texas Corridor! Margaritas all 'round!

Over the past 30 days, I've been having email issues.  Well, actually, my ISP has been having email issues.   Something about Taiwanese spammers and hacking and Yahoo! (and a few other people) putting them on the Bad List and everyone but  Yahoo! taking them off (but I do a lot on YahooGroups!, so this is important).  Sometimes I don't receive my emails.  Sometimes, my emails won't send.  Always, when they don't arrive where they are supposed to, instead of bouncing back so that I KNOW they didn't arrive, they go into the internet ozone layer, never to be seen again (except occasionally, when the ozone layer hiccups some days or weeks later). Makes it hard to do my job.  I even got my ISP together with my secret contact at YahooGroups! in hope of getting this thing fixed.  (Now they owe me one!)

This is driving me CRAZY!  Now, I have backups in place.  I have another ISP (my old, original one), I have a webmail through my office (that forwards everything on to my ISP, except when my ISP isn't accepting messages), I have gmail (a couple of accounts).  I'm covered.  But all of this involves a great deal of workaround time, and I am Not A Happy Camper. 

Technology is a wonderful thing.  I love technology.  Except when it drives me CRAZY!!!!!!

So.  How has your day been?

There's a lot of attention being given these days to building "green" homes, and to renovating existing homes to be more green.  This is a Very Good Thing, in my opinion, for many reasons, not the least of which is, these homes cost less to run.

But how many think about something very basic, the thing that makes any home "greener than thou", when it comes right down to it? 

What is it?  Do you think you know?  Ponder it for a moment, then read on.

The answer is TIME.

Not the time it takes to build the house.  Not the time it takes to pay for the house.

No, the time the house is built to last.  If a house is built to last for 10 years, then must be replaced, it has a certain environmental cost made up not only of the materials used to build it, but the materials used to build the replacement home, as well.  If the house is built to last for 50 years, the environmental cost is much less, over time.  If the house is built to last for generations (as some houses in Europe have), the environmental cost is dramatically less, even taking into consideration repairs and renovations that are made over those generations.Houses that are designed with additions in mind, if they should become necessary in future, houses that are designed to be living things, to "grow" with the families that inhabit them over time, houses that are built to work well in the environment in which they find themselves, are the greenest of the green.

As a culture, we have a tendency to disdain the old and insist on the new.  That's not the environmentally friendly way to think, however.  If a house is sound, if it was built to last forever, the last thing that needs to be done, if you want to be truly "green", is to tear it down and build a new house in its place. 

Without that very basic approach, we're hampered in building green homes, and in treading gently on the earth.  And yet I never hear this mentioned in all of the talk of "green building", of how the quality of the house and its ability to last over time is, with how it's oriented on the lot, the very foundation of building green. 

Wonder why that is?