It finally came off! After weeks of rejection by every commercial venue down here you can think of, and acceptance with open arms by Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, the Miami leg of the National Food Bloggers Great American Bake Sale to benefit Share Our Strength, happened this past Saturday! That is, with a lot of help from my friends.

Sweetness Bake Shop donated dozens of delicious mini-cupcakes (red velvet sold out fast!). Thanks, Stephanie!

Our good friends at Dunkin’ Donuts South Florida (@DDSoFla on Twitter) were kind enough to donate dozens of doughnuts and boxes o’ joe (coffee) for us to sell, and believe me, the coffee was especially appreciated.

Friends Astrid W., Kristin H. (also known as “BooBoo” to my very long-time readers), Lynne (Miz Shoes of Girlyshoes), and Paula (of Mango & Lime), and I, baked into the night, resulting in dozens of cookies, brownies, biscotti, rugelach, healthy muffins, quick breads, and so much more! A couple of my co-workers even contributed baked goods (“Sheila, I need you to bake me about a half-dozen banana breads.” “What?!?”)

I even got a volunteer baker referred to me by Tasha of That’s So Yummy, who was running her own GABS in Orlando! Shana lives about an hour away in Broward county, baked some wonderful cookies and brownies, and then drove them all the way down to us. Thanks go out to both of them, too!

This little ladybug landed on my shoulder and stuck around for nearly an hour – a sign of good luck, right?

And good luck we had, too! After threatening us with rain that never materialized during the day, we had a very good day, indeed. Counting the donations, proceeds from our raffle (see previous post), and food sales, we were able to put $748.00 in the mail to Share Our Strength! If you include online donations, that’s a total of $828.00! Not bad for a week-and-a-half’s notice, eh?

Thanks to Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, our intrepid volunteers, and wonderful donors! Next year will be even better!

(Photos by Paula Nino, Renée Joslyn, and Lynne Cohen. Additional photos from our day can be found by clicking here.)

For more information, or to donate to my team (and we will happily accept your money, thankyouverymuch!), click here and visit my team page. To find a bake sale near you, click here

Rumors to the contrary, I have not disappeared off the face of the Earth! For the last couple of weeks, I have been immersed in baking and jamming in preparation for the National Food Bloggers Great American Bake Sale to benefit Share Our Strength.

After a few episodes of tearing my hair out to find a location, and being led down the proverbial garden path more than once, guess what? I should have gone down that garden path to start with – Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden, that is! I should have known that an organization that emphasizes education and children’s programs, would be familiar with SOS and might have a natural affinity for an event such as ours. I am thrilled and honored that Fairchild agreed to host our bake sale!

I’ve personally made strawberry jam, two different types of biscotti, my signature Framboise Brownies, lemon sweet rolls and even some strawberry sweet rolls (using my own jam!). If I get the time, I may even make some marmalade! But it’s not all about me – seven very talented local ladies are baking with me: Miz Shoes (of Girlyshoes), Paula (of Mango & Lime), Stephanie (of the newly-opened Sweetness Bakeshop & Cafe), as well as good friends Kristin H. & Astrid, and two of my co-workers.

We’ll be having a raffle, too! This fabulous full-size quilt, lovingly handmade by Tante Leah Handmades (a/k/a, Miz Shoes):

A beautiful Bromeliad plant, donated by Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden (the Bromeliad Show & Sale is happening that weekend at the Garden, too!); and a basket of my Framboise Brownies, together with a bottle of the elusive secret ingredient – Pacific Rim Framboise Wine – and the recipe, are all items being raffled at our bake sale!

For more information, or to donate to my team (and we will happily accept your money, thankyouverymuch!), click here and visit my team page. To find a bake sale near you, click here.

What is it with you people?!? No! No! No! No! No!

Unless of course you’re on your way to “work”…

I know better than to say – or even think – that I’ve seen it all. No one has. You’ll be walking – or in this case, driving – down the street and something weird or wild or unusual will grab your attention, and the first thought that forms in your brain, is: “Well, now I’ve seen it all.” But you haven’t, really. Nope. Not by a long shot. Take this morning, for instance.

I’ve seen the ever-popular talking on cell phones, ignoring the rest of the world, while driving. I’ve seen women applying makeup while driving. I’ve seen bald men polishing their heads – seriously, with lotion or something – while driving. I’ve even seen texting while driving. I can honestly say I saw something this morning that, I not only have never seen before, but would never ever have even occurred to me could be done while operating a motor vehicle: The driver of the car in front of me was actually making balloon animals and balloon hats. While driving.

I wish I’d had more coffee before leaving home.

No, no, I really didn’t. Shit happens. And when it does, I want to write about it. And then I don’t. Well, I really do, but then I can’t think straight, can’t organize my thoughts, don’t have time in the moment to jot it down, and then I forget.

Like today. Stuck in traffic in the rain for more than an hour, all sorts of things I want to go on about, but I’m not a multi-tasking driver. I can’t brush my teeth, put on my makeup, talk on my cellphone, and write notes to myself while I drive — in the rain. I’m not that talented.

“Don’t Block The Box”. That’s the latest traffic courtesy campaign being mounted by the State, urging motorists not to stick their cars’ asses into the intersections, thereby blocking traffic when the cars going across can’t get past them. Did that make any sense? About as much sense as urging these mannerless idiots to do something that makes sense and is – gasp! – polite. Really. If they thought they wouldn’t make it across before the light changed, would they have taken that risk in the first place? Driving in Miami is like playing the slots in Vegas: a calculated risk. How much of a risk-taker are you? Do you bet Junior’s college fund? Or just your lunch money?

And speaking of your lunch money, have you taken Bob to lunch yet, today? (Did you like the segue? Who says I can’t be subtle?) To remind you, Bob is an Italian Greyhound stuck in a tiny glass pen lined in, what appears to be wood shavings, in a strip-mall pet shop in California. Bob isn’t doing so well, to the point that his “ransom” has been marked down twice, but the folks who run the place don’t seem to care very much. Jules of “Dirty Feet & Lilywhite Intentions” and her family – a great doggie home, if I ever heard of one – are a little short and have reached out to us in the Blogosphere. So click on one of these here links and donate what you would have spent on lunch to help FREE BOB!

Happy Earth Day & National Wildlife Week!

I feel a little guilty that I’ve wasted so much time this winter not doing so many of the things I had planned for my yard. Sloth, procrastination, laziness. I did plant a few things, but the wholesale yard makeover just never happened. And the National Wildlife Federation even sent me my “Backyard Habitat” certification sign for the yard. MJ asked me yesterday why I hadn’t asked him to put it up yet. I said that I want to do a few more things before installing it. Like it should look like a habitat before I advertise it as one. You know?

But I did plant my “Bleeding Heart” vine against the back fence this morning. And last week I finally got my second mulberry and last beautyberry into the ground. One of my butterfly sage shrubs didn’t make it, so I’ll have to replace it at the Fairchild spring plant sale next week.

I love the Fairchild plant sales. You don’t find this stuff at Home Depot. It always feels like a new beginning. New plants and shrubs, and a fresh surge of purpose and dedication. Now that our water restrictions have tightened, I feel even more justified – dare I say, even foresighted – that I’ve been concentrating on planting native and naturalized plants. They may not be as instantly showy, but once they get acclimated to their new surroundings, I never water anything. Unless you’ve got little kids that need to run on the stuff, or dogs who need to poop on the stuff, lawn grass is such a waste of space, time, and resources (including money). I preach to an empty choir most of the time, but I’m betting that new converts will be popping up the longer this drought and these water restrictions go on.

It’s so easy to make a mini-habitat, I can’t believe that more people don’t do it! A couple of bird feeders (or even just one), a bird bath (I use the catch tray from a large plastic planter set on top of the turned-over planter – easy to dump out and refill with the garden hose). Let an inconspicuous corner of the yard go wild. Plant native grasses, plants, and shrubs. Above all, give up the pesticides and weed killers! The birds themselves will do a bit of “planting” for you, if you catch my drift. It’s so much fun and interesting to see what shows up.

We’re so urbanized and concrete-ized, we tend to forget where our water comes from, how our air is cleaned. Want to see butterflies, cardinals, and hummingbirds up close and personal? Plant for them! They don’t have to be just static images on prints and knick-knacks. Bring on the grackles, the blackbirds, the hawks, and yes, even the squirrels!

This is the perfect opportunity to learn about your personal habitat: sit back and watch what visits your yard naturally. Learn what grows in your area that attracts the wildlife you enjoy. Once established, there’s almost no effort involved.

So, Happy Earth Day & National Wildlife Week! Plant something and enjoy!