Oatmeal Carrot Cake Cookies Recipe

I recently reorganized my recipe file (which you can see a sneak peek of what it actually looks like here). I usually take some time once every few months to do some pruning to the clippings and cut-outs, getting rid of the ones I don’t use and making it easier to find my favorites when I do.

In my overhaul, I also decided to refine some of the categories. When I first started my recipe collection (before I even met my husband!), I had your bare-bones basic groups (chicken / pasta / beef / etc.) and then one “Miscellaneous” section that became a catch-all for everything from snacks to sauces, beverages to BBQ sauce. That category has swelled, along with a couple others, so I added some new dividers to help cull the chaos and simplify retrieving the right recipe.

One of the newest categories includes: Desserts: Hidden Fruits & Veggies. (Seriously.) These are some of my favorite recipes because they taste oh-so-good but include a nice helping of something healthy in them, so you don’t feel too bad snick-snacking on them in the middle of the afternoon.

This “Oatmeal Carrot Cake Cookie” recipe is one that found its way into that section, since it includes a good punch of carrots, raisins and oats.




1 cup rolled oats
½ cup packed light brown sugar
½ cup unbleached all-purpose flour
¼ cup sugar
¼ cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. ground flax seed
½ tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. salt
¾ cup packed, grated carrots
1/3 cup raisins
3 Tbsp. butter, melted
1 large egg

Mix together all dry ingredients (oats, flours, sugars, spices) so that evenly incorporated. Add in carrots and raisins, mixing well. Separately, in a small bowl, mix together the melted bowl and egg. Pour the butter-and-egg mixture into the bowl of dry ingredients and mix well until combined.

Shape dough into cookies (roughly 2-inches in diameter) and place on baking stone (here's the one I use and love) or greased cookie sheet, leaving an inch or two between each cookie. (It’s easiest to just roll up your sleeves and shape the dough with your hands.)

Bake cookies in oven at 350 degrees for about 15 to 20 minutes, until edges of cookies are browned and middles are not gooey. Makes about 10 to 12 cookies, depending on how large you shape them.

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How We Spent Our Spring-Break Vacation: A Trip to Washington, DC

At the end of March, my husband and I had the sweet opportunity to leave Atlanta behind for a few days, board a plane to the coast and spend time in our nation’s capital with my husband’s family.

Here’s a little bit of how we spent our time in Washington, DC:

Taking an elevator to the top of the Old Post Office and squinting to see past the horizon as roads turned into strings and massive stone buildings into specks down below.



Walking around the White House grounds, peering at the backyard garden and trying to snap pictures through the fence bars.


Visiting the Library of Congress. Seeing the Gutenberg Bible. Looking at copies of Jefferson’s drafts of the Declaration of Independence.



Sitting outside the Capitol building, wondering what all is going on inside.


Standing puny beside the huge stone sculpture of Abraham Lincoln and reading the words of the Gettysburg Address carved into the walls.


Opening eyes wide to take in the whole of the Washington Monument, stretching high into the sky.


Wandering the grounds of Mt. Vernon, George Washington’s estate. Being impressed by the bright, leafy green walls of the dining room and a shocking shade of teal in another; I took a color palette home with me because I was so enamored with his decorating sensibilities. (Unfortunately, they wouldn’t allow photography inside the building.)



Looking out over the Potomac River and peering into Washington’s tomb.


Somberly walking around the WWII Memorial, taking in the breadth of the sacrifice those men gave. Being thankful that neither my husband or I have had to put our lives on the line for peace like that.



Admiring breathtaking skeletons of manatees and wooly mammoths, mice and men and a few mummies for good measure at the Natural History Museum.




Walking among live butterflies and trying to capture their fluttering wings on film while they darted from flower to flower, fern to fern and occasionally took a break to land on my sweater or jeans which just made me giddy.



Finding new restaurants. Splurging on Starbucks each day. Taking breaks at Barnes & Noble and thumbing leisurely through a huge stack of home décor magazines.

Riding the subway and getting to know the colors and stops and street corners. Going to bed early because of all the walking we did, traipsing about until our feet were sore.


But more than all the site-seeing and subway-riding and sandwich-eating was spending time with family, whom we typically only get to see once or twice a year. Catching up with lives and leisurely things that otherwise go invisible amid the long-distance connection. Watching one another grow and grin and learn and laugh. Together.

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The History of My Blog and How It's Grown Over the Past Two Years: Developing Quality Content (Part 4)

In retracing the evolution of this blog over the past two years, I’ve talked about how I first launched it and why I started it, how I’ve tried to increase traffic as well as my approach to designing a brand for my blog. (If you missed any of those, you can follow these links to read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.)

Those are all important facets but they neglect one big aspect: What you actually say on your blog.

Because you can have all the traffic and the slickest design in the world, but if what you’re saying isn’t worthwhile, then, in my opinion, it all is in vain.

When I first started this blog, I knew I wanted to approach it differently. I wanted to make it the kind of destination spot that other blogs had become for me: Ones that were filled with ever-evolving content, content that impacted my life.

I wanted to write, first and foremost about my faith and share the testimony of what God is doing—daily—in my life.

But I also wanted to write about practical, everyday stuff, too, like what I was learning in the kitchen as I made humble attempts at wholesome cooking or how we were finding ways to live on a budget or my latest endeavors to decorate our living spaces. As well as what was simply going on in my life.

But, looking back, it seems like a lot of those early posts were just thrown on the page.

I think it took me awhile to come into my own as far as nailing down the content that I share at Life Blessons and, more importantly, how I share it. Now, I feel like I have more of a rhythm, sharing a variety of posts on a few key topics, from cooking to crafts, faith to finances.

I also feel like I’ve learned how to pour more of myself into those posts, rather than just slapping a recipe in the content field and pushing publish.

I think that has been one of the changes that I’ve made to the blog that I have loved the most: These posts challenge me to be vulnerable, to tear open the situations that I might otherwise like to forget or ignore and pour them out onto the table so that you might learn from them, might be challenged by them, might be inspired by them.

That kind of writing—with a willingness to be humbled by my own words—has made me look at myself more squarely in the face and see my faults more clearly. It has not only benefited the writing and the posts. Even more so, that practice has helped me on a personal level deal with my sins and my weaknesses and has challenged me to dig into my relationship with God more so that I can share that progress here.

This little blog of mine has become quite an accountability partner over the years!

In doing so, I feel these posts have become more real and more raw, which is the kind of writing I have always personally been attracted to. I am not a squeaky-clean, have-it-together person. So I don’t want to read something where someone else is claiming that façade. (Because let’s face it, no one has it all together!)

It has at times been a challenge to be so open and honest, but I know it is for the better—for this blog and for me. And in doing so, I’ve never once regretted one of those vulnerable posts I’ve made. Your comments and encouragements and admissions that you’ve been in that very same place have helped me continue to do so in confidence.

It’s been a long journey, this little blog of mine. It has definitely not been an overnight success; it has been one I have been constantly working at for more than two years, a labor of love.

But because I love it, because I keep on, keep on working on it, it is what you see before you today: A blog that I’ve been writing for more than two years, and I feel like I’m just getting started.

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The One Thing We Didn’t DIY This Year

This spring marked a first for me: It was the first time I paid someone to do my taxes.

For a died-in-the-wool DIY-er who makes her own bread, bodywash, pizza sauce and salad dressing, who takes it upon herself to fix a broken window, mend her own clothes, and even try to grow her own food, well, it should be obvious that I like to be able to do things on my own.

There’s some satisfaction in being able to say “I made that” or “I did that,” to know how something works well enough to do it yourself. There’s a sense of self-reliance and independence in taking up hammer or rolling pin or trowel and go at it yourself, wearing the smudges of ensuing dirt and flour and paint like badges.

But every year when it rolls around to April 15th, I find myself stuck and stalled by one thing that I haven’t yet managed to conquer on my own: taxes. As someone who works from home, there are a myriad of tax-benefits available to me and that right there is what takes something that can be a simple fill-in-the-blank sort of scenario into one that, in our household, turns into hours spent typing in numbers, looking up definitions, rifling through receipts and piling up papers.

We’ve tried the DIY approach to doing our taxes, buying different levels of the tax software that’s out there, from the free stuff to the $100-a-pop professional edition. They all end up with the same result: utter frustration.

Last year, we even pretty much gave up on trying to take any deduction or write-off other than the standard deduction.  We knew there were lots of ways we could trim our bill down (because we did end up owing quite a bit), but we simply didn’t know what to do with it all. So, in defeat, we threw our hands up to the whole process and just stopped trying to sort it out, which only absolved some of the stress.

This year, though, we decided, kind of as a last-ditch effort to save our sanity, we hired a CPA to do our taxes. It was a woman recommended by one of my husband’s coworkers. I spent a few days ahead of time—in mid-February—preparing all our receipts and expenses and income and bills, typing them tidily into Excel spreadsheets.

We went into the meeting and within an hour had tackled what would have taken us an entire weekend spent trying not to be short with one another, trying not to get irritated with the system, trying not to hate every single second of it.

Instead, we walked out of there without any of the aggravation and a sense of relief that someone who knew what they were doing was able to walk us through the over-our-head process. For the peace of mind, I considered it a wise use of money. And, we got back a nice return, to boot, so there was nothing to complain about!

Sometimes even for the most ardent of DIY-ers, there's a time to call in the pros. For me, I have decided that tax time is the right time for us to do just that!

Tomorrow’s the last day to submit your taxes. How was the process for you?

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Encouragement for the Times When You Want to Give Up Blogging

One comment I've received from a couple of readers who blog is:

"I’M FEELING DISCOURAGED WITH MY BLOG. I DON’T FEEL LIKE ANYONE READS IT, AND WONDER IF I SHOULD JUST GIVE UP."

You know what? I understand that sentiment all too well. And I think most bloggers—even the most successful of them—have all been at that same point, as well.

They say that most blogs don’t make it to the one-year mark. When I first started out, I read that statistic and made it my goal not to give up before that anniversary.

Because so much of blogging can be discouraging and make you think you’re wasting your time, there are lots of times when I’ve felt like giving up, especially when comments and emails are few and posts are plenty.

But the truth is that every blogger has been there. Most of the rockstar bloggers who are big have been around for a long time and it's taken them years to build up that kind of success. And even though there are some whose blogs have gotten a ton of exposure in a short bit of time, I firmly believe that’s the exception rather than the rule.

The important thing is not to dwell on how many people read Pioneer Woman as opposed to your blog, but to accept that blogging is a process. I am sure there were days when Pioneer Woman herself thought about throwing in the towel. But look where she is now—because she stuck with it.

We have to stop dwelling on the things we can’t control—like how many people visit a blog or leave a comment—and instead deal with the things we can control—like whether we’re writing quality content and taking time to pen compelling stories. You might feel like you don’t want to “waste” good posts if no one’s going to read them, but you shouldn’t look at it that way. Because you can always repost the best ones later, if you want. But when people come, if the best isn’t already there, why would they stick around?

Start now making a blog that you’re proud of, and eventually other people will catch on, too.

And don’t forget that it’s something you can pray about. It may not be full-time ministry, but blogging can affect people’s hearts and souls. So if you’re struggling for inspiration for blog posts, pray about it. Pray for your readers who visit your blog. Pray for ways to get the word out about those posts. The Lord cares about so many things. If your blog matters so much to you, don’t you think it matters to him, too?

This post is part of my Better Blogging series, where I respond to some of the most common questions that I receive about blogging. Feel free to read all of the posts in this series here.

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From Brassy to Flashy: Transforming A Pair of Lamps for Our Bedroom

My husband and I are both big read-before-bedtime folks, with a stack of books on both sets of nightstands. But hoisting lamps onto the nightstands to aid that nightly routine has proved more bulky than I liked, with much of the nightstand taken up with the lamp base instead of books. To free up some space, I'd long wanted to mount some wall lamps to either side of our bed.

One day, as I was strolling a thrift store, I came across a brass, plug-in, spring-arm lamp, which reminds me of the kind you see in hotels. I knew those kinds of lamps often show up at secondhand stores, so I grabbed that one up (after testing it to make sure it worked, of course!) and trusted that I'd be able to find a second one to make a pair.

A couple of months later, I had my pair. But gold is not my decorating color of choice, so I turned to one of my tried-and-true decorating accomplices: a can of spraypaint. For this project, I used Krylon's Premium Original Chrome, which they sent me to try out for this project. I taped up the lamps' cords and light switch, stuffed the light socket and other open areas with tissues to protect them all from the paint.



Then it was time to get painting.

I know there are lots of metallic paints out there and I've tried my fair share, which often end up being disappointing imitations of silver, more gray or glittery than bright and shiny. But the chrome from Krylon was the exception; with the first coat it was a bright silver that I was going after for this project:





The paint when on smoothly, but I did find that it took it a long time to cure or else it would easily show smudges and fingerprints, ruining the finish. While the can itself recommends just a few hours to dry, I looked online and found other folks had to give their projects weeks. (Given that, I'd recommend only using it on projects that won't have to withstand much direct touching. Fortunately, we don't do much re-adjusting of the lamp arms and only have to turn the knob, so it works fine for us.)

Even with the lamps themselves painted, there was also the pesky issue of the cords. I liked that they plugged in because then we didn't have to worry about drilling into walls and hiring an electrician and all that. But those garish yellow cords did nothing for our decor. So, I decided to cover them up.

I did some research about whether you could safely paint the cords themselves and came up with conflicting information. So I decided to play it safe and wrapped them with some black electrician's tape and then painted that with the same color of paint that we used on the walls, a gray color from Mythic Paint. (You can read more about painting our bedroom walls and the exact color we used here.)

The nice thing about this safer-than-sorry solution, is that if I ever want to go back to the original color (doubtful, but you never know), all I have to do is peel the tape away and so goes the paint, no harm done!



At that point, it was time to mount them on the walls and put on some lamp shades. As it turns out, my parents had some small sconce shades in their basement, which they let me have when I was in town over Christmas. Can you believe how perfectly they match our wall color?! Oh, serendipity:



I still have yet to figure out what kind of art I want to put over our bed, but, as usual, I'm taking my time to find (or make!) the piece that's just right for this spot, which now sits squarely between these fully functional and perfectly matching lamps that are a piece of work in and of themselves. Don't you think?:







And a shot with the lights turned on:



Find out more about Krylon’s huge variety of spray paints—there’s one for nearly all your craft and DIY needs—by visiting their website. You can also like them on Facebook or follow them on Twitter. 

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