Champion of My Heart is an award-winning dog blog. We've created many important resources that people from all over the world continue to access. Like this post? Get an email alert when new content goes live by subscribing. Plus, look for info on sales and bonus discounts from our affiliates.
I originally found this homemade hot fudge sauce recipe from a quick online search, but it wasn’t turning out quite right. I asked for help inside a great Facebook Group led by a friend, colleague, and mentor called Fearless Fresh Kitchen Ninjas. Thanks to their fast and expert input, I fixed my errors and updated the recipe so that it’s nearly flawless. For better or worse, it has become my go-to comfort food (atop quality vanilla ice cream) for several months now. I have the extra pounds to show for it, so be careful. But, if you are stressed or worried and in need of gooey homemade hot fudge sauce, get ready to dazzle yourself. It’s that good. (And easy to make … step-by-step pix just ahead).
I promise the silly title is worth it. You see, I’m increasingly amped up about a number of real-life things, but I recently developed a new coping mechanism for worry.
It started raining 7 days ago, and for the most part hasn’t stopped. On Lilly’s mountain we are safe and in no imminent danger. Please send your best wishes to others in Colorado suffering amid these Biblical floods. We did, however, have a veterinary emergency Saturday morning. Wouldn’t you know it?
In our quest to be helpful to YOU as we tell the crazy stories of our lives, here is some real-world advice you might need some day.
I buy very little music, but I’ve found “Babel,” the recent album from Mumford & Sons, to be an apt soundtrack for my life. While the full context of the songs might not match my life with Lilly, many of the hunks of lyrics do. Here are a few examples.
Years and years ago, Tom bought a bunch of old skulls from a local farm sale. He thought they were neat and proceeded to put them around our place. Some summers, this particular skull plays home to baby birds. Observe.
Summer reading recommendation! A Violet Season by Kathy Leonard Czepiel is a fantastic read. Set in the Hudson River Valley in upstate New York in the late 1800s, A Violet Season chronicles one growing season on a family-owned violet farm. Brothers embroiled in a long-standing feud change the course of (at least) one woman’s life forever.
A story of mothers and daughters, husbands and sons, A Violet Season delivers the perfect mix of historical detail, carefully crafted characters, and rich narrative. Heart-pounding at times, heartbreaking at others, A Violet Season’s imagery and undercurrent of societal unrest does justice to an earlier time and sheds light on the challenges we face today.
More than likely we won’t remember much about May 2012 except for grief and heartache. The finer details? The day-to-day moments? Lost in an exhausted and emotional fog. Amid the ongoing mourning, I wanted to update you on our return to blogging and on a few lessons or ideas that might help you cope in such a situation.
The blog will go silent for a while as we cope with the loss of my mother-in-law Virginia Moore Hawn. She died early Sunday morning (May 6, 2012), after a week in acute hospice care. Here is my tribute:
Today is my 20th wedding anniversary. Indulge me — won’t you — as I wax a little nostalgic? This girl needs to celebrate every tiny thing. And, a big one now and then too.
