Autumn activities

We go apple picking almost every year. And almost every year, out of all the apples we pick (usually 2 bags...) we eat maybe 3 apples, tops. And I feel terrible about it!  But this is because almost every year I declare that I am going to make an apple pie. So we pick a lot of apples. But every year, I do not make the apple pie and the apples sit on the counter, then in the frig, then in the garbage. It is wasteful, it is sad, but it is what I have done in the past.

Well, this year is different! This year I am going to make an apple pie. Yes, sir. Apple pie.

You see, while I don't believe I suffer from full blown Mageirocophobia (fear of cooking...), I do fear cooking in a BIG way.  I don't cook.  I am seriously afraid of it for some ridiculous reason.  Maybe this is why the only things my girls will eat are mac and cheese (from a box, duh), chicken nuggets or raviolis...Hmmmm...
BUT, I am actually a good baker. I know, it doesn't make sense that I could fear cooking but would be okay with baking. Maybe it has to do with food being a necessity and dessert being fun and so I don't worry so much about wrecking it. Maybe it's because I am deathly afraid of undercooking meat. Maybe it's because I'm not very good at it and screw something up EVERY time.  Maybe it's because I married a chef who is SO good at cooking that it makes me look really bad...  I don't know, but I fear cooking.

Anyway, despite the cooking fear, I can bake. I've made amaretto chocolate dessert tarts, I make a mean banana bread and I have created really cool and yummy cakes over the years (cake that looks like a hamburger, Backyardigans, tennis ball, pool ball...the list goes on). I enjoy baking chocolate chip cookies (probably because I enjoy eating them) and I really like baking sugar cookies to decorate with my girls.  So, this year I am making an apple pie. With my friend Amy. She's going to help. Because in my world, I see bread, cookies and cakes in a different category than an apple pie.  Apple pie falls into cooking and it scares me. Maybe it's because it's unknown, maybe not.  I don't know.  My fear of cooking is irrational, so why not add another irrational factor to it! So Amy's going to hold my hand and cheer me on while I make an apple pie.

And hopefully she'll peel some apples.

Here are some pictures of our apple picking adventure and the corn maze:

The corn maze... For the last 2 years (and once in 2002 with X) we have brought the kids to get lost in a corn maze. They have so much fun running through the corn and meeting each other in circles and hitting dead ends and it truly is fun to watch them do this!  It is absolute torture for me to be lost, especially in a maze, and I tend to feel a lot of anxiety but they enjoy it and a lot of times being a mom means doing things your kids like even if it might feel like a circle of hell for you...I just try to keep remembering to breathe & know that it's just a stinking maze of corn!  They even have "corn cops" to help you if you need to get out.  So I do it.