We have flowers blooming that remind us that the calendar says it is still autumn, but they probably bit the dust last night. Even though I begged the Canadians to shut their windows it appears that the polar vortex has seeped into the south and we're on our third day with highs only in the 40's.

Winter is my least favorite season. I pull out my sweaters and boots when it's 60 degrees. When it dips into the 40's I retreat into the fetal position under an electric blanket and watch Bravo television reality show marathons.

Before you roll your eyes and think how lucky we are to have these relatively mild temperatures...

...in a few days I'm heading to Minnesota. The high there yesterday was in the teens. I couldn't even look at the low temperatures without wondering what my obituary will say.

Moonpie doesn't help when he says things like, "It's not that bad. It's not below zero yet." Then he tells me to go buy some warm clothes. Where? They don't sell clothes down here for those temperatures unless you're shopping for camo at the Bass Pro Shop or Tractor Supply.

Okay...breathe..

I am excited that we get to spend time with family that we rarely see.

It's a positive is that I made myself go ahead and get the Christmas tree up so I won't have that facing me when we get back.

We once loved taking Sunday drives. Moonpie and I would head out with our cameras and no destination. (He called them our "Safaris".) We would just pick a direction out of town, drive until we saw roads with no names (extra points if they were dirt), and stop to snap pictures if we saw something interesting.

Then we stopped doing it. Instead we house-hunted every weekend for a year. Later we moved into a new neighborhood, settled into a new routine, and simply forgot about Sunday afternoon drives with our cameras.

While house hunting we revisited some of our old safari places and found all the trees gone, the roads paved, and none of the old barns in sight. In their places stood brand new subdivisions with nature-sounding names like "Pineview" or "Oakhurst", but they ironically had no trees except the obligatory Bradford pears that had been planted on each lot by a developer's landscaper. (Note: I made those names up so I wouldn't point fingers.)

I hope we will get back into the habit of taking our Sunday drives because somewhere on a back road there is an old barn that is a particularly lovely shade of red. It also has a particularly lovely rusted roof. It is just waiting for someone with a camera to record that it ever existed because chances are it will soon be gone.

I hope that camera gets to be mine.

A long time ago in a far off land before computers, cell phones, and Celiac my friend, Kathy, gave me a loaf of sourdough "friendship" bread, a cup of starter, and typed instructions (typed by a real typewriter) outlining how to feed the starter and make sourdough bread. I still have the original copy even though I'm on my second husband, have moved seven times, and can no longer eat gluten. Looking at that old yellow sheet of paper still brings back the fond memories of my first time actually making the bread. Each time I made it (and fed the starter) I thought about how thankful I was for her sharing it with me.

I was a bit intimidated at first because my usual bread making recipes required adding water and stirring, but I jumped in and was elated (and shocked) when I made the most decadent bread ever. I immediately took a loaf over to my parents' house to show off my newly acquired skills. A few minutes after returning home my phone rang and Daddy said, "I just want you to know that all those years of eating the crap from the Easy Bake Oven has finally paid off." It was evident that this bread was not created by adding water to a mix and cooking it under a light bulb.

For years I made sourdough bread from that original starter, but sadly had to discard it when we moved to another state. Years later life slowed down and I had a huge desire to make that bread again. Unfortunately, no one had any starter to share or knew how to make it. (This was long before I had a computer or the internet and Google hadn't even been invented.) One day I was browsing in our local Waldenbooks (told you it was a long time ago) and came across the book Sister Schubert's Secret Bread Recipes. Inside was a recipe for making a sourdough starter and I noticed the starter's "feeding" instructions were the same as those Kathy had given me years prior. The book came home with me and soon after sourdough was back in my life.

This morning I connected with Kathy on Facebook and we talked about our love of the bread and the frustration of being "starterless". She asked me to share the sourdough starter recipe that I found and I decided to post it here in case others are interested. The instructions sound insanely time consuming and difficult, but it really isn't. Trust me, if I can do it, anyone can do it. .

I'm also including the starter's feeding instructions and Kathy's Friendship Sourdough Bread recipe. (The bread recipe is NOT gluten-free, but the starter is. Who knows? Maybe one day I'll attempt a gluten-free version.) It makes three loaves. Eat one. Freeze one. Share one. Above all else...Enjoy!

Have you ever had someone ask for your recipe and you are embarrassed to give it to them? That happens to me when someone asks for my spaghetti sauce recipe. It's so easy a monkey could make it if you open the jars for him.

But y'all...it's good. For some reason all these different flavors come together and create something that tastes like you've slaved over it all day.

I took this photograph of a neighbor's child from Halloween Past. She, her twin brother, and two other neighbors' children dressed up as the rock band Kiss. It was back in the day when MoonPie and I lived in a neighborhood filled with young children. Although we didn't have any children living at home we would "spookify" the yard and fill a huge cauldron with candy that was always depleted by the end of the night. The adults in our neighborhood sat at the end of our driveways in lawn chairs doling out candy, laughing, talking, and sometimes sharing adult beverages with each other if Halloween fell on a weekend. There was loads of anticipation since the children (and their parents) had friendly competitions to come up with the "best" costumes of the night.

I was looking through photos that I had taken, but never posted. One of those was of Sylvan's Jewelers at 1500 Main Street in Columbia, SC.

In 1890, brothers Gustaf (Gus) Jonson, a watchmaker, and Johannes (Joe) Bengtson Sylvan, a jeweler, left their home in Sweden to seek their fortune in America. They booked passage to the port city of Savannah, Georgia and both found work there.

After that the brothers split up. In 1897 Gus opened a business in Columbia, SC. Joe joined him in 1898. In 1905, the brothers acquired a Second Empire style building on the corner of Main and Hampton Streets, the first large building constructed in Columbia after the Civil War.

They opened at the new location on June 24, 1905, where Sylvan's Jewelers is still headquartered today. In 1906, the brothers installed a beautiful four-sided clock on the sidewalk in front of the store, now a beloved local landmark.

You can learn more about the history of this location here.

Recently I saw a recipe circulating on Facebook for a Butterfinger Pie with the above photo. It made my mouth water. I have no idea where the recipe or the photo originated because there wasn't a link to a website, but it was all I could think about for days. It only had three ingredients for the filling so I figured I couldn't screw it up. But could I make a gluten-free version?

An internet search revealed that the original Butterfinger candy bars (including fun-size) were gluten-free. (Some Butterfinger bars including the Giant Butterfinger bars are not so this needs to be taken into consideration if GF is your goal.) I already knew that Cool Whip and cream cheese are gluten-free. Obstacle 1 was out of the way.

In the Facebook photo the pie appears to have a chocolate crumb crust. Sounds delicious, but not worth tracking down a bag of gluten-free Oreo knock offs and making one from scratch. Luckily I happened to have a gluten-free "graham style" crust in my pantry just waiting for something wonderful to happen to it. Obstacle 2 was out of the way. It was game on.

• 1 (8-oz) block cream cheese (softened)
• 1 (16-oz) jar spicy black bean dip
• 3/4 or more (8-oz) package finely shredded Mexican cheese blend
• 1 (8-oz) container fresh Pico de Gallo (drained)
• 1 (2.25) can sliced black olives (drained)

See that little one up there? She's five. She doesn't read fashion magazines, watch television reality shows, keep up with celebrities, have teen idols, or try to be like anyone other than herself. She looks in the mirror and doesn't dislike what she sees. Wouldn't it be nice if we could stay that way?

This may change as she gets older. She may begin to compare herself to the artificially enhanced celebrities presented in the media. She may define herself and her beauty according to glossy photoshopped magazine ads developed by corporations selling products. There may eventually come a day when she looks in the mirror and sees things that she considers unattractive. Maybe it will be her curly hair. Maybe it will be her size, or her lashes, or her skin. When she is my age she may focus on the gray hair, wrinkles, physical decline, and scars that living has left behind. She may eventually succumb to the message contained in most advertisements targeting women...buy, change, and/or take this because without it you are not enough.

Remember the Dove commercial where women would describe themselves to a portrait artist who couldn't see them? A very unflattering portrait was drawn that looked nothing like the person. Then a stranger would come in and describe the same woman to the artist. The one drawn from the stranger's perspective was beautiful.

This was brought home to me this week on a dentist visit. As I walked in the front door the young pretty receptionist said, "We were just talking about how beautiful your hair is." I turned around to see who she was talking to. There was no one else in the room. I did not even for a moment consider she could have been addressing me or my very gray hair. When I realized she was talking to me I wondered if she was joking. She wasn't and I finally muttered out a "Thank you."

Which brings me to why I even wrote this...

An all-female rock band called The Mrs. formed because they didn't feel like their lives were being reflected on the radio. Deemed by music industry people as being too old to get airplay, they decided to write a song to change their own inner critical voices and "Enough" was born. As they were promoting the song they began putting sticky notes on public mirrors with positive messages such as "You've never looked better" and "You are enough".

Then they took it another step by setting up an interactive mirror in an Austin, Texas, mall and inviting women to judge their appearance from "Woof" to "Drop Dead Gorgeous". The band members were behind the scenes secretly interacting with those who stopped by and sending them positive messages. A few pre-chosen guests were treated to a first-hand demonstration of how gorgeous they are through the eyes of their spouses and family.

I love this video and hope you will, too. I am going to try to ease up on myself when I look in the mirror. I have made peace with my gray hair. The wrinkles may take longer.

Look in the mirror and rock on, Sisters! You are more than enough. As for the little one up there, I pray she always looks in the mirror and sees nothing but her amazing self staring back.

I was loading the dishwasher when I got the phone call from MoonPie. He was walking Yoohoo and happened to notice there was a spectacular sunset. "Quick!" he said. "Grab your camera and go outside. There is a gorgeous sunset right now." I dug my camera out of the closet, ran outside, and quickly snapped this picture from my front yard before it was gone. My first thought was, "Darn. If I had been walking by the lake, then this would have been a great photo." My second thought was, "If I had been quicker getting my camera, then I would have caught more color. What a waste of a sunset."

Think back when you were required to come up with a science fair project every year. Do you remember your hypothesis was usually phrased as an "If..then" statement? For example, If you drink coffee before bed, then you will hate yourself at 3 am. If you must do a science fair project this year, then you and your parents will have at least three meltdowns before spring. (You get the idea.)

I play the "If..then" game with myself all the time when it comes to taking photographs. Here are a few that are my standards:

• If I had different lenses, then I could take really amazing photographs. (I use the kit lens that came with the camera.)

• If I would read my camera manual, then I would know how to plan my shots better. (Umm..true dat.)

• If I lived in (fill-in-the-blank), then I could photograph amazing views of (fill-in-the-blank). (Thinking of waterfalls, ocean sunsets, AND mountain views. All in my yard, of course.)

• If I would learn how to use photoshop, then I could turn icky photos into masterpieces. (Not true, but it makes me feel better about my icky photos.)

I take hundreds of photographs, but rarely take a second look at most of them because I'm always playing out in my mind why they aren't anything special. I do this in other areas of my life, too. (If I knew how to cook, then I would entertain more. If I had more money, then I would be able to give more. If I were a different size, then I would dress better. If I could remember basic grammar and punctuation rules, then I would write more.) Truth is, perfection is rarely attainable for most of us because our perceptions are based on others' perceptions of perfection and not our own.

The sunset that day was glorious, and I didn't capture it perfectly with my camera. But I did capture the moment and when I saw this today I had the memory of watching MoonPie and Yoohoo walking back up to the house. Both of them were smiling. I have the memory of the three of us watching that glorious sunset totally disappear. I have the memory of hearing the cicadas reaching a crescendo and seeing the fireflies darting across the yard. I have the memory of us walking into the house holding hands and laughing. If I had not snapped this imperfect picture, I would remember none of it. That's the thing about forming an "If..then" hypothesis on what constitutes perfection. It isn't true until it has been proven. My initial hypothesis was incorrect.

This one was perfect after all.