Dana Burland

What’s a brownie cobbler you ask? Brownie over fruit. Inspired by Nadiya Bakes on Netflix, I made a few simplifications that turned this into simple and yummy winter dessert. Brownie Cobbler Inspired by Nadiya Bakes Ingredients 1 16oz pkg of frozen peaches (skinned, pitted and sliced) 1 pint fresh blueberries 1 lemon ¼ cup sugar 1-2 T flour ¾ cup (1.5 sticks) soft butter ¾ cup sugar 3 eggs Just shy of 1c flour + 2t baking powder Heaping ¼ cup cocoa powder ½ cup chocolate chips (I used a mix of milk chocolate and semi sweet) Directions 1. Pre-heat oven to 350º. 2. Defrost peaches. This would be an amazing recipe with fresh peaches, by the way. 3. Melt a little bit of butter in a pie pan to grease it all over. 4. Add in the peaches and blueberries. Coat with sugar and flour. Toss. 5. Sprinkle the zest of 1 lemon throughout. 6. In a separate bowl, combine the soft butter, sugar and eggs. Whisk until smooth. 7. Add flour, baking powder and cocoa. Stir until fully c...

My fellow blog readers. Tonight I can declare that we’ve done it. The people spoke their minds, spoke what was on their hearts, and they did it with their vote. They did not let Linda’s angry Facebook comment silence them . They did not let 3ft of snow stop them from driving by to deliver ballots into my mailbox even though they could have also voted using the Google form I set up. They stood up and said YES. We want new neighborhood entry signs! This election was won with honesty. Well, I tallied it with honesty. I collected all the votes into a centralized system and cleaned up the data ensuring each household voted once and ensuring each vote was in fact from a neighbor (sorry, Nunya Business ). In the end 63.2% of the respondents in the neighborhood voted for new signs. And so we have an even greater responsibility ahead of us now. A responsibility to lead this effort forward in the best interest of the entire neighborhood. A duty to create something even better than...

My fellow blog visitors, You know it’s February 22, the deadline for voting in our election . You’ve been watching the results come in. I understand your feelings of tenseness. There’s so much at stake. I wish I could announce a clear winner today. I wish we had unanimous clarity on replacing the neighborhood entrance signs. But we’re a divided neighborhood, and we’re not ready yet to make a call. Rest assured we’re tallying the votes. We’re considering all angles. This election will be fair. I’ll make sure of that with the help of an internal ethics committee made up of neighbors who indicated they wanted to help with the project in some way. I appreciate your support, your interest and your patience. I’m confident we’ll have more to report this week.

On Saturday we took our first felt-safe-to-us kiddo swim lesson in a year. (The instructor was on the deck. Parent/kid were in the water separated into our own lanes. Class size: 4 parent/kids.) On Sunday had an epic time sledding on the hill at the back of our neighborhood and found an even faster track down. I took no pictures. But it should be documented. This weekend was GREAT! (And I say that even though we’ve passed 1 month with a broken dishwasher and a broken hinge caused a kitchen cabinet door to fall on me while I was cooking breakfast this morning.)

A very weary greetings from campaign headquarters . Votes are so slowly trickling in now. Much like any time I exit my house with all this snow, it's going to be a slow sludge to the finish line. At this point I'm not sure we'll have enough votes, or enough of a majority win, to call the race. We'll see where we end up at my Feb. 22 deadline. I did feel it important, however, to note we heard from a neighbor we've been waiting on for days now: Nunya Business.  I promise I'm laughing.

Happy sunny Friday from election headquarters. We remain gathered watching votes trickle in. Currently the vote to change the neighborhood entry signs leans 65.9% yes, 34.1% no. We’ve nearly doubled our response from the last update with 46 responses* (26% of the neighborhood), though still have a ways to go to hear from the majority. Here’s the latest: Apology count: 2 I’ve received two private messages on Facebook from neighbors apologizing on behalf of other neighbors for getting riled up on the neighborhood Facebook group page. Goodness prevails. Forgiveness count: 1 When I initially posted to the neighborhood group Facebook page a few weeks ago checking on interest, Carl** was not only not a fan of new signs, but was the first person who told me about the former neighbor’s high school son making the signs in shop class. I wrote Carl a little note when I dropped his ballot off--I didn’t want him to feel disrespected with my continued effort to replace the signs, but reall...

I’m reporting today from campaign headquarters. We’re entering a very big two weeks as we wait to see which way votes will go. Ballots went out last night, and we’re established at headquarters watching initial results roll in. Above me is a string net of balloons, waiting to be released if the vote goes in our favor. All around are my campaign staff members–a cold cup of coffee, a pink sparkly pen and my husband rolling his eyes. There’s waiting, pacing and watching… to see if my neighborhood wants new entry signs or not. Despite all logical thinking, recent examples of our divided country and because I can’t sit still and leave anything alone ever, I decided to poll the neighborhood for a consensus on replacing our existing neighborhood entry signs. Our existing signs are very simple wood signs with the neighborhood name. Last summer there was a spur of conversation on the neighborhood Facebook page about new signs. I re-open that conversation yesterday and dropped a survey of...