My Camp Mighty Experience

When I first heard about Camp Mighty, I immediately loved the idea. Getting together with like-minded folks to work on living mightier lives? It's a concept that's right up my alley.

My own personal goal in attending Camp Mighty was to find inspiration and motivation to accomplish my goals for the next year and to move towards a more creative career path. 

I came away with motivation, inspiration, and more - but I have to say, most of that had to do with the other wonderful women I got to know over the course of the weekend (Alyson, Caitlin, Elisabeth, Mindy, Michelle, Maggie, Cameron, Emily, and many more). It was such an amazing experience to come to a place with a community of individuals who are all supportive of each other's hopes and dreams and for that alone, I'm so glad to have attended.

Here are a couple of things people said that I just can't stop thinking about;

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Holiday Gift Guide: 2012 Edition
2012 Travel Gifts

2012 Travel Gifts by glutenfreetravelette

I've done a lot of traveling this year, more than any other year since starting this blog. Through those travels I've found a couple of stand out items that I've just been loving along the way and since the season of gift giving is upon us, I thought I'd share some of my favorites!

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Onward to Mighty Things

Tomorrow I'm headed to Camp Mighty down in Palm Springs, California to check off another item on my life list: attend a life/creativity retreat. My goal in attending is to find that extra push and motivation to move myself and my career forward - I want to do more and and to do it better. I'm hoping to get inspired by the fantastic speakers and the other campers. At the same time, I'm super nervous that I'm going to end up feeling like the odd one out and feeling awkward around the "big" names.

Since Camp Mighty is a retreat focused on life lists, we're all supposed to pick five goals to focus on for the next year that we can ask the other campers for help with. It was incredibly hard to narrow it down to 5, but somehow I managed.

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Comfort, Relief, and Being Prepared: Blueberry Dutch Baby

In general, I try to steer clear of current events on this blog - it's my refuge. In my daily life, I work and think about things that one might refer to as "heavy". My blog gives me an opportunity to escape and maintain some semblance of calm in otherwise hectic and serious times, especially right now.

That being said, a few folks that I like very much and respect a whole lot have started efforts to support the survivors of superstorm Sandy and I want to support them and the work they are doing.


Jenn of Jenn Cuisine has asked that today, us food bloggers out there share a comforting dish we would make for those in need and encourage our readers to support the relief efforts. The link in the image above will take you to a donations page for the Red Cross. But I would also encourage you to review this great comprehensive page on volunteering and donating responsibly - it contains oodles of links for different states and organizations. Erin from Gluten-Free Fun has also been spear heading a movement to help with gluten free donations, so please visit her blog for ways to help those folks. In a few weeks or so, Joy of Frock Files will be setting up an Etsy Shop to sell handmade goods created by various artisans to raise funds

I encourage you to do what you can, when you can, in whatever way works most appropriately for you.

At the very least, please consider taking a moment to think about if you and your family are prepared for a disaster. We're all vulnerable, whether we like to admit it or not, so take action and prepare yourself as best you can. Ready.gov is a great place to get started with building your own personal disaster plan and kit - and to find ways to stay informed.

And now back to comfort and food. Recently, my go to comfort food dish has been a dutch baby that's totally loaded down with blueberries. It's warm, filling, and bursting with blueberry deliciousness; sure to bring at least a small bit of comfort to those in need.

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Pumpkin Spice Bundt Cake

It's Gluten Free Ratio Rally time and this month I'm hosting! If you're new to the rally, check out this post from Shauna of Gluten Free Girl & the Chef to read about the very start of the rally. Based off of Michael Ruhlman's Ratio, this great group of gluten free bakers gets together each month to work on ratios for a specific baked good.

Since I joined the group earlier this year, I have to say - I've learned so much more about the science behind baking. I never thought I would be making bagels or angel food cake from scratch at home. In fact, I never thought I would make cake at home ever again, as all my early trials of gluten free cake baking ended up with shriveled and rubbery looking ones.

This month we're working on bundt cake; which we figured would be similar to the ratio for pound cake. Ruhlman's ratio for that is 1 part butter: 1 part sugar: 1 part egg: 1 part flour. Since I wanted to make a pumpkin bundt - I adjusted the ratio accordingly to include the puree. I assume if you wanted to used some other kind of fruit puree you could use a relatively similar ratio to the one I ended up with. My ratio turned our to be 2 parts butter: 2 parts sugar: 3 parts pumpkin puree: 3 parts egg: 4 parts flour.

Check out the other delicious (and quite seasonal) flavor combinations the rest of the ratio rally dreamed up;

Apple Almond Cake | Heather | Discovering the Extraordinary

Blueberry Molasses Bundt Cake | Jenn | Jenn Cuisine

Date Pecan Bundt Cake with Orange Glaze | Caneel | Mama Me Gluten Free

Gluten Free Mini Vanilla Chai Bundt Cakes | Mary Fran | Frannycakes

Pear & Cardamom Spiced Bundt Cake | Rebecca | Salts Kitchen

Spiced Sweet Potato Bundt Cake | Brooke | B & The Boy

Spiked Egg Nog Bundt Cake with Vanilla Bourbon Glaze | Charissa | Zest Bakery

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