Jul 22
Me and Robbie getting pretty serious.
You can see the rest of the photos from our Belleville trip last week, if you are so inclined.
Jul 21
Look, I’m just saying - social networking isn’t actually NEW and if you weren’t making it worthwhile before all the online venues popped up, you’re probably not making it worthwhile now. Easier doesn’t always mean better, or more productive, or more efficient. It just means lots more ways to get distracted.
Don’t agree? Think (online) social networking is amazing, totally different than anything that’s ever been on the face of the earth? You’re not alone. I assume I’m in the minority opinion here, which is okay. That’s a spot I’m pretty comfortable with.
It’s just the introverted me coming out… and that biiiiiiiiig part of me that resists all trends simply because they are trends. I know, I know. I’m working on it.
Jul 16
Can’t beat fresh, buttered toast (from homemade bread) with a generous spread of butter and drizzle of honey. Add a cup of hot coffee… Mmmm.
I make a batch of bread about once a week. I don’t even have to look at the recipe now… it’s simple and it always comes out. I’ll put the recipe below.
My three favorites from this week’s WW:
Chica at Photo-Projectz:
Great horse pic.
Robin’s Woods: blackberry blossoms. (I’m going blackberry pickin’ next week!)
Kim at What’s That Smell?: love it!
THE RECIPE
Easy Homemade (White) Bread
5 teaspoons yeast (instant or SAF; I use SAF) 3 tablespoons white sugar 2 cups very warm water (you can put your finger in but you don’t want to keep it there) 1 1/2 tablespoons salt 4 - 5 cups all-purpose or bread flour Another 2 cups warm water Another 3 - 4 cups flour Preheat oven on warm. In a large bowl, whisk together the yeast, sugar, and 2 cups of warm water. Let sit for five minutes while you grease three loaf pans (or two loaf pans and a cookie sheet, if you want rolls) . The yeast mixture should get foamy and smell, well, yeasty. Add the salt, then start adding the flour, one cup at a time, until the dough becomes thick and hard to stir. Add the next 2 cups of water and add the remaining 3-4 cups of flour, one cup at a time. You may need more or less flour. The dough should be thick and sticky but you should be able to handle it. A little variation here won’t hurt. Once you get all the flour mixed in, knead it by hand in the bottom of the bowl for a couple of minutes. Turn it out onto the counter. Clean your bowl, dry it, and butter or oil it. Put the dough back in the bowl and butter or oil the top of the dough. Turn the oven OFF of preheat, and set the bowl of dough in the oven with the oven door slightly open. In one to one and a half hours, check back in. The dough should be doubled in size. Take it out of the oven, turn the oven on preheat, and gently punch down the dough. Divide the dough into three equal portions. Shape into three loaves and place in buttered loaf pans, or form balls out of one portion if you want rolls or hamburger buns. Make the dough balls about half the size you want the finished product to be. Return the dough to the oven, turn the oven OFF of preheat, and let rise with the oven door slightly open. Check back in one to one and a half hours. If the dough has doubled again, turn the oven on 350, close the door gently, and set the timer for 30 minutes. (If the dough has not doubled, give it another half hour and then continue.) When your timer dings, check the bread. If it’s golden brown on top, take it out of the oven, let it sit for 15 minutes, then remove it from the loaf pans to cool completely. Slice, butter, drizzle with honey. Eat.Jul 15
The funny thing with trends is that they’re so extreme. I’ve found, in my many years of wisdom, that extremes are almost always wrong, in one way or another. There’s something to be said for walking a road of moderation. Seems like
the Bible even says something about that…
So
this article from David Sirota wasn’t really a surprise, just a confirmation of what I’ve long suspected: our trend toward “a global economy” has created a backlash, and we are beginning to experience it in our local worlds.
Sirota doesn’t actually discuss globalism, per say; he talks about the homogenization of American culture:
“The nationwide journey has been a blur — and not because I’ve been under-rested and overcaffeinated, but because America’s newly homogenized culture has made everything seem the same.
Indeed, in making anywhere into everywhere, homogenization has swallowed up not only our downtowns, restaurants and radio stations, but even our understanding of American democracy. The essence is that our culture has lost sight of the importance of local.”
Here. My backyard. We all got so excited about the immense possibilities opened up by the internet and other technologies that we decided hometown stuff was just, well, kind of boring.
I can flip on the radio and hear twenty commentaries about the Middle East, the trouble on Wall Street, or the latest presidential campaigning. I can find news about politics in Zimbabwe, Myanmar, and China. I can listen to live radio from Ukraine, Uzbekistan, and Uruguay. But do I know the name of my aldermen? Have I been to a city meeting lately? What do I know about the people running for county assessor?
Hmm. Time for the trend to swing back the other way. Watch for hyper-interest in all things local, coming soon to your very own backyard.
Image Credit: woodleywonderworks at flickr.
Jul 14
I recently
took on the Book Blow-Out challenge from
Blue Archipelago. (Which is a great book review site, along with my other favorite,
Book Reviews for Real People.)
I “joined” the challenge on July 8th, and just today (the 14th) I posted
my reading list.
I’ve been working my way quickly through the first book, however: Emma Brown by Clare Boylan (and Charlotte Bronte). I’m about 2/3 of the way through; I took a nice break on Saturday morning while Marzipan and Wick were napping and Joe was at work. Me, comfy chair, cup of coffee with French Vanilla Creamer… and a good book.
I’ll post a review once I’ve finished it.
I love being a writer. It’s such a great excuse to read all the time. 
Jul 02
More at Wordless Wednesday.
My top 3 from this week’s line up:
The Poopie Patrol’s What To Do with a Bookcase
Smarmoofus’s Planting Palms
Oh Amanda’s Brothers and Sisters
Good stuff. Go visit.
Jun 30
The blog where you go to play.
1) What is the single biggest sacrifice you can imagine asking a friend to make for you?
Babysitting my children for a week… Okay, just kidding. This is a difficult question because I really don’t do well with asking for help. Thinking in terms of a huge sacrifice that I would ask of a friend takes that to an even greater level. Why am I so determined to be an island? I don’t know.
I think the greatest sacrifice - and I know this is general - is one of time. Asking a friend for their time, lots of it, to help me do or accomplish or overcome something in my life seems like asking a big thing.
2) If you were in need of emotional refuge, what would you do to find it?
If my husband is at home, I go crying to him. If it’s a conflict between us that’s causing the need and I’m not quite ready to go crying to him, I would go for a very brisk walk and talk to myself and to God the whole time. This is part of why the neighbors look at me funny. If I am home with the kids and can’t talk to Joe, I stop and pray and read from the Psalms.
3) In what way are you most unique?
In my way of thinking. I see no impossibilities. I don’t get offended often because I like to try to think from another person’s perspective. (I don’t always like their perspective… ) I think positively, I love to analyze arguments, I love to find ways around the status quo, I love to ponder new ideas (my own or someone else’s) and figure out how to make them part of reality. I love to learn and I love to work and I love to think about what I’m learning and what I’m working on.
4) What is your favorite sound?
Cliched, I know, but still, I can’t find anything better than my children’s voices, especially when they are being silly and laughing at each other. That’s the best. I can’t help but stop whatever I’m doing (usually writing) and just watch them.
A non-person sound I love is rain.
5) Show and Tell. What comes to mind first when you see this picture? Or, tell a story if it reminds you of one.
Reminds me of my grandfather’s farm: almost 1000 acres of soybean and cotton growing fields in Mississippi. My mom grew up there with her two sisters and one brother. My grandfather started out with, well, not much, and worked hard and saved kind of obsessively and built up a successful farm. He is “retired” now: he runs an antique store from several of his buildings on the farm and rents his land to a young farmer.
I loved going there and just wandering around, playing on the hay bales, climbing on the tractors, and finding “new” fields… and then getting chased out of them by the angry cows who wanted grain…
Jun 25
See more at Wordless Wednesday
Jun 20
We stopped at Bread Co. for dinner tonight. I got the
chicken salad sandwich. Okay, not as good as Mom’s (no one else’s ever is) and I should have gone with my standard panini.
Except that’s what Joe did, and they kind of forgot to paninize it. Or something. I think they put it together and just skipped the whole heating-squishing process. It was a pre-panini’ed panini, which ends up just being a sandwich.
Kind of like my chicken salad sandwich. At least I expected mine to be cold.
Panini is a great word. It fits into the Food category of “Words-You-Cannot-Sound-Macho-While-Saying,” like couscous and escargot. I don’t care how gruff and deep and manly your voice is, when you ask for a big helping of couscous and endive salad, all the macho has left you. Bye bye.
What Joe actually ordered was a grilled panini. According to
Wikipedia, the inerrant source of all information, a panini - or,
to be proper, a panino, which is the correct singular of panini - is simply a “sandwich made from a small loaf of bread, typically a ciabatta.” A heated and pressed panini, er, panino, is just one type of many possible panini.
(If you Google Image Search for panini, though, you’ll find pictures of grilled panini until the 5th page of results, where this one shows up. I cannot tell if it is grilled or not. I’d like to try it with Filling Option #6. That tasty cheese is irresistible. You’ll also find a picture of the Smurfs on the 1st page of results. I bet they like mushrooms in their panini.)
I guess Joe’s cold sandwich still counted as a member of the panini panoply, then. I won’t call customer service after all.
Resources: Can’t get enough? Okay then:
Get your panini grills here. They are the latest rage in food service. And did you know they can cook virtually anything? “Yep, Bob, just throw that whole chicken on my panini grill there. Oh sure, it can handle it…”
The
Panini Happy blog. Good recipes. I wish I had a panini grill. 
Of course, a Squidoo page. How could there not be one?
Image Credit: The beautiful portabella and mozzarella panini picture is from daisygp at BiggestMenu.com. People at that site are licking the picture. The panini craze has gone a bit far.
The indelibly grill-marked panini image is from Chef Max Huppert, who says that panini “is simply the Italian name for sandwich, however it is mostly used in reference to sandwiches that are placed in a two-sided cooking press that compresses and grills the sandwich until hot and toasted” (emphasis mine). Hmm. Maybe I should call customer service. He is a chef.
And this picture of a great big panini grill for the accident-prone is from SnapDragon.com. You’ll have to go there to find out exactly why it has such long handles…
