I Heart Bread

I'm going to tell you about something right now, and you're not going to believe me. You're going to think I'm exaggerating, or at the very least you're going to think I'm too optimistic.

But It's true. Because I'm really excited about this, I'm going to risk sounding like a commercial. See how much I love you?

I've been making and baking my own artisan bread every for the past three weeks in about five minutes a day. (Which if you know me, you know is amazing. I love to cook, but I haven't the patience or precision for true bread baking.) Here's the book that got me started, appropriately titled : Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. The basic principle is that (after throwing out everything you already know about bread-making) you mix yeast, water, salt, and flour into a basic wet dough. Let it rise once, then refrigerate the dough. The batch keeps in the refrigerator for up to two weeks and yields 4 1-lb. loaves. There is no proofing, no kneading, no punching down, etc. When you want bread, you pull off a hunk of dough and, following a few simple instructions that take about 30 seconds, you let let the dough rise for 40 minutes, and bake for 30. The crust is crackly perfection. Seriously, my husband thinks this is the best thing that ever happened to our kitchen. We are both going to be fat lards by Christmas, because this bread is AMAZING! It's so fast you can just whip up stuff for neighbors and friends and it really is nothing.

The book has TONS of loaves you can make from around the world, as well as sweet desserts and pizza doughs. I haven't ventured that far yet because I wanted to master the Basic recipe and the wheat recipe first. I'll keep you posted, but really, even with just this basic recipe, I have gotten my money's worth. I'm not much for raving about things, but friends, if you like the scent of fresh baked bread at all, you must go out and buy this. 

Here's their website if you need more convincing.

Have you read...

...Till We Have Faces, by C.S. Lewis? I read it in high school, loved it and I'm getting ready to read it again.  I think it's my favorite C.S. Lewis novel, and that's saying a lot. Wanna read it with me?

 "It was when I was happiest that I longed most. It was on happy days when we were up there on the hills, the three of us, with the wind and the sunshine … where you couldn't see Glome or the palace. Do you remember? The colour and the smell, and looking at the Grey Mountain in the distance? And because it was so beautiful, it set me longing, always longing. Somewhere else there must be more of it. Everything seemed to be saying, Psyche come! But I couldn't (not yet) come and I didn't know where I was to come to. It almost hurt me. I felt like a bird in a cage when the other birds of its kind are flying home.

The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing — to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from — my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back."

Summer Food

Oh, summer, oh summer where have you gone?

I shall remember you always with yon fantastic salad:

Fresh spinach leaves

1 peach, ripe, sliced

Toasted pecans

Poppyseed Dressing (Brianna's is awesome!)

Simple ingredients, sure, but this is more than the sum of it's parts. This is summer in your mouth.

Dog Club

This is why we got a dog.                                                                                                                                             

The first week of school has been exciting and exhausting. But with no lack of creativity as you can see. I didn't include pictures of the "Baby Machine" or the dyed sugar experiment. I suspect this school year is going to be an adventure!

P.S. Olivia wants you to let her know if  you want to be part of the dog club. There's room on the blanket.

Bouquets of newly sharpened pencils

My baby is a Kindergartener! Is it my imagination or does he look excited?

"Don't you love New York in the fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address."

-from You've Got Mail

Everyone's a critic

Owen has given out some interesting food descriptions lately. He usually eats everything in front of him with exuberant gusto: "Mom, this is the best ever!" (He gets that from his dad.) But it's when he doesn't love his food that he waxes eloquent. 

Exhibit A: In reference to an under-ripe banana. "This banana tastes like fabric." I took a bite, and he's right.

Exhibit B: About the All-Beef hotdog from Costco. "This thing tastes like dog breath." He's right about that too, and I don't think I'll ever eat hotdogs the same way again.

Exhibit C: In reference to the new cracked pepper baked chips we decided to try. "These chips taste like dead birds." How he knows this, I don't want to know.

Carry on, O Dreadfully Poetic One. Just as long as you're not talking about dinner.

Heart of Obedience

"The first step of parenting, the step without which all other attempts are in vain, is to establish mutual ties of respect and honor. Unless the children can trust their parents with the handling of their souls, they will not make themselves vulnerable. It is the same with you, is it not? Children must be brought to the place where they want to please their parents. Until children value the approval of their parents more than the lure of any indulgence, there is no foundation for training.

Fear of punishment is not sufficient to make children compliant; it will certainly not remove their adversarial mentality. When parents get to the place where they are relying on threats alone, they have totally lost fellowship and are functioning as the IRS. Threats might get outward compliance but never the heart---quite the opposite.

So…enjoy the children and cause them to enjoy you. Give them your time, your attention, your laugh, your approval, your touch, hugs, reading, silly funnies; roll on the carpet or out in the yard, push them in the swing, or pull them in the wagon. But most of all let them bask in your smile until they need it like they need breath. Cause them to feed on your fellowship, to relax until they are sure you care only for their good, that you live to enjoy their company and would not be happy without them. Do this and you will have achieved what most Christian homes are missing.

Your reach as a disciplinarian cannot exceed the limits of your fellowship with the child. Rebuke must be delivered in an atmosphere of trust and respect. If you have lost the child's heart, then the child will have lost the heart to please you. If the child is not in agreement to pull with you, it is vain to try to harness him to your rules. The occasional rebuke must be the exception to a constant sharing of positive experiences. When rebuke and chastisement are strung along on a thread of long silences, punctuated by beads of unpleasantries, it will only strangle the relationship, not beautify the child's soul."

-Debi Pearl (quote courtesy of a friend; thanks, Jennifer!)

 

Me here, adding a qualification: The goal of causing your child to live for your smile is a temporary one that must give way in them to a desire to live for God's smile. With that qualification, I LOVE this thought. Applying it to my life, it's like Piper says-- only belief in God's superior pleasures gives us the power to free our hearts from the lure of sin's false pleasures. No one sins out of duty. Fight pleasure with pleasure. Truth for me and for my kids.

Week at Grandma's

So you've probably noticed I've been absent for a few days. . . The kids and I went to my parent's house in the country while Aaron worked on refinishing the hard wood floors. (They look awesome!) My grandparents came from Texas for an extended family reunion so we were able to spend time with them too. Here are a few highlights of the trip!

-Watching my grandpa (who has never met Caroline) be silly with my baby and make her giggle. She has a smile for just about anyone, but I think her smile for him had a little extra sugar in it.

-Owen telling me (during a discussion about what the kids want to be when they grow up): "I think God wants me to be a painter . . .Or . . . maybe I can just be God's helper!"

-Have I ever mentioned that my kids love Chinese food? We went to a Chinese buffet, and the kids each ate TWO PLATES full. I felt bad that we only had to pay the kid price for them. Olivia is this skinny Little Bit, but man can she pack it away when she puts her mind to it. Fifteen minutes later, of course: "Mommy, I'm feeling a little pouffy."

-Driving through the Flint Hills. You should see all those shades of green and smoke blue banketing the horizon. And when the sun sets it is magic.

-My dad spent three hours clearing moss off his pond so he could take the kids fishing. Owen ran up to the house a little later, eyes glowing, cheeks pink. "Mommy I caught a fish! And Livia caught one too!" Me:"What kind?" Owen, brows scrunched and serious:  "It was a bass! About . . . a medium?" 

-I noticed how much my mom is like my grandpa. I haven't told her this, because I never really noticed it before, but they are so similar. They both have servant's hearts and love to be behind the scenes. They are both thrifty to the extreme (holey pink towels, anyone?- you know what I'm talking about, mama!) and practical and hard-working. It makes me wonder in what ways I resemble my parents, and in what ways my kids will grow to resemble me. Will they see me loving God, treasuring His Word? 

Nothing like a week with The Fam to beg the question: Are you turning in to your parents? 

 

I like old things.

Usually I wouldn't get crazy about old soda bottles, but these are ridiculously cool. (Thanks Deanna!) Not sure what we're going to do with them yet, maybe an urban version of a Bottle Tree? Have you seen those? I think it would be cool to string twinkle lights on a bottle tree for a little night-time shimmer and glow. :)

What old things have you gotten excited about lately?

Your Treasure

Leaving Starlight

You know the thing you wish you had said? The coherent thought that comes to you a few hours too late? This is a story about words like those.

Last night, our neighbor invited Olivia and I to the Starlight theater to see Chitty Chitty Bang Bang with her. We picnicked, took silly pictures, laughed about Child Catchers and Truly Scrumptious, and generally enjoyed ourselves until just after the intermission. 

Olivia clutched her stomach. "It hurts. It doesn't matter what I do, it just hurts."

Olivia tried to soldier through it; she desperately wanted to see the end. But with two scenes to go, she decided she was in too much pain to enjoy the rest. 

On the way out to the car, Olivia, nearly in tears, asks, "Mommy, why did God make me sick tonight?"

Immediately, my neighbor says (kindly), "Olivia, God didn't make you sick. These things just happen."

Olivia is still looking at me. "But, why tonight? Why couldn't He make me sick last night when I wasn't doing something important?"

I said something to her about God making her body very well, and something about medicine, etc., etc. I said all this on autopilot, because what I was really thinking is that I don't know how to talk casually about the sovereignty of God in front of my neighbor who had recently been sick with cancer. How do you walk next to someone who has been through so much, who denies that God has anything to do with the painful things of life, and how do you tell her that you believe He does? 

"For if He causes grief, then He will have compassion according to His abundant lovingkindness. . . Who is there who speaks and it comes to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both good and ill go forth? Why should any living mortal, or any man, offer complaint in view of his sins?" (Lamentations 3:32, 37-39)

Here's what I wish I would have said to these two people that I love: God is good. Even when we don't understand why something has happened to break our hearts, God is never careless with us or with our pain. We can trust in His wisdom, and when that gets hard, we can trust in His goodness.

"This I recall to mind, therefore I have hope. The Lord's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning, great is Thy faithfulness. 'The Lord is my portion,' says my soul, 'Therefore, I have hope in Him.' " (Lamentations 3: 21-24)

Olivia, you may not have the Starlight, but the Lord--your Creator, your Saviour, your best friend, your King-- the Lord is yours.

Mixed Blessings

THINGS I DO NOT LOVE ABOUT MY GARDEN:

-Weeding it.

-Poison ivy growing in the green beans.

-Getting poison ivy because of weeding.

-Fear of getting more poison ivy, which causes abandonment of all weeding-related duties.

THINGS I LOVE ABOUT MY GARDEN:

-The way the vegetables feel so heavy and sun-warmed in my hand.

-The purple scent of basil. (I know I should say that basil smells like green, but I think tomatoes smell green. Basil smells purple.)

-The shape of heirloom tomatoes. Round is so over-rated.

-Poison ivy. (It gives me an excuse not to weed.)