I read something today that totally resonated with me. It was the motto of the Kitchen Sisters, who are featured on NPR.

Talk with strangers.
Especially strangers bearing produce.

As we approach farmers market season, I plan on taking this advice to heart. Go visit your farmers markets and do the same! I am anxiously awaiting our farmers market open date. I thought I stocked up on enough of Noel's Huckleberry Jam to last all winter, but alas we ran out a month ago.
I was reading another article on NPR's website this morning. I love their food section. The article was about gourmet cooking with items from the dollar store. You can read it here. Who knew I was cutting edge?

I enjoyed reading about the revelation of food shopping at the dollar store. We may not shop at an official dollar store (I do not think I have ever been in one, to tell the truth), but I do hit the local bargain store every week for groceries. It is my go-to place for cereals and refried beans. I know that I can find organic salad dressing there for $1 or less, coconut milk for 35 or 65 cents, Annie's macaroni and cheese for 35 cents, Fruitabu for 10 cents. The range of organic foods can vary greatly, but if I am willing to look, it is surprising what I can find. Just yesterday I picked up organic microwave popcorn for $1.25 (no, we did not buy a microwave, Vincent likes it for art class), organic chips for 75 cents, Kashi cereal for $1.75, homeopathics for $1, and a small bottle of olive oil for $1.75. I have to take a minute to check dates, but the bargains are fantastic. Once I bought a bottle of 12 year old balsamic vinegar for $2, and I pay only $7 for a gallon of olive oil.

I have a friend who jokes that there are two types of people who shop the bargain store. There are the ones simply looking for standard american diet foods at a lower price and then there are the foodies who know what a great bargain those Mi-Del gingersnaps and balsamic vinegar are and who know what to do with oyster sauce or that coconut milk.

I do take issue with their statement that it is difficult to make a three course meal for a family of four for less than $20. If using convenience foods, sure it could be tricky. However, a three course meal made from scratch for a family of six usually costs me less than $10, $15 tops if we are having something pricey. Flour, sugar, eggs, seasonal vegetables, meat bought in bulk are not that expensive, even organic. However, you have to know how to cook them. I abhor the loss of cooking skills in our country, but that is an entirely different post.

Welcome to double digits, peanut butter! I love the young woman you are growing to be.
As for you, my darling baby boy, I swore that I would savor every stage of your babyhood, knowing how fleeting it would be. Still, I cannot believe how time has flown and that it has already been a year.
Happy birthday to my birthday buddies! May you celebrate many more together though the decades.

Just a preface ~ Whooo boy, did I ever ramble tonight! Seriously, this one came out of left field and it not at all what I sat down here to type. The fingers have minds of their own sometimes.

I was reading an article this evening about the global spread of the English language. I had not thought about that more than in passing before. Sure, it registered that English was being taught in schools around the world, from dusty barely equipped schools in Ghana to elite academies in Hong Kong. I had never stopped to consider the ramifications of this though.

Apparently no other language ever has dominated the world like this. In countries like India and China, the population is starting to consider knowledge of English a basic skill rather than foreign language learning. Really. A basic skill for people in Asia. That blew my mind. The flip side is the implications for people in native English speaking countries. Are we at a disadvantage because so many of our people do not speak 2,3,4,5 languages, even haltingly?

Many in the US, too many, have a superiority complex with language skills that is completely unwarranted. I know people who get upset about immigrants who do not possess excellent English skills. This makes me shake my head in frustration. That immigrant who is being mocked by the US citizen is making an effort to learn a second (or third or fourth) language. The number of adults I know who possess even halting language skills in a second language is minuscule. The average US attitude towards languages is egotistical and absurd. As English becomes more common in the global community, it will be even easier for native English speakers to communicate anywhere, but at what price? Something common has low status.

One of my goals for this year was to become proficient in Spanish again. After tonights reading and giant tangential leaps, my desire has redoubled. Maybe I will think about boning up on my German too.

Random thoughts on a Friday evening

~ Giving away clothing because it is too big is a wonderful feeling.

~ Giving away your children's clothing because it is too small is bittersweet.

~ Can you feel Spring? I can. It is in the starting gates, chomping at the bit waiting for those gates to open.

~ I adore the Habitat for Humanity Restore. It may be hit or miss, but I can find some lovely things there and feel good about supporting a good cause. If only there was one closer to me.

~ There are far too many recipes for chocolate cake out there. I am trying to find one that I had saved somewhere for a bittersweet chocolate buttermilk cake with a chocolate and mascarpone frosting. Where could I have put it? I need a chocolate cake for the party tomorrow and I want to make this one. It seems like I can find every recipe but this one.

~ Two more weeks until I can start my seedlings for the vegetable garden. Two! Hurray! Itty bitty broccoli and tiny tomato plants! Little basils stretching to the lights next to diminutive pepper plants. I have been reading the Jung's catalog, but I keep changing my varieties. Decisions, decisions.

~ I made some bread earlier this week that was out of this world good. I might still be working on my rye techniques, but wow, the sourdough baguettes I am making these days are on par with anything I have ever purchased from an artisan bakery. My father-in-law requested that I make him some Cuban bread, which made me feel fantastic.

~ I wish the family was more adventurous with their palates. I have been playing around with non-Italian Mediterranean and Indian foods, but the only one who really likes them is me. Sure I will cook for myself, but it takes the fun out of it. I truly enjoy cooking for others. At least the kids are enjoying fried sweet potato chunks when they would not eat sweet potato before. Luis likes some of the Indian dishes, but mostly prefers pasta dishes with simple butter/wine/garlic sauces and meat of some sort. And his eggs. That man can eat eggs more often than anyone I know.

Winter has been over the top this year. Someone told me that this is the most snow we have received here and the most snowfalls we have had since people starting keeping track of these conditions. There has been so much ice that it has been dangerous to shovel the snow off of sidewalks in places because the grit of the snow preserved a little traction. The kids and I walk many places downtown, and I am tired of wading through slushy puddles and snowdrifts, tired of wet cuffs on my pants and the cold shock of snow getting into my shoes when the drift was higher than anticipated.

One thing I am not tired of though is the beauty of the snow. We had yet another snowfall late this afternoon and evening. Huge fluffy flakes floating down to coat the granular snowbanks. The tree branches are coated with sticky, fluffy snow shining in the moonlight. I should be bored to death of snow. Instead, I was reaching for my camera a little while ago to try to capture an image of the snowy trees in the night.

There is a privacy about it which no other season gives you.... In spring, summer and fall people sort of have an open season on each other; only in the winter, in the country, can you have longer, quiet stretches when you can savor belonging to yourself. ~Ruth Stout

I know spring is coming; I can feel it in my bones and in the energy of the earth. I know that there cannot be too many more of these snowfalls coming. So I will savor these even as I am tired of them. Even as I curse the slush and heating bills, I will enjoy the beauty and the time that they give me for quiet reflection. This winter has kept us shut in more than usual, hibernating. Is that really such a bad thing?

Let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius. ~Pietro Aretino

Not even a year and he is walking already!



















Of course, crawling is still easier...

If you are a parent, go listen to this now. Do not just read the article. Listen to the full story. Go ahead, it is less than 8 minutes long and it is important.

Old Fashioned Play Builds Serious Skills

I have always believed in giving the children free time to just be. It shows in their imagination and their play. I know that I am not just making this up as their mother; I have heard it over and over from other adults in our lives. I have also believed in limited screen time for kids and in not inundating the children with toys. It is nice to have my "wacky" beliefs validated.

The choices we make for our kids today influence the choices they will make and the skills they will have tomorrow. I firmly believe that the skills I see them developing in their free play will make a huge difference in their adult lives.

My hands are growing older. I have always had smooth hands, soft hands. Lately, I have noticed that my skin is getting drier. The landscape of my hands, the lines in the skin, are growing more visible. Is it my imagination or are my knuckles growing larger, more pronounced? My new, older hands remind me of my grandmothers.

I feel like they should remind me of my mother, but they do not. Her hand are quite soft for a woman in her late fifties, the skin growing crepe-y, but not drying. I do not see the knuckles and the lines in her hands like I see developing in mine. Instead of mom, when I look at my hands, I see my one grandmother shuffling cards and my other grandmother holding a crochet hook.

I look in the mirror, and I see traces of the face of the girl I was in my teens. I look at my hands and I see signs of the woman I will be in my sixties.

Is there anything as precious as a newly born child?

I am feeling random again tonight...

Perusing the King Arthur Flour catalog or Levenger catalog late at night is as dangerous as browsing ebay in the wee hours. When sleepy, I can almost convince myself that yes, I do need both a nutmeg mill and cinnamon grinder as well as a yogurt maker, professional kitchen scale, and brotforms from King Arthur. The Levenger 3x5 system (with both the leather folio and desk holder) makes so much sense to my sleepy mind, and wouldn't the wood and leather Cubi Collectionbe exactly what I need to sort out the desk in the kitchen?

Is it weird that I browse baking and organization catalogs like a kid looking through the JC Penney toy catalog? I even circle things that I will likely never purchase, even if I had a gift certificate, but that I would probably love if they were to magically appear on my doorstep one day.

What did appear on my doorstep today was a new set of Calphalon pans. I had bought a set of Simply Calphalon three years ago. When I bought it, I knew that it would not perform as well as the Calphalon Commercial that I had, but I was expecting better than what I got from it. That set left me feeling ripped off like no other purchase I have made in recent years. After calling to complain about two years ago and getting my concerns pooh-poohed, I had resigned myself to simply simmering about my pans while my lasagna sauce simmered. Recently, I noticed the emergence of a new layer of color in the interior of a few of the pans, and it was the straw that broke this camel's back. I called again to complain and this time was taken seriously. I sent the entire set back for warranty replacement, and this afternoon a new set of pans appeared: 8, 10 and 12 inch frying pans; a 3 quart skillet; 1, 2 and 4 quart sauce pans; and a 6 quart stock pot. I had sent back an 8 quart stock pot, so I called to question the smaller size. I was told to keep the 6 quart one and they would send out an 8 quart as well. Hopefully this set performs more like Calphalon should, even if it is the cheaper cousin of my beloved Calphalon Commercial and Calphalon One Hard Anodized.

Given redundancies in my pot and pan inventory now that I had received the replacement sets, I am thinking of selling a few of the new ones on ebay. Would that be bad? The three quart skillet and 12" frying pan are both nice, but I like my Commercial 12" Everyday pan better. I like my little 9" Calphalon One skillet so much that I question whether I really need an 8" frying pan too. I do think I'll keep redundant 2 quart sauce pans because that is such a handy size, and the multiple stock pots are good for soup nights.

We do need to hold another soup night soon, maybe next weekend. I do enjoy the companionship of these evenings in, even when it is just us and another set of good friends. I do not think I have any untried soups in my recipe box anymore though. Maybe it is time to browse through Epicurious and my cookbooks some more. Ooo, and what bread to make? Honey oatmeal of course, because I love that and rarely make it (too many calories and too yummy to be left alone with me). Pumpernickel? Sourdough? Grandma's? French? Italian? Polish Rye? Yes, I do think we need a soup night next weekend.

I have come the the realization recently that cooking, specifically baking, is a passion of mine. I love doing it. Love measuring out the ingredients, wiping my hands on the aprons, mixing the doughs, forming the cookies, watching the air pockets form in bread doughs, shaping the croissants, tweaking recipes out to my moods and tastes, experimenting (the recent strawberry cream cheese sourdough croissants were a Very Good Thing *swoon*). I love sharing the products of my efforts with others. It is a personal expression from deep within me.

Immigrant foods intrigue me. Time seems to stop for people with regard to their cooking when they leave their homelands. The Norwegians around here make a huge deal out of their annual lutefisk and lefse suppers. I thought these foods were huge in Norway as well when I was growing up, but I came to learn that more lutefisk is consumed in North America than in Norway. The immigrants in the nineteenth century preserved this food as a part of their heritage while the people in Norway moved on to more modern methods of food preservation, reducing the popularity of lye-soaked cod over there.

I was thinking about this again last night while rereading one of my cookbooks (Memories of a Cuban Kitchen). Until I read this book the first time, I had been perplexed by some of my mother in law's cooking techniques. Canned peas as a garnish? Use of canned asparagus instead of fresh? I had always thought of these and some of her other cooking habits as completely bizarre. I realized upon reading this book, though, that it was immigrant cooking at it's finest. Her homeland cooking is frozen in the 1960s.

So that leaves me wondering if I can substitute fresh peas for the canned peas used to accent the arroz amarillo con pollo. Do I need to keep the recipes she brought with her from her homeland as they were back in the mid-'60s or can I update them for the modern era and palate?

There are few things as soft as newborn baby hair, as precious as a newborn baby coo and as beautiful as the smile of a mother as she looks down at the newly born baby nestled in her arms.

Nephew, may your life be seasoned with laughter, music, love, friends and sunshine, salted with just enough rain and darkness to help you appreciate the wonderful times. May you grow to old age able to look back over the years with a smile and think "my life was good".

I look forward to getting to know the person that you are and will grow to be. I love you already, but I hope to know you well as you grow.

Welcome to this world, little one.

Years ago, as a newlywed, I began baking bread. The urge to do so was one part economy, three parts embracing my inner hausfrau and two parts connection with my grandmother. Throughout my childhood, I cannot recall ever seeing store bought bread in my grandmother's home. I can still remember the unique scent of her bread drawer, can still see in my mind the drawer lined with paper bags and filled with partial loaves of simple bread and wheels of lightly glazed cinnamon rolls.

All through my childhood, my mother baked, and I always stood near, watching and learning. For many years, Saturday meant the smell of cinnamon rolls rising on the warm dryer while the laundry spun dry. I learned from her just how to knead doughs, how to gauge the temperature of the water and many other bread baking techniques, but the one thing I never remember her doing was forming the dough she created into a loaf of bread. Perhaps she did only make sweet doughs. I should ask her someday. So I began my bread baking career with my grandmother's recipe for bread, my mother's technique for kneading and Betty Crocker's method of handling the dough and shaping.

I have baked on and off for years since those first forays. As a busy new mom, the bread machine was the cat's meow. Toss in a few ingredients and a couple of hours later, voila warm bread. The luster faded quickly though, and it fell to the wayside once my gleaming white Kitchen Aid stand mixer appeared on the scene. Machine-made bread never had the same flavor or texture as loaves that I formed and baked myself. I branched out from my grandmother's recipe to new ones from friends, and occasionally baked free-form loaves on my stones.

This fall, I got the courage to start a batch of sourdough starter, and my bread baking changed forever. I am not sure why sourdough took so much courage to begin, but now that I finally am working with it and gaining confidence with it, I have a renewed love of all things bread. If I can create sourdough starter and keep it alive, I can learn how to form baguettes the proper way and form pan loaves in a manner that Betty never covered. I can explore the art of traditional breads from other cultures. I can experiment with pumpernickel and whole grains. I can make croissants. (My first attempt at those should be ready late morning tomorrow. Stop by for a sample and a latte if you are near.)

I have invested in good cookbooks on breads and have been talking with other experienced home bakers. I especially love the ideas covered in Local Breads, the ancient traditions involved in using sourdough starters (levains, bigas, whatever language you want to use to describe the essential mix of flour, water and wild yeast) to create an endless variety of bread.

Bread to me is like a new year or new day dawning. The basic recipe for a leavened loaf is always the same - flour, water, a little yeast, simplicity itself. Bakers around the world and throughout the centuries have taken those simple ingredients and created from them an stunning variety of breads. Vary the flours, the amounts of water, the types of yeast, the fermentation time, the shaping and you have completely changed the character of the finished bread. If that isn't enough, toss in some other ingredients, accent the bread with seeds, nuts, cheeses, herbs, anything. Keep it simple, make it complex, the possibilities are endless.

There is a magic in the rising strands of gluten, a faith that something unseen acting in a way that I cannot fully explain will soon become something wonderful. For me, it is a reminder of the mysteries, the magic, the wonder of life.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I would love to share recipes, but do not want to infringe upon copyright. So, I will share the only recipe that I can, the recipe that began my passion for breads, my grandmother's recipe. She never actually measured, but my mother took a day off from work nearly three decades ago to sit with grandma while she baked, measuring each item that grandma pulled out to put into her bread. I am thankful she did because to my tongue, this bread still tastes like my grandmother's house. It is a simple white bread, nothing fancy, but a part of my heritage nonetheless and my simple contribution to the bread baking world.

4 c hot water
2-3 tsp salt
1 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp lard (I have used shortening, but the taste with lard is different. I usually use the lard like my grandmother did)
1 1/2 pkg dry active yeast (I usually use about 1.5 Tbsp)

Mix the above. Add flour to absorb the liquid. Let stand for 10 minutes. Add flour until firm. Knead. Let rise once or twice (depending on time, it does do fine with a single rise). Form into loaves and let rise. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. This makes 4 loaves, but it can be halved to make two loaves.

It has come to my attention that some of you out there (waves to the peanut gallery) are disappointed in the shortness of some of my recent entries. Here is a compilation of thoughts for you to enjoy with your Wheaties.

~ Do they even make Wheaties anymore? *dons best old fogey voice* Do the younguns know what I am talking when I say that?

~ I love the fact that Isabella actually has the word eek as part of her everyday vocabulary. It makes me smile every time she says it.

~ NPR's Science Friday had a feature last week on the Six Degrees of Separation Theory. Apparently, some scientists have shown it to be false. Listening to the segement and learning about the actual experiment that led to the theory becoming part of our popular culture, I agree that the actual experiment did not prove much. However, looking at my own set of Six Degrees of Separation, I do not know that I doubt the theory that much. I am a farm girl from Wisconsin. Even without my internet connections, I can make some amazing jumps in just a couple of degrees. It is four degrees from me to Fidel Castro (I know -> J who met -> Che Guevara who was a revolutionary with -> Castro). Three steps from me to Frank Lloyd Wright (I know -> D who met -> Wright. D even got a personal tour of Taliesin from Wright). Four steps from me to Josef Stalin (I -> met Brandoch Peters years ago -> he was married to Svetlana Alliluyeva for a short time she was -> Stalin's daughter). That is only going three or four degrees. Luis and I have consistently been shocked at how many of people we know, even those who are hundreds of miles away, have overlapping circles of acquaintance. I do not care if the theory is perfectly true. Even if it takes 8 or 10 or 12 degrees to connect everyone in the entire world, it is still a fun parlour game. How many degrees is it from you to someone well known? (/start subliminal message/ Comments people, leave comments! I know you are reading, leave a comment! /end subliminal message/)

Part of the NPR segment questioned why people grab on to this theory and love it so much. I think that we love the connection it creates between us and the rest of the world. People love to know how they fit together with others. I think that is why some people enjoy geneology. In some cultures, upon meeting new people, it was or is important to discuss family trees and social acquaintances until a connection is made. Humans like to know how we fit together.

~ Do you listen to NPR? Do you support it? The segments and shows on NPR are both informative and entertaining, and not just for upper class intellectual geeks. Take a listen someday! Support it if you do listen regularly!

~ Cinnamon Raisin Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread is a gift from the gods. I think it is my current favorite bread.

~ iGoogle is fabulous. I love it to bits. One simple webpage for my homepage will show me the news I want, the woot of the day, the current weather, the current moon phase, gives me quick access to my calendar, lets me track my water consumption, gives me a new Spanish word and interesting quotes every day, and provides me with easy links to last week's Whad'Ya Know and Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. I *heart* iGoogle. Now if only my google calendar could be downloaded onto my cellphone, I could be a happy camper, at least for the time being.

Could I please have just one easy day with her for a change? I am not greedy; I will settle for just one.

Pretty please with whipped cream, chocolate syrup and a cherry one top?

Luis brought me some Hershey's chocolate bars last night. While I appreciated the effort, what is the point of a plain Hershy's bar if I cannot slather it in peanut butter? Since peanut butter is no longer an option in our house, what was I to do?

It was a brilliant moment, MacGyver in the kitchen. One gas stove. One bamboo kabob stick. A couple of mini-marshmallows. Two graham crackers. One chocolate bar. One husband shaking his head at the lunacy of it all.

Two s'mores later, my sweet tooth was satisfied and I was a happy woman.

The bitter cold days of winter are not my favorites, but today it did warm up enough to snow. I was watching the snow fall in the dark tonight. The flakes are huge and fluffy, falling by the glow of the streetlights.

I went outside for a few minutes to listen to the snow falling. When the world is quiet on a snowing evening, there is nothing like listening to the snow fall. It is a such a thick quiet, so different from other types of quiet. The muffled, soft noise of snow falling is one of my favorite things about winter evenings.

January brings the snow, makes our feet and fingers glow.
Sara Coleridge

I am typing this while lying down, looking at the soft little bundle cuddled up next to me. His eyelashes lay across his chubby cheeks, his lips are slightly pursed in his sleep. His breath flutters against me. He is beautiful beyond belief.

It amazes me how much love can fill up my heart when I look at my children sometimes. I always love them, of course, but there are times when I look at them and something catches me off guard. Love pours out like a tangible substance.

I am blessed beyond measure.

My princess Isabella started ballet today. She absolutely adored it.

It must be January.

Every new year, I get the bug to change things in our home. The little things that have bothered me since we moved in or huge things, it doesn't really matter. I get a need for change. One year, we finally painted over the horrid sponge painting the previous owners had left us. Last year was stellar. I was pregnant and nesting in addition to having my normal January urges. We ripped out the carpeting and refinished the wood floors, tiled the backsplash in the kitchen, put new faucets in the downstairs bathroom and repainted the upstairs.

Last night, I was sitting at the kitchen table just before putting the children to bed when the January bug hit. It hit hard. I suddenly knew just how I could redo my kitchen to expand my counter and cupboard space with minimal time and cost. The closet redo that Luis did for me in the fall was not enough. I still wanted more counter space.

After a quick consult with Luis, in which he naturally agreed with me and even expanded upon the idea (January hits him too), I had a plan. Unfortunately, Luis was not supportive of starting a kitchen redo at 9:30 at night after I had the baby to sleep. I was awake for hours last night, arranging and rearranging things in my mind. I even got up at 2 am to go downstairs and measure something out.

There was a small snag with counter top widths, but that will be okay. One new counter top won't be too much. Okay, one new counter top and and two hanging cabinets. Plus a half wall that Luis wants to construct. Nothing at all, really. Right?

We rearranged the cabinets after dinner tonight, and I changed the orientation of the kitchen table. I will have to get a new counter top as soon as possible, but the hanging cabinets can wait a little if necessary. We ended up dividing up the room, but I like the functionality, and I am going to finally have more functional counter space and more room in my cabinets. Hurray!

Oh what fun January brings around here. Home Depot and Menards love us when the New Year comes.

How many meals can a family of six get out of one and a half pounds of ground beef?

No, that is not a trick question. One? Two? Three? Four? What do you think?

I usually get two or three meals from about one and a half pounds of beef or chicken. I was thinking about this recently, and I feel it is an important thing to pay attention to in meal planning. Over the years, my cooking has changed dramatically from meat-focused meals to meals where the meat is more of a flavor or part of a dish. I am an unabashed omnivore. I like meat, and I have no problem with the ethical issues of eating animals. I do like to be sure that the vast majority of our meat comes from local sources and is raised in conditions that I feel are ethical and sustainable, but other than that, I have no problems at all with eating meat.

However, over the years, my cooking has changed. We may occasionally have steak or meatloaf for dinner, but it is becoming rare. I am much more likely to take one pound of steak and turn it into two meals - veggie heavy stir fry, fajitas with veggies and rice, kabobs, fried rice, soups. All stretch the meat while providing a filling meal. That one and half pound package of ground beef is likely to be turned into spaghetti with meat sauce and a side of bread, sweet and sour meatballs with lots of peppers, pineapple and rice, and chili with cornbread. Perhaps it will become beef and bean enchiladas with mexican rice, pasta pie with garlic bread, and two cheeseburger pizzas. Three hearty, satisfying meals for a family of six, one package of ground beef. A single 3 or 4 pound roasting chicken will easily become four meals for us - chicken quesadillas, stir fry, fried rice, fettuccine alfredo with chicken and broccoli and more.

This is important to think about because of the state of the meat industry in the US today. Researching the conditions in which factory farmed meat is raised and processed is enough to turn anyone's stomach. When we eat meals with less meat, we are able to spend the extra money on locally raised, natural meat processed in small, local processing plants. I like to know that I am not supporting the factory farming industry with the vast majority of meat that we purchase. We are not perfect; I still buy deli meat on occasion or kielbasa, but I can feel good knowing that probably 95%+ of the meat that we eat is treated humanely.

Like so many other good things, change can start in the kitchen. There is power in the stove and wooden spoon. Tie on your apron, pull out a cookbook and try a new recipe, something where the meat is part of the dish, not the entire focus. Do you have a good recipe to share? Send me a link, please! I am always looking for new ones, especially Mediterranean or Asian ones.

The Yahtzee saga continues. Tonight, Luis pulled the game out again after the children were all tucked away snug in their beds. I destroyed him in the first game. Guess what amazing feat I did. Go ahead, guess.

Three Yahtzees in a single game.

Never before have I done that. We are starting to think the game is possessed. I scored a whopping 530 points in that game. I did not know it was possible to score that high.

Of course, the next game, Luis and I tied at a mere 149 points each. We took it as a cosmic sign to put the game away. Until tomorrow. Luis is completely infatuated with the game, and I know he'll pull it out again tomorrow.

Sister of mine, great gift! Thank you so much!

It amazes me that I can still learn new things about Luis after dating for 5 years and being married for 12. Tonight, I learned that he had never in his life played Yahtzee. Can you imagine living until your mid 30's and never once playing Yahtzee? That simply would not be possible in my family. My siblings and I played countless games throughout our childhood and teen years. I think we were still playing it in our young adult years.

Thanks to my dear sister gifting our family with Yahtzee for the holidays, Luis played for the first time tonight. We played the first game with the children and had a fabulous time. The girls were so into it. Isabella and I won. Luis was an instant Yahtzee fan, ready to start a second game with the kids even though we finished the first game at bedtime. After the kids were in bed, we played some more. I told him that I was a Yahtzee champ and would beat him easily. I was wrong. We played four games, and I did not win a one. Luis also achieved something that I have never seen in all of my years of Yahtzee playing.

He rolled three Yahtzees in a single game.

Three. I could not believe it. I called my sister after he rolled the second one, and then he went and rolled another. Unbelievable.

I am calling it beginner's luck. I will challenge him again tomorrow night and then we will see who the real Yahtzee champ is.

I multi-task with the best of them. Cook dinner, hold the baby, talk on the phone and tie a shoe? No problem. Nurse the baby, read aloud and knit? Okay.

Sometimes I wonder though if I am losing my ability to focus on a single thing, to really live totally in the moment. I often think ahead to the next thing, and I lose sight of what it is I am currently doing. After all these years of doing multiple things at once, I have difficulty doing only one thing at a time. When the children read to me, I find it hard to sit and do nothing other than listen to them. My hands start twitching for knitting needles or my legs want to get up and move around while listening.

Lately, I have been trying to not do as much multi-tasking, to see if I can get back the feeling of losing myself in a singe task. I am refocusing on only chopping the onions, nursing the baby or listening to the child.

I am not sure if I will be successful (is is even possible to nurse a baby to sleep without reading or knitting and stay awake myself?), but it is quite different.

To contrast my last post, I love the day after Christmas. It is the harbinger of a new season for me. As the detritus of the holiday litters the home, it is time to start cleaning. Away go the wrappings and excessive packaging. Why must toys be wrapped in so much plastic and cardboard? With them, the old papers, catalogs and unneeded magazines from the living room are swept away. As the new socks and shirts go into the drawers, the ripped and stained ones make their way to the rag bin. The new toys find homes in the children's rooms, and the unused and broken toys are gathered to be discarded or given away.

Soon the tree will come down. As happy as I am to see it go up every year, I am just as happy when it comes down. The room expands as the huge tree leaves. It feels fresh and new again, an open space waiting for parties and projects. Light pours in as the blocked window is revealed again, making the room somehow more stark. The emptiness and the potential are the perfect compliment to the winter season.

I do love the days after the holiday. Once the house is put to rights again for the year, I can focus on the projects in my life that need my attention again.

I do not like Christmas. Does that make me a Grinch?

I love the natural beauty of this time of year. The weather is crisp, but not usually so cold that I don't want to venture outside at all. The first snowfalls are beautiful, blanketing the world in a fluffy white quilt. The time of slush and ice crystals is yet to come. The season of hibernation looms in front of me, and I love the times of seasonal transition. The indoor and internal possibilities for the winter are endless. What projects will I work on this year?

I enjoy our religious celebration. The magical candlelit night of Yule is special. The children look forward to our Yule dinner all year, and I enjoy telling the winter fairy story by the light of the tree. The wish bread tradition is special, and our morning breakfast tradition of wish bread, orange juice and singing is great. I like giving the children a present or two from Luis and myself.

Christmas is not something I yearn for, though. It is overblown. There does not need to be six or eight weeks of anticipation for any yearly event in my opinion. I could be more tolerant if it were less in your face and more personal, but blow up yard Santas and houses dripping with lights seems to be more about keeping up with the neighbors than a personal celebration of joy. I tire of shop clerks threatening my kids with Santa ("you'd better be good because Santa is watching!").

I do not like the materialism of the day. Some of our family members are great with presents, giving needed gifts like clothes; special, quality toys that the children really desire; services like art classes; or educational things we might not otherwise get. These are great gifts, but still the obligation bothers me. I prefer to give presents because I saw something and thought of a friend or family member, not because the calendar says that I should give a gift. There are other family members, though, that I swear pick out anything at the variety store, resulting in occasionally bizarre gifts, like real microscopes given to five year olds. Other try to live vicariously through our family by showering our children with a literal mountain of toys, many of which will be played with for about two months before being forgotten or broken. It is over the top, too much to an absurd degree. It leaves us feeling like we should get very little for our children because too much is coming, but at the same time it feels like we should go overboard too because aren't we as the parent's supposed to be the primary gift givers?

Then there are the myriad traditions that seemingly cannot be broken. There would be a family riot should be not attend Noche Buena dinner, and I feel guilty every year that we do not attend a holiday gathering at a relative's home. The gatherings are fun, but I feel pulled in too many directions. I love seeing our families, but hate cramming six different events into four day's time.

The magic of the time of year is real, and I love seeing the children's face light up after Santa comes, dropping off a few gifts. I wish I could embrace the joy without the obligation and baggage, finding the fun that other people seems to find in the season.

Life is too short for waxy chocolate, spongy bread or supermarket cheese.

I have been the cliche alternative hippie at one stage of my life, the woman who boycotts bras and makeup, who does not even own a hairdryer and who goes about her day in sloppy jeans and tshirts. I am not sure if I was doing it because it felt right at the time or if it was because that was what all the good alternative people did.

After a couple of years of this, I realized that I like to wear lipstick. I like eyeliner, eyeshadow and other makeup. I enjoy styling my hair, and Heidi braids are not for me. I like my clothes to be more refined that sweatshirts and trainers. Bras are comfortable and I like having things supported.

I like soft pink.

I will not judge women who are comfortable in their Birks, men's sweaters and rugged cords with clean faces and hair pulled back in ponytails or braids. Please do not look at me in my tailored pants, ribbed fitted turtleneck, three inch heels and lipstick and assume that you know about my life and my beliefs. I am comfortable in my skin, having found the style that feels right for me. It has nothing to do with my ecological, social, political or religious beliefs.

If people want to be accepted with their dreadlocks, pierced noses and chunky Peruvian handknit sweaters, they should also accept that some people prefer other styles. It does not mean that we are not be kindred spirits inside.

A few weeks ago, the children's art teacher, Jennifer, sent me a link to a website called Story People. The site has sayings that are submitted by different people, and she said that the one that day reminded her of me.

There are things you do because they feel right & they may make no sense & they may make no money & it may be the real reason we are here: to love each other & to eat each other's cooking & say it was good.

I felt honored when Jennifer took the time to send that link. It isn't often that I feel that people really know and understand me, and for some reason, this made me feel that Jennifer does.

Conversations with Vincent...

A couple of days ago, while driving to the store with just Vincent, his voice pipes up from the back seat with a question.

"So, can I have a real chainsaw?"

I blame my sister for the fact that my five year old is asking about real chainsaws. He emailed her his wish list, which included a chainsaw after he saw them at Toys R Us (his expression in the toy tool aisle was priceless; it was like he had found the promised land). My sister emailed back asking if he wanted a real chainsaw or a pretend one. Sarcasm is lost on preschoolers. Apparently he had been mulling it over and was wondering if real was an option.

Later that same day, my brother asked Vincent for his wish list. Vincent casually replied "I email you." I think it is safe to say that he is comfortable with technology.

I stumbled across this today for the first time in a few years. The message is an important one. Even as a non-spanking parent, the urge to lash out sometimes bubbles up within me when the children get stuck in big emotions and are completely out of control. It is good to remember these words.

When I was about 20 years old, I met an old pastor's wife who told me that when she was young and had her first child, she didn't believe in striking children, although spanking kids with a switch pulled from a tree was standard punishment at the time. But one day when her son was four or five, he did something that she felt warranted a spanking--the first of his life. And she told him that he would have to go outside and find a switch for her to hit him with. The boy was gone a long time. And when he came back in, he was crying. He said to her, "Mama, I couldn't find a switch, but here's a rock that you can throw at me."

All of a sudden the mother understood how the situation felt from the child's point of view: that if my mother wants to hurt me, then it makes no difference what she does it with; she might as well do it with a stone. And the mother took the boy onto her lap and they both cried. Then she laid the rock on a shelf in the kitchen to remind herself forever: never violence. And that is something I think everyone should keep in mind. Because violence begins in the nursery--one can raise children into violence.

~ Astrid Lindgren (author of Pippi Longstocking and other wonderful books)

I have been playing around with light while taking pictures again. The last set I took did not turn out as I had hoped, but this set was quite interesting. I especially like this one:



It fascinated me the way the sunlight streaked across his face, illuminating his eyelashes. I also like the grain in the wood floor. Please forgive the wonky spot on the door frame. I am in the process of removing the edge of the bedspread with photoshop, and I am not quite done yet.

I take photos in color, but frequently end up using photoshop to change them to black and white or sepia tones. Something about these color variations draw me in much more than full color photos do. Even as I set up the shots and take the photographs, I find myself thinking of how it will look with the color removed. I cannot put my finger on exactly what draws me to these color variations. There is something about the way it changes the focus of the photograph that I like. Perhaps it is the way that it seems to soften the background and make the people in the photograph more vibrant. I am not finding the words to describe the emotional difference tonight. Suffice it to say that they touch my artistic soul very differently.

How do I know that winter is on its way? I could go by the calendar date or temperature. Day length is a clue, as are the seasonal foods. But none of these truly tells me that winter is almost here.

Seeing Luis pull on his bright red Union suit for the first time since the weather started warming up last spring tells me definitively that winter is just around the corner. Yes, my husband is a goofball who actually owns and sleeps in a Union suit. It cracks me up watching him button it up or seeing him lounging around the house in it.

I spent the morning chopping, stirring, kneading and baking. The afternoon was spent dusting and straightening with a lot more stirring here and there. It was all in preparation for our first Soup Night of the winter.

Soup Night is a fun tradition in our house. I snagged the idea from a former acquaintance, and we have expanded it to create our own event. We try to do it once a month in the fall, winter and early spring months. I make a two or three large pots of soup and oodles of bread. We invite a variety of friends and acquaintances to join us anytime during the evening. It is like a resurrection of the old fashioned "at home" hours. We let people know that we are at home and our house is open to anyone for as long or as little as they want to stay. Most people bring a dish to share; there is always plenty to eat. It is an evening of companionship during the winter hibernation.

My house smelled of bread, pledge and soup. Conversation hummed, children shrieked, jazz played in the background and poker chips slid across the dining room table. In addition to a traditional beef stew, I experimented with two new soups (Roasted Potato Bisque with Leeks and Sage [to which I added sauteed fennel] and Roasted Tomato and Basil Cream Soup) which both so good that they will have a spot in my permanent recipe book.

I really enjoy entertaining. Opening my house up and helping others feel at comfortable and connected makes me feel good inside. I am already looking forward to the next Soup Night.

One of the things I enjoyed about owning a dog was walking him late at night when it was dark. I fully admit to being nosy, and I would glance into people's windows at night as we walked by. Who knew so many living rooms in my area were painted red? It is fun to glimpse vignettes of people's lives.

Last night, I had to take both girls down to the Square for evening activities (girl scouts and theater rehearsal). I had left both boys home with Luis. As I walked across the road and up our sidewalk, I was looking in our front windows. Vincent danced through the sitting room, arms out as he flew a little toy airplane. Luis chased behind, Simon snuggled in his arms. Seeing them framed by lace curtains in the lit windows felt like a movie scene, the kind where the protagonist is returning from a journey or life-altering experience and pauses, heart swelling with emotion, to watch her family before entering to join them.

Naturally, I had to pause for a minute to watch them before walking through the door.

Yeah the view I love the most
Is my front porch looking in

I see what beautiful is about
When I'm looking in
Not when I'm looking out
~ Lonestar "My Front Porch Looking In"

For a community of ten thousand people, my city sometimes is such a small town. This was reinforced the other day.

We have a real downtown square, filled with stores, restaurants and service businesses. Our real estate office sits on one corner of the Square. The other day, I was the only person in the office, so I was sitting up front by two walls of windows. I happened to be looking outside when I witnessed a traffic accident. Traffic only moves one way around the Square, and the speed limit is only fifteen miles per hour. Even with these precautions, accidents happen too often on the Square.

A blue truck was backing out of a parking spot when a sedan bounced off its tailgate. Given the fact that the accident happened at less than fifteen miles per hour, neither vehicle even appeared damaged.

About forty-five seconds after the accident happened, a police car pulled up. Personally, I think it was just coincidence; the police station is only three blocks away, and I suspect the officer was just heading back to the station when he happened by. After laughing about the idea that the city was so Mayberry-esque the the police respond to accidents within a minute of impact, I decided to call Luis to share the giggle with him.

At this point, less than three minutes had elapsed since the incredibly minor accident occurred. The police officer never turned on his lights or sirens. As I told Luis about the accident, his response was first to laugh and then tell me that this explained why people were standing on the corner by our house (we live two blocks from the office) talking and pointing at the Square.

Good gravy.

Andy, Aunt Bee is having problems with Opie snitching cookies again, and Barney is raising a ruckus over by the general store by ticketing people driving 18 in a 15 mph zone.

Welcome to Mayber...er...Monroe.

My sister is an occupational therapist. Last year, she decided to do the coursework and take the exam necessary to become a certified hand therapist. It is a difficult certification to earn. Therapists have to have a certain number of years experience and a minimum number of hours working with hands. The test is only given once a year. My sister has been studying for this exam for a year now. She takes the exam tomorrow.

Squirt, I want you to know that no matter how tomorrow goes, you are fabulous. Taking the steps required to even take the exam is a huge deal. After quizzing you, I believe that you are going to do great, but whatever the result tomorrow, you should be so proud of yourself. I am.

You must be the change you wish to see in the world. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

That statement is becoming commonplace, turning into a cliché, which is unfortunate because it is quite significant. It is bordering on becoming a platitude in alternative circles. I have heard it uttered many times, yet rarely focused on the deeper meaning.

A conversation I had with friends earlier this week has been simmering on the back burner of my mind and has forced me to take a closer look at Ghandi's words. Two friends of mine attended a seminar sponsored by the state extension office about encouraging people to buy local. I had wanted to attend it as well, but considering I was hosting a potluck and had a house full of people, I thought it might be bad form. When my friends got back (their children and husbands were at the potluck), we were discussing the forum.

The "buy local" movement falls into catch-22 situations all too often. The producers of local goods struggle to find the consumers who want to purchase these goods. The consumers who would like to purchase local goods do not know how to connect with the producers. Venues like farmers markets attempt to bring the two together. Fledgling markets fail too often. Why? In my opinion, it is because people fail to be the change they wish to see in the world. The producer waits sign up for the market until s/he can see how many others are participating. The result is a market with only a few pioneers brave enough to forge the way. Consumers look at the market and see only six or eight booths. They decide not to bother stopping because they assume they cannot obtain the goods they desire.

This movement can only succeed when both the producer of the local goods and the consumer of the local goods become the change they wish to see in the world. They must participate in the purchasing cycle during the infancy of local markets otherwise the local markets will not survive to become large, thriving venues.

This is why I make it a point to shop my local markets. I might go looking for beets and spinach, but walk home with leeks and peppers. It is okay. I talk with each vendor and request the beets and spinach. If they do not have any, perhaps they have some at home and will bring them next week or plant them next year because they know there is a demand. I buy the peppers and leeks because it is important to support the vendors today so that they will be back next week, next month, next year. I can put turn the leeks into soup and chop the peppers, putting both into the freezer for the dead of winter when I know they will taste so good. Others may see me shopping and decide to stop, thinking that perhaps shopping the small market is worth their while too. More money gets spent, the vendors bring more goods and encourage other producers to participate, the market grows and we miraculously have thriving "buy local" initiative.

I am not egotistical enough to think that I can singlehandedly create a successful local market, but I strongly believe that I must do my part. I must become the change I wish to see in the world. If I do not do my part, I lose the right to complain about the lack of local goods, the slim pickings at the local markets.

This is why I shop local. I might settle for something that was not what I intended to purchase, but while shopping I talk with the shopkeepers and producers of local goods, sowing seeds for the future.

Living locally is one of the changes I wish to see in the world. I will continue to do my part to make it possible. It matters.

One of my favorite holiday songs from elementary school had a refrain that I still sing every fall.

H - A - Double L - O - W - Double E - N spells Halloween

So today was the night of magic, a co-opted holiday where children and adults lose themselves in a little bit of fun. Luis took the children out to trick-or-treat with our friends and their son while Simon and I handed out candy. I was a little sad that we only had four teens trick-or-treating this year. Some people harp on older children coming out to trick-or-treat, especially when they don't do much for a costume. I prefer this viewpoint. It makes me happy to see older children embracing the magical spirit of childhood and coming out for trick-or-treat. I have large handfuls of treats for all children who visit our front porch, regardless of age or costumes.

We cut our own children's trick-or-treat time a little short this year due to the fact that they have been up too late too many nights in the last week. Even with their coming in about twenty minutes early, they still had quite a bounty of treats. Doritos seemed to be a popular thing to pass out this year, as well as KitKats and Gummy items. Bubble gum seems to be falling from favor, but prepackaged popcorn balls growing in popularity. The children had more than enough treats to split up between our home, our friends' home and the home of a third friend whose children were unable to trick-or-treat due to travel plans, with each household getting more than enough. Sharing is a good thing.

Happy Halloween and Happy Samhain to all!

Simon and I have gotten into the habit of taking a brisk walk every morning. Well, I have gotten into the habit. Since Simon is is not mobile and is in the habit of hanging out wherever he is placed, he rides along in the mei tai, looks at the world for 10 minutes and then falls fast asleep. But, to quote Annie, I digress.

While Simon and I were on our morning walk/nap today, I really wished that I would have had my camera with me. There were two images, completely different from one another, that I had a strong urge to photograph.

There was an elderly man in the yard of one of the houses I walked by. He was bent over low and shuffling along with tiny steps. I was momentarily concerned and getting ready to offer assistance when I noticed the white and brown spotted rabbit about 4 feet away from him. It was a fleeting shot, one I never would have captured anyways unless I had been walking around with my camera at the ready, but I would have loved to have tried to capture the moment.

The second image is one I wanted to photograph due to its sheer absurdity. I was walking by a house with a couple of cow statues in the yard. I am not sure if this is common in the rest of the United States or if it only a Wisconsin thing, but yes, stores sell small statues of cows to put in the yard as decorations. This home had a little family of mama cow and the smaller calf. Walking by, I noticed that mama cow had been decorated for Halloween. She was wearing a pig mask. It tickled my funny bone.

The sock drawer will tell you much about someone's life. That was my realization this week.

Think about it. Look at your socks. What do they say about you and how you live your life?

When I was in high school and college, I lived in athletic shoes and hiking boots. I wore white padded athletic socks almost exclusively. I had about two pair of non-white socks, which were worn a couple of times a year and lasted about ten years without wearing out. The white athletic sock stage persisted through my early mom years. I was in a point of my life where functional was more important than anything else. My clothes were simple, mix and match, easy care. A few years ago, I got sick of feeling sloppy all of the time. I started wearing more tailored clothing, a little dressier than before. My sock drawer become more varied. Multi-colored handknit socks rubbed heels with finer black and navy socks. Chunky wool hiking socks joined the drawer too. I recently noticed that my white athletic socks are occupying a record low portion of the drawer and only get pulled out if I am actually exercising.

Luis's sock drawer underwent a transformation too. For years, his drawer had white tube socks and heavy thermal socks with a few pair of dress socks languishing in the bottom. In recent months, his dress sock collection has grown by leaps and bounds, and those tube socks are hiding under the layer of argyles and stripes. The thermal socks? They are not even in the drawer any more. The changes in his sock drawer speak volumes about the changes in his life this year.

What is in your sock drawer?

Back in 2001, my younger sister graduated college, got her first job and moved to Monroe. At that time, we had never even visited here before. Luis helped her move down here, and he came home that night with one of those free Homes magazines from a grocery store. We couldn't believe the house prices. Compared to where we were living, 15 minutes outside of Madison, the houses were so cheap. We looked at each other and realized that we probably could afford a home down by my sister.

We started looking at homes in the area. On one level, it felt bizarre to look for a home somewhere we had never visited, somewhere that we knew only two people (my sister and her now husband) in a city of ten thousand. Yet we knew we wanted a real house, and it seemed perfectly reasonable at the time. We scoured the internet, spent a couple of weekends down here and looked at a number of houses. We found a huge brick home with five bedrooms and more space than we could imagine at a price that boggled our mind. In Madison, nine hundred square foot starter homes with postage stamp yards cost that much. We jumped in with both feet and never looked back.

About four weeks later, we closed on our house. The day after we closed, we formally moved. Due to timing, Luis and the family members helping us move left our apartment about an hour before the girls and I were able to. I made the seventy five minute drive knowing that people were already in my home, moving my furniture into it. It was surreal. I got closer and closer, and a huge bubble of excitement well up inside of me as I started up the final hill before the city, only minutes from my new home, the home I have spent almost seven years in now and have come to love so much.

Every single time I make the drive back home from Madison with just me and the kids in the car, I still get that same bubble of excitement inside knowing that I am almost home. We may have jumped into our decision to live here, but that thrill of coming home lets me know we made the perfect choice.

I recently decided to make another sourdough starter and try my hand at sourdough breads again. Last week, I mixed up a batch of starter. It foamed away nicely, soured sweetly and has been stored in my fridge waiting for a day like today when I felt like making bread.

So, being in the mood for a good bread to go with tonight's spinach manicotti dinner, I pulled out the starter this morning. I poured off two cups of starter to warm up for the bread and fed the remaining starter. Three hours later when the starter was warm, I started making my bread. Only problem was that Simon woke up from his nap just when I was ready to start the bread, so I was slightly distracted with him. Okay, I was extremely distracted. I threw together the water, yeast, bread, sugar and starter when I noticed how liquidy the dough was. Odd.

I checked the recipe and realized that I was supposed to use a quarter cup of water, not the two cups of water I had added. Oops. As I got ready to throw out the liquidly mess, it occurred to me that I had put in the correct proportions of starter, water, flour and sugar to have actually created more starter. Now the dilemma. Do I throw it out or do I let it grow and have about three time more sourdough starter on hand than I actually need?

I decided to let it grow. I dumped the mess into a ten cup bowl. An hour later, I walked through the kitchen to discover it all over the counter. I scraped it into a large tupperware bowl. It kept growing. The foaming mass reached the top, bubbling up over the rim, but thankfully the surface tension kept it all in. I now have a boatload of sourdough starter on hand! Anyone want some?

There was exactly enough starter leftover from my established batch to create two loaves of sourdough bread, so we were able to have it with dinner after all. I paired a scrumptious piece with (local, organic) huckleberry jam for a tasty snack tonight. It is a good thing we like sourdough because I will be making a number of loaves in the next couple of days!

On a completely unrelated note, here is what you might find if you were to leave Vincent outside to with a shop vac and his imagination.

There is actually a science to car washing. Who knew?

Earlier this year, we acquired a car wash business. This has been Luis's thing, so I have been on the edges, doing only little bits while he took care of it. Being the word addict that I am, I started picking up his car wash magazines (again, who knew there were multiple magazines dedicated to this?) when I had nothing better to read. I have learned things that really surprised me.

Did you know that using a commercial car wash can be more environmentally conscious than doing it yourself with a hose? If you wash a vehicle on pavement, the water and chemicals run off into the storm sewer system. The storm sewer systems for most towns are discharged into lakes or streams. If you are washing your vehicles at home, please do so over grass or gravel where the earth can filter that water before returning it to the groundwater system. Commercial car washes discharge into the sanitary sewer system from which the water travels to treatment plans. There are also commercial car washes that use water reclaim systems, cleaning and reusing their water so that they never discharge to sewer systems at all. Nationally, over fifty percent of full service conveyor car washes use reclaim systems, but less than ten percent of self-service bays do.

Did you know that touch-free car wash systems actually use more water and harsher chemicals than systems that have foam pads that touch your vehicle? I had never stopped to think about this one before, but learning it gave me a "duh" moment. Full service conveyor systems use about 15-40 gallons of water per car. They use a light water and chemical solution combined with friction to clean your vehicle. Touchless systems can use 24-85 gallons per car and rely upon chemicals and increased water spray to break the surface tensions of the dirt and debris on your vehicle. Water is a valuable resource, one that we should conserve whenever possible. Home washing can use 30-140 gallons in a 10 minute wash, depending upon if the hose has an automatic shut-off nozzle or not. For reference, top loading washers can use 35 gallons of water per cycle and an average shower uses 35-40 gallons.

I also learned that the ph balance of the chemicals in a well planned car wash will balance out, leaving the water neutral. It never even occurred to me before to wonder about the effects of the washing chemicals upon the waste water and ground systems.

The good chemical companies also reuse packaging. Ours takes their barrels back after they are emptied and refills them instead of simply using new ones each time.

Who knew washing your vehicle could still be an ecologically sound choice? Go Green Team!

I have noticed that my shoes completely change my outlook and attitude towards the world. Does this make me superficial? Probably, but I am okay with that.

If I wear trainers or flipflops, I am more apt to rush around and be frazzled. I am more deferential, more prone to panic and more likely to be self-deprecating.

Things change when I slip into my shoes with three inch heels. My stride changes, my shoulders go back and my chin goes up a little. Suddenly, it is not a big deal if I am two or six minutes late. Somehow I am more at ease and less deferential in the way I interact with the world. I smile more and speak with greater confidence.

Is it any wonder that I wear heeled sandals or loafers most every day? Heeled shoes and lipstick are my armor, protecting my doubt-filled, squishy-marshmallow-pushover-center from the world.

I have been told more than once that I live in my own little world. I try very hard to see the positive in the world around me and view other people's actions with positive intent. I know that this seems Pollyannaish to some people, even naive, but it is a conscious choice that I have made about the way I live my life.

I firmly believe that as we live our lives, we will find what we are looking for. If I am looking for positive things, I will tend to find them. I have some friends who dislike the community I live in. I could easily feel the same way as they do, but instead of focusing on the insular, narrow minded tendencies of some people in the community, I focus on the positive aspects of this city. Yes, our farmers market may have only 8 booths some weeks, but I can easily spend thirty to sixty enjoyable minutes there chatting with people and getting delicious food. Yes, this is an overtly Christian community, but for every person who will judge me for my religion, there is another who does not care one whit about it and will judge me on my personality. No, perhaps I can't get Indian food, but the Chinese and Mexican restaurants are excellent and if I really want another ethnicity, I can get it within a hour drive. Yes, some people won't fully accept me because I wasn't born here, but I have made great friends and good acquaintances. I enjoy life here.

Maybe I am naive, but my life is good. So, if I am living in my own little world, I say it is a happy place and please come join me here.

Things that amaze me:

~ The Full Moon Looking up at a gleaming full moon in a cloudless sky never fails to take my breathe away. I can feel an energy radiating from it that soaks into my soul. Every month, I find time to stand outside late on a full moon night to enjoy the quiet and the energy of the moon.

~ My Mother She is so generous and has a knack for giving gifts that are more than just material goods. She gifts me with things I never knew how much I wanted, like 600 count sateen sheets and the perfect shredder for Parmesan. She gives my children magazine subscriptions and two gifts in one when she takes them shopping for shoes (an adored task). Yesterday she informed me that she wants to give the children the Rosetta Stone for the winter holidays. Her thoughtfulness blows me away.

~ My Home I love every inch of this old home. I look around at the hundred year old wood work, flowing rooms and shady front porch, and I cannot believe that I own this wonderful, historic home.

~ Friends I have been blessed with some incredible people in my life. I do not see myself as that interesting, so it amazes me that other people think I am.

~ Knitting Two sticks and a piece of yarn. Put them into the hands of a knitter and who knows what will result. The product is beautiful, and the process is meditation for me. Follow a simple pattern, let the fingers to their thing and let the mind wander as it will.

~ Baby Radar Every night, no matter how sound asleep Simon is or how long he has been sleeping, he wakes within ten minutes of my slipping into bed. It doesn't matter how close I am to him, how careful I am to not jostle the bed or how quiet am I. Without fail, ten minutes and he is wakes up just enough to nurse. In the morning, the reverse happens. No matter how careful and quiet I am, within ten minutes of my leaving the bed, he is awake and ready for the day. All four of the children have had this Baby Radar. I find it fascinating that Mother Nature programmed babies this way.

Vincent is 5 now, and it is becoming even more clear that he is a Mini-Me of Luis. Give him a real job to do, and he is happy. One day, he tried to pay me for letting him hang up laundry. I hadn't realized he was doing that; I had been hanging it until I went inside to get a fussy, woken-up-from-his-nap Simon. Ten minutes later, Vincent swaggered in, handed me two quarters, informed me that the laundry was all up and thanked me for letting him hang it.

So, life is interesting with him around.

Today I was carrying water softener salt from the van into the house and the basement. I carried the first bag down, dumped it into the big storage thingamabobee and went back outside. There was Vincent walking down the driveway with the other bag of a salt on a dolly. The bags weigh fifty pounds. Fifty. Vincent weighs forty pounds, for reference. In the amount of time it took me to walk to the basement and dump the first bag of salt, he had gotten out the handcart, taken it to the back of the van, maneuvered the bag onto the cart and rolled it up the driveway.

I let him take it the rest of the way to the back door, including up the little hill. He did it.

Help me when this boy hits puberty. I just know the there will be an Unfortunate Incident involving a Sawzall at some point in his teenage years.

Solar Tour of Homes day is coming up next Saturday, October 6. Check to see if there is something going on near you at the ASES website. You might meet some interesting people in your area, so support the families and businesses that open their doors during this day by stopping in during their open times. This is a big commitment for some of the participants, so make it worth their while. You might learn something new, may meet a new kindred spirit or may simply enjoy an afternoon spent doing something completely different. If you are in Wisconsin, stop out at our friends' farm and bed and breakfast!

Also coming up is the Smithsonian Museum Day. Download and print out the card for free admission to any Smithsonian Affiliate Museum on Saturday, September 29.

Support events like both of these so that they will continue to be offered.

We are reentering the modern era in our household. A dishwasher arrives in the morning. Yes folks, we are getting a dishwasher for the first time in almost seven years. My children are in awe of the idea that they will have one of those fascinating machines like grandma and Aunt Amy have, one of those things that cleans the dishes all by itself. They have not yet realized that this fabulous machine means that doing the dishes will no longer be my job. No, I will be the mama who tells them to put their own lunch plates and breakfast glasses into the dishwasher all by themselves. I wonder how long it will take before that goes from excellent fun to an "awww, Mama" chore?

Luis has been wanting a dishwasher forever, but I have resisted. I didn't want to give up the cupboard space, and besides, hand-washing dishes only used about 5-7 gallons of water. Yes, I have measured. Then someone at yaaps informed me that newer dishwashers no longer use the 10+ gallons of the old dishwashers. A little research later and I could no longer claim my handwashing was using less water on a consistent basis. There went half of my argument against getting the machine.

My sister came up with the brilliant idea of where to place the silverware drawer, I found places to stash the appliances that were stored in the cupboard, and I planned a pantry organizer in the kitchen closet to supplement my storage space. I may actually come out of this with more storage space in my kitchen if Luis is ever home long enough to do the closet for me. I keep threatening to order a kit, and then my sister and I will tackle it with a drill driver, level and pitcher of sangria. Oh wait, she can't have the sangria because she is pregnant (somehow I have never blogged about this, shame on me), so I will drink it. Works for me.

I found the best price at the locally owned independent store. They were actually $60 less then the big box city store when I factored in delivery charges. So our shiny new Energy Star dishwasher will arrive in the morning, and I can have a clean conscience knowing I am using less water and supported a local business.

I still draw the line at getting a microwave again though.

She got a part! Actually, two!

Abigail will be starring in our community theater production of A Christmas Carol as a Street Urchin and as Ignorance. Both are non-speaking roles, but she is still thrilled to bits.

Happiness is:

~ blue-turning-brown eyes smiling up at me while a little trickle of milk slips out of a baby's mouth.
~ coming home to a husband who is still calm after half an hour home alone with all four children.
~ a seven year old, who just two weeks ago acted like school work was a fate worse than death, getting all of hers done by 11 am today.
~ good shoes.
~ good chocolate.
~ trays filled with dried basil and oregano from my garden and pots, ready to put away for winter.
~ watching my five year old use chopsticks correctly while we share a bowl of fried rice (my lunch and his snack)
~ getting ready to go to Ohio in less than 3 weeks (more on why Ohio is so wonderful in another post).
~ dozing away a Sunday afternoon with my husband, asleep just barely enough to call it dozing, while listening to the older kids play outside.
~ autumn.
~ reading the latest Mother Earth News and discovering that the last page poetry quote was the same on I used back in August to describe the season.
~ comments on my blog.
~ the aforementioned seven year old finally starting to do some creative spelling and composing notes on her own
~ the aforementioned five year old starting to write his name and copy letters and numbers.
~ two hours alone at the salon getting a body treatment, massage, shampoo and style

I have the potential to become a theater mom. Abigail had an audition this week for the role of Tiny Tim in our community theater production of A Christmas Carol. Over the summer, she expressed an interest in theater after finishing a summer school theater class where the kids rehearsed and performed a musical. Since she is under her quota of activities at the moment, I encouraged her to try for this. She obtained a copy of the script on her own, practiced hard and even asked friends of our who own a medical supply company if they would lend her a crutch to practice with. I helped her only after she spent time memorizing her lines, giving her some tips on projecting and falling down/getting back up theatrically. I wish I had taken a picture of her on the way to the audition. We put her hair up, and she wore my grandfather's old tweed driving cap in order to look more the part of Tiny Tim. She said afterwards that she was scared while waiting to audition, but that the actual process was interesting and fun.

I would love to encourage and enable my children to pursue all their interests, join activities they would like and try a little bit of everything. I know my limits, though, and we allow each child only two activities other than homeschool art. Both girls do scouting, so that leaves only one blank spot. They dabble in different things to fill this blank, and theater is Abigail's current dabble. I hope she gets a part of some sort. She'd be happy with anything as she just wants to participate. The practice and performance schedule is a big commitment, but the community theater group just purchased a new building only a block away from our home. Knowing she could walk on her own or we could get her there in a 2 minute walk made all the difference in our consent to this commitment.

Keep your fingers crossed! We should know in the next week or so.

My weekend was all about food. After a mind-bogglingly busy week that included too much driving, too much work and too many struggles over school work, Friday afternoon arrived, and I was fried. Enough already, no more meals on the run and lunches eaten in quick gulps standing by the counter holding the baby. The boys and I set off on a walk to the market (Brennan's cannot be referred to as a grocery; it is a market plain and simple). After forty minutes spent talking with Vincent, laughing as he jumped trying to reach leaves on maple trees, singing to Simon and discussing the merits of various samples at the market with Vincent, we were back home with our blue cheese, garlic and red potatoes. Dinner was a simple and delicious combination of parmesan-crusted potatoes, garlic sauteed fish and brown-sugar baked acorn squash.

I could not tell you what I ate for lunch on Friday, but I could describe in detail the tastes and smells of that dinner and the meals we ate over the weekend. It is good to be mindful of your food. The people in the Slow Food movement know what they are talking about.

Friday night saw me mixing up Cornmeal Mush for Saturday's breakfast. The Cinnamon Fried Cornmeal Mush was a hit with the kids, and I hoarded the last two slices for my own breakfast this morning.

After breakfast, we headed to the Farmer's Market for potatoes and cabbage for an Irish-themed potluck Saturday night. Amazingly, there were none to be found. We settled instead for onions, green peppers, two pots of jam, a bag of honey candy, two painted cheeks and a conversation with an older gentleman about Cornmeal Mush.

Since I had neither potatoes nor cabbage, Colcannon and Boxty were no longer possible for potluck, I made a couple loaves of my hearty Honey Oat bread, made nutty with flax seeds, and some deep dish chocolate brownies. Oats are Irish, and chocolate is always welcome!

The food at the potluck was simply incredible. There were many Irish stews, and there was this pumpkin cheese cake roll crusted with hazelnuts that was WOW. After dinner was the concert by The Stone Ring. Normally, the concerts happens in this space outdoors. It is the foundation of their old barn which our hosts turned into a multi-functional space, complete with seating areas, a dance area and a musician area lit by old fashioned candle stage lights. Due to the cold, this concert was in one of their greenhouses instead. The ambiance was not the same, but it was still a night of fabulous people and great music shared in an intimate way.

Sunday saw me cooking the entire day with my sister. We cooked up calzones, ziti, lasagna, stew, taco meat, sloppy joes, cookies and muffins, enjoying good company and conversation while filling our freezers with easy meals.

Today, I am making a huge batch of meatballs using my long-lost internet friend Lorraine's recipe. Some are for the freezer and some for sweet and sour meatballs for dinner.

Good food, big kid cuddles, shoulder rubs from a hubby and baby kisses make for good days.

I read good cookbooks like good novels, slowly going page by page from cover to cover. Actually read them, each recipe. Cookbooks are about possibilities. I find new recipes to try every time I crack them open, even the ones I have been reading yearly for over a decade. Yes, I read all of my cookbooks yearly and enjoy reading new ones too.

After I asked my friend for her ever-adaptable sangria recipe, she lent me the cookbook she found the base recipe in. I received it with the joy of finding a new novel at the library. A cookbook is just as escapist as a juicy chick lit novel. I can pretend that I am someone who regularly cooks with things like chick peas, saffron and cardamom. I can convince myself that the family might enjoy Great American Pumpkin Beer Soup and drool over the idea of Grilled Tuna with Lime.

Then I come back to reality and start pulling out things we might actually eat. In addition to the blackberry sangria, I am thinking the Gingerbread Blackberry Waffles and Cinnamon Fried Cornmeal Mush might be things to try. The Spinach Cannelloni and Crab and Broccoli Quiche will also be making appearances on our table, along with Honey Orange Pancakes. There was even a Honey Orange Butter to go with the pancakes in the multi-page Flavored Butters section. I'm inspired to make a starter for sourdough, having started making bread again after a summer's hiatus.

I can dream of being a excellent and adventurous cook with a family of children who are excited to try anything. We'll see if I make half of the recipes I have marked, but the point is I could make them. As long as I have the recipe, the dream is alive.

And I will stop at the seafood market in the city someday and pick up the tuna steaks to try that Grilled Tuna with Lime recipe.

For The Middle Of Nowhere, Wisconsin, we certainly have some interesting evenings.

Tonight, we joined our dear friends for an evening at their farm. Dinner was an outdoor potluck in the cantina, and we all seemed to have the same ideas because it was noodles and rice all over the board. Delicious, though, as was the pineapple fizz sangria. Over dinner, we shared conversation with our good neighbors, some B&B guests and another fascinating couple that we could talk with all night. Conversation ranged from homeschooling to alternatives to conventional cars, from the complexities of buying local to real life impact in our own backyard of the monopoly-creating buying practices of a certain big box retailer whose name starts with W. Dinner was followed by a piñata for the children, then two cakes made by Lisa, the dessert queen, including my favorite frozen mocha cake.

As darkness fell, it was time for the main event. The B&B guests were a lovely couple from Chicago that do Maorian poi and staff fire dancing as a hobby. They performed for a group of us last year when they stayed at Inn Serendipity, and they graciously offered to do it again this year. It was such a treat last year that we have been anxiously awaiting their return. The grace and concentration shown by the dancers is stunning. It is a passionate, grounded form of dance and self-expression.

So, there an eclectic group of us sat, on chairs in a grassy old farm yard in Wisconsin, as Liz and Devan, the newlywed dancers, captivated us with the rhythm and the music (the noise of the fire whirling is a music unto itself) of fire dancing against a backdrop of an inky black sky and a strawbale greenhouse with slices of red and purple light shining through the windows.

A varied life is good.

I almost received a speeding ticket today. Considering I was driving 35 mph in a 25 zone, it would have been well deserved. Thankfully, the police officer let me off with a warning. His comment irritated me though. He said "School is back in session, so slow down." It was 9:30 in the morning, and all the schools here start by 8:30. I was also over a mile away from the nearest school. There was no possible way that my speed was endangering any school child, even though it was against the law.

Last weekend, I noticed large "Slow Down, school is back in session" signs on the highway, and it's been in the news too. I find this to be a rather silly driving safety campaign. School being in session means that school-aged children are safely ensconced in classrooms for the bulk of the day. Granted people need to be careful in school zones and during the before/after walk home, but for the most part the children are safer than they were all summer long while they were riding bikes, playing outside and walking to the public library.

It seems to me that a more logical public safety campaign would take place in June and be "School is out of session. Drive carefully."