If you come to my house you can find out.
It's not too bad, really. Yeast provides a lot of flavor. But you'll want to make toast or bread pudding with it. It's not really too nice for sandwiches. Sadly, I have five loaves of imperfect bread. Which is too bad because they looked so pretty when they came out of the oven.
My other cooking mishap this week had to do with granola. I have a stellar granola recipe that I love and make often. Lately I've been reading a bunch of stuff about soaking your grains before you use them, and even stumbled across a soaked oat granola recipe. I tried it. I wasn't too surprised that I didn't like it (it tasted pretty bad), but I was kicking myself for making the amount I normally make, which is four times what the recipe calls for. Stupid! Shouldn't have quadrupled a recipe I wasn't sure off. I tossed a whole lot of granola in the garbage this morning.
So yeah, even I can make cooking mistakes. :-) But I'm sure that comes as no surprise to anyone.
I did have a couple good things happen in the kitchen, though. I discovered that cauliflower and broccoli taste fabulous when sauteed on high heat in a little oil and sprinkled with salt and pepper. Yum! I usually don't care of cauliflower - too bland - and broccoli gets old after a few bites. They are not my favorite veggies unless they are drenched in cheese or something else that's not good for me. But this turned out wonderful and I highly recommend it!
I also made some yummy popsicles. Yeah. I'm awesome that way.
Logan helping Natalie play dress-up!**************************************************
My kids are so patient with me trying out new "systems" with them. Sometimes we find one that works and we stick with it forever, but usually I change things up as our family's needs change.
Lately we've gotten a pretty good thing going. Every evening we have quick pick-up. Hannah and Brynne are each responsible for their own stuff, plus the stuff belonging to one little sister. Logan does his stuff and any garbage he finds lying around. Occasionally they find treats lying under items that I think they are likely to miss. Little pieces of candy, or some dimes, are potentially spread around waiting for some lucky person to put away their stuff and find a treat. So far, it's been a winner of a program.
Our other thing we've started doing is Family Work. We all work, together, for almost two hours every morning. That might sound like a long time to you. I can tell you, we get a lot done! I used to have the kids choose their job tickets and work independently. Sometimes I still use the tickets to help me figure out what needs to be done - and possibly to divvy up the work. But we do as much as possible together. It makes it possible for me to supervise everyone better - and I can teach them proper ways to do certain jobs. Working together is always more fun than working separately. I used to think we couldn't work together because it would take FOREVER to do everything, but it's actually amazing what we can get done. The little girls "help" us, or run around and play. What has been most noticeable is that instead of spending all our work time doing clutter pick-up and the most basic cleaning, as we used to seem to, we are getting into the deep clean and other odd jobs that rarely were getting done before. The real bonus there is that those jobs are usually more fun for the kids, so there is less complaining. It's fabulous!
One of many masterpieces being built around here!************************************
I think I may have mentioned that we're trying to have a yard sale. We are keeping our fingers crossed for fine weather on Saturday. What I want to say about that is, if you want anything - anything at all - from my house, let me know. I'm totally serious. There's a good chance I'd be willing to part with it at a very good price (free to those I love!). :-)
We are getting rid of lots of books, some movies, and some CDs. Josh and I are trying to slim down our book collection. We want a stellar library. The kind that is filled with books that are worth reading repeatedly. Books that I won't mind if the children were to read and read and read the same books over and over again. We're going to take out the books that we like but wouldn't want the kids reading over and over. Things like Harry Potter, which can be checked out from the library but shouldn't necessarily be read daily. I don't want to have to tell my kids "no" during school time. "No, you can't do that fun thing". It puts me in the position of being the negative bad guy all day. I don't want them to think all the good stuff is off limits during school and only boring stuff is available.
If our house is filled with only the best, then anything they do during school would be appropriate. I've been thinking about this idea for over a month and it's become more and more apparent to me that we should have only the best in our house. And what I'm starting to consider as best is changing. More like refining, actually. And along with best things, I'm working on best uses of time. That's more challenging, but I think I'm making progress there, too.
Can't get much cuter than this!*************************************************************
While everyone was sick and feeling crummy this past week, I actually had a little extra time to get stuff done since I didn't have anyone to cook for each night (yay for that!). One of the things I worked on was our summer schedule. So far it's looking incredible. It looks fun, productive, and totally do-able.
Aren't you dying to know what I'm thinking?
DAILY (Loosely)
7:30am: Breakfast
9ish: Alternate Days Walk or Piano Practice (which will be @ the church so Hannah and I can both practice)
10ish: Family Work
11:30: Lunch/Reading
1:30: Daily Activity, Free Time or Scheduled Class
5:30: Dinner
Evening: Family Time: read, games, outside fun
Ideas for Activities: tea party (great time to practice manners!), have friends over, Botanical Garden, riding lessons, library trip, beach, family service, Mendo Music Festival events, etc.
Brynne's grass people###########################################
This has turned into a really long post about a lot of things that people probably don't care to read about. But you know what? My blog. It's what's going on in my life and I like having it written down. I could put this all down in my personal journal (and it will go there, too), but on the off chance that what I write might be somewhat helpful or interesting to anyone else, it's available.
This has turned into a really long post about a lot of things that people probably don't care to read about. But you know what? My blog. It's what's going on in my life and I like having it written down. I could put this all down in my personal journal (and it will go there, too), but on the off chance that what I write might be somewhat helpful or interesting to anyone else, it's available.
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