Olympic College Vocal Jazz Concert

Justin had a concert last night and it was a delight. College is so much more adult than high school! I love live music and enjoyed my time there very much. And, of course, it was free, so that made it even that much better. Thanks, Justin, for sharing your performance with me. I will be looking forward to many more in the future!

Bread Baking Books

 After the bread class I took in October with Gayle I came home and started baking. I have had a really good time providing my family (and myself) with some whole wheat and white hand crafted breads. They eat them up. And when I follow the directions completely, they work great!

Here are the books I have been looking at. I am best at the white Italian loaves, called Pane Pugliese (PON-ay poo-lee-AY-zay), but would like to do better with the whole grain bread. It's better for you. But until I conquer it, I will have white every other time I bake, because I don't want to burn out my faithful tasters with an inferior product.

I read and bought the Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book in the '80s and have found that the tutorial called "A loaf for learning" has been the best teacher of how to make a delicious loaf of whole wheat bread. Not only does it teach technique, but it teaches WHY you need to do the things to bake a light and edible and not brick-like product.

This was one of the books our teacher had at the class we took, and it was a super-pretty book. I bought it used online for a song, and am glad I did. I think I will try some olive bread for the holidays.

Our teacher recommended watching Peter Reinhart on Youtube for some techniques, so I did. He is a really great instructor and baking professional, and fun to listen to. I am reading through this whole grain bread book, which is pretty technical and overly scientific in some places, but informative and interesting. I am hoping to hone my skills at creating a great artisan loaf of whole wheat bread.

What are you doing now that the weather has changed and you've had to come in out of the cold?

October Goal: 100 Things a Success!



My dream garage.... Thanks, Google Images.



I more than accomplished my goal of getting rid of so many things, and I'm actually going strong on sending more things to the landfill, or the thrift store, or someone else's house. I'm not keeping track anymore, though, since October is over and I made the grade.

 It's a telling thing that I can get rid of hundreds of things year after year. I should keep track of how many things I bring in here--that would be an eye-opener, I'm sure. How do you manage your things? What do you collect? What do you no longer collect? How do you keep your possessions under control?

Amaryllis Belladonna

I don't recall if I posted on this topic earlier, but I don't think I did. While I was down at my parents' house this past August, I noticed some lone flowers around the edges of their property. I asked my brother, Daryl, who does most of the yard keeping, what they were, and he replied that they were naked ladies, and he would share some bulbs with me before I left. These were curious flowers and I wanted to find out more about them, but I was hesitant to enter "naked ladies" on the computer, for fear I would be inundated by another kind of naked lady.

The mystery was solved when we went to the bookstore, and I looked up Naked Ladies in the Sunset Western Gardening book--and the flower is called amaryllis belladonna. The bulbs shoot up long skinny leaves, which die away, and then later the solitary, leafless, stunning flower emerges.

The reason I bring all this up now is that my bulbs are sending up skinny leaves (which Daryl said it would), and I believe they were tickled by some abundant rain we had weeks ago. Is this timing good for them? Is this really a place where they will survive?? If you know, let me know, please. And if not, stay tuned.

Fall All Around

Lots has been going on around here this fall. Tim just arrived from Alaska and is staying for a week or two before heading to Cambodia, via the west coast of the U.S. He is enjoy nephew Kyson very much! He asked, "Mom, was I like that? So ACTIVE?" "No. Nobody was like that!"

I took a rustic breads class with my friend, Gayle, and have made a few loaves of my own at home. Allan said, "These are just like the rosetti I had in Italy!" I can't imagine a higher compliment. Plus that it gets eaten. With Silas and Justin, and now Tim, it really does get eaten, even the experiments. The other day Justin asked if a recent batch was good, and I said, "It was an experiment. It didn't turn out like I had hoped. It's edible, but not great." From the other room Tim said, "Welcome to my childhood!" It's true--but not everything I did was sub-par. Just some things. Or just some things the first time. And that batch of bread is gone, all eaten up--so, for an experiment, it was good enough to eat!

Our neighbor's maple tree, just 2 doors down, does this (I will add the photo later), and then our tree goes crazy. Ours has more yellow. They're so pretty!

Visiting Visitor

A couple weeks ago my sister-in-law Kathleen called and needed a caregiver for her 8-year-old son Evan for the work week she would be in Olympia. Evan is having Fall Break from school and is staying here until Friday. How great is that? He is just the age of the girls I interact with in my calling at church now, and he's totally fun. In fact, Allan and I have always hoped to have more time with him and create a better relationship with him. Well, guess what? This is our chance.

I have been taking him on my usual outings, and he's helpful and fitting right in. Tuesday he helped me with my volunteer food-delivery gig, and today he came to the community garden and helped me trim back some plants and bring some hopeful herbs back to my house for planting. He was cold today, though, and looked about ready for a blizzard by the time we left the car for good. Tomorrow we are planning a trip on the ferry and to the Science Center, the touristy stuff. Hopefully it will be a bit nicer out for our trip. But if not, it will be a Northwest Experience.

Evan asked if we could get Papa John's breadsticks, so of course we had to make some of Lorraine's breadsticks instead. Everyone in the house was grateful Evan wanted breadsticks. After dinner I had to make a second batch (recipe here), because the absentee family members (Justin and Cecilie) didn't get any. It's a good thing Evan was a sport about rolling out those little things. 

What would you do with an 8-year-old on hand?

One Hundred Things Revisited

While in Russia I was impressed with how simply Zach and Julie were living. It may be that they made a conscious choice, or it could be because they're young and don't have much junk. Either way, when I came home I saw that we, again, or as always, simply have too much stuff.

"One Hundred Things" is a challenge to, in the next couple weeks, get rid of --you guessed it-- 100 things. My challenge along with that is to not buy anything, either.

There's a list of my things on the right of this post, and I am up to 26 things already. [It's neither to brag nor disgust you, it's simply to account for the 100 things.] Let's see how fast this 100 Things thing can be done!

Do you find your life cluttered with stuff? If so, how do you manage it? If not, what makes or helps you not accumulate?