Baking Bread

One of my favorite things about autumn is that it is finally cool enough to bake bread. I love to bake bread every Monday. It makes me feel so happy and glorious.

So, I'm posting a poem that describes perfectly how I feel about my bread-making ritual. I'll also post my two favorite bread recipes.

Enjoy!

Baking Bread
by Carol Lynn Pearson

There seemed more accusation
Than admiration
In Vivian's voice
When she said,
"Well, I wish I had time
To bake bread!"

And so sometimes when
The loaves were in the oven
And Vivian was at the door
Louise mumbled something about
Another bake sale again

And never even tried to explain
Her near-religious ritual:

How the flour on her fingers
Was the sun and the rain
And the earth

How the thump of her palms
On the dough
Was the dance of women
On the ancient threshing floor

How the smell of baking
Leavened her
And left her believing that
We rise, we rise

And
How the cutting
Of the first warm slice
For the first child home
Made her a bounteous goddess
With life in her hand.

Wonder Bread
(From mitten Strings For God by Katrina Kenison)

If you've never made bread before this is the recipe to start with. It is so easy and SO yummy.

Combine in a very large bowl:
4 Tablespoons Canola Oil
4 Tablespoons Honey
3 Tablespoons Salt (I prefer sea salt, but any salt will work)

Add:
8 Cups Warm Water
2 Tablespoons Yeast

Stir and wait 5 minutes, until yeast is dissolved and bubbling.

Stir in:
7 Cups White Flour
7 Cups Whole Wheat Flour
2 Cups Rolled Oats (Or any combination of oats, soy flour, rice flour, wheat germ, oats, bran... I always use 3/4 Cup Oats, 3/4 Cup Wheat Germ and 3/4 Cup Flax Seed Meal. It turns out perfectly.)

It is not necessary to knead the dough, but you can if you want to. (Note to experienced bread makers: This dough is a bit more sticky than most bread doughs.) Divide dough into two oiled bowls. Cover and let rise until doubled. (About 1 1/2 hours) Punch down and divide it into 6 or 7 greased loaf pans and let rise until doubled. (Again, about 1 1/2 hours.)

Bake at 400 degrees for 30-40 minutes, rotating halfway through baking.

Whole Wheat Bread
(From Small and Simple Things by Marjorie Pay Hinckley)

Dissolve 2 packages (or 5 teaspoons) of Yeast in 1/2 cup water with 1/2 Tablespoon Honey or Sugar.

Mix the following ingredients:
3 1/2 cups warm water
1 1/2 cups dry powdered milk
1 cup oil
4 eggs, beaten
3/4 cup honey
2 tablespoons salt

Add yeast mixture.

Add:
1 or 2 cups white flour
About 10 cups whole wheat flour
(Dough should be soft and pliable, but not too sticky. I generally save about 1/2 cup of flour to use for kneading and add more if necessary during the kneading process.)

Knead for about 10 minutes. Let rise until doubled.

Divide into 6 small loaves. Knead and shape. Place in greased pans and let rise until doubled.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Reduce to 300 degrees and bake for one hour, rotating halfway through baking.

A Burst of Creativity

Before you move on, please read the post below -- Finding Gravity -- and comment.

Have you read it yet? Commented? Really, I need help.

Okay, moving on.

I have felt rather creative lately and have been working on some things this week.

First, I finally took this, which I took about a year to finish (not because it was hard, but because I did it in fits and spurts) and which has been finished for at least two months:



Then, I cleaned, trimmed and framed it. Here's the finished product:



I spent the better part of an hour trying to get it straight. It's still not quite straight. Shhh. Don't say anything. I might have to spend another fruitless hour. I'm happy with how it turned out. I love this little blessing I found the door of a retreat center in Santa Barbara. This will sit on a shelf in our entryway (a shelf that is waiting to be painted).

Here is the last cross-stitch I finished. This also took about a year. For the same reason as above, but it was also hard. It is about 60% my own design. I didn't design the house. I saw this saying in a little cottage in Spring City, Utah.



Now, I'll be working with this:




And these:



This is how far I've gotten:



Three of my six chairs primed and sanded. I grossly underestimated how much extra work it would give me to allow my children (and the neighbor girl) to help. Don't you love the pepto-pink primer?

Next up is this:



Which I hope will magically transform itself into some lovely tote bags, diaper bags and handbags to use and to sell on etsy.

Also, I NEEEEEEEED to get this clean, organized and liveable.





I'm hoping this will make it a nicer place to write and to create.

Coco has had his own creative spurt. He turned seven months old on Tuesday. And he's already doing this:




He loves to look out our window and watch his siblings play.



I keep fighting the urge to beg him to SLOW DOWN, SLOW DOWN, SLOW DOWN. He is in such a hurry to be like his older siblings.

Have a marvelous weekend.

Come back on Sunday and I'll be joining in the fun of Brillig and Kate's Soap Opera Sunday. Now, which soap opera moment to choose...

Finding Gravity

JDub likes to use an interesting analogy about life, gravity, consistency.

As he puts it, what would life be like if, every morning when we got out of bed, we had to wonder which direction our feet would go? Will it be up today, or down, or sideways? It would be very hard to accomplish much of anything without the constance of gravity.

And so it is with our lives. If we are ever-wondering what will happen next, it is hard to accomplish much of anything, to move forward, to blossom and become better.

And so, in this stage of my life, I feel myself yearning to find gravity, to find and create some constants that can hold our family to the ground long enough to move forward.

I've never been good at routine, at consistency. Even as a teenager, when my days were pretty much planned for me -- School from 7:30-3:30, Madrigal Choir from 3:30-4:30, Soccer practice from 4:00-5:00, play practice from 5:00-9:00 -- I had no routine. I'd make it to school on time. Sometimes. Sometimes I'd go to a full soccer practice and miss part of choir, sometimes I'd skip soccer practice. Sometimes I'd go to play practice, sometimes I'd just go home and take a nap.

Now, I have learned much since those crazy days about being dependable and showing up when a team or a cast or a class is depending on me. But, I still find it difficult to rein my fickle ambitions and unruly emotions into anything that resembles order.

And if the over-scheduled life of teenage-dom didn't help me learn to pattern and plan my days, the empty canvas of motherhood and family life is certainly not bringing order to my life.

But order is something I really need to find right now. For me, for our children, for my sweet husband.

I've always thought of JDub and I as two parts to a song. He is the rhythm. I am the melody.

But, this isn't working anymore. In our nightly talks, between the time we put our kids to bed and JDub slouches into a sleepy, drooling blob because he's been awake since 4:30, we have determined that the rhythm JDub is marching our children to is a bit too strong.

Also, the relentless, maddening rhythm of his life outside our home is nearly killing him.

So, it falls to me, miss melody, miss fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants, the free spirit of the family to find a better way.

Deep breaths.

So I'm searching and thinking and trying to find and create some laws that govern our family's universe.

Like eating dinner before 8pm and breakfast before 11am.

But, I also want it to be more than a marching order. I want ritual, beauty, joy and peace to fill our days.

Is this too tall an order?

So, I'm dying to know, for those of you who are so much better at this organization and routine stuff than I am, how do you do it? Any suggestions?

And for those of you who, like me, are a bit on the erratic side, have you learned any ways to channel yourself? Your family?

Please share your ideas.

How do you weave a sense of gravity, of ritual and things to depend on into your family's daily life?

Working Toward Beautiful

The bleach has not made it out of the closet yet, even though everyone is back to normal now. (Well, Scud's nose may still be broken, but...) As happens often, my poet self has subjected my housecleaning self to her will. If only I could spin the magic of a lovely, clean house in words. Trust me, people would be begging to tour my home at all hours. :) If I could learn to give my full attention and joy to my home the way I give it to my poetry, life would be different around here. But, alas, I must embrace the gifts I have and hope to continue developing other abilities.

The mop bucket really will find its way out of hiding today.

Promise.

For now, I want to share something I wrote today. It is long. It's rough, but it made me feel happy and wriggly and light. I hope it does the same for you.

Working Toward Beautiful

I was never that kind of pageant girl.
My mother didn't cake my face with makeup
or dress me like a Vegas show girl
at five years old.
But I do remember standing in the hall,
playing fives with Daddy
just before I pranced onto the stage
in the ballroom of the Marriott.

And I can still recall
growing up surrounded
by What gorgeous eyes she has.
and What a pretty little girl.
Thank heaven for my mother
who cocooned me in gentle reminders.
What matters it that you're beautiful inside.
What matters is how you treat people.
And my vanity was kept in check.
Until I turned fourteen
and I was very vain.

But soon I knew.

I didn't want to be a vase
beautiful to look at but mostly pointless
if not graced by flowers
of kindness, knowledge,
strength, serenity.

And so I spurn the pages of Glamour,
dismiss the beauty tips in Vogue
and look for a higher paradigm of loveliness.

Like Doris, who once told me
I am grateful for the life I've lived,
words that didn't need to be uttered.
They were written in the stillness of her blue eyes
and in the skin around them
carved through, like clay,
with rivulets of joy and pain.

And gentle Clara, crowned by snow white hair,
her blessed hands bear the spots of age.
Her fingers are bent, spindly,
a testament to tireless hours,
holding fourteen children,
kneading bread dough with love,
wisely canning peaches.
I'm sure those hands have dried a million tears.

And Linda, whose carriage calls out volumes
about loving the moment,
feeling satisfied with what is.
Her deep voice lulls and comforts,
each word singing songs
of compassion and understanding.

These women know secrets
that beauty editors will never tell.

So now I stand,
staring at my reflection in a stolen moment,
making peace
learning to love
a waist gone soft,
and hips spread wide,
stretch marks running over all
like lines of a map
showing the journey I've taken
giving life to four souls,
loving and losing an angel.
Breasts no longer firm and buoyant,
but hanging low and soft
from years of tender service
as babes grew to children.
I smile at the silver
streaking liberally
through waves of mahogany.
Squinting, I search for wrinkles
around my eyes
in my forehead.
What stories they call back to me
of care and concern, love, patience, worry.
I notice for the first time,
my eyelids are more wrinkled, sunken
than they were a decade ago
and gladly embrace the wrinkles
that form canyons on both sides of my mouth.
I love what they tell me.
I've smiled often, and generously,
laughed deep, throaty laughs
and witch-like cackles
every day.

Examining this version of me,
I silence voices of
Where have I gone?
and cocoon myself once more
in gentle reminders of what really matters.

I'm getting there.

It's Gotta Suck

I'm sure that you can imagine that with four kids (usually 5 or 6) and a dog running around here all day, this house gets mighty dirty. Now, I'm not so good at keeping up with that as it is. But, now our vacuum has officially died. It actually still sucks, but the brush head no longer works.

So, we're in the market for a new vacuum. We especially need one that will pick up lots of dog fur.

We don't mind spending a bit of money, as we really want to get a quality product that will last us a while.

So, this is a plea for help. Do you have a really good vacuum? What are its pros and cons?

Or do you have a vacuum that you really hate and recommend against?

Even if you've never commented here, would you be so kind as to shimmy out of the woodwork and help us out?

Thanks.

Oh no!

I think my world has just come crashing in around me.

I hopped on my computer to buy groceries today and found this.

Now I'm going to have to GO TO THE STORE. I'm going to have to put my children in the cart and buy groceries the old fashioned way. The very thought makes me feel like I'm in the middle of a horror flick.

My family just might starve to death