Thanksgiving

We had a nice Thanksgiving visiting RT's sister, her husband, and their five kids. We went up on Wednesday and experienced lovely traffic on the busiest traveling day of the year, including waiting three hours just to get through the toll lanes at the border of Delaware (which meant it took us about eleven hours to get there). RT's sister cooked some amazing food for Thanksgiving. I was amazed to watch her go--she really had the system down. I had brought two pumpkin pies, and there was also apple pie, apple-blueberry pie, and pecan pie. It seems so unfair that Thanksgiving has to include so much yummy dessert--but I guess it's okay to to eat like it's Thanksgiving once a year.

We played a lot of Dutch Blitz and visited a museum of art on Friday. We really enjoyed the museum. There was a huge exhibit of armor from the 1400s to the 1700s--yes, real armor, and just like you see it in the movies. It was really interesting to see, although it was also kind of disturbing to see so much stuff that was used to kill. There were also a ton of other exhibits of European art, furniture, and architecture. We saw several rooms that had literally been taken from the mansions they were originally from--as in, they had the wood floors, the fancy paneling, the furniture, the paintings, the oven, the chandelier, even some of the old windows. When we moved into some exhibits of Spain there was an entire plaza that had been brought to the museum. It was all just worked into the museum. Instead of modern doors they used real archways and doors from buildings made "back then." It was all quite amazing to see. I don't think I realized how much of this stuff was still preserved. We were also able to see some things from Asia before the European and Asian exhibits closed, and then we hurried through the American art because we were getting tired. RT and I thought it was interesting to see the differences between European and American art.

We came back on Saturday. K was very good through the entire trip. I had been a little nervous that he wouldn't sleep well in a playpen instead of his crib, but he took great naps and slept tolerably well at night. He mostly slept when we were in the car, except when he got hungry. It was fun for him to see his cousins a little bit. It will be fun for him to see more family in January. It was also nice to sit and talk with RT about lots of things while we were driving.

Thanks to our family for letting us come stay with you for a few days! We had such a good time!

4 months old--for the record

Last Tuesday K was four months old. At his four-month appointment he weighed 15 lbs. 8 oz. and I forget how long he was (he was kind of upset for some reason while he was being measured--I guess he wanted to be held). He got his second round of shots, and the doctor said he's developing very well.

K sleeps 10-12 hours at night and takes good naps about half the time. I had nothing to do with him sleeping through the night--he chose to do it himself. I love that I'm getting a decent night's sleep. I think sleep has been the most difficult part of motherhood for me--it is so hard to tell if he is tired or bored or lonely or what. I have found that it helps to feed him right after he wakes up so that if he's fussy I can be more certain that he is tired--he's never been one to nurse to sleep, and in some ways I like it since it has helped him learn to fall asleep and stay asleep on his own. I've been reading an interesting book called Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. I wish I had skipped the first half and gone straight to his recommendations for different age groups, because once I reached that point I started learning so much, and a lot of my struggles with K's naps started to make sense. I have to say that I think the book is very poorly written and poorly organized, and the charts and stories are often ineffective, irrelevant, and even ridiculous, but the actual information has for the most part been very useful. One of my friends told me this is one of the books she would like to rewrite, and I wish she would. I'm looking forward to reading some more of it after I write a paper and take a final. I think the most useful thing I realized was that when K cried after I left him alone in his crib, it was because he was sad that he didn't get to be with me anymore, not because he felt abandoned (those are slightly different). I realized that I needed to just give him a chance to learn to get himself to sleep--and he is rising to the challenge. He is a very alert and happy baby.

K is an expert roller now. He sleeps on his stomach about 75% of the time. He still hasn't figured out the whole creeping thing, but of course there's no rush. He will scoot his legs up underneath him so that his bottom is up in the air, but he doesn't know how to coordinate it with his arms yet. He is getting pretty good at grabbing things and putting them in his mouth. Lately one of his favorite games is taking the pacifier out of his mouth and trying to get it back in himself--and if he succeeds, he clamps down on it with his gums and pulls on it till it comes out with a pop, then does it again and again. Another of K's favorite things to do is play with my face. He loves to reach up and grab my nose, pinch my cheeks, and stick his fingers in my mouth. This requires some care, since he doesn't know how to not scratch me, but it's rather sweet.

I think I talk about my baby a lot on here. It's probably because I really like him, and also for the benefit of my parents, who will be meeting him for the first time in January.

Why am I reading this?

I thought I would share a sample of the "great works" I have been reading for my class about English literature. If you can't appreciate this, then you must not have had a good education or else you can't appreciate good literature/art you are completely normal and have not gone insane like the people that wrote it. (I did those strike-throughs with html code all by myself--aren't you impressed?)

This is from the first paragraph of "Proteus" from Ulysses by James Joyce. I had a hard time deciding which part to share because it's all so, um, amazing.

"Ineluctable modality of the visible: at least that if no more, thought through my eyes. Signatures of all things I am here to read, seaspawn and seawrack, the nearing tide, that rusty boot. Snotgreen, bluesilver, rust: coloured signs. Limits of the diaphane. But he adds: in bodies. Then he was aware of them bodies before of them coloured. How? By knocking his sconce against them, sure. Go easy. Bald he was and a millionaire, maestro di color che sanno. Limit of the diaphane in. Why in? Diaphane, adiaphane. If you can put your five fingers through it, it is a gate, if not a door. Shut your eyes and see."

I have three more class sessions left before this semester is over and Christmas break begins (while people at BYU will probably continue until December 23rd). I did enjoy this class--I had a really good teacher and enjoyed attending the classes and gaining insights about the works we were reading. But now that the semester is coming to a close, I'm afraid I'm leaving with the feeling that I read a lot of books this semester, but most of them don't have a lot of intrinsic value, even though they are supposed to be the greatest works of English literature. I learned that Dickens, Austen, and the Brontes are actually not considered to be as great as the works in my Norton Anthology--some of the things we read were good, while others were garbage in my estimation (think The Importance of Being Earnest and James Joyce). I really think Charles Dickens was a great author--all of his books that I have read have given me things to think about that are of real value. He was trying to say something useful about life to his readers. Contrast that with The Importance of Being Earnest, which is about a bunch of silly, substanceless people who never say anything important or of any real value. Like I said, I enjoyed this class, but I've come to the realization that my definition of great literature is even more different than I thought from the definition that most people have. I'm looking forward to the Christmas break, when I can have some time to read some books that I've been wanting to read.

my problem

Recently I have been dealing with a problem: I discovered that I'm sick of store-bought bread. Throughout my pregnancy I was making home made bread (that was when I had a lot more time on my hands). I didn't buy bread until after K was born--at that point I felt that I was so busy that I couldn't make it myself anymore. But I guess I am spoiled because now when lunch time comes around all I can think about is how nice it would be to just eat several slices of fresh, real bread. I'm also tired of spending the money for store-bought bread--RT will eat the air bread that costs $0.50 a loaf because he just needs something to spread the peanut butter on (his words, not mine), but I only like certain kinds of whole wheat (home made white bread is still good to me), and those are more expensive. I've also been wishing I had bread to snack on, and store bought bread just doesn't work for snacking for me. (By the way, on my side of the family, we get boughten bread, not store bought bread.)

So I've decided I'm going to try making home made bread again. I am starting to feel like I have time to do it again. However, I am trying out a new trick: making bread mixes. I got the idea from everydayfoodstorage.net (the link is on my blog roll now, because I read her stuff all the time).

Before I explain how I do it, here is the recipe I used today (from the T family cookbook).

Delicious Grain Bread (Bread Machine)

1-1/8 cups water

1 3/4 cup flour

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup crushed bran cereal (1 cup whole flakes)

2 Tb. cracked wheat

2 Tb. dry milk

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. yeast

2 Tb. margarine

2 Tb. honey

Mix in order required by your bread machine. Pull out after dough cycle and raise and bake at 350° for 25 minutes or until brown and crisp (or bake in the machine). You can use raisin bran for the cereal.

I just make it by hand because I don't have a bread machine.

To make the mixes, I put all of the dry ingredients in a ziploc bag (one mix per bag). I have some wonderful margarine powder in my food storage that I bought from Walton Feed, so I put that in the mixes too. So next time I make bread, I will just have to mix the yeast, water, and honey, add the mix, and then continue as normal for the rest. For me, mixing, kneading, and shaping takes the most time, and that part isn't eliminated, but I think it will save me time and make me feel a little more willing to bake bread if I have these mixes made, since I won't have to get out all the ingredients and do all the measuring. I made my first mixes today, so I hope this works out well!

This won't work for all bread recipes--some recipes that I have used are just water, flour, oil, honey, yeast, and salt. But I think this will really help me for most of my breadmaking. I may also try it for biscuits and muffins, which we make all the time.

I have also been trying something new for shaping my loaves. Instead of using my hands to shape the dough, I put a little flour (it really doesn't take that much!) all over the ball of dough, roll it out flat with my rolling pin, then roll it like cinnamon rolls. After that I can just pinch the ends under and pinch the bottom a little bit, and then I have a beautiful loaf. At first I thought it would be way too much work, but I actually like it because it makes it so that I don't have to use as much flour to make the dough manageable (which means my bread is more moist), shaping my loaves doesn't take as long, and the finished product looks really nice.

Here's my finished product:


While I took the bread out of the oven, K was loafing around in a bath towel and a diaper.

staying home sick

One positive thing I have noticed about the swine flu is that people are a little more aware of sickness and how to avoid it. Many different sources are encouraging people to wash their hands frequently, carry tissues to sneeze and cough into, sneeze or cough into their sleeves or a kleenex (not your hands or the air--makes perfect sense!), and avoid touching their noses or mouths. I see bottles of hand sanitizer in lots of places. That really should be basic information that we've known since we were two, but it's a good reminder and I suspect that in reality many people don't do that well enough.

The thing I appreciate the most is that at work and in schools they seem to be encouraging people to stay home if they're sick. Growing up I always felt like I couldn't miss school unless I was throwing up or dying. My parents would have supported me in staying home (my sisters were much better about asking to stay home sick than I was), but there were consequences for missing too many days of school, so I would go to school with colds and sore throats and nausea. My parents probably didn't realize I was that sick because I convinced even myself that I wasn't very sick and continued with my normal routine--and I would be sick forever. I feel like with the worry about swine flu a lot of places are being much more aware of the importance of staying at home when you are sick, saying you should stay home until 24 hours after you don't have a fever anymore. If you're sick, it's better to stay home and not contribute to the spread of the germs, plus you will probably recover much more quickly if you get some good rest and reserve your energy for your immune system to use. In my class this semester, our teacher encouraged us to stay home if we are sick and said he would be understanding if we miss class because of sickness. I hope this trend will continue and more people will realize that it's a good idea to stay home when we're sick. Whether or not that happens, though, I plan to at least make it a practice in my home.

feeling the Holy Ghost

Vicki F. Matsumori shared some thoughts by President Eyring, which he gave at a church fireside at BYU in 2006. I think I was there. I thought that he gave a very good description of what the Holy Ghost feels like:

"You feel peace, hope, and joy when He speaks to your heart and mind that something is true. Almost always I have also felt a sensation of light. Any feeling I may have had of darkness is dispelled, and my desire to do right grows."

I have experienced these same feelings many times, such as when I have made an important and correct choice or when I have felt a confirmation that a principle of the gospel is true.

Sister Matsumori's talk.
Elder Eyring's talk.

beans in the crockpot

I will probably be excommunicated for saying this, but I don't love my crockpot. (gasp!) I've told Ryan several times that I'm probably the only Mormon who doesn't rave about how amazing her crockpot is. It's nice to have sometimes, especially if I want my roasts to be tender, but there are so many things that are inconvenient about it. You still have to get a bunch of dishes dirty as you prepare the food to put in, and even if you don't get a bunch of other dishes dirty you still have a huge, heavy pot (even the smallest ones are pretty big) that will only come clean after extensive soaking (yes, cooking spray does help a little bit). A dirty crockpot soaking in my sink makes me depressed. And living in an apartment, I tend to resent all the counter space the crockpot takes up. I guess those are my main complaints--having to clean burned food off and the size. Maybe in a few years when our family is bigger I will appreciate it a little more, because you really can make a lot of food in a crockpot. When you are only cooking for two, it doesn't make a lot of sense to make a crockpot full of food. Plus, it will be really convenient when I have little munchkins begging me to take them outside while dinner's cooking.

Anyway, yesterday I tried cooking a big batch of beans in my crockpot. I like to cook a lot of beans and then freeze them in meal-size portions so that if I decide one day that I want beans for dinner I don't have to spend all day cooking beans. Generally I thaw them out in a bowl of warm water. I used the quick-soak method because I didn't decide to cook beans until yesterday morning--I rinsed and sorted the beans, covered them with lots of water, brought it to a boil on the stove, and then turned off the burner. I just let them sit in there until I remembered them a couple of hours later. Then I drained them, rinsed them with my hands for a few minutes, and put them in the crockpot with lots of water. I added salt (1 tsp. per cup of dry beans) and oil (1 tbsp. per cup of dry beans). After about 6 hours they were tender and tasted very good! Next time I think I will cook twice as many beans because there was still plenty of room in the crockpot.

We'll see if I use the crockpot again to cook beans. I liked that I could cook a lot of beans--I do have a pretty big pot that I can use on the stove, but the crockpot would hold a lot more, and since it takes about the same amount of total time to cook 1 cup of beans as 4 cups of beans, I might as well cook lots of beans at once. The fact that I didn't have to babysit the food didn't make much of a difference to me since I was home all day anyway, but I guess if I wanted to cook beans one day but also wanted to go run some errands, it would be nice to be able to use the crock pot, because there's no way I would leave a pot of beans cooking on the stove while I was gone. On the other hand, it only takes an hour or two for the beans to cook in a pot on the stove. I liked that the crockpot wasn't that messy afterwards! There was only a small ring that was quite easy to wash off.

I used to be a little intimidated by beans, but after cooking them a few times it has become really easy.