Derby

It was the Pinewood Derby tonight at Pack Meeting.

Derby - A formal race, usually having an open field of contestants.

August 18, 2009

Jack designed, cut, built, and painted his car all by himself. As luck would have it, one of his wheels wouldn't stay on and his car never once crossed the finish line. He was really bummed about it, but I think his car is adorable. I don't think "adorable" is what he was going for, so I probably didn't make him feel any better. I think he did a great job for having done it singlehandedly, bad wheel notwithstanding.

We went out to the jr high open house today. We met most of Taylor's teachers and it looks like a good year. I was most impressed with her teacher for Honors English. He seemed like the sort of teacher you would remember your whole life, and look back on with great fondness. I asked what the kids would be reading, expecting "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "Romeo & Juliet." He said in addition to both of those, they would also have "A Midsummer Nights Dream" and "Hamlet." At BYU I took a class on Shakespeare, and that's all we read for a whole semester. I finally learned how to read Shakespeare, and that was one of my all-time favorite college classes. I don't think I've ever laughed so hard at classic literature as I did when I read "Comedy of Errors." So I told Taylor I would read her Shakespeare with her. I've read all 3 of those, and although my favorites are "Comedy of Errors" and "MacBeth," these are good too. I'm glad she'll get a chance to be introduced to something besides Harry Potter. She has a real love for reading, so I hope she will learn to appreciate Shakespeare before she's 22.

Tomorrow is the meet & greet at the elementary school. Addie is simply beside herself with excitement. School all day long, eating lunch there . . . it's just all her dreams come true. She has a couple of her little friends in her class. Jack also has some of his friends in his class. I am hoping that now he is a big 5th grader, he will learn to control his talking a little. Who am I kidding? The boy never stops!

Pretend, Shatter, Gap

Pretend - to represent fictitiously in play; make believe

August 15, 2009

I made a pie on Saturday, and Addie took my left over scraps of crust and some of her blue play-doh and my rolling pin in her attempt to make her own pie.

Shatter - break into many pieces.

August 16, 2009

No will will admit to being the one who broke this, nor to even knowing how it got broken, nor strangely to even have known it was in the house. Hmmm. Yeah, I don't quite believe that, but they have formed their wall of silence and are admitting to nothing. Luckily, I had an old, ugly frame of the same size that I stole the glass from so all is well now.

Gap - A space between objects or points.
August 17, 2009

Addie lost one of her front teeth. She is so excited because now she looks like a first grader should, or so she thinks. I took the 2 girls for haircuts today (and myself) so now she really thinks she has arrived, with her new haircut, a missing tooth and all. Wouldn't it be great if we could all be so happy with so little?

Cloudburst

Cloudburst - a sudden, heavy rainstorm; a downpour.

August 14, 2009

I was raised to love rain storms. Particularly the late summer type that blossom up in the late afternoons and evenings. The house I was raised in, and the house I currently live in, was perfectly designed for these summer storms. Back when I was a kid, before the trees across the street got to be so big, we could sit on our long front porch and watch the ligtening in a huge panorama from north to south, and watching the lightening over Utah Lake was the best. I can't see Utah Lake quite so well from the front porch anymore (stupid trees), but I still have the panorama. In the back yard we have the mountains and when the lightening storms are on that side, well, that's a treat too. Tonight the storm rolled in while I was at the grocery store, and yet the thunder (which everyone knows is really the best part of the storm) was so loud we could hear it clear back by the meat. Luckily when we got home and got the groceries put away, the storm was still going and so I took my little plastic patio chair out to the front porch and enjoyed the rest of the storm as it moved on to the south. I've got my kids well enough trained that when they hear thunder they come running for me: "Mom! Mom! Thunder!" If we are all together when the thunder begins, everyone immediately gets quiet, and when it stops rolling, someone aways says "Ooooh," all long and drawn out. Lane doesn't quite get it. But he wasn't raised in a house perfectly designed for summer storms. Poor boy. But he's learning.

Roast

One of our favorite vegetables is roasted broccoli. Any roasted vegetable is tasty, but we like brocolli the best. You simply start with fresh broccoli, however much you need for your family, cut into spears and placed in a pan, single layer only.

Drizzle with olive oil and toss so that all the broccoli is covered. Sprinkle generously with chili powder (yes, I did say chili powder) and sprinkle with fresh ground pepper and, one of newest discoveries, coarse ground sea salt.

Isn't the red chili powder pretty on the green broccoli? Roast it in the oven at 425 for about 10-15 minutes, depending on how crisp you want it to be. My kids who have never been a fan of cooked broccoli will eat this like candy. I do the same with carrots when I roast them.

Roast - To cook with dry heat, as in an oven or near hot coals

August 13, 2009

Vineyard

Vineyard - Ground planted with cultivated grapevines.

August 12, 2009

My grapes are coming along nicely. That is the best thing about this time of year, my favorite time of year, to see the literal fruits of our labors. I am not big on the concept of delayed gratification, and growing a garden is the ultimate exercise in delayed gratification. I love my nightly walks in the yard with Lane while he carefully waters every single plant, including the grapes and the trees, and that one stupid dry spot on the lawn that never, ever seems to green up. I love when the nights start to cool off, and then in the middle of September when I look up on the mountains and start to see the very first hint of the leaves changing colors. I think that's why I enjoy the annual canning. All that standing around, stiring, blanching, peeling, mixing, sterlizing . . . it gives good time to reflect on the bounty of God's blessings and on the miracle that turns a tiny little seed into a whole tomato plant that has flopped over from the weight of all its fruit. It's the best time of year to sum up the year that has passed so far. 3/4 of the year is gone, but it's still not to late to make good on any (all) discarded New Year's Resolutions.

And speaking of resolutions, I don't like to exercise. Somehow I keep thinking that I will learn to like it, and so far - nothin'. In my next life, I want to be one of those people who spring out of bed at sunrise with a smile on her face ready to take on the day. I did manage to drag my big, fat, you-know-what out of bed early this morning to get my exercising done. I grumbled about it out loud, even though there was no one to hear me. Funny thing though, it made a huge difference in my evening to know that that nasty little task wasn't hanging over my head, waiting to be done. Maybe that will give me the motivation to get up tomorrow morning, and the morning after that . . .

Dangerous

Dangerous - Involving or filled with danger; perilous. Being able or likely to do harm.

August 11, 2009

See - the spikes, I mean thorns, on the blackberries really are perilous! You thought I was kidding!



I got all those little things done today that I have been ignoring forever and had accumulated into quite a pile on my desk. I got that HUGE pile of stuff filed, and in the time that has passed since it was the POD (July 10), it has gotten even HUGE-R. It took quite a while, but it's done. I had 3 weeks of receipts piled up that needed to be entered into my check register, as well as balancing the check book, which took 3 attempts to get it to balance out. I called my car insurance to find out why my insurance rate shot up for no good reason ("current market conditions, ma'am"). I called U of U medical center to see why they keep sending me a statement showing a $3000 insurance balance from Addie's heart cath in Dec 2007. Do I need to call the insurance? ("No ma'am. We'll take care of it on our end." Yeah, right. It's been almost 2 years!). I got all my recipes put into my recipe book or file that had been piled up. I cleared off my desk. How long do you think it will stay that way? My HS English teacher had a sign on her desk that said "A clean desk is a sign of a sick mind." God bless Mrs. Craner for validating me! I am even blogging at 7:45 instead of 10:45 so I guess that says it all. I should add that my kids have been at Grandma Sam's all day, so I've been home alone and that makes a HUGE difference.

Lesson

Tonight I decided to be Kneaders. It was a nice change from Cafe Rio. I didn't get any pictures because I was so frantically trying to get dinner ready on time that I didn't remember about photos until we had almost finished. No one wants to look at half-eaten food!


I didn't get home from work until 1:00, and I had to take Taylor out to the Jr. High for some registration stuff. After that, I took her out to Office Max to get some school supplies that I hadn't gotten during either of my first two trips. Then we had to stop at the optometrist on the way home to pick up her contacts and Addie's glasses. So with all that I didn't get home until about 2:30 and still had to make bread! Ughh!

I quickly mixed up 2 loaves of focaccia, which needed at least 1 1/2 hours to rise, before punching down, rising again, etc. Needless to say, I didn't have that kind of time. I wandered into the kitchen every 15 minutes or so, lifted the cloth to peek at how things were progressing, and shout at it "Rise, baby, rise!" I had to punch it down before I wanted to, and I got it pressed into 2 9" pans, brushed with olive oil and seasoning, and then I began the whole cycle again, this time shouting, "Rise! Rise!" even louder.

I had to stick it in the oven at 5:00 whether it was ready or not, so in it went. With 2 minutes left to bake I took it out and sprinkled it with cheese and put it back in to melt. I took it from the oven just as Grandma came for dinner. I didn't want to have to cut hot bread, but it's the best I could do with such a late start. I quartered each loaf of bread, and then sliced those to make sandwiches like at Kneaders. I had mixed up my own version of their Kneaders sauce and had the fixin's and we had sandwiches for dinner. I must say, I was surprised that the bread turned out so good and actually quite close (in my opinion) to Kneaders focaccia. We had some baked beans and homemade applesauce and I was stuffed.

Lesson - An experience, example or observation that imparts beneficial new knowledge or wisdom.

August 10, 2009

It was Taylor's turn to do the FHE lesson, and she took it from the section of her "For the Strength of Youth" book on listening to appropriate music. She did a nice job. She went to a fireside last night put on by our new stake presidency and, although she didn't want to go, she came home so glad that she had gone and had a really good experience. It is very inspiring to watch her testimony grow.