Books

I rarely read more than one book at a time. Usually that's because I read fairly fast and can finish one before I want to get into another.
I started reading The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel earlier this spring. I had seen on the CafeMom Bookaholics message board that the sixth in this series was coming out sometime this year. I noticed my parents had the first four in the library at their house, so I borrowed the first one. It was really good, but extremely dense with story and information, and I felt I really wanted to concentrate when I was reading it. So when I just wanted to read something and not have to use my whole brain, I would pull out another book and read some of that.
Well, now I'm reading the second book, The Valley of Horses. Again, it's a really good book, but very dense. So I'm also rereading The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough and Wizard and Glass by Stephen King, and reading Heat Wave by Richard Castle (it's a tie-in to the TV show Castle), and Larceny and Lace by Annette Blair.
Part of this is also because I finally got a library card down here in southern Minnesota, and I've been reading about good books on the Bookaholics page. It's fun to be in the middle of so many stories, and be able to keep track of all of them. I don't think I'll start any more before I finish some of these, though.

More bread

Today I'm making King Arthur Flour's Oatmeal Toasting Bread. It takes a fair amount of forethought to make it. For one thing, you have to have steel-cut oats. I bought some from KAF a few years ago for the express purpose of making this bread. But the oats got relegated to the freezer and I never made the bread.
Then you have to soak the oats in water overnight, mix most of the ingredients and let sit an hour, then 2 hour-long rises, then baking. The second rise is finishing right now, and I can't wait to try the bread this afternoon.
One thing I like most about making bread is that you know exactly what is in it. There are no weird sweeteners (like high-fructose corn syrup) or preservatives. I'm not one of those moms who insists on only organic foods for my kids or won't let them eat sugar or anything like that. But when you can control some of the over-processed junk that goes into their bodies, that's a good thing.
And now I will climb off my soapbox and put the bread in the oven.