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.

Homemade bread

Before my life got thrown off-kilter, one of my New Year's resolutions was going to be to start making homemade bread. I have a Kitchen Aid stand mixer with a dough hook, and several of my cookbooks have some good and simple yeast bread recipes. Obviously, that resolution didn't happen at the New Year.
But now that I'm in my own house and have my own kitchen, I've started. Yesterday I made Vermont Oatmeal Maple-Honey Bread from the King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion. Mom made it a few times while we were living there, and I had all the ingredients on hand. Oh, boy, it smelled SO GOOD while it was baking. The girls and I have been eating it all day. Breakfast toast, lunch PB sandwiches.
This link from the King Arthur Flour website is essentially the same recipe. I used brown sugar instead of maple sugar and put in 1/2 teaspoon of maple flavoring.
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/vermont-whole-wheat-oatmeal-honey-bread-recipe
I'm hoping to make bread often, so that the girls and I are eating at least as much homemade bread as store-bought.

Making a 3-year-old see logic

The girls and I were at my aunt's house this evening, and we got home slightly past bedtime. We promptly started getting ready for bed. Claire pulled off all her clothes and had some difficulty taking off her shirt. Then I started getting Natalie's jammies on to give Claire practice at putting on her nightgown herself. This is a task I have observed her perform several times.

Claire (ready to have a 3-year-old meltdown): I can't do it!
Me: Yes, you can. You've done it before.
Claire (melting down): Noooo I caaaan't.
Me: Well, when it worked before, what did you do?
Claire (pulling nightgown over her head): I did this.
Me: That's right. Then what?
Claire (putting arms in sleeves): This.
Me: Claire, you know what? You just put your nightie on.
And she looked at me in utter perplexity.

I could not believe the trick worked. It felt like one of those ideas you read about in parenting books and parenting magazines and parenting websites that no matter how you try, they never seem to work. But it worked!

Yummy snack

I just invented a fantastic snack. I put fresh, pitted cherries in a bowl and sprinkled some brownie crumbs on top. (I had made a pan of brownies, and when they started to dry out, I crumbled them and put them in a container in the fridge.) Then I spooned some yogurt over the top. Yum, yum, yum.