Day 274: Lookie!

Look what has poked up after less than a week in the ground and even with our crummy soil:

Seeds are amazing.

Day 274: Happy Birthday

to the Children's Museum!

We love it here, and today they had a wack-load of fun activities, including storytimes, face painting,

magic acts (very fun--he popped a balloon and a dove was inside, among other neat tricks!), mask making, PIRATES

and cake, of course.

We're tired.  It was a good day.

Good night!

L

Day 273:

Queen Anne, Queen Anne, has washed her lace

(She chose a summer's day)

And hung it in a grassy place

To whiten, if it may.

Queen Anne, Queen Anne, has left it there,

And slept the dewy night;

Then waked, to find the sunshine fair,

And all the meadows white.

Queen Anne, Queen Anne, is dead and gone

(She died a summer's day),

But left her lace to whiten in

Each weed-entangled way!

                         ~Mary Leslie Newton

Day 272: Caraway Take 1

This past weekend, I mentioned cleaning my spice jars and wondering what to do with caraway.  Today was my first experiment with it. 

Loving borscht and not having made it in forever, when I came across this recipe it seemed the thing to do.

So I grabbed a beet or two

(I might have to put this photo up in my kitchen.  I'm surprised how much I like it)

If you want to follow along, go print up the recipe, and I'll bring you through it.

Recipe calls for thinly slicing the potatoes and beets.  I decided to grate them instead, to make it a bit more palatable for the kids.  Didn't think they'd eat a big hunk of beet.  So I ran the beets and potatoes through the grater attachment to my food processor. 

Peeling the beets is so fun.  You get to dye your hands like this:

The recipe says to put the potatoes and beets and broth in a small saucepan, which I did.  But then it says to put the onion, caraway, and butter in a large skillet.  I didn't see how everything was going to fit in the skillet once all the vegies were added, so I sweated the onion in my soup pot.

Here's the caraway going in!

Using caraway this week as in the spice post?  Check.  Note the pink onions in the pot?  Gotta hate cutting yourself while cooking.  Hehe.  I used the same knife that I peeled the beets with to chop the onion, and I DIDN'T RINSE IT FIRST.   Pbthst.  Sue me.  Pink onions.  Serves them right for making me cry, I say.

After putting the caraway in, I decided it didn't smell caraway-y enough so threw in a bit more.  Probably another 1/2 tsp.  I used more dill than called for as well--just chopped up a bunch and threw 'er in.  There was some left-over pork rib that was in the fridge that needed to be used up, so it was chopped up and in it went.  Used a small can of tomato sauce instead of tomato puree. 

Other than that, recipe is as in the link.

And it was really, really yummy.  Served it with some sour cream, the kids thought it was fun turning the soup pink.  And both inhaled it.  J took a small lick of it at first to check it out, and her eyes got all round and "YUMMY!" and it was downed.  A took a little more time, but he liked it, too, which is a miracle in our house, Mr. Picky that he is. 

 

Definitely will be making this again.  A good reason to keep caraway on the spice rack.

Day 271: Corner View: Bliss

I actually had to look up "bliss" in the dictionary.  Sad, really.  I knew that it meant being really happy--but the way it's used implies something more, almost nirvana perhaps.  People say "blissfully happy," which then would mean being really happy happy.  And that made my head hurt!

But that's what Merriam says--that it means to be extremely happy--and Merriam is never wrong.  Frankly, I can't really recall being so happy it counts as being blissfully so.  There are times when I'm contented, or when I'm happy, certainly.  There are things that I enjoy.  But bliss?  Not sure.

But then my friend Merriam says it also means heaven or paradise.  So maybe when people say they are blissfully happy, they are really saying that they are so happy they feel transported to heaven?  Hmn.

Either way, I'm not sure I know what this bliss thing is all about.  I try to be cheerful and enjoy things, but bliss?  Hmn.  Probably what brings me closest to bliss is when I'm conducting a choir.  It's something I used to do, and haven't done in a long time.  I miss it.  I tried conducting church choirs when asked to do so, but it just wasn't the same.  Trying to direct a church choir, where only about three people were entirely committed to attending, was a lesson in frustration.  But put me in front of a community choir, or guest conducting, or even a church choir that actually has people that want to be there--and I'm in heaven.  I love the energy.  I love the connection with the singers.  I love everyone breathing together--the feeling of being one entity.  And I love being able to craft beautiful music from the human voice.

The next best thing to this is going to a live symphony (without my children--so again, this hasn't happened in a long time!), sitting in the dark, and watching the conductor.  I don't watch the musicians much, and I don't close my eyes and let the music wash over me.  I watch the conductor and how he coaxes and pulls and creates music through the mesmerizing movements of his arms and hands.   

I've been fascinated with conducting ever since I was a young girl.  On the ferry on the way to church one Sunday, I asked my mom to teach me the patterns that were used to direct the congregational hymns.  So there we sat while she taught me how to draw 4/4, 3/4, and 2/4 in the air, and I'll never forget that moment.  It was like someone had suddenly found and given me the puzzle pieces to a favorite puzzle that I didn't even know I had lost.  Something took root in my soul.  I conducted everything I heard.  The frustrating thing was that I was so shy in high school that nobody, not even my band teacher, knew I was a secret Shaw.  So whenever he had a student conductor if he couldn't be there, it was always someone else.  And I KNEW that it was something that I should be doing instead!  It was the same in college, where I was finally able to take some conducting classes.  Although I had top grades in those classes, I flew under the radar and once again, although I really, really wanted to be the section leader--if not the assistant director--it always went to someone else. It wasn't an auditioned position, and I was just too dern forgettable otherwise.

But then school was over.  I returned home.  And one of the first things I did was put an ad in the newspaper advertising the formation of a community choir.  We had six intrepid women attend.  My mom accompanied.  And the LDCC was born.  Our first concert?  Busy.  Stressful.

Blissful.

The choir grew.  We sang at music festivals.  And won.

Bliss.

I moved away after a little less than three years.  The choir had grown to about 25 people by that point.  I left it under the hands of a different director and hoped it would continue.  It did.  When I went back two years ago, ten years after it was formed, and was able to attend a rehearsal, there were well into 40 singers in attendance.  They were singing all over the place.  They have become a fixture in that small, British Columbia logging town.

And it was a blissful feeling.

Other than conducting a large-ish church choir in Vancouver twice a year before moving here, nothing has compared to it.

Conducting is like my soul's breath, and it hasn't been getting much in the way of air lately.  I'm a plant without sunshine, and I'm getting all shrively and wizened inside.  It has been a gradual thing, but I feel it more and more as the years go by, and although I've tried to fill that gap by doing other crafty, artistic things (scrapbooking, photography, blogging), they just don't make me come alive the same way.  I wouldn't say I'm sad really, or not cheerful, and I wouldn't even say I'm unhappy.  There's just something missing, that's all.

So--anyone out there want to sing in a choir? 

If not, maybe chocolate would help. 

Night.

Lynn

Now heading over to Jane's for more blissful corner views.

Day 270: The Un-Cheddar

About a month or so ago, one of the local grocers went out of business.  That meant amazing sales, most of which weren't so amazing until the last week or so, by which time I was out of town.  But just prior to my leaving for the trip to Canada, we went to try to find good deals on chocolate.  Which we did.  But what caught my eye and made my mouth instantly go bananas was a solitary box of Kavli flatbread sitting forlornly on the shelf.  You see, I had forgotten all about Kavli, but seeing that familiar red box instantly brought me back to being a kid, and occasionally getting these as a treat.  A Kavli with butter on?  Yum. 

So of course I had to buy the box.  At 70% off, there was no denying the attraction.

Nobody else in the house appears to like them as much as I do.  Silly people.  So they've lasted awhile.

Fast forward a few weeks.  Last weekend we went out to run a few errands and decided on a whim to stop at a local farmer's market.  We'd never been there before.  It ended up being rather a pitiful smear of about five trucks with sad, wilted produce set out.  BUT they also had a guy selling home made cheeses.  He was giving out samples and, well, it was again one of those things entirely beyond my control.  It was magnetic.  That cheese had to be mine.

Isn't it lovely?  It looks like a beautiful piece of cheesecake. 

What's funny about it is that it's called their "un-cheddar" because it started out as a mistake.  They were all set to make regular cheddar cheese, when something happened and the stuff wouldn't cheddar properly (this according to the cheese guy).  They decided to try to sell it anyway, and people really liked it!  And so did I.

What, pray tell, is rennet?  I'll have to go commune with Google, I suppose.

It tastes kind of like feta.  Kind of.  This particular batch was particularly strong, because it had been aged well over 60 days.  The CG (Cheese Guy) said that this spring's batch isn't ready yet, because it has to be aged 2 months.  So this is some of last year's.  And it is STRONG.  But very yummy in teeny-weeny doses.

Sooo... today I took out a Kavli and looked at it.  And buttered a piece.  And munched my way to Kavli bliss.  And then eyeballed the cracker as it informed me that although it enjoyed day-to-day nibbles with just butter, it really wanted to get all dressed up.

So I cut the cheese.  So to speak.

And, although strong, it was delish.

And now I'm falling asleep all over this post.  *yawn*  So I'm off to bed.

Nighters,

Lynn

Day 269

Today the simplest little things make me weep. 

Sweet little weed flowers

Busy little ants...even though the ant guy had to come for the annual "keep-'em-out" spray job today.

People far more articulate than myself have blogged about the oil spill.  But when I see these little things today, it breaks my heart for all the little things, as well as the obviously more noticeable things, that are being lost.

And I have an almost irresistable urge to grab some soap and go on a road trip to help.

But I can't.

So I pray.

And wipe my misty eyes.

And think about these little, seemingly inconsequental, things and how much I appreciate

even those pesky ants

a little more these days.