Matt needs to buy me a new crepe pan, but in the meantime, I’m making do as best I can. We don’t really call these ‘crepes’, we call them ‘fancy pancakes’. Alouicious always has them for his birthday. If you want to quadruple this recipe, and why wouldn’t you, you need8 eggs1 stick unsalted butter, melted2 cups sifted flour1 cup water2 cups milka large pinch of saltdon’t bother with any sugar because then you can’t take them right out of... Read more
I’m in the middle of the Great Autumn Clothes Change Over of 2012. Its not that cold out but our school room has an arctic air permeating it every morning now and there’s been whining about the lack of sweaters and long trousers. So, of course, when Elphine came in just now wearing what appears to be a mini-skirt, I was able to react on the grounds that her knees would be cold and not to the fact that she... Read more
Every year, the instant I’ve clicked the last ‘purchase’ button or ‘pay now’ or whatever, and laboriously entered all my payment information into all the little lines, and double checked everything and basically and finally committed to all my curricuculum choices for the yearthat very momentwithout failit seems my inbox is suddenly flooded with new and amazing materials I’d never thought nor heard of before. And then morning by morning, week by week, I continue to get new curriculum updates,... Read more
I started out thinking I’d make apple dumplings but as I went on I got lazier and more pressed for time. After peeling and coring three apples, when they wouldn’t fit nicely in my pan I lost my temper and sliced them up. By which point it was supper time and my dessert making moment had essentially vanished so I pivoted towards a pie crust (2 cups flour, 2 sticks butter crumbled together) using milk instead of water for binding,... Read more
Having been foolish enough to watch the Emmys last night (because, you know, I thought, how can I just throw away a couple of hours, down into the pit of time that can never be gotten back, ever ever) I am rather struck by the contrast in the clear light of day between an exhausting evening of narcissistic self-adulation arrayed splendifoursly in a room of expensively dressed muddleheaded actors and actresses against the violent crowds of American hating rioters flung... Read more
one Besides the obvious reason of being too busy to carry on with a blog, the real reason I haven’t been posting that much is because I’ve been watching and reading the news with horrified addiction. Not only is the situation in Mali not terribly awesome, but the insanity of whatever ‘foreign policy’ emanating from this administration is riveting, in a terrifying sort of way. Spent ten minutes in the back yard this week trying to mentally calculate how many... Read more
And so we come to the end of another extremely long day. While the children idled away their time in indolence and ignorance, I baked a bunch of stuff–cinnamon rolls, cheese and pepperoni rolls, muffins–and then made realio trulio cheeseburgers. Well, Matt cooked them, but I mushed the ground beef together for a long time, muttering curses at the state of the world and the fact that by 4:30 this afternoon, Elphine and Alouicious had not completed the absurdly simple... Read more
I’d been really wanting to cook a lot of little things from a Spanish Tapas book I have sitting around and so after church one Sunday in August, Matt roasted a large piece of pig and I fussed around a lot of little dishes. First up are these egg stuffed tomatoes. Each tomato has an egg, heavy cream and Manchego cheese mellowing in its interior and was baked for a while until the egg was creamy and gorgeous. The end... Read more
Sitting here with a profound cold in the head trying to watch the Democratic Convention. And again I ask, Why does it all have to be So Late? Elphine has made brownies at this advanced hour to avert the coming apocalypse (“If I don’t make brownies today, I’ll DIE.”) Ooop, not the convention, football. And so begins a long season of depression as the Cowboys lose a bunch. But we’re rooting for ’em anyway. Much woe on the part of... Read more
As quickly as the four oldest children are putting away blocks, the two little ones are flinging them out. They are screaming at a fever pitch and running and, now, finally, throwing the blocks across the room.One considers getting up and waving the arms and trying to reverse the inevitable path of destruction and woe, but then one’s blood pressure would rise and one might have a stroke or something. I’ve recently been readings Proverbs and Ecclesiastes and wondering why... Read more
Preventing Grace
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