Happy today because

I am happy today because

...the clouds were pink at sunrise

...i baked cereal muffins

...Joseph went to Kindergarten yesterday and called to tell me

...i beat Kent at Farkle in a tiebreaker 

...i'm loving Psalms

...it's the last day of August, hooray

...my laundry is done

Pilaf

I tried a new recipe today from this book.

Bought the book a month ago for like $3.99 thinking it could have good recipes for vegetables and grains. It does. And not only. Salads and stir-fries and casseroles, etc. Green Pilau with Cashews is what I made. Pilau is pilaf, which is rice with vegetables cooked in it. If you look it up it's about stir frying the veggies or seasonings in oil first with the rice before you cook it all. This is brown rice, called green because of spinach and parsley and mint that goes in at the end. It has fennel as one of the seasonings along with, yum, good old onion and garlic; and vegetable stock. I followed the recipe and put mine all in the rice cooker. When it's cooked and fluffy you add the torn greens to the pot to wilt - then drag it all together with a fork to mix. Top with toasted cashews.

Well I don't know how I like it. The more I ate of it at lunchtime the more I think I did. Do. Like it. You really get the mint, strange in rice. The fennel was different. Maybe I'll make it in water next time too to see if I might like it better - not so sure about the veggie stock . . . that can be kind of wildly vegetably, store-bought.

The pilaf's in the fridge now in a Tupperware bowl with a blue lid. Figured I wouldn't put it in front of Kent tonight for dinner. Or ever.

I do love me a good recipe. I watched Aarti Party this morning, DVRd, where bread pudding made with coconut milk custard and dried figs and a baguette (among other ingredients) came out, toasty and steaming, of the Food Network oven waaaayyyy tempting me to try it.

Big weather

Just after noon we had BIG big weather. I kind of cowered watching the storm from the Florida room, mainly because of the trees. Times like this you don't want live under a canopy; any other time, yes - in wind, it's scary. Limbs lashed the roof, the very lowest swinging down on the windows. See those side-by-side windows in the picture? That's the Florida room . . . rain fell by the bucketfuls making the windows so misty I couldn't see out finally. I heard this slow motion sawing sort of tearing sound and looked out the back door. Yup, the thing you worry about a lot and it's stunning when you see it: an enormous tree limb down. Of course thank goodness gracious it isn't on your rooftop or crashed through and laying across your bed.

Later in sunshine and the damp I creep around for pictures. This pic doesn't show the half of debris all over the place. Here's the bit that made all the noise sending me to the back door in a panic.



Last August 27th:



And August 2007:



You've seen these pictures before. It's getting to be a regular end of summer thing.
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Brad and Brady 2009

So slow

Why is the week dragging? I looked up about noon Tuesday thinking myself well into the middle of this week and realized it wasn't, not even, (as I believed all morning) Wednesday.  The realization is a setback. Or a drawback, don't know which... really, don't know that it matters for that matter but for the brain wrinkle. Why am I hurrying the week along?

I steam cleaned my bedroom carpet Tuesday. It's something I'd thought about doing on Wednesday and I'm a day off. I'm taking cold medicine and on an inhaler this past week and now this week and five more weeks, prescribed for a steady rattle in one lung - which erm might be making me perceive things weirdly.

For instance I forgot yesterday, Wednesday, to go to the right person's house to visit teach. At 10:10 I'd been sitting at Mary's house already a while studying scriptures, a lady I visit teach and also study with, when my cell phone rang and, agh! it was Vicky saying where are you? Horrors, my partner and I (she was at Mary's too, at the table looking at me with big eyes listening to my side of the phone call - she had forgotten too, so what's up with us?) were supposed to be at Vicky's at 10:00 today. (Wednesday. I lost this day.) Where were we? Were we coming?

Heavens. I said please accept our apologies we're visiting teaching another sister (who was laughing at us across the table) and we forgot and we're so embarrassed and can we come one day this week (what day is it?) and when? Vicky was amazing, said this happened to her two times already this year (she's my age exactly and we're losing brain cells at the same rate) and yes call her when we knew we could come, she'd be home the next two days.

This morning I did, and we go tomorrow. Tomorrow also at 8:00 before I go to Vicky's I'm getting my hair done. I've put a humongous note on the kitchen counter, it's there right now, with the time and place and everything penciled in giant freakish letters to remind me - so I won't not notice and forget the day and stand up yet another darling person. Nicky, who does my hair. (Nicky, Vicky...!) Who bends over backwards for me.

Eight a.m., proof positive! Because I'm a morning person.

I look forward to the end of this so slow week.

Hot stuff

So I've only just today ever chopped a Serrano pepper and put it in a thing I'm cooking. And sauteed raisins and pistachios til they're puffy and toasty. Really! And combined coriander, cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, black pepper and cumin and gosh maybe one other thing to make garam masala, an Indian spice blend. I had to hunt and peck for the easy-to-make-your-own-self version on the Internet. Because the traditional version can be bought (sorta' expensive and not in a store around here; online) or, voilà, made - using spice-seeds and -pods and -sticks toasted in a pan til they're fragrant then ground in a spice blender - and I wanted made, but an easier cheaper way. I have all the ground spices - why not? I thought that up. I hunted, and like many things I wish for when I go hunting ever - and (short disclaimer) I'm famous for this -  I found it. The Recipe. For garam masala, hot spice the easy way . . . oh, cardamom's the other thing you put in it.

All this for Sloppy Joes. Good turkey Sloppy Joes with a little heat! Aarti Sequeira



won as The Next Foodnetwork Star this season and apparently is already wowing persons across the board with her great flavors. Her show premiered yesterday; they didn't waste time getting her on board. And I didn't see it, but have grabbed her main dish recipe from Foodnetwork.com and the ingredients, tied on my apron and gone to work. Cooking Indian! The Joes are on the back of the stove resting and the house is, mmm, aromatic. I had to stand under a fan for a while to cool off though after. Especially when I licked my fingers that seeded the Serrano.

Easy Garam Masala

1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cardamom
1 1/2 teaspoons ground pepper
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Mix spices in a small bowl. Place mix in an airtight container and store in a cool, dry place.

Sunday Post: A Word

Adrienne posted about insomnia. Waking up at 4:00 or 5:00, thoughts racing. I have a word for you honey, add this to that list on your blog post: "Read Leviticus. You'll go right back to sleep."
 
No REALLY, how do I love the Old Testament! It's just that Leviticus can in part read like an instruction manual. Indeed when I was teaching it I penciled into the title page, "An instruction book concerning temple ordinances and priest responsibilities - to Levites." My favorite books are Psalms and Proverbs. I'm reading them again.

I think about Kent and me reading through the books of Moses last year, the great Law section of the Old Testament. Reading the entire OT took us 15 months at approximately 15-20 minutes a day, so it was clear back last summer. I wondered then if I would WANT to finish this whole book of scripture. But because of being in it to teach over two years ago and subsequently reading various books on the OT, I wanted to want to finish it. Get these scriptures in me . . . and a little at a time we got through such as Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The children of Israel in the wilderness, and Moses at about his wits' end. Him advocating to the people the strict laws of Jehovah, then turning and mediating before Jehovah the case of these wanderers. And genealogies and censuses, blueprints for the tabernacle of the congregation (the portable temple) and the instructions to the very cubit for it's construction; the business of moving and settling, taking down and setting up; organizing the tribes and their respective assignments; pages of recitation from the Law, jots and tittles; and blessings and curses and consequences. It's a lot of information.

Moses is a wonder.

Moving into the Book of Joshua the plot thickens as the children wander near the edge of Jordan a bit then are commanded to enter. Isn't it something when Jericho comes down (by their obedience) after they enter their promised land! And God's call to Joshua to "be strong and of a good courage; [and] be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD thy God is with thee withersoever thou goest" as Joshua assumes leadership. And more to him: "This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth (meaning, he wouldn't recite it and prophecy like Moses had done); but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: . . . "

Clearly the study of the word of God the Israelites had before them (and we have) was what was wanted; " . . .  for then (and this applies not only to Joshua) thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success." (Joshua 1:8, 9)

The Old Testament does not put me to sleep, I'm glad to say. Nope. I expect it's one of the best books I've ever read. Wait til you get to Samuel and read about David, Jonathan and Saul, or Kings and get to know Elijah and Elisha! Is it difficult - yes, in places. Boring? In sections, sure, but not if you admire history and details. And there's plenty of action. And is it inspired? YES! I have to tell you, and didn't I already . . . I love the Old Testament. I'm hooked; and that's a good thing, as I see it as the revealed word of God as far as it is translated correctly. It speaks to my whole self! When you have time sometime (and early morning works) open these pages and discover!

Happy today because

I am happy today because

...i have fresh French bread in the cupboard

...my peace lily bloomed

...my neighbor called to say hi

...my kitchen ceiling's getting fixed

...i found a dime

...i didn't break the spotlight at the doctor's office complex when I backed over the curb

...i am reading three good books

Thinking back

Here, from a talk I heard on Mormon Radio this morning...

A Challenge to Young Adults

Elder Earl C. Tingey
Of the Presidency of the Seventy

Published: Sunday, May 2, 2004

...is a bit that caught my attention. I listen to this radio station when I'm working on the computer, and am hearing his talk now. Enjoy.

I am always drawn to the examples of our pioneer forebears. They had so little. They sacrificed so much. Their hearts and minds were truly fixed on the important decisions of life. They knew what they had to do to acquire the necessary skills and opportunities to establish themselves. As you read of these pioneers, many of whom are your forebears, you should be deeply grateful for the decisions they made.

Did it ever occur to you that you are the pioneers of your own children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren yet to be born? Your decisions today will affect what your descendants will be in decades to come. Will they look back on your life and draw strength and faith from the decisions you are making today?

Whew! In a time here when I'm looking again carefully at decisions I make and their long-term impact on me and my family, this is a pretty impressive place to look from. Well said.

The pictures above are of one set of my great-grandparents. These pictures have always sat on my dresser and it is often to this of my great-grandmother that I look. She didn't travel across the plains with the pioneers, she was born in Utah; but her parents did. I'm intrigued with what she might have to say about all of life and living, as I knew her and treasure her opinion and example. Her husband died the year I was born, but Tutu lived 13 more years. I often went to her home, heard her voice and observed her manners. When I think to be too casual at times, careless (or less than thoughtful) in decision-making, I see this image of her and be quieter and prayerful. Refined is what she was. How different the generations are now by comparison.

My grandparents and their children, and mom and dad when I was a teenager still. They've each literally pioneered in their areas and have always been "truly fixed on the important decisions of life." Seeing these makes me really want to do my best.

Making a point

Days ago (because my toe is SO much better now) when I was fussing around with my toe soaking and poking and squeezing and Band-Aiding, Kent looked up from reading the paper and said to me, you know a watched pot never boils and a pestered fester never heals.  

Pestered fester? Where did you come up with that?

Alas for the devil on his shoulder and their wicked wit.

"Fester?" we say, together (jinx), him grinning and me grinding my teeth.

"Fester's" not a noun, I announce.

• FESTER (noun)
The noun FESTER has 1 sense:

1. a sore that has become inflamed and formed pus

Ah well, there you have it. I thought it just meant "to ripen" (verb) "and . . ." well, you know.

The man has - indeed, pitchfork and all - a point, and I haven't pestered my toe more.
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Kent's farm. Note the fences up for peas he planted Saturday.



Corn planted Saturday too and - don't miss this - Tuesday, up an INCH. Whoohoo!



Tomatoes not blighted like last year. Holding on.



We're so very blessed.
----
Amy's family at the park for Fourth of July

Sanctuary Garden

My sanctuary garden... too little too late?



Oh no... I drive down long county back roads this afternoon to one of my favorite places of summer, the organic blueberry farm. I park next to where you get your bucket and pay for the berries when you're through picking.



But I'm not here to pick, just wander.



I leave the vegetable patch with its hot yellows and reds and enter the blueberry orchard. It's brambly. See how wrinkled the leaves are on this ornamental tree as I come in? It's crazy HOT.



It's an hour after noon and instantly, faster even, I'm dripping sweat. There's salt in my eye - I'm simply standing still, peering into the shrubbery. When the blueberries are on, a month earlier, this bower is succulent, if not cool. Where have I been all summer?



There are no berries to take pictures of. But I find this... (click)



... and turning, this... (again if you like)



... and a step away, this delicate thing. Behind me beneath the branches swoops a redbird.



I come out of the shade and focus the camera at eye level. Pines in the back, whose tops I lopped off in the pic, see, frame the whole world! And see how stickery and wild the patch is!



The blueberry patch is a world apart. Water drips from soaker hoses underfoot, wound in the brambles; bees and their kind and dragonflies drill and attack, miniature helicopters; I'm still and they veer. Elephantine butterflies with mammoth wings float around me, taking me so by surprise as I stoop and rise and stand in this place. There's no chance of photographing them or the redbirds or crackling grasshoppers or armored bees and flying beetles, whatever they are - these are everywhere and nowhere. Weeds rustle in front of my every step as I lift tendril-like branches and move across the orchard.



Stopping for portraits.



Another favorite place; just another shady spot. Here I almost wish I could sit awhile and pray.



Goodbye blueberry farm until next summer.

Good Books

We took off for the bookstore Saturday; I might have explained other times - it's a combination Goodwill Emporium/Good Books Cafe enough far away from us to be an adventure. Saturday afternoon with nothin' to do, you drive. Kent was in the mood. He finished The Discourses of Brigham Young this week, shut the book with a snap; and I was on the hunt for something for Erin she's asked me to look for since she says there's only one bookstore near her and she's not finding it; what, and with three kids?  And would I mail it to her please?

So I'm scrounging through the lowest to the ground shelves here, in Cookbooks, and voila! 

Strange place for this to be . . . but the person shelving the Good Books must know. Are there recipes here? Probably. Ms. Reichl's an American food writer and among other sort of famous things the last editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine. (I knew that.) I subscribed to Gourmet for a year, but no more - it's over my head. A beautiful magazine, richly deserving of praise, just not mine. Simply because I don't qualify - I don't do gourmet. Not haute. She is known, it says on the Internet, "for her ability to 'make or break' a restaurant with her fierce attention to detail and her adventurous spirit." Besides, she's hilarious. That I'm looking forward to. That's what's drawing me in. I'll take a good time!

This book's been on my I Plan to Read shelf for a week on Shelfari, therefore finding it is quite like [me] finding the beautiful almost-new winter coat at DI in 1999: Something I need, maybe?
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Brady, 2009

Sunday post

Oh I love it when my husband is happy! Yesterday he was SO congenial. If mama ain't happy ain't nobody happy . . .  well yeah, that can be said for papa too. I can sulk when he's dull and boring. (Kent's own expression and I have license.) Kent being happy yesterday is not exclusive of other days particularly, just, there is on Saturdays this letting down of his work-a-day guard. I like to see that and be happy for him, and be on the receiving end of his attention.

It's worthy of noting it's Sunday today and I'm not wanting to play on the computer on Sundays. Want to be away from normal activities and com.pu.ter is one of these during the week, and be better (oh help) about studying scriptures and reading words of the prophet and apostles and visiting members and/or all else that goes with paying particular attention to (worshiping) Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. I've posted about this before, and I do okay. So-so. I think blogging (if it's on Sunday thoughts) on the Sabbath is cool. I'm privately and consistently disappointed in myself though when I give in to reading a novel or playing Literati to pass time or work a scrap page because it's fun. I've done all those and can't think of a better way so far to show obedience on the Sabbath than to give them up.

Here's why: Reading in From Malachi to Matthew this morning I was shown that when Judah was taken captive into Babylon and inhabited those lands 70 years they had no place to worship as before; particularly, the temple where they had worshiped much as we attend church or as currently Jews attend synagogue.Without a place to renew and remember their covenants on a regular basis, the authors of the book point out that the covenant Jehovah made with the children of Israel regarding the Sabbath could still be observed.

We think immediately of the Sabbath day as an expression of the covenant link between God and his people. (Ezekiel 20:12,13, 19-20; 22:8, 26) 

12 Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them.
13 But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness: they walked not in my statutes, and they despised my judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them; and my sabbaths they greatly polluted: then I said, I would pour out my fury upon them in the wilderness, to consume them.
19 I am the Lord your God; walk in my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them;
20 And hallow my sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your God.

8 Thou hast despised mine holy things, and hast profaned my sabbaths.
26 Her priests have violated my law, and have profaned mine holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have they shewed difference between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my sabbaths, and I am profaned among them. 

The Jews returning to their homelands from Babylon were charged with rebuilding the temple, but it was a sluggish process and finally Haggai had to come in among them and speak the words of God who, the authors point out, had lost his patience; saying, you live in "cieled houses" while "this house [the temple] lies waste." It is apparent that from God's viewpoint there was an urgency to build the temple.

Why? I can't quote all the sentences from this page in the book - read it sometime, it's an informative book - but the notion is that the full range of temple and temporal blessings was not available to the Israelites, whom God delights to bless, without the temple structure itself. "In this place will I give peace." (Haggai 2:9)

I'm kind of mish-mashing thoughts here maybe. I want to keep Sunday holy.



Get away from activities which are not wrong or a poor use of time and which are delightful normally, but which are not Sabbath-keeping (in my opinion). The verses in Ezekiel show his desires that we covenant with him (for our happiness) and a particular sign of our commitment to him (since we are his children and are, because of baptism into his church, of the house of Israel) is keeping his statute to regard the Sabbath as holy. I want to study more of Christ and his nature, and I'm in wonder at the thought that when he loses his patience it's because he wants to bless us so much, and he can't unless we're paying attention. Not because he wants to hurt us or whip us into shape. The opposite: he wants us to be happy! I'm amazed at the order in God's plan for us, of his "house" so to speak, his lifestyle. This he wants for us, and he urges us to appeal to him and worship him, and this even in the temple. I want to always be temple worthy, and part of that is keeping the commandments.

Love you so, and want us all to live together with Christ, whose we are.

Sticky fingers and toe jam

I started with five ripe peaches. Of course I did, it's peach country here. I did a little bit lot of research online about crumble. Crumble is the topping for a fruit dessert called crumble. Nigella Lawson's suggestion that you use your fingers to pinch together the topping ingredients into sandy pebbles is interesting. Smitten Kitchen's recipe looked like the right amount of topping, but lacks the kosher salt and little bit of spice and the egg that the Plum Crumble recipe calls for. Which is what I used, the plum crumble to make Peach Crumble because everyone commenting on Plum Crumbler's blog raved. I pinched it, the topping, all together with my fingers and licked them afterward. Add everything in the recipe to the bowl . . . it's ridiculous how fun baking is.










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[postscript] [12:47] [lunch over] Have eaten the dessert. Thumbs up!

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I have a messed up toe from walking the other day; I blacked it. I had to clip the nail when I got my shoe off and dig into the quick with a sterile needle to relieve the, well, blood coagulating under the nail. It felt okay about one day, then went red yesterday and buzzy kind of. Sad. Infection. Last night I put Neosporin on my toe after soaking it in hydrogen peroxide to soften the nail bed, and Band-Aided it. And slept, and now padding around my kitchen today I have a Kleenex wadded under my toes stuffed in my Birkenstock to save it (my sandal) from this squish-squishy toe. I haven't peeked under the Band-Aid yet, but it's oozing.

Ew. But I guess this fits in real nice here since I posted about dessert - jammed toe, right, and toe jam.
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Peach Crumble
5 medium-sized peaches, sliced and peeled
1/2 to 2/3 cup sugar (as desired)
2 Tbsp. flour
1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Topping
Scant 3/4 cup granulated sugar (about 4 to 41/2 oz.) (I used part Turbinado or raw sugar)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. kosher salt
1 egg, beaten well
7 tbsp. (just under 1 stick) butter, melted

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Place peach slices in 9 x 9 deep dish baking pan. (I grease my pans, but some recipes call for ungreased.) Mix together sugar, flour and cinnamon and sprinkle over peaches. Shake slightly in pan to coat.

In another bowl whisk dry ingredients for topping. Add beaten egg. Use your hands, mix thoroughly, squeezing and tossing and pinching handfuls of the mixture to produce moist little particles. Sprinkle evenly over peaches.

Drizzle the melted better evenly over the topping and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until the top is browned and the peaches bubbly. Serve warm or at room temperature with ice cream. Yum!
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Holden Arboretum, Kirtland OH

My flower pictures