bright eyes + blue eyes

bread love

For the last several months, I've been reading good things and hearing glowing reviews about a little cookbook called Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.

I requested the book from the library & waited for my turn to check it out. (It was in high demand.)

I was a wee bit suspicious about the claims of this book. I'm usually skeptical of anything that promises things are going to be quick/instant/tremendously easy/etc.

However.

I checked out the book. I've now tested the concept. It totally works.

The authors, Hertzberg & Francois, designed a high-moisture basic bread dough recipe that can be made in bulk and then stored in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks. There is an inital time investment to mix up that big bunch of dough. (Still, even the time to do that first step isn't much.)

The "five minutes" part comes in next. Whenever you want a loaf of bread, you use a bread knife to slice off a hunk from your stored-in-the-refrigerator dough. You put the dough on the counter to rest for a bit & begin to pre-heat the oven. Then you bake the bread (the basic loaf, pictured above, is baked for 30 minutes.) It literally does take 5 minutes (of hands-on time) to have a loaf of delicious, homemade bread.

Sadly, I returned the book to the library the other day. I will most definitely be purchasing it and trying more of the variations of this basic recipe. The authors have recently come out with another book using the same concept: Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day.

I love freshly baked bread soooo much. I would rather have it than an ice cream sundae. I would rather have it than freshly baked cookies. I would rather have it than chips & salsa. I would rather have it than almost anything. 

Given my love for homemade bread & my love for this new cookbook, I hope I can show some restraint....otherwise I'll be doing another post sometime in the future...."How I Came to Weigh 450 Pounds in Five Minutes a Day."

 

krauss + plant

{originally posted 11/13/08. Interestingly, the song I mention in this post [Please Read the Letter] went on to win Record of the Yearat the Grammys in Feb '09. Yay for Alison & Robert*}

{*ha! I'm talking about Krauss and Plant. Didn't even notice the name thing until I typed it out!}

While we were on our little roadtrip, I popped in my latest favorite song for Hunter to hear. I had a new CD with me that I'd picked up at the library on a whim.

Hunter liked the song & asked who was singing.

"Alison Krauss...and some guy."

As I showed him the front of the CD case, I glanced at the names again--

"Oh, some guy named Robert Plant," I said.

Hunter looked at me. He didn't actually speak, but his eyes said, "are you kidding?"

No. I was not kidding. I had no idea who this Plant fella was. (Meanwhile I'd been listening to his music & loving his voice...)

Hunter decided to probe a little further...."Jimmy Page?" he asked.

"Nope. Don't know him either."

Leave it to Alison Krauss to introduce me to the names of these Led boys. (Yes, I *had* heard of their band, thank you very much.)

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BTW, the song I've been playing over & over is Please Read the Letter. I just love it. I sing along so urgently--begging for the letter to be read. If I ever write someone a letter & desperately want them to read it, I'll know just what song I can turn to.

(Hunter listened to the whole song & then said, "I just wish I could tell what they were saying...what were they saying!?! Peach reader kettle artichoke?" ....ha ha....his little way of saying that it was too repetitive for him. {Listen to the song & you'll see what he means.} I'm telling you, if there's one thing my man can't tolerate in a song, it's redundancy.)

Another good one from Raising Sand is Killing the Blues. These first few lines are just lovely. And the harmony is silk. 

Leaves were falling

Just like embers

In colors red and gold

They set us on fire

Burning just like a moonbeam

In our eyes

"and it would then not be my memory that I belonged to"

Supergirl in the middle of her daily cartwheel-practice session.

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Here's a passage from Jayber Crow that I love:

Back there at the beginning, as I see now, my life was all time and almost no memory. Though I knew early of death, it still seemed to be something that happened only to other people, and I stood in an unending river of time that would go on making the same changes and the same returns forever.

And now, nearing the end, I see that my life is almost entirely memory and very little time. Toward the end of my life at Squires Landing I began to understand that whenever death happened, it happened to me. That is knowledge that takes a long time to wear in. Finally it wears in. Finally I realized and fully accepted that one day I would belong entirely to memory, and it would then not be my memory that I belonged to, and I went over to Goforth to see if there was any room left beside my parents’ graves. I learned that there was room for one more; if it belonged to anybody, it belonged to me.

Jayber Crow

W. Berry

p24

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I just re-posted a story from Superboy's birthday party last year. The superhero control panel craft that I mentioned yesterday brought to mind the Thor story.

thor saves the day

{originally posted 10-23-08}

We all dressed up for Superboy's 6th birthday party.

I was "Superlady." Superboy decided to be named "Green Action," whereas Pumpkin chose the classic "Supergirl" title. Hunter decided to become "Thor" for the party.

His costume consisted of long black spandex with (cropped) red mesh athletic shorts on top, a custom-made Thor shirt, a viking hat from the dress up closet, and a red silky nightgown (also from the dress up closet) safety-pinned to his shoulders--which made an incredible cape. Oh, and the red spandex mask. How could I forget that.

Well.

There we were, playing one of our party games in the front yard. The children were pretending to be students at "superhero academy," where the task for the day was to rescue a kitty from the tree in our yard. One at a time, they were using their lightning fast powers to RACE to the tree to retrieve the (stuffed animal) cat.

Suddenly, we all heard an enormous crash. It sounded like thunder but it was very near us, and the sky was blue.....(?) Next, there was a strange falling/crashing sound. We looked towards the direction of the sound and, much to our surprise, saw the top third of a HUGE tree in our neighbor's front yard come crashing down to the ground. The electricity wires which were in the path of the falling tree didn't stand a chance. They snapped like they were made out of paper. (Except paper doesn't usually produce sparks....)

We all stood there in shock for a minute. But then Thor began to take action. He walked to the street, only to discover that some of the broken (and live!) electrical wires were in the street. And a car was coming. There was nothing else to do but to stand in the way and warn the driver.

So, Thor goes out into the street.

And that's when it occurs to us all just how odd this scene must look to the oncoming motorist.

There is a full-grown man dressed in a bizarre costume, standing in the way of the car, holding up his hands and signaling for the driver to stop. His red cape blows in the wind. Thor, who has completely forgotten how ridiculous he looks, is truly concerned about the electrical danger, so he has a serious look on his face--which, no doubt, added to the driver's confusion.

Thankfully, as the driver's window was rolled down, Thor was able to explain the whole thing. Child's birthday party. Tree. Wires. Please be careful. Drive this way.

Eventually, we put our empty trash can in the road as a sort of makeshift orange barrel, which forced drivers to go around the danger. And thankfully, the electric company people were here lickety-split to really save the day.

I'll never forget Thor's presence at the superhero party. Thor, who will go to great lengths to provide entertainment at a 6yr old's birthday. Thor, the traffic-directing hero. Thor, who went from the tree incident straight to the backyard to start grilling hot dogs for the party.

All in a day's work for Thor the superhero.

hello, Wendell & Tanya Berry, would you like to come over for dinner? (open invitation)

It's always interesting to see how people land on our blog. Via our typepad control panel, we can see how visitors are referred to our site. The ones which really crack me up are the google search results. (This happens when someone googles a phrase, and for some reason or another, our blog comes up in the google search results.) Here are some google searches which led visitors to our blog:

1. "snakes with bright blue eyes"

2. "do flies lay eggs on damp clothes"

3. "andrew henry's meadow"

4. "france 24 frequence reception satellitaire"

5. "is it winter in the southern hemisphere now?"

6. "how many brothers and sisters did johannes gutenberg have?"

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Another interesting blog visitor: One day in June, I posted a little gardening story

 which happened to mention the name "Walter Reeves" in the title of the post. Walter Reeves is THE gardening expert 'round these parts. 

 

Anyway, I got a comment on that post from "Walter," which linked me back to the Walter Reeves site. I was sort of suspicious...as I was telling Hunter about this comment, I said that it couldn't possibly be Walter Reeves. After all, anyone could write a comment, sign their name "Walter", and then enter the real Walter Reeves website address as the url. Why would the real Walter Reeves leave a comment on my blog???

 

Well, Hunter thinks it was really Walter Reeves. So how did Mr. Reeves land on my blog? Probably by having some sort of report that alerts him of fresh content on the web which mentions his name.

 

That being the case, I've decided to include names in this and all future titles of my blog posts--as a means of introducing myself to folks on my "I'd Like to Meet These People" list.

 

(ref: title of today's post)

 

(ha ha)

 

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One last story about blog visitors: My old blog was called "Scenes from Superland." I had a nice little weeky stream of traffic. (very little stream.) I was very happy with my teensy tinsey presence on the world wide web. Suddenly, one week I had more than a thousand visitors. I checked my typepad control panel to try to figure out what was going on.

 

Come to find out, a fantastic children's craft blog had featured one of my posts. I had designed a superhero craft for Superboy's b-day last year, and later posted about it. Somehow or another, it got picked up by the Crafty Crow. Here's the link:

 

The Crafty Crow: How to Make a Superhero Gadget

(and by the way, WOW what wonderful ideas have been collected on this blog. Such good stuff. Fun to browse.)

 

Later, my project was also featured on Craftzine.com (here's the link)....and then on another blog....en espanol! (here's the link...."Robos de Sucata".....if I didn't know better, I would've guessed that was a Spanish phrase meaning "Sugar-Covered Robots."........ha ha! shows how much Spanish I know.)

 

Anyway, I just re-posted my Superhero Gadget post here on bright eyes + blue eyes.

 

((So now, Ellie, we might just be on the google search results page for the following phrase:

 

"do superheroes have blue eyes and eat jell-o at birthday parties with walter reeves?"))

 

 

 

superhero birthday party craft

(originally posted 10-22-08)

We had a superhero birthday party for Superboy in August, which was lots of fun. All the guests came dressed as superheroes and we played superhero games.

We also did a superhero craft project, which turned out to be a hit. Pumpkin & Superboy have been playing with their "control panels" for the past two months. 

Here's how to make the control panels. I'll give the instructions for one control panel. Multiply the supply list by the number of guests at the party. 

• 1 Jello Box
• 1 Straw
• 1 small styrofoam ball
• silver spray paint
• foil tape
glue
• black craft foam, cut into a square slightly less than the size of the jello box
• various small wooden shapes (pre-packaged at Michael's)
• various shapes and sizes of craft foam (buy sheets of various colors and cut out shapes)
• markers

Note: We did steps 1-4 the day before the party. On the day of the party, we had the blank control panels ready, along with all the materials needed for decoration.

(1) Take the bag of jello powder out of one 6 oz box of jello. You don't need the powder for the project but you do need the box. Glue the top of the cardboard box shut. (Use rubber bands to hold the top down while the glue dries.)

(2) Poke a hole in the styrofoam ball. Insert straw. We used glue to secure the straw.

(3) Spray-paint the box silver on all sides. Spray-paint the straw/ball combo (aka antenna) on all sides. (This took several spray-painting sessions.)

(3) Place the antenna on the back of the box. Secure with a big piece of foil tape. We did a big square of tape that covered the entire back of the box.

(4) Glue the square of black craft foam onto the front of the control panel.

Now you have blank control panels that are ready to be "programmed and configured." (Be sure to use these terms with your small superhero: this is a very technical business.)

(5) Ask the superhero to decorate the control panel with his or her choice of buttons and dials. Be sure to create funtions for each button. (i.e., this one generates a force field, this one shoots a laser, etc...)

We really enjoyed this fun, inexpensive, superhero craft that encourages creativity and imaginative play.

in four words or less

dinner tonight: tortellini, homemade bread, broccoli

sports: go hogs, beat dawgs

daughter: learning to cartwheel; cute

son: on encyclopedia brown kick

husband: miss him, statewide retreat-this-weekend (had to invent a new hyphenated word to remain in compliance)

it rained all day...fun mid-day outing for me & the children: cloudy with chance meatballs (it was very cute.)

what I'll do after putting the kids to bed in a bit: netflix? pay bills? laundry? (maybe all 3?)

still laughing: ellie banging on metal

so excited: brother and sis-in-law expecting!

can't believe: Joe really a senior (!?!?) (Class of 2010...very space-age sounding to me.)

blogging: short break; back 9/28

thankful for: fresh-from-bath children, bedtime stories (goodnight to all, and to all a good night!)

Body & Soul

Last week I was invited to a choir fundraiser at the Anglican church. They are raising money to buy a few instruments and a basic sound system. At the moment, they can only perform with recorded music as accompaniment.

I can definitely understand why they would like to have the ability to play live music, rather than relying on tapes and CDs.

What I can't understand is how they have enough breath left to sing!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQu-8aWe34U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZBZQnd4Q3E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGCh0owErus

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyW1IuAJhX4

Let me know if you want to donate. US Dollars go a long way in Tanzanian Shillings. Maybe you want to ask your church choir to support our (aerobically and spiritually fit) brothers and sisters in the New Yerusalem choir. I'd be glad to help get the money to them if you want to help.

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Technical P.S. I tried to embed these videos that I shot, but I didn't manage to figure it out, so I am reposting with just the links.  Sorry if you get this twice if you get this on a feed.

Charades

This post isn't so much about words as the lack of words. I often feel like my communication attempts here are like one big word game. It's some combination of charades, Pictionary, and Taboo. But since the other people don't really know what the game is, it's a bit of a head-scratcher for them.

It happened again during our plumbing upheaval. We were at a shop, trying to buy the right parts. I wanted to ask if they had a fitting made of strong metal. Except I forgot the word for metal. So I went around the shop tapping on all the metal things I could find and saying, "like this [doorknob]…like this [washer]…see, not wood, like this [a wrench]…like this [chair legs]…" You get the idea. Still, I don't think the shopkeeper ever really understood what I was getting at. We ended up with a part made out of PVC.

It's not very funny when you're in the situation and your yard is probably flooding at home. Scenes like this are probably pretty comical, though, if I can take a step back and try looking at it from a third-person perspective.

It’s a High Pressured Job

We've had more plumbing problems this week. These problems stress me out majorly. Our home water situation is simultaneously a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing because we have a public water connection, and a curse because the water pressure is so ridiculously strong that it breaks our fittings at least a few times a month.

It's rare to have a house with access to the public water line. I bet that 85% of houses in M. don't have a water connection, and they've got no hope of getting one. There are really limited connections, and they infrastructure is way too limited to cover the demand. So that means most people have to organize their water supply for themselves. Those with less money go to the public kiosks and carry water back home in 20 Liter buckets. People with more money get the water delivered by young guys who push water carts through town. The really well-off people have a tanker bring water. So we are fortunate that we can just turn a knob and get water.

At least, that's the theory…

Herein lies the curse. The pipes, knobs, faucets, joints, and valves that make up our outdoor plumbing are constantly busting, corroding, and leaking. For many months, these leaks were only a little annoying. Then they the pump station got a new pump. I don't know where they got this pump from, but it is seriously strong. Like water cannon pressure. Like it takes two strong men to direct the spray of an open pipe. So the leaks and bursts become geysers pretty quickly. And once the plumbers come, it only gets worse. They have to take the line apart, which means a zillion gallons of water in our courtyard, which makes us worry about the sewage tank getting flooded. It's no easy job for the plumber to connect two pipes when water is blasting his face and sending the parts flying into knee-deep muddy water.

Watching the plumbing repairs makes me want to run inside and cry. Sometimes I have done just that. The quality of the materials is not good to begin with, and I think you'd need industrial parts to withstand this kind of water pressure. What is so frustrating about our plumbing problems is that I feel pretty helpless. It seems like there is no good solution. I loathe spending so much time and energy on plumbing issues.

I can only hope that the stopper valve that we installed on Tuesday will be the magic one that can withstand its high pressured job.

And yet…my perspective adjustment / reality check is to remind myself that so many people can only dream about having they type of problems that I have.