Baking My Bread

Nothing warms a home on a cold winter's day like baking bread. I prefer to make it entirely by hand. I love the smell of yeasty dough and the pleasure of rolling up my sleeves and burying my hands deep in it's sticky midst while kneading, satisfies the frustrated gardener in me. I love to get my hands "dirty". My maternal grandmother, Lena, baked the best bread I have ever tasted. Spending time with her was a great treat for me as a child. She indulged my every wish and made me feel that I was the most precious person in the world... and I adored her.
Having lived most of her life on a farm in (very rural) Missouri, while raising and feeding eight children, food preparation was a normal and necessary focus of her days. Baking everything from scratch was a habit she maintained for the rest of her life....and perfected as an art.
I gladly and eagerly gobbled my way through countless cookies, banana breads, pies, cakes and, best of all, loaves of fresh, soft , crusty, white bread. Did I mention that I washed all these goodies down with my very own cup of coffee? Much to my mother's dismay, Grandma would pour me coffee and I would sit at the table gulping (no ladylike sipping for me!) and feel like one of the grown ups. Turns out Grandma knew best, all my mother's dire predictions that coffee would stunt my growth, turned out to be false. I'm a good five foot six inches tall.
Those memories and experiences have shaped the life I strive to live daily. A life filled with preparing and sharing wonderful foods, home made and home baked with loving hands and a generous, giving heart.

Cabin Fever

It happens every January and lasts well through April. I'm talking major "cabin fever". The snowbanks are as tall as I am and the temperatures fall way below freezing. So goes the climate in Wisconsin. I start out feeling just the tiniest twinge of restlessness and soon it balloons into feeling claustrophobic in my own house. I get cranky and irritable. I try not to have a negative attitude about winter but, each year, when January rolls around, the trapped and closed-in feelings return like clockwork. I'm a person who loves to dig in the dirt, planting seeds and bulbs and watching the magic happen. I love sunshine, warmth and balmy breezes so, why do I live in a climate with a growing season of four months??

To lift my spirits, I am posting a picture of my blooming perennial border in all it's summer glory. For now, I will have to be content with looking at my pictures and dreaming of the new gardening season ahead. I can already smell the heady scent of spring as I dig into the soil.......

Library Day

One of my absolute favorite places on Earth is our Public Library. I visit every three weeks and really look forward to the time I spend there, browsing among the thousands of books, looking for whatever titles pique my interest on a particular day. Today, I am in the mood for gardening books. Our Wisconsin weather has put us in the deep freeze for the past couple of days, closing schools and keeping everyone indoors because of the dangerous wind chills. (-25 degrees F below zero!) The snow and cold have driven me to get a breath of spring...so gardening books it is!

I remember the day I first got my library card. It was registration day for second grade elementary school. On the way home, my mother stopped at a huge, grey building and said that it was time for me to get a library card. I remember stepping from the sunlight into the cool, dim, interior and being enveloped in the wonderful , quiet world of the library and books. Even the smell was delicious...paper and ink, wooden tables and dusty tomes. I was smitten.

I picked out two books, one about cowboys and another about a small Chinese boy called Little Pear. I carefully and proudly signed my name on my brand new card and as we left, I asked my Mom why she hadn't paid the librarian for my books. She explained that I was borrowing the books and I had to bring them back. They didn't charge money to borrow their books.

I thought that the library was the greatest invention anyone could have come up with, free books all the time!

So, began my life-long love affair with books and reading. No matter what age I am, or how many times I have been to the library, the anticipation is still the same. I can't wait to get there and when I leave, I am eager to delve into the new pile I bring home....such richness!

So, I will log off for now.....I have some reading to do!

A Brand New Year

Every January, I like to take stock of where my life has been, where it is now, and where I want it to be as I ease into another new year. 2009, promises to hold economic and personal challenges as my husband has lost his job in the auto industry after 33 years.

Changes in life's direction are inevitable, and not always welcome but, I hope to take this loss and turn it into an opportunity to explore new ways of living. I'm not a great advocate of conventional methods anyway. I would rather use my imagination and creativity to craft a life uniquely my own, to reflect my beliefs and interests. So, I never make New Year's resolutions. I know where I am going but, the detours thrown my way will slow down navigation and hopefully take me on the path of new adventures I may have missed otherwise.