The February Post

With the beginning of February I've been even more busy than normal. I'm now hosting an international teaching fellow in my room. I hope to make her experience the best it can be, yet because I've never hosted another teacher in my room, it's been a learning curve for me as well. Overall, I really like what I'm gaining from the experience--mostly in the way of keeping more organized, because I have to. I love organization, but I sometimes have to remind myself of its merits.

I'm also taking a Children's Lit and Technology class-- I'm still in the Master's program, and still not sure why-- :)--but this class is particularly fun, and not hard at all. It's also practical-- I'm making projects I can use in the classroom without any modification. I've also managed to get my computer fixed. This is the first entry in a long time from ye old laptop.

I'm also ready for Spring. We've now had at least one snow, one ice storm, and plenty of cold weather to do me in. I'm actually okay with the weather-- what I'm not okay with are the clothes. I'm ready for color--if not outside, then at least on me. Maybe this will lead to sewing? 'Cause I certainly haven't been.

I have been knitting though-- first, I finished a hat for my nephew, then I made myself a hat. Finally, I made one for my brother-in-law. And now I'm working on a raw-silk cabled scarf--in which I can't keep up with how many rows I'm supposed to make into a cable. I need to pull out my nifty row counter so that I'll stop making mistakes that make me rip back. I'm looking towards a sweater-- I've got some lovely rust-colored yarn to make up--but I'm not sure I'll get to it before my knitting fervor runs out--it does, invariably, in the first warm days of spring.

I've also been baking-- mostly brownies. I've made the same recipe so many times--a slightly modified version of Dorie Greenspan's Classic Brownies--that I've memorized the recipe. Today I also (finally) made something different from this cookbook-- a "Swedish Neighbor Cake"--and it was just about as amazing as the brownies. We've been eating Sunday dinner at home more recently, usually because Mama and I have cooked too much more than anything, so I've been trying to keep something sweet around on the weekend. This time, I made the batter while everything else was warming in the oven and put it in when we pulled everything else out. It was wonderful, warm, lemony and fragrant. (Thanks, Aunt Debbie, for this cookbook! I love it.)

What I haven't been doing is writing. It's been my goal to post at least once a week on here, and, well... that hasn't happened. I think it's the mid-winter slump--and hopefully it will end sooner than later.

Classic Brownies
slightly modified from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours

5 T. butter, cut into five pieces
4 oz. bittersweet chocolate (I use Ghirardelli chips)
2 oz. unsweetened chocolate, chopped
3/4 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 t. vanilla extract
1/2 t. espresso powder
1/4-1/2 t. salt (I use a rounded 1/4 teaspoon)
1/2 c. flour (The original recipe called for 1/3--but I made this "mistake"
the first time I made the brownies and I like the extra chewiness)
3/4 c. walnuts, chopped coarsely

Preheat oven to 325. Grease a 8" square brownie pan.

Combine chocolates and butter into a saucepan and melt together, using the very lowest setting on stove. When chocolate is mostly melted but still contains lumps, take off heat and stir to melt the rest of the chocolate*. Using a wooden spoon or a whisk, mix in sugar (it will be grainy). Mix in eggs one at a time, then add in vanilla (it should be smoother now). Mix in salt and espresso powder.

Using a rubber spatula, fold in flour (you should still be able to see streaks--just like muffins). Fold in walnuts. Pour into pan; smooth out the top of the brownies so that batter is evenly distributed over bottom of pan. Bake for 30-33 minutes, or until top is dry and a knife inserted into middle comes (almost) clean. Let cool on a wire rack, and cut into squares.

*This always works with our gas cooktop-- it's just about how I always melt chocolate. If you don't feel comfortable with this, Dorie G. recommends the double boiler method.

Getting Back into Blogging...

It's been a while, no matter where you look at it-- I haven't blogged for almost a year. Xanga account included--I'm about to archive my old xanga posts here, on this blog, so they'll be consolidated. One blog is much simpler than two--what was I thinking?

It's been so hard for me to write much of anything this year. One reason is that I'm in Master's classes at the Uni again, and I can't say I'm enjoying the journey. I'm a year into the program and have two to go, but I don't really want to continue. It's just not enough emphasis on true learning, and way too much emphasis on "intellectual didactic pondering". I really don't like the attitude that we're smart, and we know it, and because we're smart we're going to act like you owe us something. That's kinda the attitude this particular school has--and has always had.

Another reason I've not been blogging: HARD SCHOOL YEAR. I was really stretched this year, especially where the attitudes of my students were concerned. The kids were smart, but many were blatantly disrespectful. That's pretty exhausting to deal with for five days a week, 36 weeks out of the year. I'm glad it's over.

I can't say I'm ready for a new beginning yet-- I'm ready for recuperation and revival. That's all I can really say.

On a happier note, my annual Amazon order is all in--it's almost a yearly tradition for myself--and I'm so excited about some of the books I got in! Here are most of them:

• Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning, from the gardeners and farmers of Terre Vivant-- this book is a compilation of traditional preservation methods from France. I've just started it, and love it so far.
  
  
• Weekend Sewing, by Heather Ross-- It's pure eye-candy, and it's full of beautiful, easy sewing projects. Just don't forget to check the errata from her website.
  
  
• Ratio, by Michael Rhulman--This book is for cooks who don't want to have to use a recipe every time inspiration hits. It's right up my alley--even though I love a good recipe, I'm often a throw-it-together kinda gal. This book is all about throwing it together well--and why it works that way.
  
  
• Sky High: Irresistable Triple-Layer Cakes, by Alisa Huntsman and Peter Wynne-- This book was recommended by one of my favorite food bloggers, Smitten Kitchen. She's an amazing cake baker--I've never had one of her recipes to fail--and she's made many cakes from this book. It's got instructions for wedding cakes as well as wonderful-looking, show-stopping triple layer cakes for any occasion. Right now it's eye-candy, but come birthday and holiday season, it'll be more than that.

I'm also loving Barbra Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Mineral right now--but it's not part of my latest Amazon order. My sister bought it for me last October for my birthday, and I'm just now reading it. That's how busy I've been.

I don't know if I'll get around to reviewing all of these--or if I'll actually will get a chance to read them all this summer. But sometime, hopefully, I will.

Oh, and if anyone has a good hushpuppy recipe, I'd love to have it. I tried the one in Joy, and meh. Not so great.

God Bless!

A flash from the past...

I was over at a friend's house last night, and I saw something I hadn't seen in years:

--From when I was in high school and thought I was an artiste--lol--

It kinda makes me miss it.

I got to introduce them to real bread and chat it up--it was a lot of fun.

On another note, I'm on Spring Break this week. It's a taste of summer, with the bittersweet regret of the shortness of time. I think teachers--and their students--need at least a two-week break.

MY.REDEEMER.LIVETH_ JEFF.IN V-26 N-15 SUNDAY_ 55-0410S
59 As sure as that warm sun bathes across the fields when it's blistered from the winter's cold, there's got to be... That sun is put here for something. Down beneath there, somewhere, unseen to the human eye, is vegetation and life, that'll spring forth again, because that the sun was sent for that very same purpose.
And just as sure as the sunlight of God bathes into the human heart, there's a little hidden something there that men can't explain. It's calling out. There's got to be somewhere. I think of that, and my heart quivers for joy to know that we have the supreme evidence today that Christ raised from the dead.
Now, and I think of the times of the Old Testament too, when they looked forward to the coming of the Lord Jesus, when they foresaw Him and worshipped at the very thoughts of it. There was something in them calling out, a deep calling to a deep, waiting for a time, looking forward to the time when Jesus would come. Now, today, after He has come...
Now, back there Satan tried to blind the eyes of those who looked forward to it, to tell them that there was no such. But somehow or another, beyond anything that we can say this morning, but as the Holy Spirit pushed on their heart and give them a hunger and a thirst that there was coming a just One...
Job, now think, four thousand years, four thousand years before the coming of the Lord Jesus, Job saw the resurrection. And when he saw it by a vision, that it would be four thousand years before it happened, he had the assurance that, "I know my Redeemer liveth, and at the last days He will stand on the earth: though the skin worms destroys this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I'll see for myself, mine eyes shall behold, and not another." There was a deep calling to the deep in Job.
Satan might try to blot it out with death. He might say, "Yes, Job, you're going into the grave. Skin worms will take your body." That's right. We know that.
But Job said, "I'll stand at the last days with Him." He had the assurance that he was going to be there, for there was something in Job that told him that. And as Satan tried his best to blot it with death and everything, Job looked forward to it, to seeing it. Died in the faith, gave up the ghost, rose again on Easter morning with Christ, is immortal among men today. Hallelujah. Notice. No wonder the Angelic beings can sing, "Hallelujah." Know...

--God Bless.

A First, at Last.

I don't know why I haven't posted more about sewing here, other than I don't do it as much as I do other things. And I only sew when I feel I need to or I have time to--and the time doesn't come very often. This Friday and Saturday, though, I sewed my Easter dress. It was a great pattern, one I'm sure I'll use again . It really came together in a day, and would have been even less if I'd realized what to do to the neckline to make it right first instead of last.

...on another note, though it doesn't particularly feel like it, Spring's on its way in:

Year-End Review in Pictures:

WHY.ARE.PEOPLE.SO.TOSSED.ABOUT_ JEFF.IN V-2 N-14 SUNDAY_ 56-0101
7-7 Now, straight to the Word. Before let's just give a little word of thanks to the Lord Jesus.
Our heavenly Father, we're just so grateful today for the--for You down here in this modern age, in the age of automobiles, airplanes, jets, the rockets, and--and all kind of science: telephone, television, and a modern atomic weapons, and so forth. You are still the supreme, almighty, omnipotent, omniscient God that created the heavens and earth and patterned out the sky. God, we can't explain it. We can't explain it. Neither can we explain why the sky doesn't have an end, how the world can revolve around, and so perfect till twenty years before, they can tell when the eclipse of the sun is coming; because Your machinery works exact. We can't produce a piece of machinery to be that exact. Oh, but great Jehovah, Who holds this earth here in space, it's perfect. And we love You, and all Your doings are just and right.
And we submit ourselves to Thee this morning, the beginning of this new year, and ask that You fill us all with the Holy Spirit, Lord, and draw us close to Thee; and may Thy everlasting arms be around us and hold us, Lord, for the days are shaking and dark, but the Morning Star is leading the way. We shall follow, Lord. Where He leads me, I will follow. If it be some through the waters, some through the flood, some through deep trials, but all through the Blood.

WHY.ARE.PEOPLE.SO.TOSSED.ABOUT_ JEFF.IN V-2 N-14 SUNDAY_ 56-0101
8-1 O God, lead us by Thy everlasting hand until the victory finally is won, and Jesus returns to the earth. Sin, sickness, and sorrow will be ended, and we'll live this glorious millennium with Thee. We're longing for that great day. Come, Lord Jesus, to Thy Word today. Get into It. Circumcise the lips that speak, and the hearts that hear. And may the seed fall into the heart where the Holy Spirit will sow it, and bring forth a hundredfold. We ask in Jesus' Name. Amen.

May God richly bless you all.

Posted via web from marielenora's posterous

Goodbye old Paint...

Nope, I've not been out west.

I've been repainting my room.

(Where is Cheyenne, anyway?)

So, here's what it looked like before, with an empty room:



I really meant to take a picture before I got most of my stuff back in the room, but I didn't manage to. So, here's what it looked like this evening, in the dying light.



I should have taken a morning pic, but unfortunately, my mornings are currently absorbed with back to school business. We start next Thursday.

... I'd rather be in the palm of Your hand... Though rich or poor I may be; Faith can see right through the circumstance, Sees the forest in spite of the trees-- Your Grace provides for me.

...