I Remember Sept. 11th 2001

"I don't think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains."
                                                                              -Anne Frank

 I can remember where I was on Sept. 11th 2001.  I was a freshman in college.  I was with a friend of mine in the student lounge, getting a sandwich before our morning classes.  There was a big screen tv in the lounge and a group had already gathered in front of it, although my friend and I had no idea why at the time.  We got our sandwiches and as I was paying for mine, he went over and stood in front of the tv and immediately came running back telling me a plane had hit the world trade center.   I remember thinking that it must of been a single engine plane, something small and feeling horrible for the pilot and whoever he may have had on board but figuring it had done only minimal damage to the towers themselves. 

Then I walked over and saw the smoke and realized it was a full passenger jet that had hit the tower.  And we sat there, surrounded by people that we knew and people we didn't, and watched the live news broadcasts on abc as a second plane approached.  I can remember barely sputtering out "Is that another plane?" and a split second later it disappeared behind the first tower and a shot of flames, debris and smoke came out of the second tower.

I can remember sitting there watching in stunned disbelief when another friend came rushing in to announce that the Pentagon had been hit as well.  Then we went up to my dorm room and sat there watching the news reports on our little television with our door opened.  People from the hallway stopping in to watch with us.  At one point we probably had 20 people in our teeny tiny little room.  I remember seeing what I thought at first were suit coats flying out the windows and then realizing in complete horror that those were people, jumping out of a hopeless situation to certain death. 

It's interesting now to see us as a country 10 years later.  Going to the airport is an entirely changed experience.  The site is still empty.  There's a national memorial being built in the middle of what used to be someone's cornfield.  We still stop and remember at memorial events.  But life has moved on.  There's still babies and weddings.  Still cookouts and parades.  We still go to work and we still ride on planes and trains.  People are resilient.  Today, we'll honor those who lost their lives on Sept. 11th and in the subsequent wars by celebrating the all American way of life.  We'll watch our football games, we'll eat a big Sunday dinner with family and friends, and tonight we'll say our prayers for those that are gone and for the family members that remain.

God bless.

In Mourning

My brand new camera (the one that Oldest dropped a few posts back) finally completely gave up the ghost this week.  So it is in loving memory that I dedicate this post to the cameras I've loved and lost with a pictorial tribute from photos past.

Egg Noodles

Our rock candy suckers are coming along nicely, although they aren't quite done yet due to the humidity and other factors that slowed our rate of evaporation down around here the last week.  BUT, they are forming and in another few days we should be able to eat them, which is clearly the best part!

Now,  I have a message for all those out there who buy over processed, neatly packaged egg noodles at the grocery store.  STOP!   That's right, stop it.  Just say no.  Sure the so-called egg noodles that you buy in the store are edible and they come already dried but seriously they aren't nearly as tasty as homemade noodles and most of the time they don't even have eggs in them.  Instead they contain ingredients that are barely pronounceable like thiamine monoitrate. 

Homemade egg noodles are EASY to make.  That's right, e-a-s-y.  They are inexpensive.  They are quick to make.  It will take you more time to drive to the grocery store and fight your way past the crowd in the pasta aisle to pick up the store bought, chemistry lab by-products that we call noodles than it will take you to make your own at home with ingredients you likely already have on hand and can definitely pronounce.   If you are thinking about dipping your toes into the water of a more free and self-sustained lifestyle than there is no better place to start than right here. 

There are several different recipes for homemade egg noodles.  Some call for water, some for milk, some for chicken broth and all of them are great.  Personally, though, I like my simple recipe best. 

1. 1 cup of flour
2. 1 t. salt
3. 2 eggs

This recipe will make enough noodles for two people.  I usually triple it and then store it in bulk for my slightly larger than average family.  Feel free to increase the size to whatever is right for you and yours, just make sure to keep the ratios the same. 

Step 1.  Combine the flour and salt in a mixing bowl.
Step 2. Make a well in the center of the flour.
Step 3. Crack both eggs into the well and beat them up.  You could beat the eggs separately and then pour them into the well if you don't mind adding an extra dish to wash. 
Step 4. Gradually mix the flour from the sides of the well into the eggs.  Eventually you will get a nice ball of dough. 
Step 5. Turn out your dough onto a well floured surface.  Use your flour liberally on your hands, your surface and the ball of dough.
Step 6. Kneed the dough gently, adding flour as needed to keep the dough from sticking, until the ball is smooth and no longer sticky. Cover the ball in plastic wrap and place it in the fridge for at least 30 minutes or up to overnight.

Step 7.  Flour your rolling pin and surface and roll out your dough to whatever thickness you like from 1/4in. to paper thin, the choice is yours.  Then grab your pizza cutter (easiest) or butter knife and cut out long strips, try to stay as straight as possible. 

That's it.  You're done.  You've made noodles.  You can use them immediately or lay them out on a wire rack (faster) or dishtowel (slower) to dry completely.  Drying is usually the most time consuming aspect of noodle making and typically takes several hours . But once the noodles are completely dried you can store them in an airtight container on your shelf for up to 5 months. 

You may be looking at this last picture and wondering to yourself where all the noodles went.  Well, it's a sad story really.  You see, homemade egg noodles are not safe at my house.  They will sit there, minding their own business, trying to dry and my DH will come along and devour them one by one.  I try to protest on their behalf but my pleadings fall on deaf ears.  So I've had to resort to drying my noodles in batches.  One small batch that I keep on the counter in the kitchen, the sacrificial batch if you will, which DH spends all day picking at.  And the other batch, which I don't get out of the fridge to cut and dry until just before bedtime.  They are dry by the time I get up in the morning (usually just before DH gets up) and I can put them all away before he even notices that they were there at all.  I know it's pathetic but that's life when you are a married to an egg noodle addict. 

It's a Little Hot

90 degrees today at 2pm in the shade.  By the time the sun had set we had reached a peak temperature of 94 degrees with a heat index of 103 or 104 depending on who you ask.  But it gets better.  Tomorrow is supposed to be one of our hottest days on record, if not THE hottest day on record, with temps crawling at least to 95 and a heat index somewhere between 105 and 115.  Yep, you read that right, 115.  I think hell is about to swallow Ohio whole.

So what is one to do about the heat?  Well, for starters, we spent the day playing in the sprinklers.  Watering the critters.  Hosing the critters.  Hosing ourselves.  Sitting in the tub, kiddie pool, shower etc.  Eating chocolate dipped frozen strawberries, peaches, bananas and watermelon chunks and slaving over a hot stove.

"Wait, what!?  Did she just say 'slaving over a hot stove'?" 

Yes, yes I did.  Now you are probably thinking that I've gone all squirrely in this heat, perhaps I've lost my marbles.  Nope.  You see, there is one treat that I always associate with summer (and you really don't get much more "summer" than 95 degree searing heat).  It isn't ice cream or slushies or snow cones.  It's rock candy. 

Rock candy has a looong history dating at least back to 9th century India and Iran possibly even earlier than that!  It's been referenced by many authors and poets, including William Shakespeare.  In earlier times it was used for therapeutic purposes as medicine instead of simply as the sweet treat we know and love today.  For the life of me I have no idea why we ever stopped delivering our medicine via rock candy.  I mean, when I was a kid (probably even now as an adult) if my doctor had said "Here's your medicine" and then handed me a bag full of rock candy suckers, you better believe I would have spent much less time hiding under my bed and in closets to escape my mother and her medicine spoon.

None the less, it wasn't until about the 1700's that Rock Candy began to be widely used primarily as a sweet treat.  Rock candy is still more than a simple lollipop though.  It also makes for a darn tasty science project.  I use rock candy to teach my kids about crystals, solvents, solutes and solutions as well as evaporation.  

If you've never made rock candy before then now is the time.  It is relatively easy to do.  First, you need a few common kitchen items.

1. A couple of sterilized canning jars.
2. Some wax paper
3. A couple of rubber bands (or in our case hair ties)
4. 4 bamboo skewers with the sharp ends cut smooth.  You wouldn't want a little one to kabob their tongue.
5. A medium saucepan.
6. 1 cup of water
7. 3 cups of sugar (White or brown sugar. Either one works fine.)
8. Flavoring or food coloring if desired.  We used watermelon and grape.

The first step is to heat the water in the saucepan until simmering.  Heated solvents (water) can dissolve larger amounts of salutes (sugar) than they can when cold which makes it possible to super saturate the solution, a necessary step when making rock candy. 

Then stir in the three cups of sugar slowly, a couple of tablespoons at a time, stirring constantly and making sure that each batch of sugar dissolves completely before adding more. 

Once all the sugar is added you can stop stirring.  Allow the syrup solution to heat to a rolling boil. 

Once it reaches a rolling boil, remove it from the heat and dip your skewers in the solution. 
Place the skewers on a plate or on some wax paper and allow them to dry while you divide the solution evenly among your two canning jars.  Then add any flavoring or food coloring you want, making the solution just a bit darker than you want the finished product to be.

Place two skewers in each jar then cover with squares of wax paper, poking the paper over the top ends of the skewers.  Place a rubber band around the wax paper to keep it in place and set the jars up on the fridge or in any area that is out of direct sunlight and where the jars are unlikely to be disturbed.  DO NOT TOUCH THEM even though it's tempting.  The humidity in your area will determine how long it takes for the rock candy to form.  The less humidity there is is the faster the water will evaporate and therefore the faster the crystals will form.  You're probably wondering why it is, then, that we can't set these in direct sunlight as that should speed up the evaporation.  Well, that's correct.  It would speed up the evaporation...too much.  If the water evaporates too quickly then the sugar won't have a chance to form into those nice big crystals that become the rock candy. 

In 3 days to about a week we should have some rock candy suckers to show for our trouble.

Happy 4th of July!

For independence day this year we spent the morning cheering for Oldest and Middle as they walked in the Fourth of July parade, then we picked raspberries.  I've got burgers and chicken breasts on the grill and a yard full of friends and family.  And tonight we'll be heading to the fireworks display in town.  Doesn't get any better than that. 

Hope everyone is having a wonderful 4th of July!

Is It Normal to Not Favor One or Two of Your Children?

I was reading an article on a blog this morning that was talking about how this woman liked one of her kids more than she liked the other and how she felt guilty for it.  The comments about the article made it seem as though this was the 'norm' but that most people wouldn't openly admit it and saying, of course, that it would be wrong to show to your children that you liked one more than the other.

So now I'm feeling a little awkward.  I really, in all honesty, do not like any one of my children more than I like the others.  I do like different things about each one of my kids.  I like Oldest's generally sweet disposition and even (usually) appreciate the fact that she is a bit of a drama-queen.  I like that Middle is very charismatic and full of personality and I like Youngest's calm and quiet nature.  But I can't honestly say that I like any one of them more than I like the other.   I really do love, and like, all of my children equally.

There are times when they drive me crazy, get on my nerves, frustrate me.  There are times when I really feel overwhelmed and tired and need a break from my children. There are days when I question my decision to home school and wish that they were sitting in a classroom instead of jumping on my couch. There are times when I butt heads with one or more of them.  There are times when we all can't stand each other.  Those times are few and far between though, thankfully.  That's normal family dynamics.  We have our ups, we have our downs but it works that way with all of my kids.   Even if I'm doing my best, most introspective, deep and brutally honest assessment I still can't say that I like one more than the others or that I don't like one as much as the others.

I used to think that's how it worked with parents.  Kids always seem to feel, even into adulthood, that their parents favored their brother or their sister more than they favored them.  But I always assumed that most parents were like me and they really didn't have a favorite.  Now I'm starting to wonder if I'm some sort of freak of nature.  Before I thought I was in the majority, now I'm wondering if I'm a real weirdo.

Alas, it's finished!

I finished staining and hanging the first gourd birdhouse of the batch a couple of days ago.  I used an acrylic stain and finished it with about 4 coats to get it to the desired color.

The picture came out a little dark but you get the idea anyways.

Now I just have to finish Oldest's birdhouse that she's entering for the fair.  She decided what birds she wanted to attract and I cleaned, drilled and grinding the opening for her.  But I have to smooth it out a bit.  Then she's planning to paint it with her own design.  We still have a few weeks though, entries don't have to be in until near the end of July.  Hopefully we'll have enough time that if we screw up this one we'll be able to make another one in time to turn it in. :D