On the Upside

I was awake in the night, both from the pain in my head and neck and from worry about our friend who just had something awful happen to him, and I remembered that the earth was set to go through meteor showers during the night. So I got up, and found that Hibi was also awake. This was at 3:30 am! We went out together to look for meteors at 4. I only saw one bright one, and she saw none. So we decided to go back in and come back out at 4:30, which was supposed to be the peak. We both saw one bright-ish one, and we both saw just faint lines in the sky that I'm thinking had to be meteors. It would have been much better if we'd been out someplace dark, like Camp Angelos or something, but we did see some and got some bonding time in. Though probably my tiredness is contributing to my mood today, but that couldn't be helped.

This was the second time in a week that we've observed an astronomic event--we also watched the lunar eclipse, which was pretty cool. Zac was up for that one, too, and he was disappointed that he missed the meteors.

Down

I haven't been posting much lately. I had something I wanted to post about,concerning the latest revelation of Mother Theresa and the nature of faith, but it's just not there. Lots of really bizarre and very bad stuff has been going on with different people who are dear to our hearts, and it all leaves me kind of depressed. Plus, I visited the doctor yesterday for a head/neckache that's lasted for 2 1/2 weeks, but she didn't know of any specific reason for it. She gave me some vague things to do for it--ibuprofin, which of course I'd tried and it didn't work, neck rubs, which hurt, heat, which I hadn't done besides hot showers. She also thought perhaps I should stay off the computer for the weekend....but here I am. I will have a hiatus from the computer next week, as we are going on our yearly homeschool campout at Patrick's Point in California. Anyway, I am now the new owner of a heating pad. Which really isn't helping.

And pain, of course, always adds to depression. So I hope it'll go away soon.

Now you can go on to your regularly scheduled upbeat blog reading. And I might just be back with that post about faith yet.

Writing Practice

Zachary just got his email set up on his computer that he got from Free Geek. He only just got the internet working on it, thanks to help from Dad. (Because God knows, I'm no good at that kind of stuff!) So we've been emailing back and forth, rather than shouting and waiting for kids to respond, which I think is a great thing! Here's the first email I sent him, and the response from him:

From: mamaelizabeth@earthlink.net
Subject: glad you're using email now!
Date: August 25, 2007 2:30:26 PM PDT
To: zacxxxx@earthlink.net

Because now I can communicate with you. Hey! Clean your room! Go to bed! You have to come to a dinner with us!

Just kidding. :-)

I love you,
Mom

From: zacxxxx@earthlink.net
Subject: NOT gladi'm using email now!
Date: August 25, 2007 2:33:53 PM PDT
To: mamaelizabeth@earthlink.net

becaus now you can bother me all day!

love zac

Elizabeth's Further Experimentation with Prosphora

Well, perhaps this should be in my cooking blog, but that's the breaks. Life doesn't compartmentalize neatly always.

I've been wanting to try out making whole wheat communion bread for years. But I haven't made prosphora at home in....I don't know how many years. A lot. Today I was making raisin bread--the first bread I've baked at home all summer! How did that happen? Anyway, I thought hey, I should whip up a prosphora as well! So I did.

The problems with it are all different from the problems I thought I'd have. I thought there would be problems with the crumb, with the texture, with the taste. It turns out the problems are 100% with the seal--it doesn't show up very well at all.

Here's how I tried it:
I used the same recipe as for white flour, just subbing whole wheat flour. I kneaded it probably a bit more than I would have for white flour, until it as nice and stretchy. And then here's where I deviated from the original: instead of putting it directly into the pan, I let it rise once in the bowl. After it rose and I poked it with a wet finger and it didn't rise back up right away, I shaped it--two balls, flatten one and put it in the pan. Flatten the other and seal it with the seal, then wet the first disk and put the sealed on on top. (This is a new technique I learned from another lady who was teaching prosphora at camp--I have before sealed both pieces together, or just as one piece.) Then I let it rise and baked it as usual.

The taste is pretty good! I can imagine that people who don't like whole wheat bread will certainly not like this. But I think it's pretty darn good--very flavorful for communion bread!

So, anyway, here's my recipe for communion bread (not perfected for the seal...)
3 to 4 cups whole wheat flour plus more for kneading (home-ground is the *best*)
1 1/2 cups warm water
2 teaspoons yeast
1 teaspoon salt

Place three cups flour and salt in a large mixing bowl and stir with a wooden spoon. Add the yeast to the warm water, stirring as you pour slowly to wet each grain. Make a well in the flour and pour the water into it. Mix just the center at first, combining well, then stir in the rest of the flour. If the dough is too sticky to knead, add more flour until you can knead it.

Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead for about 10 minutes, until the dough is stretchy and you can pull a piece into a paper-thin sheet without it tearing (or almost). Put back into the bowl and cover with a plate. (No oil in communion bread, please!)

After about an hour and a half, poke a wet finger into the center, up to the first knuckle, then pull it out. If the dough slowly rises back, it's not ready yet. If it just sits there it's ready. (If the dough sighs and deflates, you've let it rise too long!) Divide it in two, then form each into a disk. Put flour on the bottom of your pan--a cake pan works well, but so does a plain old cookie sheet. Again, no oil! Place one disk on the flour, then press the seal into the other disk--hard. Now, here's where I had trouble--the first time, the dough stuck like crazy and I had to wash it and re-do the disk. So then the seal was wet and I floured the top of the disk, and it came out okay then....though the seal still didn't show up very well. Cover and let rise until double, then bake in a 350 degree oven until done, maybe an hour? Thump the bottom with your thumb and if it sounds hollow, it's done. Hopefully your seal will turn out better than mine!

Prosphora has specific needs--it only contains these four ingreadients: flour, water, yeast, salt. No oil, no sweetener. So it can be a bit finicky. But I think we can figure this one out!

Book List

I don't know if any of my readers have noticed, so I thought I'd point it out, in case you're interested. I've added a list of books I'm either currently reading and enjoying or have read. Well, right now it's all books I've read already. I'm finding it a handy reference for myself--what books have I read this summer? I was asking myself yesterday. Our library is having, in addition to the children's summer reading program, an adult summer reading program! No cheapo little prizes, though--you get entered into a drawing for a getaway at a resort. Cool, huh? So I was trying to recall which 4 to 6 books (the requirement) I've read during the summer. I think the ones on my list that aren't dated I read before the summer started, so I didn't put those down. Then I added the ones I remembered to this list and put down dates I completed the book so I'll be able to remember. Eh, okay, it's mostly for me, but if you want books I'd recommend you can look at the list, or we can see if we read the same book.

Anyway, you can find my list at the bottom of the right hand column on my main blog.

But speaking of the environment...

Paul found this video which really boils down the issues on global warming. Watch and see if you reach some clarity.

NOT made in Sweden

I waited more than two weeks after the opening of IKEA in Portland to join the throngs of consumers, the ones wanting more furniture for less. Now, Paul has a real aversion to IKEA, because he hates crowds and he hates how IKEA herds you from one department to the next, forcing you to walk through the entire store. I felt herded as soon as I was approaching the area in my car. But we've managed to pick up several IKEA products over the years. I love our coffee table from IKEA--it was exactly what I was looking for at the time (and still use it)--a coffee table with six cubbies below the top surface, so each of us have a cubby to store things in the living room, plus two left over, which we use for library books. It's a good solid piece of furniture and I think it'll be with us for quite some time.

On Monday I went into IKEA with a specific item that I was looking for, which I've been searching for for quite a while. I want a big cabinet to serve as a pantry in the little alcove just outside my kitchen. There's a little space there, that right now has an old small cupboard. But there's enough room there for a 30 inch wide, 22 inch deep, and up to about 80 inches tall cabinet. I could really use a nice big space for kitchen storage. But they're kind of odd dimensions and I haven't found anything that was just what I wanted.

I didn't find it at IKEA either, though some things came close and I might have made do with one of those solutions. But then I looked at the tag, where it says something like "country of origen: IKEA chooses it's suppliers on the basis of who can supply us with our specialized furniture for the most economic price. Therefore each piece of furniture may contain components from many different countries of origin." In other words, don't bug us about exploitation--you can buy it for cheap! And didn't we already tell you it's environmentally correct enough that you can feel good about it? There was more info on how they supposedly didn't destroy the environment to make this item--really, you can go ahead and keep buying lots of stuff. It won't hurt anything!

I had an interesting conversation with a woman while visiting my parents in June. This woman was talking about how great it is that there are dollar stores and the like now, and Target and Walmart and lots of places to buy good clothes for cheap. How she buys lots of extra clothes for her grandkids so it's on hand when they're at her house, so if they get dirty they can just change into clean clothes. How it wasn't like that when her own children were small--you had to buy clothes at department store prices and you couldn't afford to have extras. I just couldn't resist--I often just stand there listening to these kinds of conversations, not saying what I'm thinking, but I spoke my mind this time. "But, did you ever think of where those clothes came from? Who made them? How much they could possibly be getting paid, when you are paying only a couple of dollars for an item of clothing?" And went on to talking about how people are exploited, because most of our clothing nowadays comes from China, where human rights are abominable (the food scares we've been having lately from food from China? Did you know they *executed* the person in charge of food safety?) and workers get paid next to nothing, certainly not enough to live a decent life. And I told her that a much better option, in my mind, is to buy from thrift stores and consignment stores, where you're just re-using someone else's exploitative clothing, instead of having new exploitative clothing made for you, and it's often even less expensive than Target or Walmart to buy thrift store clothing. But this woman didn't like the idea of her grandsons wearing something that's already been worn by someone else. Okay, I shut my mouth, but I didn't stop thinking, so she'd rather her grandson didn't wear something worn already, and have them wear something that someone else's blood, sweat and tears paid for.

What bothers me is that environmental issues are the issues du jour. Everyone is talking about them, with good reason. And I'm not saying to stop--I think we need more discussion on environmental issues. But when we speak of the environment and ignore the human suffering that is happening around the globe--and in our own United States--it is a lopsided concern. We cannot be whole until we look at all these issues together. It's a pet peeve I have with PETA--I am all for the ethical treatment of animals. I just wish they were concerned about the human animal as well as others in the animal kingdom.

So, I won't get my cool IKEA cabinet that I was hoping to find. But I'll be able to live with myself for awhile longer.