so much good

I don't know if it was the spectacular Indian summer weather, the afterglow from last night's historic event or the fact that for once in a very long while I spent not one minute on work for hire, but I don't think anything could have gotten me down today. Elliott prompted the first big smiles of the day, standing at the window while he peeked out, slapped it a little, and chatted up a storm with dad.


Liam had a ball playing in the piles of leaves we raked. The bike ride to the park and playing Barbies with mom (more about that another day) also topped his list.

As for me, the high point would be a toss up between Andrew's surprise short day - which meant eating dinner as a family - making bread and applesauce, and finishing Liam's winter hat (which I assume he'll model tomorrow since the temps are expected to dip significantly). I also helped sort clothes for our church rummage sale this weekend and had fun collecting a few treasures (especially old t-shirts to transform with our monster designs and to make into newborn hats for Caps to Cap-Haitian Project as explained on this very cool new site www.mamatomama.org).


If your day is wet and cold tomorrow, you may want to fill your home with the awesome aroma of fresh baked bread. I have been trying different recipes lately and this one is my favorite.

Our Daily Bread

1 package dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water
1 cup quick oats
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 1/2 t. salt
2 T butter
2 cups boiling water
5 cups unbleached flour

Dissolve yeast in warm water; set aside. Combine next five ingedients (oats through butter) in a separate bowl. (It's okay if butter is in a chunk.) Pour boiling water over ingredients; mix and let stand until lukewarm. Add yeast to mixture. Stir in flour a cup at a time and knead by hand or hook 5-10 minutes. Place in greased bowl; cover and let rise until doubled. Punch down, shape into two loaves and place in greased loaf pans. Cover and let rise again. Bake at 350 for 35 minutes. Cool on rack.

This bread recipe is adapted sightly from the Oatmeal Bread recipe in More with Less, a Mennonite cookbook focused on how to eat better and consume less of the world's limited food resources. We ate almost an entire loaf this afternoon (not really saving many resources!) - warm with honey. Nothing storebought is half this good.