Picnic in the Park

She says:
   Because it was such a beautiful day and because I had been working so hard on my homework, I thought it would be a wonderful idea to go have a picnic for dinner.  So we did.

   We made sandwiches at home and packed them up along with some fancy cheese, chocolate pie from Jason's mom, and pear cider (YUM!).  We even used our "picnic dishes", which we got from my aunt and uncle for our wedding.

   Dilly was getting pretty excited while we were packing things up.  When we took her out, she ran straight to my car's passenger door and sat down to wait for us to let her in.  We had to wrestle her away, since we were taking Jason's vehicle.

   We went to the Riverfront Park, which is along the Missouri River riverfront. The spot that we had planned to go to was closed off for the Fiesta Mexicana, but we drove along until we found another neat little spot, which led down to a small fishing beach. Adorable.  It is so neat to be able to find a nature oasis in the middle of a major city.

Happy to be having a picnic.

Dilly loved exploring the beach...but not too far (we kept the leash on).

Bahaha! No one was there to stop us!

 

Down by the river.

Human Lifespan Development?

She says:

   Classes have started up and I am busy with studying and homework and the actual event of driving to and sitting through classes.  Although I do not particularly enjoy the busy-ness and stress of schoolwork, I am loving the education program and classes that I am in. 

   This week, in my Human Lifespan Development class, the third chapter of my book (on development of babies during the first two years) provided me with this exciting tidbit:

   "In colonial America [...] parents and physicians alike viewed crawling on all fours, not as a natural stage of human development, but as a bad habit that, if not thwarted, would remain the baby's primary form of locomotion for the rest of its life..."

   Umm...what?!?  How many adults did they see crawling around to make them think, "I don't want my baby to grow up to be like that guy"?  Also, Jason and I got in a good laugh imagining what the Constitutional Convention would have been like...

  

Jason the Artisan

He says:

   Making bread is extremely enjoyable and at the same time extremely frustrating. As I’ve said before, creating a decent bread loaf is easy. Something’s really got to go wrong for baked dough to come out unpalatable. But making great bread is a challenge; one that I still haven’t completed.

   After a little researching, I came across a book that was getting high praise. Authored by master baker Peter Reinhart, Artisan Breads Every Day is a book that geared towards producing high quality breads with minimal hands on time. All of the recipes have you mix one day and then refrigerate the dough for up to four days. This apparently improves flavor because it gives the yeast more time to work their magic.

   The book also explains, with excellent pictures, how to work with wet dough and shape the basic bread forms easily (sandwich, baguette, etc.). A while back I started his sandwich bread recipe and so far it’s been the only dough that has really come together like it should, where I could feel it going from a sloppy mess to a springy dough. I think this is because the recipe was in weight and not volume, which was a first for me.

   The finished product was excellent. The bread uses only milk for the liquid and it does contain some sugar, but it’s a great sandwich loaf. Plus it rises quite a bit so our sandwiches have so much more real estate to work with.

   After first checking his book out from the library and making a delicious loaf, I ended up purchasing the book and will be working my way through all of his recipes. I have a rye sourdough starter fermenting right now for the weekend.

   I can’t wait until the fall/winter so that I can use the oven and not make our house a hundred degrees.

R.I.P. Phyllis Diller

She says:
   In honor of the passing of Phyllis Diller (a few days ago, I know, but we have been slacking on posts lately) here are some pictures of her namesake, Dilly.

"There's no need to fear..."

 

 

The pooch is pooped.

She has no idea what's going on (and really, neither do we).

An evening with the Seymours.  We enjoyed dinner and A&E's "Duck Dynasty" with Blaine and Becky to celebrate their birthdays.

Camp!

She says:
   At the beginning of June, I got to direct FROGS Camp for 4 and 5 year olds at Jo-Ota.  While it didn't go exactly as a I planned (I had planned on the parents wanting to be involved with their children at camp), I think it was still pretty good. 

   The night before camp Jason stayed up ridiculously late with me to help finish up planning and craft things. A month later, I am still excited about the things we came up with! 

Jason and I premade origami jumping frogs.  Each camper added googly eyes and named their frog before entering it in a jumping contest. 

T-shirt were on sale at Michaels for $1.44 during grand opening!  Jason and I did the black frog outlines, and then let the kids "color" in their own frogs with fabric paint.

Pin the tongue on the frog! 

These are my campers.  Oh goodness!

Shoot for the Moon

He says:

   For two years now I’ve challenged myself to read 52 books a year. In 2011 I met that goal and it was a blast. I always said that I enjoyed reading when people asked what I did with my free time, but in reality I only read a few books a year. It was great to really put a dent in my “to read” list.

   This year I made even more of an effort to clear my bookshelves. I’ve all but forbidden myself to check books out at the library until I read all of the backlogged books that I own. I still check out a few that seem too good to pass up, however.

   The year is approaching its halfway point (2st of July, I believe), and so far I’ve read 52 books. It feels great to be done with the challenge aspect, but I don’t plan on stopping there. This is already a personal record, but I’m going to go all out and shoot for 100 (maybe 104) books by the end of 2012.

Notable books include:

Proudest Achievement: The Stand by Steven King (unabridged) approximately 1000 pages. I came to
find out that the abridged version was 600 pages and was probably better for it.

Best Book: Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad is hands down my favorite classic. Man’s descent into hell has never been so fascinating.

Worst Book: The Good Earth by Pearl S Buck is a story about a peasant who toils to increase his station in life and succeeding while never learning a single lesson about his flawed actions or to appreciate where to he came from. I was angry with this book which is supposedly a beloved classic.

Most Interesting: The Art and Science of Dumpster Diving by John Hoffman got me strangely motivated to go out and find those hidden treasures. Luckily this passed, but the take away message of wasting less is still valuable.

One of "Those People"

She says:
   I was chatting with Mike Powell on Facebook awhile back, talking about how I love having Dilly with me again, but how I'm going to turn into one of "those people" that just tell stories about my dog all the time.  Mike replied, "they call those people 'dog owners'."  I loved it.
   
   So here I am, a "dog owner", and really wanting to share some pictures of my dog, because she is pretty much the cutest. I know this to be true, because random people tell me so all the time when I'm walking her--little girls on tricycles, grown men with their own tiny dogs, and old ladies. True story.

Here is Dilly, making herself at home on her first full day living with the Seymours.

Getting back into the practice of playing fetch.  She'll only play along for about three "fetches" before she gets bored.

The first day that Dilly ate every last bit of food.  We were worried because she wasn't eating very much when she was left with us, but now she is eating much better, although she usually leaves a little bit of food uneaten (just in case?).

Here is a picture that Jason didn't really want me to use unless I "didn't have anything else that would work."  I did, but here it is anyway.