Give us this day our daily bread...

Wow! I baked bread today and MAN, was it good! This is a sweet bread...one of those suckers that weighs about 7 pounds when you take it out of the oven. It comes from the Benedictine monk, Dominic Garramone, who had his own PBS show for a time: Breaking Bread with Father Dominic.

The show is on hiatus, but I did catch it from time and time, and the guy's got an absolute knack not only for bread but for just oozing friendliness. (There's an article about him in the St. Anthony Messenger. )

At any rate, this recipe was floating around the internet and I snagged it and baked a batch...just rolled it up in a ball, let it rise, and locked it up in the oven for 20 minutes. I guarantee that this bread, a bit of jam, and a piece of fruit (and potentially a glass of milk) are absolutely all you need for lunch. And it should hold you for about three days afterward, too!

I adored this bread, but the kids weren't as crazy about it as I was. Maybe it's just my revulsion to Sarah Lee's new white bread...they used to have a decent Honey White bread, but took that off the market. Now they have some kind of "whole grain white bread" (whole grain, my ass!) that has the texture of toilet paper and the consistency of cotton batting. Bleech! So my plan was to get over to the Great Harvest Bread Company to get some decent bread, but I never did make it, and instead I put King Arthur to work.

I obviously highly recommend this...set aside two hours before you'd like warm bread from the oven and give this a try. I take no responsibility for what this might do to your diet, dental health, or hips.

Father Dominic Garramone's Basic Sweet Dough

(Yield: 1 recipe of dough)

3-1/2 to 4 cups of Hodgson Mill Naturally White Flour, divided
1 pkg. Fleischmann's RapidRise Yeast
1 tsp. salt
1 cup half-and-half or light cream
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 egg, beaten
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Sift 2 cups of flour, yeast and salt into a large mixing bowl; stir until well blended.

Place half-and-half, butter and sugar in a saucepan; heat until butter is nearly melted. Let cool to 120 to 130 degrees.

Add half-and-half mixture to flour mixture; beat well. Add egg and vanilla; stir until blended. Add 1 cup flour; stir until thoroughly incorporated. Gradually add enough of the remaining ½ to 1 cup flour to make a soft dough that is rather sticky.

Turn out dough onto a lightly floured surface. Knead 3 minutes, or until the dough is a consistent texture. Form into a ball, place loaf onto a lightly-greased baking sheet, cover with a slightly damp towel and let rise in a warm, draft-free place 45-55 minutes, or until nearly doubled.

About 15 minutes before end of rising time, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake loaf 20 to 25 minutes, or until lightly browned. Use large spatulas to remove loaf from pan and place it on a wire rack to cool.

Or just stuff the whole thing into your Nursey-Mouth. Your choice.

Cemetery Innacuracies

While looking for my grandmother's birth date, I stumbled on a website listing the alphabetical names on the tombstones in Franktown Cemetery. They had, I believe, an error. They attributed Baby June to Paul and Esther, not Isabel and Thomas Barnes. Right now, here's how the record stands:

BARNES FAMILY
Barnes Esther Matilda Dietrich
b. 11/0?/1895
d. 1964
Notes: Marr.to Paul S. Barnes, 04/18/1918

Barnes Isabel Wertin
b. 1907
d. 1996
Notes:

Barnes June Belle
b. 05/18/1939
d. 05/29/1939
Notes: Aged 6 das. 2 hrs./son of Paul & Esther Barnes

Barnes Paul S.(Stevens)
b. 07/09/1896
d. 03/26/1977
Notes: Wf.of Esther Mitilda Dietrich & mother of Roy A. Barnes

Barnes Roy A.(Arnold)
b. 10/18/1923
d. 10/29/1923
Notes: Son of Esther & Paul S. Barnes

Barnes Thomas W.
b. 1902
d. 1976
Notes: Brother of Paul S. Barnes

Barnes Winifred V.
b. 1925
d. 1925

From what I see here, we have two brothers, Paul and Tom.Paul marries Esther and two of their babies (Roy and Winifred) die in infancy.

Tom marries Isabel, and their last baby (June) dies at nine days old in 1939.
The two brothers, their wives, and their infants are buried together.

Because of the inaccurate note on June's tombstone, I wrote the person keeping the records. She writes back:

"I couldn't get the old timers to help me with the cemetery listings. When Lee Willis and his cousin inherited the cemetery when their uncle and dad died, they couldn't find any records. I decided to help him put the information back together for them. I also figured if I was doing all that work I might as well do the historic land marking work as well. After 4 years of work it was land marked by Douglas Co. last summer. I will transcribe what I had written about the Barnes family and maybe you can fill me in. Sometimes it just takes something like a web site to get out of state families involved.

"The Barnes family was particularly hard to research. There were three families in the 1930 census; Paul S. Barnes and his wife Esther M. with one child living in Case CO. (I believe she was living with the Schreiber family), Ara Asa Barnes and his wife Lillian S. with five children living in the Case area, George D. Barnes and his wife Annie with two children in Franktown. A cording to the Obit. of Paul Steven Barnes, it notes he was born July 9, 1896 in MO, and died Mar. 26, in 1977 in Castle Rock, CO. Paul was preceded in death by his wife (Ester), and one son Roy A. Barnes, and two brothers Thomas and Ray Barnes, and two sisters; Blallnche and Mary. That accounts for four of the Barnes burials; Paul, Esther, Roy A. and Thomas. The records of the other three burials were not found. Burials of infants are difficult to document, since birth are not necessarily announced, or the deaths if they occurred quickly after birth. Isabel Wertil Barnes still has to be researched."

If you have any idea about where anyone is buried could you let me know. I also have the obit of Paul Barnes if you would like me to send it to you via e-mail. Also I took pictures of all the headstones that I could find. Since I did this work it has drawn attention of the neighbors who have done a lot of trimming of the bushes and shrubs, and I believe there are more out there."

So of course now I need to ask the remaining Barnes family if they know the answers to any of these questions. I'd ask dad, but he's already gone...pretty soon the whole family history is going to slide off into obscurity if it doesn't get recorded!

Cat UPdate

The vet called this morning and said that Addison was doing ok so far, despite a small fever. They're going to try and feed him sometime this afternoon.

I got up early today and apparently hit the discount store at just the right time. They were stocking the toy shelves as I arrived, and I got a couple of items that I couldn't even find online, so I'm quite happy about THAT!

I also hit the grocery store and got stuff for lunch for the next few days. Such excitement.

When I got back, Lauren was up out of bed and in tears since she couldn't find her mommy. Poor thing. (Daddy just isn't sufficient, I guess!)

I got all the holiday cards addressed and signed, so I'll have to put those in the mail later today...David has a dentist appointment at 3 p.m., Lauren has dance at 4:30 and David has karate at 6 p.m. (This means I spend, on average, 2 hours at the rec center every Thursday. You'd THINK I'd get more done, wouldn't you?)

We're also taking the school break to work on David's handwriting. He hasn't been doing very well with it to begin with, and now he's starting to make up how to write letters. That wouldn't be so bad if the letters were correct, but he's writing a "4" like half a swastika, and his "2" is just a wiggly line. Hmmmm.

Cat Scrubs

Addison is out of surgery now. Supposed to come home on Friday. Which, of course, is the day we're leaving for Evansville.

I should probably start over.

Addison started horking up his lungs a couple of days ago. After running the SpotBot eight times or so, I called the vet. They gave me the equivalent of kitty laxative and some antibiotics, seeing as his blood count was a little off and he was running a fever. He came home and then blorked up the meds.

We'd been racking our brains as to what he could have gotten into (no pesticides, no ribbons...what COULD he have gotten? String?) and I finally tumble to the fact that there's a piece of foam he'd been chewing on. Addison has an absolute LOVE AFFAIR with foam.

I got the kids these little, magnetic foam blocks that stick together and you build castles and crap like that. Addison adores the blocks, and chews them to absolute pieces, swallows them, and horks them back up again. He'll even sneak in while you're building with the blocks and try to swipe one when you're not looking. This is definitely a thing for him.

About a year ago, we got sick of the cat trying to eat the blocks and of the kids not picking up the blocks, so I gathered them all up and swept them into a big freezer bag, which then went to sit on the top shelf of my closet.

Well...it would seem that Addison found one. And chewed it. To bits. The only way he could have gotten one has to be from David's closet. Once we redid the closet and put the shelves in, I bet we shook the block loose from its hiding place, allowing Addison to find it a couple of weeks later.

So I got an identical whole block from the bag, and took the chewed piece and the cat back to the vet. We were all willing to bet we knew his problem now.

The did a barium swallow and took X-rays and indeed the idiot seemed to have an intestinal blockage. The only to get that out, of course, is to slice him open and dig around in there and cut it out.

He got out of surgery around noon. He seems to be groggy, but fine. We'll be on payment plans for months to come. ("Kids, I'd like you to consider Addison to be your Christmas present this year. And Passover. And Easter. For about the next two years.") To say that Doug is ballistic is understating it. Not unwarranted, seeing as this is our second major surgery for the same *(^%! cat AND Sasha decided a week's stay at the Cat Spa would improve his health. EVERYBODY CAN NOW STOP IT!!!

So now we're supposed to head to E'ville on Friday, the same day at the cat gets back. The only saving grace here is that the vet tech is actually slated to be our catsitter while we're gone. I offered letting Doug and the kids go for Xmas so that I could stay home with the cat, but this was quickly struck down as Not Possible. I'm still debating on that. Depends on how well Addison's doing before I totally decide.

You want a cat?

Sleeping Beauty

Lauren isn't getting enough Mommy time, for whatever reason. She's exceedingly clingy, particularly at night, and has developed the fun trick of getting up at 4 or 5 a.m., coming into mom's room and wedging herself between her parents. I personally don't give a whit...she's generally cold, and in my opinion, she snugs in bed and falls back asleep as fast as I do. Doug takes a more grim view of the situation.

In fact, to hear him tell the tale, Lauren comes in and throws flaming torches on the bed, wreaking havoc and destruction. She then spends the next four to five hours in mild distraction, somehow shoving a grown man out of bed and causing him to cease sleeping entirely. When the toddler wakes up in the middle of the night, it's Daddy's incessant whining and crabiness the next day that I can't stand.

So, in an effort to give her a little more Mommy time, I decided to sleep with her on Friday night. Dad got out the inflatable mattress and we set it up on her bedroom floor. She was thrilled, and I was amazed that I could actually fall asleep at 10 p.m.

The only real downside was that (A) she figured I was her personal concierge, and that I'd be getting up all night to give her drink refills, and (B)...well, I'm not used to going to bed that early. After just six hours of sleep I woke up and stayed awake. I knew it would be suicidal to try and get up at 4 a.m., so I quietly stared up at the ceiling for another hour until I just couldn't take it anymore. I HAD to get up.

This didn't go over very well, and ended up with Lauren getting up several times and trying to come down to my office, where I was trying to get some work done. That didn't go over very well, either.

I think the net results was the discovery that sleep gotten in before midnight seems to be far more restful than that gotten after midnight, and that Lauren was far too excited to have Mom there to sleep deeply at any point. She was still in bed at 11 a.m. that morning, catching up from her excitement.

Visual Update

OK, now this is a little more regional. It's a photo of the Missouri River, instead of an anonymous lighthouse somewhere. (There aren't many lighthouses in St. Louis. Trust me.)

Universal Love

I found out today that one can upgrade Adobe Creative Suite across platforms. This is very, very exciting! It means that when I switch over to Mac, I won't have to shell out full price for the latest version of Creative Suite. This is good news...like $700 good news.

Speaking of which, I'm reading rumors of a second-quarter release date for CS3, which has (or will have, so help their bottom line) Universal Binary (insert trumpet blast here). Intel Macs now running CS or CS2 for Mac must run under (shudder) Rosetta, which means that you might as well sketch out all your ideas using an inkless pen, as it would actually reduce your work hours and improve productivity.

So in addition to a new Intel Mac and the CS3 package, go ahead and add a Wacom Intuos Tablet to my insanely pricey wish list. (Might as well, right?) As long as you're at it, this is the absoulte coolest, the Wacom Cintiq. This bad boy lets you work directly on your screen with the pen...its pressure sensitive and everything.

I may need a cigarette.

Shelved

We unbelievably got another project started and finished today. We took the unused side of David's closet and put up three shelves along the back and side. This allows him to empty out his toy box and put the stuff up where he can FIND it. I found about six pieces of his Buzz Light-year play sets which he was sure he'd lost, and four more Star Wars items. (For those keeping count, he's got the Galactic Heroes series of SW stuff. There seem to be dozens of ''flavors.'') We also pulled out a few of his cars he hadn't seen in awhile...so all in all, he's really liking this so far. The next step is to get containers with lids for all this stuff so that he need only grab a container off the shelf in order to dump, play, and return.

In the Great Container Search I ran across a cache of the Star Wars characters David aches for. They're at Wal-Mart, and the big question will be which one(s) grandma gets him and which ones we can pick up. And grandma was talking about getting Lauren a vanity...I saw a kick-butt kids vanity at Target. Sigh. I am always so incredibly behind at Christmas, it's unreal.

And speaking of unreal, David's quarter collection has now gotten to the point where he's only missing South Dakota. The rest won't be minted until 2007 and 2008, so he'll just have to wait it out. (Much to his dismay.).

Money!

David is now apparently all about money.

He's gotten quite into it, identifying all the various denominations of coins and bills, and he announced to me the other day that he's decided he wants a "money party" for his next birthday.

I'm not too sure what that means, exactly...he's pretty convinced that it means "everyone should give me money, so I can have a $100 bill!" (This is as high as he can count, so this is the most money he can possibly think of receiving.) He's unclear as to exactly what he would do with it, or how much that really is worth, or anything else. He's pretty much just entranced with the whole concept of money as a whole. And of having a job to earn money.

This isn't an easy thing for a parent to decide...how old should a kid be in order to receive an allowance? How much is a decent amount without going overboard, and how much is too little so that the kid won't care about it? Does the kid get an allowance simply be virture of being a kid, or for doing his chores? Does he then expect payment for the slightest thing, or refuse to pitch in and help unless there's a reward? Are you making him too money-driven? Is he expected to do chores in the house simply because he lives there and pitches in to help the family? What special chores can a five year-old reasonably be expected to perform?

I expect him on a regular basis to keep up with school, pick up his toys, clean his room, set the table, clear his own dirty dishes and sometimes do his own laundry. He often wants to do more, like gather up the cat dishes from the rest of the house for washing, to load parts of the dishwasher and start it, and anything having to do with cooking. I had him stem a bunch of grapes the other day, which really WAS a big help. Sometimes he stems mushrooms for me, but there's not much more I can think of for him to do. He's desperate to earn money, but I have no idea what he can do to earn cash. ??

I've seen some stuff on the web...Money Savvy Generation has a decent-looking kid fiscal program. They have a very cute, four-chambered piggy bank that not only gets kids thinking about saving and spending, but also donating and investing. Pretty lofty concepts for little kids, but they're supposed to use goal-setting and some stickers to help make it more concrete. Hmmm.