Lots of good news ...

Good News #1 -- Nichelle graduates from YWAM today. They're going out on a boat for their ceremony, so I hope she has a great time. Of course, I'd love to be there with her. Who wouldn't want to be out on a boat in Maui?

Good News #2 -- Tomorrow Nichelle gets on a plane to begin her trip home. It's been a long six months and I'm sure she'll be happy to get home. What an amazing experience she's had. I can't wait to hear her stories. She's seen so much. I'm sure that has given her a new perspective on things, especially in relation to how much we have in America and how much we take it for granted. We can't wait to see her -- Kitty too!

Good News #3 -- My second picture book, Lemur Troops & Critter Groups is now available to pre-order! It's being printed as we speak, so copies will be available soon. To order a copy, please visit 4RV Publishing, LLC or click on the cover on the right. This would make a great Christmas gift.

Good News #4 -- A friend of ours is getting married tomorrow. Weddings are always good news. This will be the first wedding the boys have attended, so they're excited about it.

Good News #5 -- Nicole will be coming home for Christmas. I think her flight arrives here on December 19th. She's been attending college in Florida and doing really well with that. She's super excited about coming home and seeing her family and friends again.

Have they lost their marbles?

Do you know what an idiom is? An idiom is a phrase, word, or expression that has a figurative meaning. Like taking candy from a baby is an idiom, which refers to something being very easy to do. Face the music is an idiom that means to accept the consequences of your actions. A bad egg is someone who can't be trusted. One of my favorite idioms is -- lost your marbles. To lose your marbles basically means to go crazy, or mad.

I woke up this morning, got myself a cup of coffee, and then came back to bed. I have the same routine every morning -- turn my laptop on, check for earthquakes where Nichelle is, make sure there are no hurricanes are where Nicole is, read my email, check Facebook, and then read the news. Today the news is extra stupid -- people have lost their marbles.

They're trying to ban flat screen TVs in California, saying they use too much energy. Television is important to people and they're not stupid. They'll buy them in other states. I have this image of families sitting in dark rooms, with their curtains pulled tightly closed, watching their flat screen TVs in fear. If that's not stupid enough, in Pennsylvania there is a story about a lady getting complaints about hanging her clothes outside to dry. The neighbors don't want to look at her unmentionables. Here's a tip -- don't look. So, they don't want people using too much energy watching TV and they don't want people saving energy by not using their dryers. Huh? And, if that's not stupid enough, now the USPS is stopping their letters to Santa program. Apparently, one loon back east was a sex offender and they caught him before he could send letters to children. So because of one person, they're stopping the entire thing. I swear, the USPS is becoming an absolute joke. The people at our local, small town office are rude as hell. No wonder people go postal -- err, I mean, lose their marbles!

So, forget about your kids getting a letter from Santa, don't get caught watching TV in your basement, and don't even think about hanging your underwear out to dry! Common sense is being thrown out the window and everyone is going mad. Now, where did I leave my marbles ...

I love this one ...

Such a classic cartoon -- this one always cracks me up. Foghorn is ruthless to that darn dog. Anyway, I woke up with my back spazzing again, which explains why I've spent the morning watching cartoons. I took some Motrin, but it's not helping. I really don't want to take the meds I have for this back stuff, since they'll knock me out and I won't be able to do school. Regardless, I hope everyone has a great day!

Homemade Bread Day

I blogged about this last year -- Homemade Bread Day. I think I posted a recipe for bread using a crock-pot. Click here if you want to see it. That's a weird recipe because you cook the bread right in the crock-pot, not in a pan in the crock-pot. It turned out really good, which surprised me.

But alas, it's Homemade Bread Day once more! What are some of your favorite types of breads? As a kid, my mom always bought white bread, so that's what I grew up on. As I got a little older, she switched to wheat, which is what I prefer now. In fact, I can barely even eat white bread. The boys eat a whole-grain white bread by Franz, which they like a lot. Rick's the big bread eater in the family. He loves sourdough, French, Hawaiian Sweet bread, and more. Give me a really grainy whole-wheat and I'm happy.

Quick breads were always a big deal at my house when I was a kid during the Holidays. My mom was a nurse and they always had Christmas parties at the hospitals she worked at. I remember quick breads being really popular at those. Some of my favorites are banana nut, pumpkin, cranberry, and zucchini. Gingerbread is good this time of year too. Since today is Homemade Bread Day, I wanted to make something, but I'm not sure what. I'm making homemade chili next week, so I'll wait and make cornbread with that. I'll have to see what I can come up with once we're done with school for the day. I might do the crock-pot one, now that I think about it. So anyway, what are your favorite types of breads? Do you make them by scratch? From a box? In the oven? In a bread machine? Or buy them at the store?

Bread is a popular word, if you think about it. I thought it would be fun to list bread terms. Not so much types of bread, but things that relate to the word bread itself. If you think of any others, please feel free post them in the comments. And whatever you do -- have a Happy Homemade Bread Day!

Bread Box

Bread Winner

Bread Maker

Bread Dough

Bread & Butter

Bread Basket

Bread Pudding

Bread Machine

Bread Pan

Flat Bread

Nut Bread

Sweet Bread

Artesian Bread

Wonder Bread

Monkey Bread

Our Daily Bread

Bread Sticks

Bread Crust

Sliced Bread

Bread -- the 70s rock band

Home(made) for the Holidays

I was going to post something yesterday on Facebook about homemade Christmas presents. Then I did a search and found there was a page made for that, but it didn't have much information. So, I thought I'd post about it here and see if anyone has any ideas. I think Christmas will be difficult on a lot of people this year, especially with so many people being out of work. We took a huge pay decrease moving here and Rick doesn't get to work overtime like he used to. I've been looking around for things I can make. I've come up with a few ideas, but wanted to see if anyone else had any as well.

How about you -- will you be making any holiday gifts this Christmas?

I Love To Write Day

Today is the 8th annual I Love To Write Day. Check out their website for more information on who they are and how they got started. According to their site, I Love To Write Day is an opportunity for people of all ages to write something, such as a poem, an essay, a letter to an editor, a short story, start a novel, finish a novel, etc. The possibilities are endless.

Last year the organization signed up over 20,000 schools to participate. We homeschool, so writing is a big part of our day. Getting Neil to write his weekly spelling words is like pulling teeth sometimes, but writing short stories is a piece of cake for him. All four of my kids love to write. Give them a blank notebook and they'll turn it into a book. In fact, Nathan is working on a story right now called Wild, Wild Freaks. He has quite an imagination and comes up with really good story ideas.

As I blogged about recently, my main love are picture books. I love writing them and reading them. I grew up in the 70s and picture books were a lot longer than they are today. Back then, an average picture book could be 1000-1500 words, maybe more. Now the average is 500, sometimes even less. My Dilly books range from 400-600 words. What I read as a child are often referred to today as picture story books because they were so much longer. The current trend is to publish shorter picture books because parents are rushed on time, but still want to read to their children. In addition, some books are shorter to keep the child's interest. I suppose I'm just old-fashioned, because I still love those longer picture books.

Anyway, today is I Love To Write Day, so I think I'm going to work on a story idea that I've had for awhile. It's about an ostrich and a vulture, so it's an interesting combo. I hope everyone else can also make time to write something today, whether it be a poem, story, novel, a journal, a blog entry, or even a simple email to a friend. Have a happy I Love To Write Day!

C is for Cookie ...

Two nights ago I decided to bake a batch of cookies. I posted this on Facebook and got a lot of comments, so I thought I'd post the recipe here today. The recipe I have calls these Cinnamon Sugar Butter Cookies, but they're also referred to as Snickerdoodles. Whenever Rick calls them that, my teeth clench. For some dumb reason, the word Snickerdoodle bugs me. So, I call them Cinnamon Sugar Butter Cookies, which I think sounds better. Regardless, they've always been Rick's favorite cookie, and now it looks like the boys are fans too. They are super easy to make and the best part is that you usually have all the ingredients on hand.

Cinnamon Sugar Butter Cookies

3 tablespoons sugar

1 tablespoon cinnamon

2-1/2 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup brown sugar, packed

1/2 cup sugar

2 sticks butter, softened

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. In a small bowl, combine the 3 tablespoons sugar with the cinnamon. Set aside. In a medium bowl, combine flour, soda, and salt. Mix well and set aside. In a large bowl, blend sugars with an electric mixer on medium speed. Add butter to make a grainy paste. Add eggs and vanilla and mix at medium speed until fluffy. Add the flour mixture gradually to the sugar/butter mixture on low speed until combined. Shape dough into 1-inch balls and roll each ball in cinnamon-sugar mixture. Place on ungreased cookie sheets and bake for 18-20 minutes. Makes about 3-1/2 dozen cookies.

NOTE: I've made these using margarine before and they turned out okay, but the dough is sticky. I've had to drop spoonfuls of dough into the cinnamon sugar mixture and roll it around with a spoon to coat it. They turn out okay, but the dough is easier to work with when you use real butter. These are really good cookies -- simple and easy to make.