I love.

I love sleeping.

I love baking.

I love cats.

I love other people’s dogs. (Mostly.)

I love being outside.

I love the sunshine.

I love nail polish.

I love warm blankets.

I love fire.

I love quaking aspens.

I love long car drives.

I love the leaves in the fall.

I love cherry blossoms in the spring.

I love quiet snowfalls in the dark winter nights.

I love the stars and warm evenings of summer time.

I love lemonade.

I  love strawberries.

I love Jell-O.

I love good food.

I love pasta.

I love a nice medium steak.

I love chocolate chip cookies.

I love Italian Soda.

I love rocks.

I love open spaces.

I love colors.

I love paint.

I love yarn.

I love cloth.

I love the idea of creating with these items and making something beautiful.

I love to crochet.

I love cleanliness.

I love organization.

I love knowing where things go.

I love having direction.

I love my Savior.

I love fellowship in something bigger than myself.

I love silence.

I love being praised.

I love being complimented.

I love being loved.

I love the smell of baking bread.

I love the sound of ticking clocks.

I love my family, even though sometimes I don’t say it.

I love John.

I love having friends.

I love friends who love me no matter what I am.

I love that there are some who know me completely and still think I’m awesome.

I love finding lost friends.

I love finding lost things.

I love warm squishy mud.

I love traveling.

I love Virginia.

I love Washington.

I love Canada, although I have never been there.

I love England, although I have never been there either.

I love Everything British; the Royal wedding, Jelly-babies, my dad.

I love airplanes.

I love road trips.

I love expensive hotels.

I love jewelry.

I love the sparkle of a clean diamond.

I love diamonds.

I love diamonds under track-lighting.

I love rubies.

I love garnets.

I love sapphires.

I love necklaces.

I love rings.

I love the randomness of life.

I love movies.

I love the suspension of reality that is given by stepping into a theater, or turning on a DVD.

I love owning DVDs.

I love action movies.

I love adventure movies.

I love girl movies.

I love Tim Burton movies.

I love Disney Movies.

I love Disneyland.

I love Anime, both as an art form and as a genre of cartoon.

I love Rurouni Kenshin.

I love the Elric brothers.

I love the mythology of Samurai.

I love the violence and the passion that can be filtered into an anime cartoon series that wouldn’t work in any other form.

I love fantasy.

I love stepping into other worlds.

I love the Vampire Diaries.

I love Damon and his crazy eyebrows.

I love the absurdity of the entire story.

I love the fact that above all its about love.

I love watching Doctor Who.

I love The Doctor.

I love the Master even though I shouldn’t.

I love Daleks, they are awesome even though they would like to exterminate me.

I love the TARDIS and would give my soul for a trip through time and space. (Especially with the Doctor.)

I love the idea of time travel.

I love Tom Baker as Doctor #4 and Peter Davison as Doctor #5.

I love the theme song.
I love the different incarnations of the theme song over the years.

I love foreign music.

I love Japanese pop music.

I love that I can’t understand the words, but they make me happy.

I love cultural music.

I love contemporary music.

I love religious music.

I love music with a beat, but I also enjoy the calming stuff.

I love at the moment: Panic! At The Disco, The Perishers, Secondhand Serenade, Ludo, and U2… always U2.

I love the cars that go Boom!

I love music from the 90’s.

I love music from the 80’s.

I love monster rock ballads.

I love the quiet crazy of Pink Floyd.

I love Ewan McGregor.

I love his smile.

I love his moles.

I love Moulin rouge.

I love Come What May.

I love truth, beauty, freedom and love. (Above all else Love.)

I love hearing him sing.

I love Christian Slater.

I love any show he ever appears in.

I love his eyebrows.

I love how sometimes he reminds me of John.

I love his gravely voice.

I love the statement “Greetings and Salutations” that I learned from Heathers.

I love that you’re still reading this, even though I ramble.

I love writing.
I love the idea of being a published author.

I love the stories that fall from my fingers, and the stories I can’t get out of my head.

I love reading other people’s stories, published and unpublished.

I love books.

I love reading YA fiction.

I love reading Fantasy fiction.

I love books made of paper and the musty smell of an old novel.

I love reading.

I love Anne Shirley.

I love being inspired by the words that others want to share.

I love holding a book in my hands and hefting the weight.

I love the look of an organized books shelf.

I love the useless knowledge that comes form filling my head with nonsense.

I love nonsense.

I love the world created by Robert Jordan.

I love werewolves, the big slathery, killing kind.

I love magic in all forms.

I love fairies, and believe in them too.

I love pirates.

I love saying Arrr!

I love puffy sleeved shirts.

I love knowing other people’s dark secrets.

I love that “Rawr” is I love you in dinosaur.

Eating with Liz 2011 - Sandwich Bread

You know that new bread pan I was bragging about not too long ago... well, I still LOVE it. However, my bread recipe (although very yummy) just wasn't working out for sandwich bread. It's too grainy and doesn't hold up well with thin cutting and lunch transportation. So I had to go on a search for a new bread recipe for our sandwiches. That's when I found this recipe from www.KingArthurFlour.com. Sure, you think, a flour company should have great recipes for bread.... and they do.

Dainty Tea-Sandwich Bread

The best bread for thin-slicing is called pain de mie, a butter- and milk-rich loaf baked in a special lidded 13" x 4" x 4" pan. The lid ensures that the baking bread won't expand too much, keeping it very close-grained-and thus totally non-crumbly, and easy to slice.

3/4 cup milk
1 cup lukewarm water
6 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons sugar
1/3 cup Baker's Special Dry Milk or nonfat dry milk
1/3 cup potato flour or heaping 3/4 cup potato flakes
3 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1 1/2 cups King Arthur 100% Organic White Whole Wheat Flour*
2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast

*Use all-purpose flour exclusively, if you like; but believe me, your family will never notice the substitution of a cup of organic white whole wheat flour for part of the all-purpose.

Manual Method: In a large bowl, combine the milk, water, butter, salt and sugar. Add the dried milk, flours and yeast, stirring till the dough starts to leave the sides of the bowl. Transfer the dough to a lightly greased surface, oil your hands, and knead it for 5 to 8 minutes, or until it's smooth and supple. Because of the relatively high fat content of this dough, it's a real pleasure to work with. Transfer the dough to a lightly greased bowl or dough-rising bucket, cover the bowl or bucket, and allow the dough to rise till puffy though not necessarily doubled in bulk, about 1 1/2 hours, depending on the warmth of your kitchen.

Mixer Method: Combine the ingredients as above, using a flat beater paddle or beaters, then switch to the dough hook(s) and knead for 5 to 8 minutes. Transfer the dough to a lightly greased bowl or dough-rising bucket, cover the bowl or bucket, and allow the dough to rise till doubled in bulk, 1 to 2 hours.

Bread Machine Method: Place all of the ingredients into the pan of your machine, program the machine for Manual or Dough, and press Start. When the cycle is finished, remove the dough and proceed as follows. 

Lightly grease a standard (13 x 4 x 4-inch) lidded pain de mie pan. Transfer the risen dough to a lightly greased work surface, shape it into a log, and fit it into the pan. Flatten the top as much as possible. Cover the pan with lightly greased plastic wrap, and allow the dough to rise until it's about 1/2-inch below the lip of the pan, about 45 minutes.

Carefully slip the cover onto the pan, and let it rest an additional 15 minutes while you preheat your oven to 350°F. Bake the bread for 25 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven, carefully remove the lid, and return the bread to the oven to bake for an additional 10 to 15 minutes, until it's golden-brown on top and tests done; an instant-read thermometer inserted into the center will register 190°F. Remove the bread from the oven, and turn it out of the pan onto a rack to cool completely. For a soft, flavorful crust, brush the loaf with melted butter while warm. Yield: 1 loaf.

*

I also found THIS blog post visually helpful for using the Pullman (pain de mie) pan for this bread.

*

I made this bread last night since we are running low on last weeks loaf. I'm not sure what went wrong with this one. I'm sure there are many factors.

Problem 1: I didn't start making it until after 7:00 pm. Using the actual raising times and baking and settling blah blah blah it would have taken me until after 10:00 pm to be done. I can't stay up that late.

Problem 2: I didn't have any Potato Flour, or Potato Flakes. I apparently missed that line in the recipe when I read it through 1,000 times before my last trip to the store. I did however have some potato pearls that I popped into the food processor to break down their pearly-ness. I think they worked okay. (But, as is the case with food processors, while grinding/chopping/pulverizing stuff, the spinning of the blades heats up the item being processing and can change the flavor of the given item. Just so you know.) I'll get one of the other items at the store next time.

NOTE: I don't own any King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour. I just have regular Whole Wheat Flour and I only used 1/2 a cup in this recipe. I've been cutting down the amount of Wheat Flour I have been adding to my breads, I'm not 100% pleased with the wheaty-grainy-ness of it. I may have to look into different wheat flours when I run out of this bag... maybe King Arthur is the way to go. also, I have considered adding Flax Seed to the bread for protein, but I'm not that much of a health nut yet.

Problem 3: My house was COLD last night. I also apparently didn't have warm enough water... the Yeast didn't activate and the dough didn't rise after an hour and a half. Then, by the time I finally put it into the pan it was a quarter after nine and I didn't want to wait another 45 minutes for it to rise again once in the bread pan. Ugh! So I didn't. Next time, I'll make sure the water is 100 - 115 degrees F which is the ideal liquid temperature for yeast. I'll probably warm the milk too.

Outcome: The bread only rose to fill a little over half the pan. I ended up with a 13x4x3 in loaf. But it is mighty tasty. The bread, without it's proper rising times, came out really thick and heavy. I cut off a few thick pieces for breakfast this morning and loved it. It would have been especially yummy if I had had some butter, or honey, or jam to go with it, but as it was we were running late so all I got was plain bread. I think I'll have some more with dinner tonight. But as for being "sandwich bread" useful... not so much. I'll have to make another loaf before we can have sandwiches again.

I guess I'll have to convince John to take me to the store on the way home from work tonight so I can try again tomorrow while he's working late.

 

FYI - I bought my Pullman pan (with the lid) for $25 on Amazon. Or, it looks like you can buy the same pan form the King Arthur Flour site for $39.95... whatever, you choose.

The DVD Player....

What have we been watching lately? I don't remember when the last time I posted one of these blogs was so I'm not sure how far into our viewing history I need to go back. Our "watched" pile is getting bigger as the days go by, I'm not sure what I'll remember, but I'll give it a try.

 

Doctor Who: Series 1 - The Ninth Doctor and Rose

Doctor Who: Series 2 - The Tenth Doctor and Rose

Doctor Who: Series 3 - The Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones

 

Angel: Season 2

Buffy: The Vampire Slayer: Season 4

 

The Invention of Lying

Nick and Norah's Infinite Play List

 

I think that may be it...

Words, words, words..

My friend Michelle blogged about her new-found love of books and reading, and it kind of inspired to me to blog about my age old love of the written word.

I don’t ever really call reading one of my “hobbies” because it is just something that I have always done. It’s a part of my life that I don’t remember ever not doing. I grew up in a house full of books.

I read because I love it. I have had such great examples of readers throughout my life.

Dad read the encyclopedias for fun, and he had a musty old stack of paperbacks in his closet. They’re probably still there. The library was always there and I could choose any book I wanted to read. It was also right in my direct path home from school so I’d often stop there and pick out a new book before crossing main street for the last half of my walk home. I could read and walk at the same time. Probably not the safest thing to do, but the world was a different place when I was growing up. It’s weird sometimes to say that, thinking that I am only 32 and it wasn’t that long ago that I was a kid, but the world really is a different, darker and less trusting place… but that is a topic for another day. This is about books.

In Second grade my teacher gave me a book at the end of the year. My very first copy of Alice in Wonderland. I still have it. It’s tattered and yellowed from the years of love, but I have it. I remember Mrs. K told me that I was the best reader, and inside my shiny new book was a shiny $1.00 bill. Mrs. Karadeema fueled my love of books. Periodically over the years, from the time I left second grade to the time I was in High School, I’d stop in at Kaysville Elementary and see her. She always remembered me, and was happy to talk to me, and we always talked about books. She was the best teacher ever. I don’t recall another teacher in my 13 years of education that ever inspired me to read more then her. She retired from teaching several years ago.

My dad has handed me several books over they years. Books about religion, mysteries, histories, pictures, genealogy, poetry… When I was older I remember reading the first book I ever loved. It is called Banner in the Sky by James Ramsey Ullman. I read it in 4^th or 5^th grade and it impressed me enough that I never forgot about it. I bought it a few years ago

After that books came and went that I loved and didn’t love. Books I bought and books I never want to see again. It’s a bit of an obsession with me I suppose. I have been buying my favorite books since I got my first job in high school... so I have a lot. My book collection has spilled over the confines of my book shelves making piles of books in almost every room of my house. John hates it, but what can I do. I'm a reader. I tell him to read this book or that book, but they're mostly YA romance and he's not really into that sort of thing.

Several years ago, I joined a book community online. The website is Goodreads.com. I used to just pick and choose books by their covers at the library or at Barnes & Noble. But with Goodreads I can see what people I know are reading and also what the authors I love are reading too. That makes it fun.  
It is here that I can connect to other readers, lovers of books, and authors. Which is cool I have 412 books on my “read” list on goodreads.com, but I don’t think that  covers all of the books I have ever read… I’m sure there are hundreds more that I just can’t remember the titles of.  I'd suggest that if you're a book fan, or if you want some suggestions of what the people you know are reading, you should go join Goodreads.com. I'll be your friend. :)

I read an article the other day that said that book ownership is an indicator of education levels. The more books you have in the home, the more likely your children will be to finish their education. I hope someday, that the amount of books in my home will inspire my future generations to be better readers and to seek learning. That would be awesome.

Currently my favorite style of books is YA fiction. I don’t know what it is about the young adult books that captivates me. Is it the silly first love stories, the “that never really happens” aspect of it, the feelings, the realness of the problems, the relevance of their issues to not just YA audiences, but to me too… I don’t know, but they caught me.

My current favorite YA series/author --  Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater. The story of a girl and a boy and the werewolf between them. It’s a trilogy. Shiver, Linger, and Forever. Forever comes out in July 2011. I have really enjoyed reading there books. The story is good, the characters are believable, and the writing is really good. (I’m a bit jealous of writers and their ability to write the way a person really speaks. I have a few hang ups on this so I’m a little behind in my writing career.) I really do recommend this series to everyone I know who would love them. I don’t even want to admit how many times I have listened to the audio versions of the first two books.

Also, speaking of YA series’, I also really enjoyed The Luxe series by Anna Godbersen. I suggest these for people who enjoy good historic coming of age novels.

I also love the genre of Fantasy. My favorite series in this category is The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. He passed away in September 2007 and the books are being completed by Brandon Sanderson. I’m not a huge fan of his work but if he gets these books done then, good for him.) I have been reading them since 1995 (at least.) I’m ready for the series to end, but I think I’ll miss them when there is nothing else to look forward to. By the time the series wraps up (hopefully this fall) there will be 14 books to this series. These are some heavy duty books and there is a lot to remember and keep track of throughout the series, but the over all picture is worth it. I’ve gotten a lot of my family to read these ones… Thanks, Richard McGee, for getting me hooked.   

Other author’s I have come to really enjoy: David Gemmell, Madeline L’Engle, Lemony Snicket, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Lewis Carroll, Baroness Orczy, Mary Higgins Clark, Richard Peck, Lucy Maud Montgomery, William Shakespeare, Dr. Seuss, Edgar Allan Poe, Judy Bloom, Shel Silverstein … and so many, many others it’s hard to name them all.

I guess what I'm rally trying to get at is that... I LOVE BOOKS. There are so many books out there that I have yet to discover and have their pages flipped through my hands. I can't wait to pick up the next book in this ongoing adventure.

Hmmm... what should I read next?

Stay the Same

Oh my! I'm back with my CD selection of the week... and yes, I realize that today isn't Friday, but I realized that I have a ton of half started, unfinished blog posts in my out box that need a little attention. So lets get back to this without further ado:

 

Stay The Same

   Joey McIntyre

 

All I Wanna Do

Because Of You

Couldn't Stay Away

Give It Up

I Can't Do It Without You

I Cried

I Love You Came Too Late

Let Me Take You For A Ride

One Night

Stay The Same

The Way (that I Loved You)

We Can Get Down

Without Your Love

 

 

I think this album came to me as a bit of a joke. My eldest brother bought me the single of stay the same on a whim because he knew how much I loved the New Kids on the Block... and especially Joey. Stay the Same is Joey McIntyre's first solo debut album, released on March 16, 1999. The single for this album was the song "Stay the Same" it's a bit of an inspirational ballad that talks about how you're perfect just the way you are.... I'm sure Norm didn't know it at the time, but I really needed to hear this song. At the time all my friends were moving, going on missions, getting married... and I wasn't doing anything. I desperately wanted to be different. I wanted to be doing something with my life but I felt like it was all just on hold for no reason. I wasn't sure I liked who I was and I was pretty sure that no one loved me back. Then, one day, out of the blue my brother gave me this single and it changed everything. I listened to it, and I cried, and I listened to it some more and loved it. And I think Joey taught me a lesson that I really needed to hear at that time in my life. Believe in yourself. You are special just the way you are. Don't change. You're perfect just the way you are. I know the CD was non-regulation mission music, but I took this single with me when I went to serve in the Washington DC South Mission, and I'm glad I did. There were times, and companions that ripped me to shreds and made me think that I wasn't worth spit, and when I'd feel low and unworthy, I'd turn on this little off the plan song and I'd be okay again.

Eventually I did buy they entire album. I don't recall if that purchase was made before, or after the mission, because the rest of the music didn't have as big of an impact on my soul. The album is made up mostly of 90's Pop love ballads. (Which I do love.) Joe McIntyre has a great voice for belting out this type of tune. The rest of the songs on the album are great and worth listening to. Some of my favorites on the album are: I Cried, The Way (that I Loved You), Because of You, and I Love You Came to Late. I realized that I only have a few of them on my iPod and may need to reshuffle some music to add Joey back into my listening library... but Stay the Same is on there. I don't think I'll ever not love this song.

Thanks for bringing Joe back into my life Norm. You really have no idea how much it changed me for the better and how those words, and that song have helped me through the hard times. Thank you for being such a great brother.

 

Stay the Same – Joe McIntyre

 

Don't you ever wish you were someone else,
You were meant to be the way you are exactly.
Don't you ever say you don't like the way you are.

When you learn to love yourself, you're better off by far.
And I hope you always stay the same, cuz there’s nothin' 'bout you I would change.

I think that you could be whatever you wanted to be
If you could realize, all the dreams you have inside.
Don't be afraid if you've got something to say,
Just open up your heart and let it show you the way.

Don't you ever wish you were someone else,
You were meant to be the way you are exactly.
Don't you ever say you don't like the way you are.

When you learn to love yourself, you're better off by far.
And I hope you always stay the same, cuz there's nothin' 'bout you I would change.

Believe in yourself.
Reach down inside.
The love you find will set you free.
Believe in yourself, you will come alive.
Have faith in what you do.
You'll make it through.

 

Don't you ever wish you were someone else,
You were meant to be the way you are exactly.
Don't you ever say you don't like the way you are.

When you learn to love yourself, you're better off by far.
And I hope you always stay the same, cuz there's nothin' 'bout you I would change.

 

Don't change.