Memories

Last weekend I went to Saskatoon with my sister, Ruth, and her husband. Spent most of the day with my parents. Had a good visit with all. While in S'toon, my mom mentioned that she had found the bread recipe that she had used the whole time we were growing up. It made either 16 loaves of bread, or 12 loaves and 6 dozen buns.
She used to make up a batch weekly.

While I currently live in a household of two; and most of last year lived in a household of one - and 16 loaves of bread is far beyond my current needs, here's the recipe - for old time's sake.

White Bread - makes 12 loaves and 6 dozen buns.

1 cup warm water
2 tsp sugar
1-2 TLB yeast

Stir sugar into water and add yeast. Let stand 10 min.

4 quarts warm water
1 cup sugar
1 cup oil
10 quarts flour
2 TLB salt
2 cups skim milk powder

There were no other instructions; we knew what to do - just needed the proportions.
If you want to make it with half white, half whole wheat flour, add a little more yeast.

It was good bread, too. And, as mom pointed out, you got good strong arms kneading the dough.

Almost

School is almost over! I'm finished marking all my students' exams, just have to input their final marks into the system. Tuesday is my last day. Grad was yesterday, and it was lovely. The weather was nice too - not too hot and no rain. (To be honest, we had rain yesterday morning, but grad was in the afternoon, so that was ok.)

I experimented this morning, and my hair is almost long enough to put up or to french braid. I'm getting it cut this week, so that will take care of that.

I've been working on a couple of new pieces on the piano. They're almost at the point where I can play through them without annoying myself.

I am almost finished reading the two books I need to have finished for my summer session class. I have almost started writing the papers that go with them. (That's not as strange as it seems. I mentally map out my entire paper before sitting down and writing it. Have always done it that way.)

Rose and I went to the little greenhouse about 2 blocks from our house this week. We bought three raspberry canes (well, two raspberries and one tayberry), a large potted tomato that has tomatoes on it that are almost ready to pick; some swiss chard and some rhubarb. Everything we purchased has something red about it, I see.

Thunder, Lightning and Rain

It's raining out right now; with thunder and lightning. I love the sound - we very rarely had thunderstorms in YK and I love the spooky feeling it gives me. Like it might be dangerous... but not really.

We really didn't need more rain however. I had arranged for the lawn to be mown this afternoon but had to cancel it because it couldn't be done in a rain storm.

Rose is at work, but hasn't been feeling too well. Hopefully she'll be feeling better when she gets to work. I'm to pick her up at 10 pm.

I showed the downstairs apartment this evening. Hopefully they'll take it and I won't have to worry about advertising it. We have another possibility as well - and it's first come first served. There a couple of spots where I'll need to touch up the paint before they move in; and the bathroom ceiling needs to be painted. That's fairly easily done - I think I need to buy the special paint for ceilings though; the paint that doesn't deteriorate in high moisture conditions.

Count down

There are only two more teaching days of school left!!! Grad is next Saturday. Then there's just the windup stuff; getting texts put away, generating a list of books still missing, etc.

I'll be happy to see the end of this year. I had a very challenging class. I had a couple of students missing for most of this past week (and they were the challenging students) and things went so much more smoothly, it was like a night and day difference! One of them was back Friday and yes, we noticed. I've got my final exam made up for the English class I teach, but still have to make up one final for the Christian Ethics class I teach.

There's a group from Cabot, Arkansas, that has come up to volunteer their time at Western every year for the past five years. They've been up this week and I had them over for supper on Thursday. That forced me to get the house cleaned up - this is a very good thing.

I'm planning on going to S'toon with Walter and Ruth today. Walter will insist on driving which means that I can get some reading done for my summer session class. I can also visit with my S'toon family. That's also a good thing.

Rain?

It's not raining today. That probably means that I should mow the lawn this afternoon. Unfortunately I can't get Rose to do it because she's working today. And I can't ignore it until Monday when she's not working, because it desperately needs mowing.

The countdown to the end of the school year is on us. Final exams start June 22, which means that there's only seven more teaching days of school. (Yes, I don't deny it - I am counting the days.) This has been one of my more challenging years and I will be happy to be on the far side of it.

I have my books for my summer session class, and I'm halfway through reading one of them. I need to get them both read and a paper written on each before July 5 - I've got lots of time. Yeah right, I need to get to work on that.

Rose commented to me last night that except for when she was training, she's worked over 20 hours each week at Safeway, so that's a good thing. Much better than her job in Yellowknife. She usually works four days a week. We've been enjoying each other. She's ahead of me right now because she spent her last day off cleaning her room and I need to do that with my room now. (And the rest of the apartment.)

I had my piano recital on Friday. There were 12 of us there - four teachers and our students. Everyone had to perform, even the teachers. We all did fine. It's good to have that over with though, and I'm done with piano lessons until the fall. So last night I started working on my new pieces that we'll be working on in the fall. That was also fun.

I think it's time to get ready for service now.

Thankful in all circumstances

We had a beautiful sunny day yesterday. Finally got my bedding plants in. They're all vegetables. Rose got the lawn mowed. She'd done the back lawn several days ago then mowed the cord, which made it really hard to finish the front lawn. I borrowed a new cord from the Pradzynskis and we got it done last night.

Thanks to all the work on the sewer line, the front lawn's been dug up way too many times. This means that there are way too many dandilions. Rose dug up a bunch after she mowed the cord; had a pile close to knee high - and it didn't seem to make a dent. We have some poison to spray them with, but that's going to wait for awhile.

Today's the annual school camping trip. Last year I tented; this year I'm wimping out. The forecast is for rain, and I'd rather sleep in Marlene's camper than in a tent. I'm sure we'll all have a lot of fun despite the rain.

Unfortunately, I didn't have a rain coat - so went out to the Sears clearance store yesterday on my way home from picking Rose up from work. Got myself one. I figure that's essential for camping. I'm ready to go now.