Inklings

Blog

  • Baking

    Nothing in the glutenous world beats freshly-baked bread. If you’re yearning for that homemade taste, store-bought frozen bread dough will do in a pinch, but I have to say, nothing beats mom’s homemade bread recipe.

    If you’ve never witnessed the making of homemade bread, it’s quite a process. I remember the long hours mom spent mixing all the ingredients in her large black kettle; how she covered it with a flour sack towel (or heating pad) waiting for it to rise; and the violent punching and kneading that was necessary to work it over before forming it into little loaves and buns. All that work she put into it was well worth it and our reward for being ‘helpful’ was a sampling from the first batch.

    Us kids would wait patiently near the oven for the first loaves to come out. As soon as that oven door opened, the intoxicating smells of yeast filled the entire house. After sternly reminding us to stay safely away from the hot pans, she would take a paper towel, swab it with butter and gently rub the golden brown tops of the piping hot bread. Waiting for the bread to cool was the hardest part so we often risked burning our lips to taste what had been teasing our taste buds for so long.

    It’s not often that we get to enjoy mom’s homemade bread but we can usually count on Thanksgiving to get a taste of those incredible buns. They’ve become so popular that she usually doubles her normal batch (half of which always seem to go home with someone very lucky). Maybe, just maybe, we can hope to have homemade buns for Easter this year.

  • Dynamic Duel

    We’ve been reading a new book series to our boys at night – The Extraordinary Adventures of Ordinary Boy. The story centers around superheroes battling supervillains in the city of Superopolis. The main character, ‘O Boy’, is joined by a menagerie of ridiculously named super hero buddies like Halogen Boy, Plasma Girl and Stench to fight as part of LUG (League of Ultimate Goodness). Inspired by the wacky-but-appropriate nomenclature for the book’s heroes we named our dastardly duo – The Antagonizer and Distracta Boy.

    The Antagonizer’s main power is an uncanny ability to zero in on the weaknesses of his opponents before verbally or physically assaulting them repeatedly. It’s important to note that the Antagonizer doesn’t respond well to being antagonized. It just so happens that his kryptonite is being treated like he treats others.

    Distracta Boy has no real notable powers (other than a shrill scream when being attacked directly) but can easily defeat his tormentors by ignoring all forms of communication. If Distracta Boy is ordered to go to his room to make his bed you will find him a half hour later reading books – at the foot of his unmade bed.

    Our little ‘heroes’ spend more time fighting each other than any real villains but have been known on rare occasions to work together to uphold ‘Not Lying, Being Fair and Loving Each Other’.

  • Pen Peeves

    I don’t claim to have a lot of peeves, but here’s one that certainly tops my list… when pens or markers are left uncapped or clicked open. Granted, ink isn’t meant to last forever, but in my opinion the premature death of a good writing utensil is simply inexcusable. If you are using a pen or marker and you choose not to cap it or click it shut you could just as well skip putting it back in the drawer or bin and toss it directly into the trash.

    A lot of my pen peeve frustration stems from having my favorite pens/markers as a kid used by other family members and treated in this way. While I couldn’t break my entire family of this habit I think I’ve got my kids pretty well-trained. With any luck, my drawing pens will live a long, full life making their mark for many more months.

  • Moving

    I’m thankful that I haven’t had to move much in my life. I helped my cousin and his family pack for their move a little today and it’s a lot of work!

    I remember vaguely moving to North Dakota in the middle of January when I was five years old. I didn’t have to do any of the packing but I can still remember how cramped the car was (I remember one of our bigger plants on the floor of the front seat). The weather was terrible and at times seeing the moving truck ahead of us was difficult.

    The next move I experienced was going to college. I packed my life at that point into every open space of my car and relied on my parents to help with the rest. Just when I swore I’d never go through the process of moving again I packed it all back up to move to a new place about a year later. After finishing college I took a job back “home”, so again I packed up my belongings and made the move back. In less than three years I had moved three times. I was ready to settle down.

    Looking back, those moves were easy. The thought of moving now is a lot more stressful. Fourteen years ago I moved into our current home as an engaged bachelor with a lot of the same possessions I had in college: a bed, a desk, a lamp, some mismatched flatware, and some basic kitchen utensils. The house seemed huge then but that was two kids and a wedding ago. Needless to say we’ve acquired just a few things in that amount of time – all of which I don’t wish to move anytime soon.

  • Walking Tall

    Well, it finally happened. Sometime yesterday our oldest son grew up. After weeks of persistent begging, we granted him permission to walk home after school – by himself. Okay, not exactly all by himself (ultimately I think that’s what complicated the decision to allow it).

    He may be a responsible and mature fifth grader, but his little first grade brother is a bit of a… well… he’s a bit of a lallygagger. We live only blocks from the school – a distance the average person can walk comfortably in a matter of minutes, but our littlest one likes to stop and smell the roses – all the roses – along the way. Suddenly that brisk ten minute walk turns into a dawdling twenty minute marathon.

    That wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing except that our oldest likes to stay on somewhat of a schedule (much like his mom). When he gets held up, he gets frustrated and when he gets frustrated he corrects whatever causes that frustration – sometimes forcibly. All we could imagine was our eldest son dragging his little brother screaming bloody murder the whole three blocks home.

    Instead, I’m told, it was quite the opposite. Arriving at the front door roughly ten minutes after school let out was a very proud big brother, smiling ear-to-ear with his little brother happily following a half-step behind him.

    The whole ordeal has been somewhat of a bittersweet rite of passage. We’re proud of the young man our son is becoming but sad to see him grow up so fast. Where did the time go?

  • Belief

    I consider myself a very logical person. If I can’t empirically prove something to be true I become skeptical. What I have to remind myself is that if I choose not to believe something because I can’t prove it (by way of scientific observation) does not make it false. That’s where faith comes in. There’s a lot of knowledge out there that I have the luxury of adding to. The fact that our solar system has eight planets (it’s still hard to get used to that) is nothing I had to observe, test and prove myself. I’m taking it on faith that the scientists that made this recent observation and recorded it as truth are not liars. If I choose to look into the matter and study it further on my own doesn’t make me a skeptic. That’s the inquisitive nature of humanity. What’s prideful in my mind is to suspend belief in anything because I can’t fully subscribe to its validity. I believe that if you’re honestly committed to seeking the truth, you will find it.

  • Courage

    “It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” – Theodore Roosevelt

  • Sitcom Scrubs

    Whenever a television sitcom starring children becomes a runaway success, you can predict a shelf-life of about five years. After that studio execs often attempt to revive dismal ratings by recycling the character formula that made the series a smash in the first place.

    I think back to all the shows I watched as a kid. Shows that started out good, but got worse when the networks rolled out the sitcom scrubs – that crop of younger, cuter characters to relieve the aging stars. Yes, once Bobby Brady, Arnold Drummond and Rudy Huxstable started squeezing pimples they became less appealing, so to amp up the cute, lovable quotient (or so the networks thought) we get Cousin Oliver, Sam McKinney and Olivia Kendall – all characters we’d just as soon forget.

    Heck, even cartoons weren’t off-limits. Once Scooby-Doo made the annoying nephew, the forever crappy, Scrappy-Doo a recurring character I officially grew up. The only thing more painful than watching aging adults recapture their youth is watching television shows try.

    Robbie Rist as Cousin Oliver

  • It’s All Relative

    It’s interesting how kids can be oblivious to the world around them. The things that you would think they would be embarrassed about doing in public don’t even phase them… like throwing a screaming tantrum in the middle of the mall. Other times the most ‘invisible’ thing will become the focus of their self-consciousness… like insisting on wearing non-athletic black shoes with sweatpants because white athletic shoes ‘don’t look good with sweats’ (what?!). I suppose adults can be just as unreasonable at times, but certainly our two worlds seldom are in sync with one another. That’s all part of the fun.

  • I now know where the ‘X’ comes from…

    To take advantage of the beautiful day, we went cross country skiing as a family. It was my first time, and I have to say it’s a lot of fun. Our youngest had a bit more of a challenge ahead of him. It took him a while to get the hang of ‘walking’ with his poles. The poor kid spent a lot of time on his back trying to uncross his skis after falling down. We did manage to complete a 5K in just over two hours. Olympics 2014, here we come!