So many of the members of the family have been getting a lot of household goods from this downsizing. My grandma was very sweet and sent a lot of her dear plants to me for safe keeping. When I warned her that I'm not always the best with keeping plants alive and thriving, she said she didn't mind. She'd rather they die here at my house, then from being neglected and forgotten at their old house.
And so I inherited a veritable indoor garden. Most are still doing okay. I'm still trying to pay attention and figure out which ones need more water than others. Hopefully this will work itself out soon, a lot of them were in beautiful shape and health when they were brought to my care. My favorite is a citrus tree of some sort. My grandma can't remember if it sprouted from an orange or a grapefruit seed that she experimented with. It's beautiful. As luck would have it, it is also the plant that seems to be having the hardest transition. Some of the bottom leaves are already drying out on the edges, and some others have developed some yellowy spots on them. I'm afraid maybe I was over watering it from giving it too much attention, as it is my favorite. I've toned down the watering and no more new dried out edges have appeared. That's a good sign!
Besides the plants, my grandparents have made a couple trips to my house to drop off some kitchen things for me. I only mentioned that I could use some bowls, and ended up with a microwave, bread machine, lot's of glass dessert bowls, lot's of plastic mixing bowls, a collection of measuring cups, and more. That's all I've picked through so far! One of the boxes is quite large, so I haven't even gotten to the bottom yet.
The microwave has been handy a few times, as mine recently stopped working very abruptly. These last couple days, I've been experimenting with the bread machine. My mom brought over the Operation Manual, which included a collection of recipes to use specifically for the machine. Yesterday I made some yummy buns! I'm not a fan of the loaves that come from bread machines, so I've been sticking more to the recipes that just make dough, then you can take it out of the machine and do something else with it. So, the buns turned out great yesterday, and by lunch today, there was nothing left of the batch!
Today I tried a different recipe, so that I could compare them to each other. I found two recipes that I wanted to try, and luckily, they both needed the dough to be split into two halves anyway, so I decided to kill two birds with one stone and make both out of one batch. I was going to make a 'raspberry braid' and a 'cinnamon-raisin swirl loaf'. Mmmmm!
The dough turned out well. They rolled out well. Assembled well. Rose well. Everything was looking great! Toward the end of dinner, I got the oven ready and popped them in! I love baking, and I love sweet-bread desserts! So I was excited! Although Layla and I had walked over for a little visit at a friends' house earlier in the day, I felt we hadn't had quite enough fresh air yet, so I checked the timer and quickly got Layla and myself ready for a little walk outside. We grabbed the frisbee and headed for the Park!
We had so much fun laughing, running, and generally goofing around! Layla even tied her shoe almost entirely by herself when it came undone, and her face just lit up with self-confidence after she did it! It was so cool to see! I love little growing moments like that! She's the best to play with, ever since she was a little munchkin, you always had to be on your toes around her. She's smart, clever and quirky. In only a couple of frisbee tosses, she had already figured out a few different ways to turn a simple toss into a race between the two of us, or to throw it so that it would hit me in the stomach right when I wasn't looking, or do a frisbee 'bunt' to make me run for it, or make it sail away behind her, or even just toss it in such a way that it's just about close enough for me to get, so I have to scramble and reach for it in obscure ways, meanwhile making me look like quite a silly fool! It's hard to put it in words, but our quick little trip to the Park was magical. We just laughed and laughed and laughed and we both had so much fun trying to trick the other one with our cleverness.
It's so fun, now that she's getting older, it's not just tickles to make her giggle (although that still works like a charm), but it's cleverness, it's thinking outside the box, it's participation and engaging interaction that gets her laughing. I love it!
As much fun as we were having, we had to cut it short to walk back home because our bread treats were in the oven. Regardless of me checking the time and thinking that we'd be back just in the nick of time, and the house smelling fantastic when we walked in the door, when I opened the oven door, our beautiful, delicious treats were very, very dark brown. Not black. But definitely over done. I was disappointed, they were pretty dried out with incredibly thick crusts on them. But I couldn't really mind. If I felt so inclined, I could make it again and again a few times everyday until I got I perfect (which I won't do!), but the memory of playing frisbee in the Park at sunset with my daughter and giggling like crazy people will be with me forever. I know it will. It was just one of those magical moments that stick with you, ready in the back of your mind to always make you smile when you need it. These tender moments are so fleeting, and with Layla's sixth birthday coming up, I'm getting panicky. She's growing up. And sometimes I feel like I can't keep up. There's never enough time in the day to play or cuddle as much as I'd like to. But I'll take what I can get.
And so for tonight, I don't mind a little burnt bread.
No comments:
Post a Comment