SQT: Monster pita, blueberries, and preschool planning

It is Friday, and I am posting my Seven Quick Takes this week, by George. Why do we say George? Google probably knows...

I

Falafel for supper tonight. They're so good! I don't know why I don't make them more often. Since it was cool and not smoky outside, I made my own pita this morning instead of buying it; pita bakes at 500 F, so if we can't have the door open, it really heats up the house! Most of the pita turned out just like commercial pita. There were one or two that came out completely flat, no pocket, and then there were two of these monsters:

Definitely no trouble fitting the falafel into that pocket!

II

This has been an unseasonable summer. Unseasonably hot. Unseasonably cool. Unseasonably smoky. Unseasonably precipitous. This part of Alaska is classed as a desert because of how little precipitation we receive, and yet we've had thundering downpours almost daily for the last week. Yesterday afternoon as I was heading in to town, water was running across the road and the rain was coming down so hard you could hardly see even with the windshield wipers on high. And some crazy people didn't even have their lights on! In gray vehicles! I just can't even... Okay, I'm sure some people just forgot, I've certainly done that, but probably close to a quarter of the cars on the road didn't have headlights on.

III

A bunk bed is admittedly not the easiest bed to put fitted sheets on, but the other day Matt was having more trouble than usual: he'd get one corner on, and another would pop back off.

Little Bear: "Daddy, do you know how to do that?"

Matt: "Yes, I do." It happens again.

Little Bear: "You do, or you don't?"

IV

Last Saturday the whole family went out blueberry picking, out in the middle of nowhere about a half hour north of town. I called my mom before we left to make sure I knew how to get to our spot, and the directions she gave me were literally, "Turn at the parking area. Take a left; I don't know if it's the first left, but you'll recognize it. Go down that road father than you think you have to, then turn into the spot. You won't have any trouble finding it, don't worry."

She was right: we found it just fine. We parked up what I thought was a four-wheeler trail and Matt thought was a perfectly passable road for the jeep; I closed my eyes, and he was right. There were so many berries! Some areas were picked over, but when we got into a clearing there were a good many patches that were more blue than green.

Kit slept on me in the wrap for a while, but after nursing and getting changed decided that she was NOT going back in that thing. She lay happily on the folded-up wrap for a while, but when I disappeared from her line of sight, she was all done. She and I walked slowly back to the car while Matt and Little Bear even more slowly picked their way over. We wound up with a couple quarts of berries, plus just enough for blueberry pancakes the next morning.

After carefully putting the berry buckets in the back of the car, we took a quick walk over to a rocky outcropping my siblings and I played on as kids. Getting to go play in the woods or climb on the rocks was the prize we were all working toward for filling our buckets. Matt and Little Bear climbed up the back side of the outcropping... It's so fun to see them exploring places together that I grew up with.

V

Kit, at six weeks old, is rolling over (front to back). I wanted to call it a fluke the first time or two that it happened, but she's done it seven times in the last week, so... I don't think she actually knows how she's doing it yet, but she's definitely strong enough to get off of her stomach.

VI

"Mama, look! A seven!"

The last couple of things I wanted to use with Little Bear for this coming school year came in the mail yesterday, and he absolutely cannot understand why I'm saying that we aren't going to use them for another couple of weeks. "But school, Mama! Let's do school!" Anything to do with letters or numbers, this boy is all over it. I finally gave in to the overly-excited-about-homeschooling voice in the back of my head this afternoon and sketched out the subjects we're going to cover, the primary materials we'll be using, and how frequently I hope to touch on each. That last category will be completely subject to change depending on Little Bear; he's only three, and I don't feel any need to push "doing school" more often than he wants to right now.

VII

The preschool plan as of today:

Religion: I'm shooting for one chapter a week, plus coloring pages, activities, or special foods for feast days. Using Pre-K Religion for Young Catholics, Catholic coloring books, my A Continual Feast cookbook, and random supplemental books and stories.

Literacy: As often as he asks, so at the current rate, up to seven days a week. Using Early Literacy for Young Catholics, Little Folks' Letter Practice, and Little Stories for Little Folks (not all of them at once), plus reading books with him daily, trying to make it to preschool storytime at the library at least once a month, and printing off pages from www.worksheetfun.com when he just really wants to keep tracing letters.

Numbers/Math: Same schedule as Literacy. Using Little Folks' Number Practuce and more pages from www.worksheetfun.com, plus encouraging counting and using numbers in things he's already doing, like helping in the kitchen.

Visual Discrimination & Fine Motor Skills: I don't anticipate pulling out the book for this more than once a week, once he has other types of school to be doing, though he's wanted to look at it almost daily this week. Using Visual Perceptual Skill Building as a text, but he'll certainly also be working on this with puzzles, coloring books, and helping me cook.

Science: One chapter and/or one experiment with Matt per week; if he's really excited about something we read about or they do, we'll look for books about it at the library. Using Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding and two books of PreK-1 level experiments, Earth Science and Earthquakes. Going for walks in the woods, helping me cook (he really likes cooking, I promise I'm not just using "doing school" as a tool to get more help in the kitchen!)... Even just giving simple explanations of how an appliance works or why things fall when you throw them.

If you have preschoolers or homeschool, have you planned out your year yet? How structured do you keep school with littles? Like I said, we're not really taking things too seriously this year, but I'm so excited to be finding books I like and figuring out what we're going to be doing, from the position of parent/teacher for the first time instead of student!

Have a good weekend! Stop on by This Ain't The Lyceum, where in a complete coincidence Kelly is talking about a really great-sounding elementary to middle school Bible curriculum today, for more quick takes.

And Google doesn't know why we say George. Almost every search result I looked at gave a different answer!

Calico Beans

It has been forever, and I'm sorry; it seems like I never use the computer anymore. Baby Kit, Little Bear, and keeping up with the cooking/baking/housekeeping takes up the whole day, and even on nights when Kit falls right to sleep, I just have no brain to write. But you're finally getting a post out of me tonight, courtesy of this sleepy little fashionista:

A.k.a. Big brother picked out my clothes today.

...and Dwija's linkup for quick and easy slow cooker meals, because typing out a recipe is something I can manage even with so very little brain tonight.

I just made calico beans for supper on Monday, so there was no question when I saw the prompt: they're simple, delicious, and kept Little Bear happily engaged in the kitchen helping me measure things instead of tearing the living room apart! It's a winner.

Calico Beans

1 lb ground beef (or moose, caribou, venison, etc)

1 can kidney beans

1 can great northern beans

12 oz frozen green beans

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 cup ketchup

1 tablespoon vinegar

2 teaspoons yellow mustard

Half an onion, diced

Brown the ground beef and drain off fat. Combine all ingredients in the slow cooker. Cover and cook on High for 3-4 hours or in Low for 5-6 hours.

Voilà, supper! I usually serve it with cornbread or corn muffins, but it's definitely filling enough all by itself. Little Bear is going through a ridiculous "I don't like beans" phase right now, but he didn't do too badly with it.

Answer Me This

And we're back! With What I Wore Sunday and more Answer Me This fun, and wow, there are some great questions this week. Here we go:

1. What's currently on your To Do list?

I love To Do lists. No, really. Now that I'm capable of being up and doing for longer periods of time, having a great long list inspires and energizes me. But I knocked a ton of things off the list between Friday and yesterday, so my To Do list is actually pretty short at the moment:

- make menu for the week

- make grocery list

- figure out Amazon Subscribe & Save

- look into the Sam's Club Insider program, Ibotta, other grocery-savings programs

- clean bathtub & sink drains

- change sheets

- bake sandwich bread

- go through pre-baby shirts and donate everything that's never going to fit again

Blueberry picking this afternoon was on the list, but it's 50 degrees and raining out, so that's not happening. I hope I can get some berries before they're gone! I really can't take both kids without another adult to help, and this weekend was likely our last chance for Matt to come; we've been seeing cars off on the shoulder where people are picking for at least a week now. Hopefully I can talk one of my siblings into coming with us one afternoon this week.

2. Better type of superhero: magic/radioactive powers? Or trauma/gadgets/hard work?

Trauma/gadgets/hard work, because they're real people. Superheroes in this category are extraordinary individuals, but they are still fundamentally the same as us: they achieve greatness through blood, sweat and tears, not through some mythical serum that we mortals have no hope of accessing. As such, they are more able to inspire people, and their stories can be used to teach your kids about hard work and persistence rather than avoiding radioactive spiders.

Superheroes whose powers come from magic/radiation or are an intrinsic part of their nature can often do pretty incredible things, but their ability to inspire isn't the same, because we could never hope to do what they are capable of.

"You realize you're saying Iron Man is more inspirational than Captain America, right?" Matt just asked. But... Maybe not exactly? Like the laws of physics, many clear-cut categorizations become blurry when applied to actual superheroes. Captain America does have a radiation-enhanced body, but he's just strong and fast, not invincible, and Cap has to train hard to maintain his strength. So I think I can justify putting him partially in the "hard work" category too.

3. Finding out if baby is a boy or a girl before birth: Good idea? Bad idea?

Neutral. I choose to find out, but then I refuse to completely trust the ultrasound because it could be wrong. So far it's always been correct with our kids, but I anticipate continuing to have at least a kernel of "maybe it's wrong" with any future kids. Why do I even find out, then? I don't know. Because I want to know, and I want to feel that I'm most likely using the correct pronoun for baby, and being able to say "Most likely a girl" when everyone asks usually helps me avoid being harassed by both the "why didn't you find out?!?" people and the "well, but ultrasounds can be wrong..." people.

4. Have you ever appeared on a stadium jumbotron?

Nope, and I have no desire to.

5. Are you more book smart or more street smart?

What does it say about me that I had to go and look up those terms? It seems like many people have different definitions of "street smart" and "book smart," so I feel a little more justified in not knowing how to answer. I took three quizzes; two said emphatically that I'm street smart, one (equally emphatically) that I'm book smart... The latter seemed to equate "book smart" to "educated/well-read," which is true of me; the other two seemed to define the street v. book dichotomy as being able to figure things out for yourself and take care of yourself v. being lost in situations where you can't look up what to do. So by their definition, yes, I'd agree with "street" over "book." 

According to Matt, I'm not so much "street smart" as "Alaska smart;" able to figure things out and take care of myself and others, specifically in outdoors/winter/uniquely Alaskan situations. Drop me on a street in the middle of the city in the Lower 48 and I would likely be okay, but I'd be very uncomfortably out of my element; ask me to make a winter camping trip happen or live in a wood-heated house where we have to haul water, and we're just fine.

6. Have you had that baby yet? (Feel free to skip this one if it's not applicable to you.)

She's one month old as of Friday! It's hard to believe it has already been a month, but at the same time, it's hard to picture life without her.

A picture, and it's Sunday! I get to cheat and link this post up twice.

Kit: dress by Carter's, from my grandmother

Little Bear: outfit by Carter's, from his grandmom & grandpop

Me: dress by Liz Lange Maternity, sweater by Boden, both thrifted

Kit continued her streak of sleeping straight through Mass; Little Bear had more trouble being still and quiet, but shaped up before he lost his after-Mass chocolate donut.

Have a good week!

Feast of St Arnulf

"From man's sweat and God's love, beer came into the world." - St Arnulf of Metz

I love being Catholic. For lots of reasons, of course, and many of them more important than this one, but we do have us some pretty great stories.

St Arnulf was born into the Frankish nobility in the late 500s, and had a distinguished career as a military commander and civil servant under several Frankish kings. He married a noblewoman named Doda, who gave him two sons and later became a nun. Arnulf wished to become a monk but was appointed bishop of Metz, capital of Austrasia (modern-day Luxembourg with bits of Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands), around 611 AD at the request of Chlothachar II, who had a high regard for Arnulf's administrative skills. Bishop Arnulf was much beloved by his people, using his office as both bishop and adviser to the king to promote justice and protect the rights of the poor. Toward the end of his life, Arnulf retired to Remiremont Abbey in the Vosges Mountains, where he spent his last years as a monk.

After Arnulf had died around 645 AD at Remiremont, a delegation from Metz retrieved his remains so that they could bury him in the basilica. Legend tells that the delegation encountered very hot weather as they traveled, and did not have enough to drink. One member of the party pronounced his faith that "Blessed Arnulf" would provide what they needed, and immediately the empty jug of beer was miraculously replenished, remaining full until they reached Metz.

Thus, patron saint of beer and brewers.

Well, how could we let the feast day of the patron saint of beer go to waste? Beer didn't exactly go with the chicken, mashed potatoes and carrots I was planning to make, but providentially, just as we were discussing this Matt got a message from a friend asking if he'd like to get a beer together and catch up. Clearly, it was meant to be; he headed off to the brewery, and I made a much simpler supper of salmon noodle casserole. Beer wasn't a good fit with that, either, but it didn't really matter because Kit wanted to nurse again soon enough that I couldn't have fed her if I'd had anything. His feast day is already marked on the calendar for next year, though!

St. Arnulf, pray for us!

Seven Quick Takes

Oops... I did a good job of posting last week, but this week, not so much. My first full week of being outnumbered by kids all day; it was hard to find time for anything! But I'm going to make Seven Quick Takes happen, at least.

I

Kit was baptized on Sunday! She was very good and quiet, sleeping through pretty much the whole Mass. Little Bear got to sit with Grandma and Papa, so he was happy and well-behaved too. All of my siblings were able to be here for her baptism, which was wonderful! And I still haven't managed to get photos from my mom, but hopefully we got one showing our parish's baptismal font; it is beautiful, and had not been used in baptisms for many years, but a family friend just finished restoring it and Kit was the first baby to be baptized in it after the restoration!

"Time" has been a slightly fuzzy concept for me since she was born, and the baptism date definitely snuck up on me; I was very grateful to have the baptismal gown I'd found when I was pregnant with Alex already hanging in the back of the closet. 

II

Our girl is one month old today! She's obviously still very small compared to her 3yo brother, but my default adjective for her is quickly becoming "big" instead of "little." Kit has gained three pounds in the past four weeks; she's over ten pounds now. She certainly doesn't look like a tiny newborn to me anymore.

III

We thought we were done with car excitement for a while, after last week's replacement of axles and ball joints and tires and brake pads and I don't know what all. We... were wrong.

Tuesday morning, the kids and I were all in the car with Matt, on our way to drop him off at work before an errand-filled day, when the car just stopped. No lights on the dash were on, the gas gauge still said we had gas, the battery was working fine (although it too died after we tried unsuccessfully to start the car a couple of times). We live way out of town, so there was no other traffic and it wasn't a problem to just drift the car over and onto the shoulder, and my parents came out to rescue us; Mom brought me and the kids back to their house while Dad and Matt looked at the engine and pulled out the jumper cables.

They couldn't get it going, so Matt called our mechanic who said he'd send their tow truck and he would look at it that day, but probably wouldn't be able to fix it until the next morning. Then he caught a ride to work while I figured out a rental car for the next day or two. Late that afternoon we got a call from the mechanic: they put five gallons of gas in it, charged up the battery, and it started just fine. The floater in our fuel tank had gotten stuck, throwing off the gauge, and we'd run out of gas. "Don't trust that gauge anymore!" the mechanic reminded me twice in the three minutes I was in the office paying the bill. Yes, we feel ridiculous, having the car towed all the way into town for that! Dare I say that hopefully now we're done with car shenanigans for a while?

IV
Public Service Announcement: diaper rash that isn't caused by an infection but is not responding to zinc oxide ointments (Desitin, etc), sometimes responds well to Bag Balm, of all things. I grew up using it on chapped and dry skin, but never would have thought of it for diaper rash if the midwife hadn't suggested it.

V
Today was by far the most productive AND least frustrating day I've had all week. It was also the only day I didn't have the car (i.e. bring Matt to/from work and run errands). Coincidence? Maybe... Every day previous, I was staring at the clock willing it to be time to go pick Matt up by 3 o'clock, and today hearing the garage door open when he got home took me by surprise. Kit napped on the couch for a good chunk of the morning, which definitely helped: Little Bear and I made chocolate zucchini bread and muffins, as well as a loaf of sandwich bread, while she slept. We dusted and vacuumed, paid bills, wiped down the bathroom, cut both kids' nails, packed up an Amazon return, spent time with Little Bear doing school, and made lists of errands to run and groceries to pick up tomorrow.

It seems like, from the super limited evidence of this one day that went well, so don't hold me to this, but it seems like my being both mentally prepared to do a lot of things today and being physically able to start working on my list right away made the difference. I am so much less stressed tonight than I have been, and part of that is certainly that it's the weekend and Matt will be home to help with kids, but it's also the having a clean house and knowing that I got a slew of things knocked off my list.

VI
Anyone have experience using Amazon Subscribe & Save? What kind of things do you use it for? Is it worth it? I've heard of people using it for diapers, and now that we have two kids in diapers, if it actually is a good deal I want to start using it, but you have to order at least five things to get the discount, right? Help me out here. :-)

VII
Because I can't think of anything else, another question: what are some good books or quiet religious toys that would be good for helping toddlers through preschoolers be still and quiet during Mass, ideally helping older ones to pay attention or follow along? A friend and I are looking into the possibility of making bags of quiet things for our parish that would be available for families with little ones to borrow during Mass, and I'd love more ideas of what we could include in them.

Bedtime for Mama and Kit... Have a good weekend! You can find more quick takes at This Ain't The Lyceum.

Answer Me This

Another summer Sunday, another round of Answer Me This fun over at Catholic All Year!

1. At what temperature do you keep the thermostat set? Summer, winter, day, night?

I turned the thermostat off in May, and it won't be turned back on until we're getting frost warnings overnight, probably by mid-September. There's no central a/c, so the apartment can get hot... With the unusually miserable combination of hot weather and heavy smoke from forest fires we've been dealing with these past few weeks, we finally gave in and got a portable a/c unit. On days that we can't open doors and windows to cool down, we've been turning it on for a couple of hours to bring the apartment down to 75; nights the bedrooms can get up to 80, hopefully not any warmer.

Last winter we kept the thermostat set to 65 in the bedrooms, 60 in the rest of the apartment. Burning a fire in the morning and evening, or keeping it going all day when it was really cold out, usually kept the living room/kitchen area closer to 75, which is verging on too warm for our taste; you don't have quite the level of ambient temperature control with a fireplace that you do with a thermostat, though! Often, the residual heat from the fireplace would be enough that the heat wouldn't have to kick on all night, and we went days at a time in warmer weather without burning any heating oil.

2. What is your favorite frozen beverage?

A vanilla milkshake, no whipped cream or cherry.

3. Where do you keep your keys?

Usually in Matt's pocket. On days I have the car, they're probably near the door or on the kitchen table.

4. Have you ever really been lost?

Once, when Matt and I were dating, we were heading back to his parents' house from visiting friends in the DC area. Matt was driving, I was navigating—this was before we had phones with GPS capabilities, so I had a full-size laptop open on my lap running a map program to figure out where we were supposed to be going. We got a later start than we'd planned, having taken a detour to drop some other friends off at the metro, and it was already dark. Matt merged onto the beltway, and we started looking for our exit: Exit 200-something, according to the program, and it was coming up in just over a mile. The first exit we saw was Exit 2. They'd renumbered the exits! It took forever to find a way to get turned around and figure out which exit we were supposed to be taking.

5. What is the last movie you saw in the theaters?

The Avengers, the first one. Not a bad movie to have as the last I'll ever see in theater; I have binocular instability, which means that each eye tries to present my brain with an image on its own rather than cooperating to create the image together, so both eyes individually are constantly refocusing. In day-to-day life it just means that I get headaches often and tend to see an extra outline of objects, and trying to look at things that are too close to my face can be painful, but it has gotten just worse enough since having kids that I cannot handle watching movies on the big screen anymore. I miss it, though, and when Guardians of the Galaxy was in theaters last year I decided that surely my vision wasn't really all that bad and we should give it another shot; I lasted maybe five minutes into the movie and felt so sick we had to leave.

But like I said, the first Avengers movie was not at all a bad last movie to see in theater. We went opening weekend for my birthday while I was pregnant with Little Bear.

And now, I'm off to wake people up and get them ready for Kit's baptism this morning. Say a prayer for us that Little Bear and Kit both cooperate all through Mass today? Thanks! Hopefully later today or tomorrow I'll be back with pictures!

Seven Quick Takes

I

No smoke for three days now! Two days ago it was overcast, but yesterday and today the sky has been the clearest, brightest blue I've seen in at least a month. Alleluia! I am so grateful to be able to take the kids outside or leave all of the windows open to cool down the house without worrying about the air quality. We ate supper on the deck Thursday night, one of the first times we've done so all summer, and it was just lovely out.

II

All of my siblings are in town right now, and we had the whole family (plus my brother's friend who is up for the summer) over for supper Thursday. Matt grilled chicken sausages and beer brats, I baked a double batch of buns, and we all enjoyed a picnic-y meal of pasta salad, green salad, coleslaw, and my sister's individual strawberry shortcakes. Since they were all out of town on the 4th and Little Bear's birthday, it was good to have everyone over for an overdue cookout.

III

I always think it's going to be too much work to have the whole family over (I have six younger siblings), and it does take work to prepare the food and clean the house, but I have never ever regretted inviting them (or anyone else). Learning to extend hospitality to others in a way that's genuinely oriented toward making them feel welcome and comfortable, rather than making me stressed about my house and my cooking and my kids and how others perceive me, has been difficult but so good for me. And we all enjoy having company, so this learning to let go of having everything "perfect" has been a blessing.

IV

Yesterday morning, Little Bear and I made The Pioneer Woman's Everything Cookies while Kit napped. Now I'm pretty much constitutionally incapable of following a recipe ad litteram, so we did make a couple of adjustments; my current batch of homemade granola is full of almonds, pecans, cashews, and sunflower seeds, so I didn't add any nuts when they were called for later in the recipe. We don't have dried cherries, but do have both flame and golden raisins along with the called-for dried apricots. And of course I couldn't help making half of the flour whole wheat. They are really good, though! And as her last instruction directs, I'm definitely going to "eat and feel not guilty" because they really are full of good things.

V

One of the best things about Matt's job at the university is the benefits package: he was able to take three full weeks of paternity leave to stay home as we all adjusted to having Kit, remembering what it's like to have a baby in the house and figuring out for the first time how to parent two kids at once. Thursday was his last day of leave, so he was back in the office Friday (thus, my Seven Quick Takes going up on Saturday...). It would be ridiculous to pretend that we've actually figured everything out already, but the first day of having both Kit and Little Bear all to myself certainly didn't go as badly as I'd half expected it to. 

VI

Okay, there is one thing I definitely haven't figured out doing outnumbered yet: errands. Going to the grocery store is fine, and I've taken both kids with me several times already, but there are a few things that have been sitting on my to-do list for a solid week now which I would have taken care of the first day if I had only Little Bear in tow: picking up a package at the post office, dropping some things off at the consignment shop, trading in some books for credit at the used bookstore, going through the thirft store to try to find some shirts that actually fit and will let me feed Kit... All of those errands together would have been a tiring but manageable trip to town with Little Bear; with him and Kit, wrangling them both through even one of those sounds overwhelming-to-impossible.

VII

Tummy time today quickly turned into Daddy and Little Bear racing hotwheels cars while Kit watched and squawked at them. I love seeing Matt playing with the kids, and Little Bear excited about interacting with his little sister.

Seven Quick Takes is hosted this week at A Knotted Life; don't forget to stop on by!

Coloring the sky

"If you took chalk and colored over the sky, this is what it'd look like." Matt, looking out the window this morning.

The smoke is heavy today, like squinting into a fogged-up mirror after a shower. Our air quality index jumped up to Hazardous, the highest designation on the scale, and we're definitely feeling it. I would have vastly preferred to keep everyone at home with the house closed up, but we had an important meeting in town this afternoon that couldn't be rescheduled, and had to take the kids with us; Matt carried Little Bear and I carried Kit, and we covered their faces and hurried between truck and buildings as quickly as possible. We put off all of our other errands, hoping that the smoke dissipates by tomorrow afternoon... They're saying it's possible. I find it hard to believe, looking out the window now, but most of the smoke blew in overnight so I suppose it could all leave overnight again. We can pray it does!

There are quite a few fires close enough to be sending smoke our way, though not nearly close enough for us to be concerned. With 3.1 million acres burned across the state so far this year, we're on track to tie or surpass our worst fire season on record: 6.6 million acres burned in 2004. We've already passed the 2009 record of 2.9 million acres, a fire season I vividly remember; several large  fires were close enough to town that we had duffles packed in case an evacuation order went out, and the smoke was so thick that our hands and faces were dirty after biking to or from work. We joked that we now lived in Mordor, but half the time it didn't really feel like we were joking. Hopefully we don't come to that this year!

Cherry Pie

I didn't grow up with cherry pie; we were engaged when I first learned that Matt liked it, and my first thought was "but cherry pie filling is so horribly sweet!" He quickly set me straight—he wanted a pie made from sour cherries, not from a can. I've never seen any cherry varieties other than Bing and Rainer in local produce sections, though, and he was very sure that sweet cherries weren't right. His mother sent us some from Pennsylvania, I think that first summer we were married, and I made a pie once and wrote down the recipe and never had the chance to try it again.

About a month ago, I was in the ethnic foods aisle looking for sauerkraut when I noticed a jar of cherries on the bottom shelf. Sour cherries. They came home with me and hid in the top of a cupboard until July 4, when I pulled them out to make Matt his pie. I didn't make enough pie crust, so the filling kind of bubbled up and over and made a mess, but it sure tasted good!

Cherry Pie

3 cups sour cherries, pitted, in juice (or light syrup)

3/4 cup sugar

3 tablespoons cornstarch

A double pie crust

Pour cherries and juice into a pot and bring to a simmer. In a small bowl, combine sugar and cornstarch. Whisk mixture into cherries and cook until thickened, stirring often. Press lower crust into an 8" or 9" pie plate and fill with pie filling (I had a little left over, so watch as you're pouring it in!) Top with upper crust; if using a solid crust instead of weaving a lattice, cut several slits in the top for steam to escape. Set pie plate on top of a baking sheet before putting it in the oven in case it bubbles over. Bake at 375 degrees for about 50 minutes.

Sweet, but with a pleasant tartness to it. It was good all by itself, or warned and topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream!

Note: do not assume that just because you're using an 8" pie plate instead of a 9", a single pie crust recipe will make enough that you can piece together a lattice from the scraps. It won't.

A celebratory weekend

Happy third birthday to Little Bear! This is the first year that he's been old enough to understand birthdays well enough to anticipate it in advance; he's been talking about his birthday for the last week, and this morning when he woke up he ran into our room exclaiming, "I'm three years older!" Three years old, one year older; so confusing. We'll get it all to make sense eventually.

He was too little last year, but now that Little Bear is old enough (and verbal enough) to help me think of meals for the week, we instituted the "birthday person gets to pick what's for supper" rule. Little Bear chose waffles with blueberry syrup, scrambled eggs, and bacon. He was so happy when Matt let him climb up on a chair and help whisk the eggs before they went in the pan!

I'd planned to make him a cake and he was all excited about helping me decorate it, but we woke up to heavy smoke outside and highs expected to reach the upper 80s, so since we won't be able to open up the house and cool it down, we decided it would be best to keep the oven off and pick out a cake from the bakery. I'm kind of disappointed—I prefer to bake everything myself instead of buying it, but birthday cakes are particularly special. But he was happy, and it's his birthday.

I don't know if it was because it's his birthday, or because we reiterated the "chocolate donut if you are good" so many times in the car, or because we were in the front pew probably less than ten feet away from the bishop, but Little Bear was SO GOOD during Mass today. Still, quiet, paying attention... It was wonderful. Noticing the seven candles on the altar and realizing that the bishop would be celebrating Mass today after we'd already sat down in the front pew made me a little nervous about Little Bear's behavior since it was hot, but he thoroughly exceeded my expectations. 

And now for some holiday weekend Answer Me This:

1. How did you celebrate the 4th of July?

With cherry pie! We didn't really go anywhere or do anything else to celebrate the 4th, but I did manage to make the pie. And we talked a little about the point of the day, and said prayers for all of those serving in our armed forces. Mostly, though, we just had a quiet day at home.

I used too much pie filling, as usual... or maybe too little crust. At least I've learned to put a sheet pan under my pies while they bake! How full are you supposed to fill a pie plate?

2. Do you sunburn easily?

I do. Or at least I did; I haven't spent nearly as much time out in the sun in recent years as I did when I was younger, but I always used to burn and peel, and I don't think that's happened for a few years. "Getting a little sun" recently has actually meant "getting a little bit tan," as opposed to turning pink/red.

3. Hot dogs. Yay or nay?

Meh? I mean, I'd certainly eat one if that's what was being served, but I wouldn't ever go out of my way to have one. And now that I'm actually thinking about it, standard commercial hot dogs are pretty full of preservatives and non-real-food substances and just don't taste very good, in my opinion... I definitely prefer a proper sausage whenever possible, ideally a reindeer sausage.

4. Have you ever personally set off fireworks?

Yes, every 4th of July during high school (maybe also early college?) as long as there wasn't a burn ban in force. 

5. Have you ever jumped off the high dive?

Yes, but not in many years; I don't think I've been in a pool with a high dive since middle school.

6. Do you do anything weird in your sleep?

Several college roommates told me that I talked in my sleep in Latin, but that apparently stopped after I stopped studying Latin. There's nothing I'm aware of now.

Seven Quick Takes

I

We've had a couple of torrential downpours recently, so the burn ban has been lifted in time for the 4th of July! Fireworks are still banned within the borough (Alaska's term for "county"), but I'm so happy that we're allowed to grill again. Matt and Little Bear put a bunch of pork chops on the grill last night, three stuffed with Gouda and basil for supper and the rest rubbed with a rosemary-garlic mixture to use in coming meals. I think I still have a pack of little butterfly steaks from Matt's caribou down in the freezer; if I can find them, that sounds like the perfect thing to throw on the grill tomorrow.

II

What are your plans for Independence Day? Smoke from the forest fires has started blowing back into town, so I don't think we will really be able to get out and do much; if the smoke isn't too heavy, Matt and Little Bear should be able to spend short periods of time on the deck playing with water guns, but I'll be keeping Kit inside. Matt will grill something though, hopefully those steaks, and I'll make some picnic-y sides for supper; right now the plan is potato salad, a veggie tray, and some kind of fruit or fruit-gelatin salad. Oh! And cherry pie, if I have the energy. Matt requested cherry pie for the 4th of July months ago, and I actually wrote it down on my planner, so I'm hoping to surprise him with it because I'm sure he doesn't expect me to remember!

III

Little Bear had been learning about titles shortly before Kit was born; "Mr." for boys, "Mrs." for married grownup girls, but we'd never had the occasion to introduce him to the title "Miss". The other day he looked around the living room and began listing off "Mr. Little Bear," "Mr. Daddy," "Mrs. Mama..." He paused a moment at Kit, then declared, "Lady Kit!" Which of course made us laugh, and so he kept it. Now if one if us says "Baby Kit," Little Bear will often correct us with, "No, Lady Kit!"

IV

Speaking of the little lady, she's doing wonderfully. Kit is sleeping well at night, only waking up once or twice most nights. Her favorite thing to do is definitely eat; at her two-week checkup, she was 1 lb 8 oz up from her birth weight! Little Bear has been great with her, almost always happy to help fetch new diapers, making faces at her, letting her hold his finger. 

V

Yesterday I took both kids to town by myself. I just had four stops. We were in town for four hours. Somebody want to explain to me how in the world I'm going to get things done all week once Matt's paternity leave ends and he isn't home to help?!?

VI

Last night I came across this quote, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. It's what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it. ~ Oscar Wilde 

It's had me reflecting on my bookshelf all day. To what degree do my reading choices shape me, my thoughts, my reactions? What effect should that knowledge have on what I choose to read? 

VII

I'm out of things to write about. One more baby picture? Good idea.

Have a good Independence Day weekend, y'all! If you think of it tomorrow, say a St Michael prayer for all of the men and women who have served or are currently serving in our armed forces. And don't forget to stop by This Ain't the Lyceum for more quick takes!