Yarn Along

I did hesitated about writing the post today. Between my bad night ( the anxiety attack, and I do not take xanax even though is present in my medicine cabinet ), a walk, laundry, sending kids to school, getting few things ready for The Little Flowers Club meeting, going to the meeting and excitement about HABEMUS PAPAM, I thought I'll pass it today. Yet I couldn't let the Yarn Along edition go, because I am working on a very minor project. A crochet, for girl-y accessories, bathroom bowl. Blue, to match with blue walls and white everything else, bathroom.
It should be done by the end of the day.

As for reading, I am in the Appendixes section of "Fatima for Today". It really got me thinking. Especially about the end of times...

I should be reading Don Quichote now, but I 'll fight the windmills with him tomorrow:)

Kinga.

Tuesday in the kitchen.

It is Tuesday and Tuesdays are for kitchen posts. I am going to cook or bake or both, and blog about it:)

Today I needed to bake crescent rolls, to go into the lunch boxes.
Usually I pack lunch boxes with mini pizzas from Trader Joe or grilled cheese sandwiches or hot dogs. Kateri gets dried fruit and some kind of dried veggie ( can you call a seaweed a veggie?). Zuzanna likes the regular fruit and a crunchy carrot. They are different, I know...

Every now and then I make my own crescent rolls. I got a recipe from here. I adjusted the directions and stuffed them with hot dogs. The good, grass fed beef, organic kind. Sometimes I put cheese in them.

And this is how I make them: 

First I melt 1/2 cup of butter and 1/2 cup of sugar in 11/2 cup of milk.
While the mixture is cooling down, in the big bowl or pot, I dissolve 2Tbl of yeast in 2 cups of warm water and leave it until the mixture bubbles.
Next I add 1 egg to the milk mixture and 1 TB of salt and 1 cup of unbleached, all purpose flour. I give a stir.
Then I dump the milk/sugar/butter into the yeast mixture. I give it a stir and add 1 cup of flour, and then another. All together up to 8 cups.
At this point I dump it on the counter top and knead by hand until smooth. I keep adding little amounts of flour. The dough needs up to 10 cups of flour.
When it looks all smooth, I put the dough back into the used pot.

 I cover it with a plastic wrap and wait about 2-3 hours for the dough to rise.
After the dough doubled or tripled...

...I place the dough onto the counter top and divide it into 4 balls.

I roll out one at the time, and spread 1 TB of butter. I cut the rolled dough into 4 pieces and then each piece into 3. I have 12 triangles ready to be stuffed! I place half a hot dog or piece of cheese or just leave it empty, and roll them up.

I repeat the process with every ball. At the end I have 48 crescent rolls.
Today I had 28 hot dog rolls and 20 empty. I can filled them up later with cheese or jam or other yummy spread.

I place the crescents onto the baking sheets and wait up to 30 minutes for them to rise again. To speed up the precess I heat the oven to 200F and place the baking sheets inside. Then I turn the oven off.

After the rolls get all plumped up I heat the oven at 350F and bake for 20 minutes or until they are golden brown.

When they are done, I hide them from everybody to cool them down:) Immediately after, I place them in big plastic bags and freeze them until they are ready to be packed for lunch.

Sometimes is hard to resist the smell and look of homemade, buttery, freshly baked crescent rolls:)

Kinga.



Manual Mode Monday

My attempt in manual detail photography.

Go over to  Sarah. She has the good stuff:)

                                                                       1/800 F5.6 ISO 200

Kinga.

{pretty. happy, funny, real}

 

{pretty}

 



  {happy}

 

 

 

 

 

{funny}

 

 

  

{real}

 

 



Kubus is fascinated with the wheeled objects. I know he is a boy, and apparently every boy likes everything what moves, but for our family it is new experience, and it still amazes us.

The trains, the cars, motorcycles, bikes, tricycles, buses, and every possible kind of trucks!!!
Even vacuum cleaners are fine, as long as they have big wheels:)

The best day of the week is garbage day. I am convinced that he knows which day is that.
Other days are good too. The mail truck is here six times a week.

Anytime we go to the library we search for new truck/train books. We get luckier and luckier:)
But I know that the main reason he loves to visit the library is the awesome view of a busy street!

My girls take stuffed animals to their beds. Kubus takes his trucks. Very often at time, when I come to him, I encounter the trucks in his bed.
He talks in his sleep about trucks, truck is the first word he says when he wakes up, and he can have a long dialog with himself. The only word I seem to understand is of course truck.  He also seems to enjoy the car ride very much. I think due to the fact that he can see a lot of trucks on the road.

The ambulances wake him up when he is almost asleep, and he can't wait for Zuzanna to come home from school. She is coming on the yellow bus!

And sometimes, when little boy gets sick, one of the things that seem to be helping, are movies about trucks!

I am capturing the context of contentment in everyday life. Mine, is full of wheels now:)
 
                                       hosted by Like Mother, Like Daughter!

Kinga.

The Last Run

I was ready to pack my skis away and wait for spring, but wasn't meant to be. I have gotten a surprise from a mother nature.

I went to Pulaski Park. Last two days it was snowing in New England, but in Rhode Island not really much.
With a hope that maybe in the most North Western corner of  RI the sky opened up a little more, I went for a run this afternoon.  The conditions were not perfect but they were very good, if you wanted to enjoy a couple miles of XC skiing.
The weather though was perfect. Sunny sky, white, clean snow, temperature in 40s and not even a breeze. If you wanted a fast run, today wasn't for you. If you wanted a good work out, today was the day. I got 5 miles of it. It felt good but I had to work hard through a soft snow.

As a child I loved the snow, even though the only available entertainment was sledding. The town that I grew up was surrounded by hills. Comparing to the ones in RI, there were quite impressive.

As a teenager I started to dislike the snow. For sledding I was a little too old. As for other winter activities a little, well, too poor. Then came the commuting to college. No, it wasn't fun.
On the other hand, while dating Andrzej, I hiked in the snow, in Tatras. Not the peaks, but high enough to feel the challenge.
Then we left our cold country and moved to Texas. The winters there, are to die for. Christmas in light sweater, New Year in a t-shirt. No complains. I really liked it and did not miss the snow.
When we changed the states and with states the climate, we had to supply ourselves with warm clothing.
The first winter wasn't fun. A lot of snow. The second even worse. At that point the only activity was pulling little Kateri in the sled. I did not like it. The Spring was welcomed with a big relief. Years went by, Zuzanna joined the family. In 2006 we decided to give skiing a try. Kateri was strong and willing. Andrzej wanted experience something new and I just wanted to wait and see.

It had happened. Kateri picked up quickly. Andrzej even faster. It has became such a big hobby of his, that in two consecutive years he took an skiing instructor classes, and became a ski instructor. Now he goes skiing whenever possible.
Kateri is a good skier too and Zuzanna started to enjoy it this year very much and improved a lot. She had skied in Waterville Valley, from the biggest mountain.

I did not feel so much excitement for Alpine skiing and in 2007 I have decide to try XC skiing.
It was in Loon Mountain. The snow was deep and it was early in the morning. The "ski equipment renting" lady dropped me off in the woods, with a caution that sometimes the black bear wake up in the winter, so I need to watch out, and then I went off.

All by myself to the woods with a possibility of meeting a bear!

And... I loved every minute of it! I felt like a child again and I knew I will enjoy every ounce of snow that will fall from the sky from now on.

I don't have a skiing buddy. I was trying. Few promises, but nothing has happened. Andrzej and girls prefer the downhill, even though Zuzanna told me that she will try it someday. I would love that.

I am OK with my time alone though. There is I, woods, snow, peace and my thoughts.
And I really like that a lot.

But this year I had my dose of skiing. I am changing my ski boots for sneakers.
So long white trails. I'll see you next year:)

Kinga.

Those moments

Friday ritual. The moments. Few words.
Joining SouleMama.

 Zuzanna is following her mama's steps. She is learning to play a guitar.
I chose the size - 1/2, perfect for seven year old girl:), she chose the color. Blue, color of the ocean, her favorite. She is practicing every day, and that makes me very happy.

Kinga.

Needle and thREAD and some piles

Decisions, decisions, decisions....
I couldn't chose a theme for today. Thursdays seem to be very busy. There is Needle and thREAD - sewing edition at Elizabeth, at Clan Donaldson the photography theme is piles, and who doesn't want show off their piles???:)
There is beautiful theme of {pretty, happy, funny, real} at Like mother, Like daughter, and I bet there is something to share in cooking or baking or crafting or DIY home edition category. All of those things seem to be my hobbies.

I will stick it to the needle-ing and piles for today:)

I have picked up sewing needle recently. Kateri has a "minor part in major category" in Seussical.
She is Mrs Mayor. I have volunteered to make a dress for her. For majority of more or less skillful seamstress' it is not a big challenge. For me, a beginner in that profession, it was more complicated.
Few weeks of planning, few hours of sewing. I have made my own pattern, and just put pieces together. There are few faults, but the dress should "survive" a couple of hours of preforming.

My model is missing in school, but I will post pictures of her in that dress.

I am reading now "Fatima for today" by Fr. Andrew Apostoli. This one is very unsuspected read. While looking for nonfiction in my neighborhood library, I have encounter that book. Surprisingly, because most of the time I see Obama biographies, Bill Maher, anti bulling, pet lovers, new cook books and so on.
Finding something Christian, Catholic (sic!) was unexpected.

Even though I knew a big deal about apparitions in Fatima, I have learn a lot of new very interesting facts. Father's Apostoli account and research about Fatima is through and through. He underlines the call and message of popes JPII and BXVI, that the Fatima message is more important now than ever:

"We would be mistaken to think that Fatima's prophetic message is complete. Here there takes on new life the plan of God which asks humanity from the beginning: Where is your brother Abel(...) Your brother's blood is crying out to me from the ground! - Gen 4:9. Mankind has succeeded in unleashing a cycle of death and terror, but failed in bringing it to en end." BXVI
Good choice for spirtual, lenten reading...

There is also "Don Quixote" on the side table of my bed. It requires long explanation, that is frankly quite embarrassing. I am going to leave for next week.

Which brings me to "Piles" theme.
Well, we can't avoid them. There are mostly piles of laundry to be washed, or folded or hang or store away. There are plies of dishes either clean of dirty in the sink. Piles of books, piles of homework, piles of clothes to be sorted. There are piles of groceries to be put away after the shopping. And those are just the every day piles. We mothers, encounter piles few times a day:)
So to Cari, you should not beat yourself up about this undignified theme that you have created today:) It is a part of our lives!

 
Pile of books. Our own and those belonging to the library.

Pile of messiness from the daughters desk. It will go well with mess theme one day:)

Pile of clothes to be put away for later.

Pile of clothes to give away or throw out !

And last but not least a pile of cuteness that accompanies me every day for the last 2 years, 4 months and 17 days!

Kinga.