a little catchup

I got "Food Matters" by Mark Bittman as a Mother's Day gift from my kids and I LOVE it. I want to write all about how I love it and what I would add. But that just reminds me of what I want to write--and left hanging--about Sharon Astyk's book. So I'm gonna see if I can resuscitate that post. Then I can come back to this...and now I have two dangling posts....

Okay, so I'll give this post a little more substance before I leave it. Today is a beautiful, gorgeous day. Warm; it'll be hot later but right now, just plain loverly. I'm inside, but I don't feel too guilty about it. I can see our verdant yard from every window. I hear birds twittering, breezes rustling, and squirrels scolding outside, and light streams in from the skylight above me. It's quite nice in here. I like that about this house. One can appreciate The Day even if one is inside all day.

Oh, and I have some "No Work Whole Grain Bread" from Bittman's book rising on the stove. We'll see how it turns out. I didn't have enough of the right kind of yeast, so I improvised. I used the little bit of instant rise yeast that I had and then supplemented with active, which I proofed first even tho the recipe calls for just throwing it all in there. So. We'll see! It was impetuous--we actually happen to have plenty of bread right now. But I wanted to try it.

Daughter One is out with friends, visiting the Whole Earth Festival which we never attended (maybe once) while we were in Davis because I considered it too crowded. Now she's a big girl and can handle that sort of thing. Daughter Two and my husband/her dad are at (I hope) our new gym, having a swim. It may seem counter-intuitive that we are joining a gym even as we are transitioning to a rice and bean diet anaconda we are out of money...but finding a consistent way and means of exercising has become a health and well-being imperative. And we're doing virtually no other summer activities. This is our summer camp/class/trip and everything. And it's something that the whole family benefits from. Because we can't do everything should not mean that we don't do things that are important.