Last Post for a While

Tomorrow we will be packing up the computers until we're in SK. I may try to blog whi

Yummmm!

I came across a long lost bread recipe that I concocted a few years ago to utilize all of the wheat that I have in store. The poor and beloved thing was stuck to the bottom of one of my bread pans! I was aghast at how close I got to losing it (it took me countless tries to get the recipe right) so I thought that I would share it online so that I can always find it (unlike the recipe card I have it written on.) when I feel a strong desire to grind wheat and make bread...

Becky's Perfected 100% Whole Wheat Bread
Ingredients:
3 cups warm (100-115 degrees) *potato water, divided
1 tsp sugar
2 TBS yeast
1/3 cup oil
1/3 cup honey
1 TBS salt
2 cups wheat flour
4-8 cups whole wheat flour ( amounts can vary depending on the humidity of the air, and water content of the wheat. If you are grinding the wheat right before you use it, you will need to use much more flour.)
2, 9x4x4 inch bread pans (you may find that you have more dough than expected. If that happens, make some rolls with the leftovers and bake them in a cake pan.
Method:
Boil some potatoes and set potatoes aside for another use. Use the leftover water for the above potato water. If you don't quite have 3 cups, just add water to the potato water to make the proper amount. You can also use plain water with only slightly inferior results.
Stir yeast in sugar and 1/2 cup of the water and let set for 10 minutes or until quite frothy.
Whisk remaining 2 1/2 cups water, oil, honey, salt and 2 cups flour till smooth. Whisk yeast mixture in with it until incorporated.
With a wooden spoon, mix in remaining flour one cup at a time until dough forms a ball and is smooth and only very slightly sticky. Knead dough on a floured surface for 10 minutes adding flour as needed to make a smooth but not stiff dough.
Place dough in an oiled bowl turning once. Cover and let rise in a warm place for 1-3 hours (depending on ambient temps) or until doubled in size.
Gently deflate the dough and let rest for 5 minutes. Separate dough into two halves then roll each dough half until it's roughly a 9x12 inch rectangle and 1/2 inch thick. (this is when to guage if you have too much dough. If you do, cut the dough to the above dimentions and set asside remaining for rolls!)
Roll the dough jellyroll style into a cylinder shaped loaf and place into bread pan.
Using a very sharp knife, make 2 or 3 diagonal slits into the top of the loaves. cover with a damp cloth and rise again 1-2 hours or until doubled in size. Bake at 375 degrees for 40 minutes or till a beautiful light golden color.

Moving

So we're moving to South Korea! The path to this decision was hedged by many and various hardships that prepared our hearts to accept this change. We are excited! This week we've been moving our things into a storage unit, giving away items that won't do well in long term storage, and working hard to learn how to read and write Korean. Luckily, it's a fairly simple language to learn how to read and write. Speaking will be something entirely different but we'll deal with that when we get to Korea. Never in any crevice of my mind did I ever think that we'd be moving to some place so different than where we are now. I hoped for a few differences but really this is going to be such a cool experience for our family! Of course I will be blogging about it incessantly as we move along so be prepared.

Hopeful

I've been thinking a lot about the big three: Faith, Hope, and Charity. Really I don't believe that any of these attributes can truly exists without the others; however, hope is the one that I have a hard time surrendering to. I think that most times it's because from my flawed and limited vantage point, I simply refuse to hope for things that I can't see or understand. Anyway, I wanted to pass along a poem that's been running through my head as I've been musing; I really like the metaphor.

Hope is the Thing With Feathers
By: Emily Dickinson

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me

Gratitude

I'm always late on the Holiday things. I was just thinking about all of my blessings and thought I should express gratitude for some of them now.

Family
People who love you despite the lame things you do and say... or as an old friend said: people who know everything about you and love you anyway. Mostly the people who are there to help shoulder the burden even when it's a burden that causes those you love most difficulty themselves. It's humbling to be loved in that way. It's painful. I hope to be able to measure up to what has been given us sometime. In the mean time, I work hard to do right by these people.

Friends
Or the people who can make you laugh and see the color in life. I love my friends!

The Gospel of Jesus Christ
I'm usually not one to do this so publicly but I want to share my testimony.
I know that God lives, created the heavens and the earth and loves each of his children in a way that is only possible from an omnipotent and omniscient being. I know that Jesus Christ walked the earth, humbly lived his life by the will of the Father and sacrificed all for each of us. I am so grateful for that sacrifice. I have a testimony that the boy Joseph Smith truly saw the Father and the Son, that he acted on the inspiration of Deity and did receive the keys of the priesthood. That these keys are on the earth today and we have access to a living Prophet of God. I also have a testimony that through this power of the priesthood, we all can receive the gift of the Holy Ghost to bare testimony of the truth of all things.

The Temple
How blessed I am to have the sealing powers of the House of the Lord! It is here that I have been sealed to my beloved family for all eternity and have experienced a peace and a feeling of being loved in such a deep and profound way that words fail me. It is here that I have been involved in service that can only be described as transcendent.

Nature
I'm a nature girl to my core. I'm most content being in the wilderness surrounded by the various beauties that this earth provides. I find deep comfort and joy in the sounds, smells and visual beauty that cannot be imitated. I love to feel the earth in my hands when I garden; I love to observe and interact with animals and experience with thanksgiving what they provide us in their various capacities.

Music
I cannot describe the experience of making music. It is the ultimate. I am rendered speechless to explain it. It is like a prayer- a sincere and joyful expression of love. It is such a part of me that I don't have a single period of life where music wasn't an integral part of who I am.

I could go on and on... In short, I am one blessed woman!

The Winds of Change are a Blowin

Life is an enigmatic thing for us OB1's. We make careful plans only to be vigilantly guided as far away from what we thought was best to something better. It's never static or boring. I hesitate to say what's up with us because we are only beginning the process but I will say... we are practicing hiragana, brushing up on our international etiquette, and beginning the process of storing/giving/arranging. Scary? Well, sort of. Peaceful when you wouldn't think. Keep checking in, I'll reveal the layers as they come.

Gratitude

I'm always late with holiday related posts. Anyway I'm making a long list of gratitudes today. It will not be complete but I hope that I'll remember to include all of the most recent things.

Parents

Seriously, I don't know where we'd be without the seemingly endless sacrifices of our parents. Without getting

Pictoral Update :)

Here are a few pictures to catch you up with what we've been up to:

Owen's Birthday

On our trip to North Carolina. This was taken somewhere in central Texas.

It rained the entire time we were in North Carolina due to Hurricane Ida. As we were leaving, the rain let up just long enough while we were at a rest stop for me to capture a few shots of the tail end of autumn in NC.

Tennessee proved to be a humorous place for town names. Owen particularly enjoyed this one.

Rest stop at some lake in Tennessee.

We stopped in Memphis to try and get a picture of the Mississippi River. It proved impossible to capture the majesty of the river with the lenses and vantage point that we had. We did get to stop at a few kitchy shops there and capture some fun.

The Mississippi River. Arkansas is on the other side.

We stopped at this really great shop on Beale Street in Memphis Called A. Schwab. It's been open since 1876 and had wears for sale that has been around since then all the way to the present. I found a package of men's underwear from the 1950"s, A truckers hat from the 1970's complete with a pom pom on top, and so many other cool sundry items that I nearly had to buy something. Here is Owen and Dylan trying on a few of the other hats they had for sale.

Visiting the king. Graceland was egregiously priced so we settled for a public statue.

November so far...

Pictures

Here are a few pictures from our trip. They were mostly taken at rest stops due to the fact that it was raining constantly the whole time we were in North Carolina. It's a sham because it was very beautiful there. Enjoy!

Sick is the new black

I've been quite ill with the flu for several days now. The good news is that I'm up and feeling well enough to whine about it. Getting a severe illness does have some benefits though like giving you the opportunity to realize how blessed you are in so many ways. It also brings it home for me what a major blessing having good health is. Good times perspective wise.

Anyway, the pictures below are from a couple of weeks ago when we set out on our traditional trip to the Floydada punkin festival.

Owen pulling the wagon
Go Tech! Pumpkin Volkswagen

Hop on the spooky train.

Cutie and Psycho

Baby Boy Turns Seven

Yesterday was Dylan's birthday. The weather was a precise recreation of the day he was born with cooler (for Lubbock) temperatures and bright blue autumn sky. It was an interesting day because at Dylan's school they were celebrating Buddy Holly's birthday by having a 1950's dress up day.(Buddy Holly attended the same elementary school when he was a boy) Dylan looked so cute with his hair all pomaded out. On the way to school, Dylan told everyone we saw "Today is my birthday!" He loved having his name read over the school announcements and actually kissed the birthday pencil that the principal gave to him.

We checked him out from school to go to lunch and then spent a little time working on his party which we were having after school. Dylan chose to share goldfish crackers instead of cupcakes with his class at snack time.

We only have friend parties on the even birthdays so this year it was a family only party. Dylan decided to have cake and open his presents first, then dinner at Fuddruckers and then bowling (which Owen was so excited to use his really good coupon for! )

I am a sentimental cheespuff so I spent the day fighting back tears whenever I looked at Dylan. His birth is still one of the top three biggest blessings of my life. Luckily Dylan loved my response to him and all of my stories about him as a baby. He also rewarded my sentimentality by giving me a big bear hug and a kiss on the cheek every time he caught me tearing up.

Dylan loved all of the presents that were sent by family (thanks guys you truly are SO generous!) and we had a hard time getting the birthday boy to bed because he wanted to play and play and play. It was a pretty awesome seventh birthday for our boy.

You're Naughty!

I'm sharing a picture of DM. This stands for naughty Dylan monster in Dylan-ese. This is what Dylan says he turns into when he's naughty at school. In other naughty related news, when Dylan prayed last night, among his several requests he said this: "...please bless Obama to make enough laws so that all of the naughty people in the world will be good..." Hmmmmm.

Love

I've been thinking about love lately. I don't mean that kind that makes you swoon and giggle; I mean the stuff that makes you feel solid and strong. The kind that shoots out from you like facets of every good and positive thing you've ever felt.
The kind that when you look at your loved one, your heart steels. You are emboldened. You will grab hold of their hand and march boldly onward despite the inevitable hardships that are looming. You will peer into the chasm and speak words of comfort and encouragement to them. You will care for them in every conceivable way merely because you want them to feel even a bit of comfort and peace that these things afford.
I love my man and my little son in this way.
We shall overcome. We will see the light. Everything will be okay.

What I Saw...

This morning I decided to hit the road and try to catch some of the beautiful crops that are grown here in West Texas. I found this really pretty crop of sunflowers. Here's a couple of my favorites:

Update 9/4/2009:

To see the rest of the original photos shared in this post, please go to my new photography website by clicking here. It's still largely under construction, but you can see what I'm up to professionally.

Thanks!

Rebecca :)

Mini Golf

Someday I'll take the time to sit down and properly blog about the awesomeness that was this summer. (I've been busy. TRULY busy.) But I thought I'd share some pictures of our recent FHE adventures in mini golf.
Enjoy!

When bad posing happens to good people....

Making the shot.

Conquering the course!

Lubbock Lake Archaeologists

A few weeks ago, we had the opportunity to attend a tour of an active archaeological dig here in Lubbock. Here's a brief snapshot of the day...

Mazes and Monsters = Serious Hilarity

Last night Becky and I watched a movie starring Tom Hanks called “Mazes and Monsters”. Because it starred Tom Hanks and was released in 1982 I figured that it would be a comedy. But, instead, it was a serious and sentimental drama/cautionary tale about the potential dangers of participating in role-playing games (like Dungeons & Dragons). It was one of the most ludicrous and unintentionally hilarious films I have ever seen. If you enjoy cult classics or Mystery Science Theater then you absolutely must see this movie (I know that some of you probably already have). “I thought I was like Mr. Spock from Star Trek…that I didn’t have any feelings” is one of this film’s most memorable lines, spoken (in all seriousness) by a young man attempting to bare his soul to a female role-player.

Pitbull Bites Chihuahua

Two days ago, on Friday, I was walking my two chihuahuas around my new neighborhood with my son, Dylan. It's a nice neighborhood; better than our last one. We were finishing up our walk and were about 50 yards from home when a pitbull jumped out of a moving car, ran up to Eddy, and started to bite him vigorously. I wasn't sure if the pitbull was just trying to play, or if it meant to harm Eddy. Eddy did not yike, so I figured he was okay. The pitbull's owner quickly stopped his car, ran over to his dog, and pulled him away from Eddy. The owner apologized to me and said that his dog had never done that before. I told him that it was okay because Eddy looked like he didn't get hurt. We finished walking home. Eddy was acting normal and wasn't limping. When we got into the house I inspected Eddy's body. I discovered a large and very deep gash in his body near one of his back legs. I was amazed that Eddy didn't act injured at the time, but the next day he was very sore and had to lay around resting. He'll have a big scar, I'm sure. Eddy is a funny dog because he doesn't respond as expected to physical punishment. He always interprets it as playful. I've tried to punish him by smacking his rear in the past, but he always just looks at you like you're playing. He acts the same way when attacked by other dogs. Each time that a dog has bit him (it has happened a few times, but never this bad) he behaves as though the dog is playing nicely with him - even if it results in injury!

Tales from an Alternate Universe

Yesterday morning it became time for Dylan's swimming lesson. I could hear Dylan playing in his room so I called after him letting him know that it was time to get his swimming suit on. I heard a gasp, scuttle and then silence. Silence is a bad thing at our house, so I went to see what was going on.
I encountered this:

...and no Dylan in sight. Then I heard a little giggle from the recently emptied toy cupboard; which upon inspection revealed this:


When I asked him, Dylan explained that the hand prints (which he made super early in the morning without permission) were meant to scare me because it was a sort of indicator that he had been kidnapped to an alternate universe. Apparently the toy cupboard was the portal from which he returned.

Lately Dylan has developed quite a penchant for trying to get a dramatic reaction from his poor mama. This is only the latest in a string of pseudo disappearances or death scenes orchestrated for my benefit alone. I must say that it's been a good practice for me because I no longer experience chilling panic when I see Dylan prostrated out on the floor; I just assume he's going for the "reaction thrill" once again.

I really must give him some serious props for his creativity with this particular scenario however; what a genius wee rascal my son is!

Shocking Parenting Moment

Here is a transcript of a conversation that occurred in our home the other night (warning it has a cuss word):

Setup: Owen and I were moving things around in the kitchen when Dylan walked in...

Dylan: "What in the hell is going on here?!"

Owen and Me: Shocked gasp followed by flabbergasted silence.

Owen (sputtering): Dylan, you just used a bad word that we don't use in our home."
Dylan: "Which one?"
Me: "You know... the h-e double toothpick one...." (feeling like an idiot as soon as it crosses my lips.)
Dylan "What?"
Owen: Um... you know... The word that is the name of place that the Devil lives."
Dylan: "Wait a minute! I never said ARI-ZOnn-NA!!!"
Me and Owen: "BWA HA HA HA HA* GASP* HA HA HA HA ha ha ha ha ha ha " (falling to the floor gasping for air.)
Dylan: "What did I say?"

Whoa! Did Mother's Day Pass Without Me Mentioning It?

So Mother's Day isn't my most favorite day. It's not that I have anything against being a mother or celebrating the institution of motherhood; it's just that I always feel all oggie and creepy about my own performance as a mother. Thankfully, I LOVE being a mother and I can't wait to be a mother to even a few more kids, but dang if I don't feel every misstep on this "wonderful" day. Okay, enough of the masochistic guilt trip.

Dylan provided me with some very amusing mother's day gifts. One was a "Mommy Grass Head" (you can take that however you want) and the other was a Cookbook. I loved the cookbook because Dylan described how I made his most favorite dish.

Here it is:
"My favorite dish is Hamburgers. Mom flats the hamburger with her hands. She has blood on her hands so she has to wash them. She puts hamburgers on the grill. She heats the grill to 40 degrees. She flips them. They are ready when they are brown. I like cheese on my burger. I am like a mouse."

One point for my hand washing, one point penalty for my lack of proper cooking practices, triple point bonus for son's use of an analogy! Pretty sweet mothers day overall.

Here's some pictures...

Super excited to give me his gift.


Me in Grass Head form.


The Cookbook.

Merry Month of May

May is an important month for us. Owen and I were married in May and Dylan was sealed to us in May. Here's a pictorial trip down memory lane:



Our Wedding Day


Sealing Day





Cutie Patutie

Update...

For those of you who care, I'm pleased to announce that we found a place to rent! It really was an opening of the windows of heaven situation because of the multiple circumstances surrounding the whole process. I guess our new landlord literally just put the rental sign up minutes before we called. She likes dogs, doesn't even charge a pet deposit; is excited about and encouraged my gardening desires; will be giving us a washer and dryer (not usually something she does, she just "felt" that we might need them and is paying to get the washer repaired for us before we move in) and was looking precisely for people like us to rent the place. What's more, it is located in one of the most desirable neighborhoods in Lubbock quite close to Tech campus. The highest rated elementary school in our school district is literally two houses down from our house as well as the second best park in Lubbock; the one that we frequent for it's cool playground and tennis courts. Seriously, we were surprised to find a rental in such a neighborhood. It's that nice. I'm sorry if it sounds a little braggy but it's a complete miracle for us! Thank you to those who prayed for us. I have no doubt that the Divine arm of mercy was extended towards us in this experience.

And so it goes...

First off, this is not a mothers day post. It's just an updat on the housing situation. Yesterday, we were

Not so bad

Okay, I realize that I'm a dramatic soul who possibly reacts too strongly to stress. I thought I would follow my whine with a "Thankful Thursday" moment.
1) I'm thankful for live mariachi bands playing at the wal-mart. Sweet!
2) I'm thankful for boot wielding firemen who were collecting money for charity at the stop lights.
3) I'm thankful for a son who says in a very cool way "Let's Roll." when it's time to get out of the car at the grocery store.
4) I'm grateful for the abundance of chihuahuas that exists in Lubbock and how adorable they all are- especially mine.
5) I'm thankful for the comforter that guides us and helps us feel at peace when things seem to be going wrong.
6) I'm thankful for prayer and quick answers to prayer.
7) I'm thankful to have a worthy priesthood holder in my home who can deal with the drama.
8) I'm thankful for blogs and people who show support to me when I'm being a whiner.
9) I'm thankful for a return to good health and all of the abilities that I have.
10) I'm thankful for the scriptures that guide and comfort us when we need it.

Whine Alert!

This past Sunday, things were going well... until the same psyco who came after Owen on Thanksgiving day was at it again while O was walking the pooches. Lame! We've been having several problems with our neighbors of late. Things that are too awful to relate in words have happened to all of us, and it's gotten to the point that we feel that we need to move to a safer location. It's a shame. We love the house we're in. The Landlords are the best we've ever had, we're right next to the best park in Lubbock and super close to the University. But when your personal safety and well being is threatened too many times, it's time to move on. House searching is tricky here because there are basically three categories:

First are the student apartments that are unarguably awesome in every way, but also harbor super hard core partying young people. Not family friendly.

Second comes the reasonably priced homes in crack whore/ bandito neighborhoods (aka 90% of Lubbock) where the living conditions become a study in patience, perseverance, and extreme tolerance for those who are not cw/b's .

And lastly there are the " we might as well get a mortgage" houses that have a rent that you either have to be stupid or really desperate to get away from the cw/b neighborhoods to be willing to pay the exorbitant prices.

Whatever.
I'm just frustrated today. No luck in finding a place to live. There's a part of me that wants to just get a tazer for each of us and just stay where we are! So in honor of my self-pitying and frustrated state, I made a sound track to get it out of my system. Enjoy the whining folks! :)