There are so many reasons why I love Lent. Here is just one:
(If it’s hard to see, those are irises coming up.)
I mentioned earlier that the word Lent means “spring.” Typically this liturgical season begins in February, during the dark, snowy, cold days of winter. Yet, as the forty days progress, we journey spiritually and, yes, even physically to a new rebirth: spring. All of creation comes to life again.
My daughter, father, and I went for a stroll around our house this afternoon. It is a beautiful, sunny day, but there is a little wind. Most days I would say, “Oh, it’s too cold to go outside”–as though we don’t own coats, hats, and mittens that would all perfectly suffice to keep us warm. Excuses, excuses.
I’m in the midst of reading the most gripping book called Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child. It’s simultaneously eye-opening and disturbing because there are things I may do so naturally with our daughter, just because it’s the norm of our society today or the way I experienced things, that have the terrible side effect of impairing the incredible gift of imagination.
Imagination is so critical. To be able to transport yourself to another place or time, to envision a way things could be better, to dream of an unlimited number of “what ifs…” To contemplate what is good, what is beautiful, what is real. To imagine that this world might not be all that exists, that there might be something greater beyond the tangible, physical things around us…that maybe, just perhaps, those created elements in our world are only signposts to an even greater Good, an everlasting Truth.
At a party last weekend, three-year-old Isaac approached me with a concerned, wide-eyed look on his face. With utmost seriousness, a Dorito clenched in his hand, he stated, “The dragon hit me right here,” gesturing to side of his face. ”Oh, no!” I exclaimed. ”Where is the dragon?” Without a second’s hesitation, he pointed: the overhead fan.
What an incredible gift! How is it that, what once came so simply to us, gradually becomes so hard? When does a fan stop being a fire-breathing, scaly, ferocious dragon and become…a fan?
Perhaps, in part, it has to do with our setting. At least, that’s what I have read so far in my book.
Do you realize that, for the first time in human history, men and women spend the majority of their time indoors? That really hit me when I read it for the first time. Sure, we have the Internet, the Wii, Ipods, etc., etc. But what are we missing? How about this:
Excuse the blurry image in the foreground; that’s a little blossom, just bursting forth. As we walked about this afternoon, we discovered a thousand little stories being told all around us: the bird chirping nearby, the little trail a mouse dug through the grass, the tree stump that would make an excellent seat or table for a tea party, the daffodils lining the side of the house. There were fluffy clouds set against a deep blue sky, just begging the viewer to call out shapes to identify them.
All this fodder for the imagination! What was the mouse looking for when he dug his trail? What kind of tree did we find, and what will its blossoms look like once they bloom? What lessons the outdoors hold for us–reminders of perseverance, of hope…that even the harshest winter does not stop the coming of new life.
Our daughter was captivated by it all. She heard the bird and promptly echoed its call with one of her own. We basked in the sun and breathed deeply the crisp, fresh air.
I want her to see the dragon. And, even more, I want her to imagine what is most beautiful, most true, most good. Faith, hope, and love–these three do require a little imagination sometimes. Looking at my neighbor and seeing the face of Christ is hard to do when your imagination has been deadened by primetime television, Youtube, and texting.
So I’ve made a resolution: spend time outdoors, even if it’s just fifteen minutes. Spring is coming; gone now is my reasoning that it’s winter and too cold for the baby to be outdoors. Bundle her up, get her out, and feed that imagination.
And she’ll teach me again, what I once knew myself–I will see the dragons, too.
Last week I was inundated with really amazing recipes, mostly thanks to Pinterest, which has introduced me to so many new blogs. It’s like a treasure chest of exciting dishes and desserts to cook and bake! Plus, I am grateful how easy it is to organize my finds via my different boards (breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, etc.).
The only problem I have encountered is that Pinterest could consume my time, if I allowed it! I suppose it’s a good way to build self-control! 
It was so hard to pick just one recipe today, that I decided to go with two. I was blessed this past weekend to spend some time with friends. On Saturday, my daughter and I attend a Mother’s Group. It’s a terrific opportunity to share and reflect with other women about our vocations as wives and mothers. I really cherish our discussions and, in preparing for the meeting, I tried to find a special recipe fitting of the occasion. Since it is Lent, I wanted to avoid something super sweet. And, thus, I found these:
Fig Walnut Bran Muffins
Fig Walnut Bran Muffins. They’re very healthy (natural sweeteners, whole wheat flour, etc.), plus the bran doesn’t dry them out as I thought it might; instead, they are also quite moist! Perhaps the figs assisted with this. I never worked with figs before (well, aside from eating Fig Newtons), but they look like big raisins with seeds. And they taste very good!
Fig Walnut Bran Muffins
Courtesy of Cinnamon Girl Recipes
Ingredients
Instructions
Then on Sunday our family attended a party hosted by one of our friends! I was recently introduced to strawberry bread by my friend, Lisa; it is absolutely scrumptious and I knew I wanted to bring it to the party. Lisa very graciously passed along the recipe, which I now share with you. The bread is incredibly moist and surprisingly heavy–as in, when you pick it up, it feels heavy. Perhaps it’s all of the plump strawberries in it?
Strawberry Bread
Strawberry Bread
Courtesy of Lisa
Dinner was, at one point, one of my favorite times of the day. My husband and I have always made an effort to have our dinner time be an opportunity for conversation, socialization, and simply enjoying each other’s company. As the cook of our family, I’ve tried to prepare something healthy and appealing to our palates and we have always enjoyed our meal in the dining room because it just has such a different feel to it than eating in the kitchen. When I’m in the kitchen, I think: work. Dishes. Floor to sweep. When I’m in the dining room, I think: relax and converse. Enjoy my meal. It’s a completely different mentality.
These pictures were taken a few months ago, at a private school nearby, during one of our afternoon walks!
Anyway, I digress.
Sadly, our dinner times had become one of my least favorite times of the day.
Here’s a little taste (no pun intended) of what our dinners had become…my husband would come home at varying times each weeknight, as he sometimes ran an errand or two after work. Dinner would be more or less ready when he walked in the door. When it was actually ready to serve (by which point we would all be ravenous and the baby usually cranky), the three of us would sit down together in the dining room, our daughter in her high chair between the two of us. For the course of the meal, my attention span rotated between feeding Mary her baby food, singing/dancing/putting on a Vaudeville act to coax Mary to eat her food, listening to my husband talk about his day, rattling off a list of what I did that day, oh and eating my own food.
Our conversation, once so intellectually and emotionally satisfying, had become sound bites, snippets of our days and a business discussion of the most important items that had to be addressed in order to run our home.
He was resentful that I paid him little to no attention. I was resentful that I was the one doing all the effort to get Mary to eat. And, at the root of it all, we just downright missed each other.
And then my husband came to a realization: just because we had always done things this way doesn’t mean we still have to do them in the same manner. If something isn’t working, you don’t have to put your nose to the grindstone and keep hammering away at it, as though we are robots with no ability to force the issue or creatively design something that would work better.
Ah, yes: we can change things.
So we put on our thinking caps, stepped back, and analyzed our family dinner. What was working? What wasn’t working? Then, most challenging, what can we do to make it better?
It took some trial and error, but I think we are now moving in a really wonderful, refreshing direction.
Here is a sample of how our dinner unfolds now…
It all starts with a set arrival time. My husband has arranged his schedule so he is home at the same time each night. That way, I know exactly how to order my afternoon so we will be prepared for his arrival: blinds closed, baby’s nap done, dinner just about ready.
Once my husband gets himself settled, he wheels Mary’s high chair into the kitchen. While I put the finishing touches on dinner (and, better yet, have dinner done and start the dishes!), he feeds our daughter her baby food. This is his opportunity to bond with her and gives me a break from the singing, dancing, and general coaxing, which I have done during breakfast and lunch already. Plus, Mary is happy Daddy has her full attention and is intrigued watching me move about the kitchen.
By the time Mary is fed, I am ready with dinner! Mary is wheeled into the dining room and I light a candle on the table (such a simple thing like a lit candle adds so much!). We pray and sit down to eat. I don’t have to worry about Mary anymore, since she had her baby food already, and so I give her table food, which she can experiment with. She can eat it or play with it–whatever strikes her fancy. As she’s content, Chris and I can give each other our full attention. If Mary gets antsy, we filled a cabinet by the table full of miscellaneous toys so she can always go and play.
We have realistic expectations though. We realize that we can’t have a monumental, deep, philosophical conversation over dinner anymore because, after some time, Mary will want our attention back. Such conversations must be reserved for alone time when baby is asleep. However, at least we can converse now. And we even make eye contact! It’s wonderful!
Eating together as a family is absolutely paramount, but I’ve learned that there are so many ways to go about actually doing so. Some ways are more effective than others.
So, I ask you: first and foremost, do you eat together as a family? If not, then do so. Immediately. It’s that important. Second, are there ways you could improve your time around the dinner table?
I have a feeling my husband and I will continue to tweak our dinner habits as our daughter grows and develops (and, hopefully, as more children surround the table!). The key, at least for me, is realizing that sometimes we need to be creative and break out of the established regimen to seek something better.
Something is better than nothing, right?
Menu Plan Monday is just not really working for me anymore. I really love the idea of posting my weekly menu for your viewing pleasure. I mean, I personally have found plenty of delicious recipes via other people’s blogs; it’s great finding a recipe that’s already been tried and tested. BUT, as lovely as Menu Plan Monday may be, it hasn’t happened here at Pax et Baby for awhile.
That may be either because 1) I forget about it, 2) I forgot what we ate the past week and thus don’t know what to post, 3) I don’t have the time to find the links to all the recipes, or 4) a combination of #1-3.
That being said, I’ve decided to institute “Recipe Monday.” I can surely remember one thing we ate from the past week! I’ll try to pick my favorite recipe so you get the very best each week.
So it’s Lent, as you may recall from my previous post. Per tradition, my husband and I have given up sweets for these 40 days. In place of cookies, cakes, and brownies, I’m trying to compile some healthy fruit recipes we can enjoy after dinner. One of our favorite fruit desserts is smoothies.
Last week I came across the Green Monster Spinach Smoothie.
That sounds a little scary, right? Spinach…in a smoothie?
I was intrigued though and felt compelled to try it. Thankfully, my husband is pretty adventurous when trying new foods (unlike my family of origin!) so he was game.
Let me tell you: it was delicious! You can’t really taste the spinach and the smoothie has a lovely, thick consistency. Plus it really fills you up (so make sure you leave some room after dinner if you plan to have it for dessert). Not to mention: it’s super healthy! Just take a look at the nutritional stats!!!
Green Monster Spinach Smoothie
Courtesy of Iowa Girl Eats
Ingredients:
1 frozen sliced banana
1 Tablespoon peanut butter
1/2 cup 0% Vanilla Chobani Greek yogurt
1 cup Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Breeze (or other kind of milk)
4 cups baby spinach (or more, or less)
Directions:
Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth.
Nutritional stats:
350 calories, 10g fiber, 21g protein
“To thy own self be true.”
It’s a lovely saying, isn’t it? But sometimes I struggle with living it because I think, in many ways, I really don’t know myself all that well.
I would venture to assert that I’m not alone in this predicament.
Self-knowledge is extremely difficult to acquire. Yet, how very simple it is for us to know (and in knowing, judge and criticize) those around us. It’s astonishingly easy to critique and condemn my neighbor while simultaneously remaining ignorant about my own vices and shortcomings.
If I were to ask you, “What is your greatest fault?” could you answer? Do you really know yourself? Self-knowledge is so key because, well, if you don’t know what’s wrong…how can you fix it?
The thing is that, no matter how long we stare in the mirror, sometimes it’s just so hard to have an objective view of ourselves.
Sometimes we need to enlist the help of those closest to us. I thought I knew my greatest fault, but it wasn’t until an incredibly revealing conversation with my husband a couple of weeks ago that my eyes were opened to something I never saw before. He identified something I really struggle with, but that, until said conversation, I had been more or less blind to.
The reason I bring this up is because it’s a timely topic. Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday and thus starts the holy season of Lent. It’s traditionally a time of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. The word Lent means “spring.” So you can think of it as the passage of your soul from the dead of winter’s sin to the new life of springtime grace and virtue.
For that spring cleaning in your soul to occur, you need to remove the dirt and grime of sin. You need to really do some soul searching and ask yourself: What is my greatest fault? What do I need to clean up?
Really step back and take the broad view. Perhaps you fall into the same pattern that I do: you become so engrossed in the most immediate tasks and problems at hand, you don’t really pause and step back to reflect, to ask the deeper questions, to review, observe, and imagine.
This Lent, I challenge you shift your perspective. Reflect on your life–past, present, future. Then ask yourself: What do I see as my greatest fault, the vice that most often is the obstacle in my way of being the person I should be? Test your answer by asking someone who knows you best; his or her response may cause you to revisit the question. And then work at your fault–it may mean stopping a particular habit, or perhaps pursuing a positive habit in its place.
My challenge this Lent? Moral courage. I’m not talking about letting my faith show–I’ll whip out a rosary in any public place without a second’s thought. I’m talking about having the moral courage to speak the truth, especially when such truth will be met with opposition. I’m going to strive not to be a “people pleaser.” Obviously charity must always guide our actions, but sometimes charity demands confronting someone who is hurting him or herself through sin.
There is a memory that is so clear in my mind. I was on bus #76, riding along Spring Avenue on our way to high school. My sophomore self was sitting next to sixteen-year-old Leah, a real talker who loved music, her boyfriend, and life in general. Leah had a developmental disability. In front of us sat two boys, who sadly fall under the stereotypical category of “bully.” For that whole ride they bullied Leah, tormenting her with crass jokes, disrespectful names, and taunts and teases.
And I sat there, burning inside that they could be so cruel and hurtful. But it was like I was paralyzed. I said nothing. Why? I was scared.
It’s a scene that’s been replayed throughout my life–different people, different scenarios, but the same idea: I was met with a challenge and, through fear of what someone might think or concern I would offend or bother someone, I was silent when the truth needed to be declared.
So, courage. That’s my Lenten goal.
By the way, since we are on the topic, let me also share something else I do every Lent. It’s a favorite tradition of mine, one I was inspired to start more than ten years ago. This is my Lent box:
I wrote a little ditty on the side of it that explains its purpose:
Each Lent I cut out 40 pieces of paper and write on each one the name of someone important in my life: mostly family and friends, but I include my “enemies,” too, since we are also supposed to pray for them. Then every morning I draw out a name and pray for that person throughout my day, remembering him or her in my prayers and offering up any sufferings for him or her. It’s very beautiful, plus it’s exciting to see how grace works. Frequently I have found myself praying for someone the very day he or she needed extra prayers. God works in pretty neat ways sometimes.
I pray that this Lent will be a springtime of spiritual renewal for you. The beautiful thing is that, when we shift our perspective and take the broad view, suddenly our lives are filled with the new light of understanding and clarity.
Do some reflecting tonight. And tomorrow, begin Lent by tackling that which most needs work in your soul.
I hope all of you had a wonderful Valentine’s Day celebrating the precious gift that is love, which we all have the joy of experiencing, whether through romance, through friendship, or through family.
Here at our household we celebrated family love and romantic love.
As I mentioned in another post, having your first child starts one pondering about tradition and what special things you, as a family, will do on holidays. Since Valentine’s Day landed on a work night this year, I knew dinner out for just my husband and me was not an option. So I had to get a little creative.
First, the ambiance…
We have a big white board in our kitchen because my husband is very enthusiastic about making lists, and what’s better than a list than a really BIG list EVERY ONE can see? Ah, it makes me smile. Anyway, I decorated it. Yet, as the forthcoming pictures will continue to indicate, interspersed with our romantic evening was a strong dose of reality. Hence the note about getting more garbage bags.
Another touch to the enhance the ambiance: romantic music. I found a Pandora station with music from–fittingly–the Romantic period. It was really quite nice…except when a commercial interrupted it. Again, a dose of reality.
So, the dinner. It was, to confess, leftovers. I know, I know. Leftovers?! We couldn’t even go out to dinner and so I pulled out another night’s meal? Yes, but I did enhance it. I had some homemade pepperoni and cheese bread I pulled out of the freezer and was planning on serving that with some white bean, spinach, and bacon soup. I figured soup and salad should go together, so I cut up some vegetables. But, since it was Valentine’s Day and all, I made it a super salad–otherwise known as throwing everything in that I could imagine. Hence in addition to the green leaf lettuce, tomatoes, and carrots, I added: feta cheese, homemade croutons. hard broiled egg, almonds, and cranberries. Turns out, the salad was so super that we had no room left for soup! But we did have room for cake (leftover from Mary’s birthday, but just as tasty!).
Again, a strong dose of real mixed in with our yummy, candlelight dinner.
Here’s a picture of our table:
We really enjoyed the candles, but our daughter seemed very puzzled by the fact we were eating in the dark. On the real side, you will note the large water bottles and the baby’s sippy cup.
And, to cap it all off after our leftover birthday cake from the freezer, the great exchange! My husband and I do have one tradition we have followed every Valentine’s Day. Instead of flowers or candy, we put our effort and attention into finding the perfect Valentine and, once we have found it, we each write a personal, loving message to each other. We wanted to keep the holiday focused on its original intent of sending a loving card to your beloved. It may sound quite simplistic, but I do cherish each Valentine he gives me.
Even Mary received a Valentine!
So, in the end, it was a lovely Valentine’s Day and I think it was very reflective of our love. You always need the romance, but love also needs to be rooted in the real (more about the meaning of love here). If your marriage is all of the former, you lack the sacrifice that builds love by drawing you out of yourself.
On the other hand, if your marriage is all about the daily grind of jobs to do and tasks to accomplish, you stop seeing the beauty of your spouse and the friendship that burned so brightly when you first dated may begin to fade; your marriage becomes a business partnership.
Romance doesn’t have to be a five-star restaurant or diamonds (though there is nothing wrong with either of those!). Romance can be as simple as a short message of, “I love you!” or a little perfume (or cologne for the men). And if there is some “real” mixed in with that, it need not detract; in fact, it makes your love that much richer.
On Friday, February 3 a beautiful five-year-old girl named Madeline (Maddie) was diagnosed with an untreatable tumor in her brainstem. This past Wednesday morning, five short days later, she passed away.
While I have friends who knew Maddie and are close to her family, I myself never had the privilege of meeting her. Nevertheless, the lack of a formal introduction didn’t keep this little girl from touching my heart and influencing my life.
Maybe it’s because I am a mother now and have my own little girl, but Maddie’s story has occupied my mind ever since I first heard of her sad diagnosis. It’s the kind of heartbreaking news that just leaves one absolutely confounded. Why? Why such tragedy and sadness, especially so sudden and so unexpected, for one so young and innocent?
On Wednesday morning I visited a nearby church and sat before Our Lord, thinking about Maddie. I had just learned of her passing before I left the house.
As I knelt there, I prayed for her and for her family and friends. And I reflected about what this little girl reminded me..
Her life reminded me that I need to always keep a broad perspective, to have an eternal view. It’s so easy for me to forget that I wasn’t made for this world; I was made for a heavenly world. This earth is just a passageway, not a final destination. There is so much more beyond what we can see and experience here. What comes next is unexperienced and foreign and so it slips out of our minds. But it’s real–more real than this world even–and every day we should keep this eternal perspective.
Maddie’s story is scary in many ways. It scared me at least. As a mother, I have experienced a whole new kind of love. The way I love our daughter is unlike any other love I have known. The thing with love, however, is that it makes you very perceptible to suffering. Should your loved one experience pain, you feel it, too. Love makes us vulnerable. I sat with our daughter, watching her sleep and thinking of Maddie. What if something happened to our daughter? What if she were diagnosed with a terminal, untreatable illness?
Maddie helped me remember: our children are not our own. My daughter doesn’t really belong to me; she belongs to God. Just as I do, as we all do. In a way, we can think of our children as precious gifts, on loan to us from God. He bestows them upon us and, while we are on this temporary place called earth, we have the job of helping each other grow in virtue to become the men and women we are supposed to be, the kind of people who, through God’s grace, could one day inhabit a heavenly homeland. ”Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21).
If you saw a picture of Maddie, such as the one on her website, you see a broad-smiling, beautiful girl. I am sure her parents were struggling with seeing her in pain. I thought to myself how tragic that she should know such sadness in her young life. And that’s certainly true–it is so sad. But, as I prayed this morning, I thought there is something more than happiness. I want our daughter to be happy, but I should want something more for her than this.
I want a happy daughter, but even more, I want a holy daughter. I want a daughter who lives her life in communion with God, who loves Him who is Love itself and who reflects this Truth and Life in her words and deeds. This is what Maddie’s parents, God bless them, did. This past weekend, by special permission from the bishop, Maddie celebrated her First Holy Communion and was Confirmed. She was, and is, a holy girl. These parents did their best to make her days, even those when she was so ill, happy. But they didn’t neglect the greater responsibility–to help her be holy, to prepare her soul for her Father in heaven.
This five-year-old girl, weak and frail from an untreatable condition, demonstrated to me something else of immense power: the mobilization of the Body of Christ, the Church. There is a passage in the Acts of the Apostles that says the early Church “held all things in common.” This refers to sharing earthly goods, such as food and shelter. But I think it applied to spiritual goods, too.
The Church today held in common the pain and suffering of Maddie and her family. Now, perhaps I spend too much time on Facebook and that’s why I witnessed this, but the outpouring of love, prayer, concern, and support for little Maddie was overwhelming. There was a part of the Body of Christ suffering and hurt; we all felt it as though it were our own family and we all reached out because it was the most natural, instinctive thing to do. Perhaps because, in a very real way, Maddie’s family is our family.
We are not alone. Do you know what the shortest verse in the Bible is? John 11:35. ”And Jesus wept.” Maybe it’s so short to make a point, to make us realize the significance of this brief passage. Jesus wept at the death of His dear friend, Lazarus. He knows our sadness and heartache. He walks side-by-side with those experiencing loss…because He knows it, too. He is close to us who suffer…because He suffered, more than anyone ever could.
And herein lies the greatest lesson Maddie helped me remember. It all comes back to this–it has to. There is always hope. Death is never the final answer, but merely a transition. From death, God brings life. St. Francis referred to “Sister Death” because, for the one with faith, it isn’t the termination of everything. There is a line during the Mass for the Dead that says “life is changed, not ended.”
For Maddie, life is changed. While I have no ecclesiastical authority to definitively affirm this, I can say that dear Maddie, as one under the age of reason and having just received Holy Communion and Confirmation, was free of all original and personal sin. So, I feel quite confident to believe her life has changed in a way more beautiful, profound, and incredibly blissful than we could even imagine.
The hope that belongs to those with faith is a priceless treasure.
Dear Maddie, I’m sorry that we never met. But thank you for all that you reminded me and taught me of throughout these past few days. I pray for your friends and family who mourn your passing. May they know the consoling, healing, loving touch of God, who is with them in this time of sadness. I hope, one day, we may all join you in our true homeland.
~ Capturing the context of everyday life ~
Every Thursday, here at Like Mother, Like Daughter!
{Pretty}
My dear friend Louise gave our family this tulip plant. Sometimes I forget how much I miss the colors and scents of spring and summer, until I am reminded by something like this beautiful flower. It brings a wonderful touch of spring into our February! I plan to plant the bulbs once the flowers die so we can enjoy the plant’s beauty next spring, too.
{Happy}
Louise, probably the most thoughtful person that I know, made this poster for our daughter in celebration of her first birthday. It is so beautiful that I hung it on the door to Mary’s room. It makes me happy every time I see it!
{Funny}
Now, this requires some looking very closely at the above picture. Our daughter loves looking out the window, especially so every Wednesday (trash and recycling day) and any time a bus drives by the house. I stand her on the radiator box so she can have the perfect view. Well, we did this a few days ago when, unbeknownst to me, her little fingers were full of the remains of cheese puffs. So now our view out the dining room window includes her handprints. If you look at the rear door of the car, you can just make out one of them (it was a challenge to capture it on camera).
{Real}
Ten baby socks–count them–without a partner. Did my dryer eat the matches? Did our daughter (who, by the way, pulls off her socks at the first possible opportunity) hide them to sabotage my attempt to keep her toes warm? Hmm…big questions to ponder here in our household!
I have a new favorite activity in my kitchen: baking bread.
It’s been awhile now since I stopped buying bread at the grocery store. In the beginning, I made my bread from scratch, the hard way–kneading and all. In some sense, I really enjoyed it. There is something very real about kneading bread dough and thinking of all the generations of women before me who had done the same, baking bread for their families to eat. It’s also a very apt visual: a little yeast does indeed leaven all the dough.
However, as nice as all of that may be, the downside is that it is 1) messy (especially when your baby insists on helping you knead) and 2) time consuming. Plus, while I was successful most of the time, there were certainly occasions when I didn’t knead quite enough or the dough wasn’t located in a warm enough place to rise properly or I completely forgot about the rising bread and was left without enough time to bake it before needing to leave the house.
And then this entered my kitchen:
My husband bought me a bread machine for Christmas . I was skeptical how much better it would be than the do-it-yourself method.
Well, let me tell you! It’s wonderful! I can’t stop baking bread. It’s that easy!
Let me walk you through…first you place all the ingredients into the bread machine (dry first, then wet).
Pour your yeast into the top compartment.
Select your preferences (type of bread, darkness of the crust, size of the loaf).
Shut the door, let the machine do its job, and come back a few hours later to find this:
The preparation takes maybe 15 minutes for most breads. Then you can go about your day as usual, with the delicious scent of baking bread wafting throughout your house.
I do caution you, however, that you really do need to use bread flour, not all purpose flour. I tried that the first time and learned quickly you can’t substitute: my loaf was way too dense.
The other exciting part of using the bread machine is that you don’t know quite what you will find when it’s all said and done. (You see, at least with the bread machine we have, you can’t peek because opening the lid will stop the process.) Well, maybe this isn’t all that exciting, but for a stay-at-home mom, it’s pretty thrilling! 
I’ve tried many different kinds of bread with the machine; most recently I baked a carrot spice bread, which is quite good and very moist, too. My favorite recipe thus far is one for cinnamon raisin bread. The best part? You can use it to make French Toast!
Capital Region Frassati Chapter
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