It rained all week.

I went a little crazy.

Tomorrow will be sunny and I’ll work in the garden all day long.

(Except for when I won’t, of course.)

My goal is to get the entire thing planted.

I’m so good at setting realistic goals for myself. It’s one of my gifts.

But for now, for now I’m sunk deep into pinterest.

Yes, I took the plunge and I haven’t come up for air yet. I’m trusting the rush will fade, so I’m allowing myself to frisk about with wild abandon, and to all hours of the early morning, yes indeed.

It’s splendid fun (all questions can be answered here). I’d love for you to join me!

This same time, years previous: the boring blues (obviously, I didn’t have pinterest), fowl-ness (a butchering tale)

It always amazes me how when spring rolls around each, um, spring, there is a whole new slew of rhubarb recipes that crop up right along with the elephant eared-topped red stalks that shoot up out of the ground, and I can never seem to get to all of them. (The recipes, that is, not the rhubarb. I can get to the rhubarb, no prob.)

A number of conclusions can be made regarding this rhubarb phenomenon:
1. I like rhubarb.
2. I read lots of recipes.
3. I cook lots of rhubarb.
4. I ought to grow more rhubarb.

Numbers one through three are constants and will not be changed. I’m working on number four, but it’s been a struggle since five of my six new plants died upon planting. They confused their planting with a burial, I’m afraid.

So I’m picking my rhubarb patch heavier than I ought to be, probably, and we are enjoying rhubarb all sorts of different ways.

Today I put a bunch of rue-barbies into muffins. I got the idea from Deb, but then subbed in my standard muffin recipe which is, by the way, THE BEST MUFFIN RECIPE EVER I kid you not. And I will defend my claim till the day all my teeth fall out and I can no longer bite into a muffin WHICH WILL BE NEVER because the muffins are so tender and moist that I’ll be able to gum them just fine, though I might have to pass on the hard add-ins like chocolate and nuts.

Good grief, what is this post coming to? I’m supposed to be talking about delicious, springy rhubarb and instead I’m yammering on and on about burials and my teeth falling out. I am so very sorry. Let’s press on, shall we?

[inhales deeply, squares shoulders]

So I got the idea for the muffins from Deb, yeah. I used her streusel recipe which turned out to be absolutely fantastico, crunchy crumbly and not too sweet. My daughter asked if I could just bake up a pan of the streusel so she could eat it straight up. Which makes me think, now that I pause to think, the baked streusel would probably be an excellent topping for oatmeal or as an add-in, along with some dried fruit, for a bowl of cornflakes.

And I’m thinking of signing up for pinterest. (Oops. I should’ve given you a heads-up that a Random Thought was brewing. Sorry. Again.) Anyone out there a pinner of interesting things? Ought I do it? Is it a waste of time? I’m asking for a little feedback here. Do oblige me, please.

This post is kind of like my day with these muffins has been. I set up the stuff to make the muffins, I slept, I baked the muffins, I fed the kids, I ate a muffin, I read to the kids, I ate another muffin, I oversaw chores, I ate a muffin (but just a half this time), I fancied up my toenails, I made lunch, I ate lunch, I ate anther muffin…

See, the muffins are the background for everything else that’s going on, just like how the bits about the muffins are background for all my other random thoughts.

I even gave up my afternoon donut to have a muffin. (Which was the muffin I ate after lunch, lest you think I ate TWO muffins after lunch, which I didn’t.) (Yet.)

If anything could speak highly to these muffins, that last line is it. In fact, I probably could have scratch the preceding gibberish and just written that line and you all would get the message loud and clear.

So let’s try again:

Blog Post Take Two

Look at this muffin, will ya? Do you see it, a-way down there? Yes?


I gave up my afternoon donut for this muffin. Yes! It’s true! I wanted a whole-grain MUFFIN over a devily delicious DONUT!

Wow, and the end.

Except it’s not (sigh) because I have to say one more thing. These muffins are really the perfect breakfast muffin because they’re packed with oatmeal and whole wheat and only ever-so slightly sweet. The touch of tart from the rhubarb and the crunch from the streusel put them over the top.

And they put anyone who tries to talk about them over the top, too, as evidenced by this wacko post.

Love you lots,
The Muffin Lady

Rhubarb Streusel Muffins
Inspired by Deb (the streusel recipe is hers, only slightly tweaked)

Streusel:
½ cup flour
1 tablespoon brown sugar
3 tablespoons white sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch each of salt and nutmeg
3 tablespoons butter, melted

Combine the dry ingredients, add the butter, and stir with a fork. Set aside.

Mix up one batch of my basic oatmeal muffin recipe and stir in 1 1/4 cups chopped (fairly small) rhubarb.

Divide the batter between 12 greased, or cupcake-lined, muffin tins and top with the streusel. Bake for about 15 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

This same time, years previous: caramel cake

Skipping School
This blog has rapidly become my number one source for homeschooling inspiration. It’s written by a girl named Kate who was unschooled, along with her brothers, for all her growing up years. She is passionate, opinionated, and articulate about unschooling, and she pulls it all off with a gracious maturity that far exceeds her twenty-odd years.

But then, I’d expect no less, seeing as she’s homeschooled and all.

Just KIDDING!

Seriously, it’s rare, too rare, that we get to hear homeschooled kids-grown-up reflect on their experiences. Her candor and insights are refreshing.

Whirley Popped Popcorn
I don’t have one.

I want one.

I’ve been scouring the thrift stores (or rather, thrift STORE, because I only go to one) and telling every other thrifter I know to keep their eyes peeled for the innocent looking pot that makes such fabulous popcorn.

I used to always make my popcorn in a stove-top kettle, but then my popcorn popping skeelz took a turn for the worse and I had to give it up and go with the tasteless, dry variety (but at least it’s not burned) that you get from an air popper.

We borrowed my friend’s whirley popper for the family reunion and I spent a good 45 minutes communing with the little contraption while I turned out batch after batch of the crispy kernels. Now the guests are gone but, despite having washed it clean and set it aside to tote back into town, we have yet to return the popper. And somehow, every night it makes it’s way back to the top of the stove.

Do you think my friend would notice if we returned an air popper instead of the whirley popper?

Our water pressure
For five years we’ve had horrible water pressure. It would trickle so slowly that we could wash stacks of dishes without the sink ever filling up, and it would take entire minutes before the hot water would start to run.

Then this passed weekend my uncle went out to the well with my husband, jiggled some gauges and knobbies, chanted a few incantations (walawalawalaBAM), and now the water thunders out of the faucets. It’s glorious.

This post on homeschooling
It’s the exact opposite of Skipping School, but still, I loved this post. Ann thoughtfully and carefully speaks about her family’s decision to homeschool. She is so NOT bumbly and loud and sarcastic like Yours Truly. People like her are easier to listen to than people like me.

This little nook
The kids spend hours here.

It is one of the smartest decorating choices I have every made.

Ted.com
I’m sure you’re all familiar with this never ending selection of mini-seminars that cover such a wide-range of topics. It’s a great source of entertainment for the bored or curious and an excellent resource for the homeschooling family.

Yesterday we watched one about a National Geographic photographer (and, qué sorpresa!, it actually overlapped with a National Geographic movie we had watched earlier in the day). (It was a rainy day and rainy days warrant excessive National Geographic screen time.)

Another fun talk we watched awhile back was about a guy who tried to make a toaster from scratch—as in, he had to go out and dig up the ingredients to make the plastic. And so on.

Making cookies on a rainy afternoon

I had my oldest son mix up the dough and then we ate them fresh from the oven with cold milk.

My daughter’s quotes

Here’s one: “When we were riding down the road we passed some goats and sheep and they were all having a little church service.”

If you are at all familiar with Biblical references or this book, you’ll get the humor (not that she got the humor).

Read Alouds

I’ve been reading a book to the kids called Remarkable Children by Dennis Brindell Fradin. Each chapter is dedicated to a young person who did something incredible, be it a discovery or an intellectual or physical feat. Some of the young people are Shirley Temple, Anne Frank, Zerah Colburn, Mozart, Hilda Conkling, and Cassius Clay. It’s inspiring. And I find it intriguing that many of the great kids turned into more-than-normal adults. Something to ponder, no?

I’m also reading The Hiding Place to the older two children. It’s such an incredible book and I look forward extra much to our night-time reading. But, at the same time that I’m loving it, I’m also feeling all heavy and sad because I am choosing to teach them about the horrible side of humanity. It is a weighty thing, this ending of their innocence.

Of course, they already know about a lot of unpleasant stuff (rape, eating disorders, poachers, suicide, the ozone, etc), but the horribleness of the Holocaust is on such a monstrous level that it leaves us reeling. The children are shocked, I think. And indignant, too.

When I was reading about Anne Frank in that first book I mentioned, the one about remarkable children, I sobbed my way through it. I cry a lot more when I read to the kids now than I used to. I think it’s because I’m finally reading stories that really hurt.

So to sum up, when my kids grow up they’ll remember our nighttime readings as one big ol’ sobfest. Boo-hoo.

Leftover donuts
We had two bags left over and every afternoon I faithfully trot down to the basement to fetch a donut to go with my afternoon coffee. After 20 seconds in the microwave, it is almost as good as fresh.

While we normally dig into the donuts while they are still hot, many of the adults (not the kids, though—the kids were like sticky-fingered vultures) waited for their salad to settle before indulging.

We all agreed that the donuts are best eaten fresh, as in within first hour after frying, but after—and this is key—they’ve had a chance to cool completely.

When the donuts have had a chance to set up there isn’t need to wildly contort your face while you wonder whether or not they are under-done or just very squishy soft, and the glaze hardens up into a thin shell that shatters with each bite….

Oh my. I do love me some good donuts.

My son getting weepy over his piano lessons

Not because he hates to practice, but because the melody for the new song he is learning is so hauntingly beautiful that it moves him to tears. So sweet.

Mud Babies

It’s been ducky around here lately and my kids have sprouted webs between their toes to go with the weather.

They splash and slip.

Mud oozes between fingers and toes.

Then mud balls get thrown and kids start to beller and I call it quits and loudly issue a proclamation that NO ONE MAY GO NEAR THE MUD HOLE FOR THE REST OF THE DAY.

And then they all come inside to get baths before lunch, but even after showers and hair washes, I still find mud in their ears and clinging to their hair.

Tis the season…

This same time, years previous: Garden tales, part two, talking points rained out, cinnamon tea biscuits