Back to School, Back to Blogging

Well, it's that time of year again. The Boy started back to school (8th grade already!) on August 4th, which I thought was waaaayyyy too early. The Boy didn't seem to have any difficulty getting back into the routine and he is happy with his teachers, so that's going well enough.  The Professor starts teaching again on Thursday.  Things have already perked up around here, though. The college kids who live in the dorms on campus moved in over the weekend and they are busy these next few days doing fun college stuff.  I always love this time of year when the college kids move back to campus and our little community bursts with extra excitement and energy.

With The Boy and The Professor back at the academic grind, it's time for me to get some of my own projects going again.

Here are a few things I'm working on:

The Boy and I will be getting back to studying German. We've been very slack all summer and I am ready to finish this program.

I'm working my way through a math curriculum, which will be another post.

I need to rearrange the living room which will involve taking down and rearranging pictures and art. The arrival of The Piano has thrown that room out of kilter. I'm really dreading this job, so it probably will be two or three years before I get to it.

The Afghan I started last fall is languishing half finished in a corner of my bedroom and I really need to get that project done.

I'm going to start doing more cooking "from scratch." Actually, I already do a fair amount of cooking from scratch, but there are a few things that I have been purchasing that I really want to start making myself. For instance, bread, which I don't eat, but The Boy and The Professor eat it every day.  Back in the summer, before we left for our two week trip to Arizona, we had a half a loaf of bread (Nature's Own 100% Whole Wheat) that I meant to put in the freezer.  There's always something that gets forgotten, and I forgot to stick that bread in the freezer.  We were gone for two weeks, the house was pretty warm and humid, and when I got back and found that bread I was shocked to discover that it looked exactly the same. There was no mold. Not even a hint of that "moldy" smell. It was the George Hamilton of bread.  Uh, call me crazy, but that just ain't natural.

The other two things I plan to start making for myself are mayonnaise and yogurt.  Mayo, because I really don't like the use of soybean oil that is the basis for all commercial brands.  Yogurt, because I like full-fat, plain, Greek-style yogurt and I'm sick and tired of only finding no-fat, plain yogurt where I do my grocery shopping.

We finished the last container of  "store-bought" mayo last week, and so I made my first batch of homemade mayonnaise for our BLT salads for lunch today.  I found the recipe in my handy-dandy 1948 edition of The Boston Cooking School Cookbook, by Fannie Merritt Farmer. I made the mayo with my little hand blender while the bacon was cooking in the microwave. It did not take long at all, and although it didn't taste like Hellman's, The Professor gave it a "thumbs-up."  According to my Nourishing Traditions book, my homemade mayo should keep in the fridge for 2 weeks.

Here's a random picture:

Beethoven with Legos
Not even The Piano is spared from the Lego take-over of my home.