Valerie's Workshop

If you live any where near me, you've probably had the pleasure of dealing with hot, sticky summer days. Yes, you should read a little sarcasm with that comment. I love warm weather; wearing sun dresses and wide brimmed hats, working the garden and paddling the local waterways, sitting on the deck, late at night, conversing with friends. I don't love high heat and humidity together, though, and am this close to being over summer. In order to fall back in love with summer, and get a couple of days without real responsibility, Bodie and I went to the cabin. We packed my little Rav-4 with everything needed for our 2.5 day escape: bathing suits, towels, squirt guns and lifejackets, a tricycle and a butterfly net, fishing poles and tackle bags. We had a cooler full of goodies: hot dogs, popsicles, margaritas and juice boxes. We had earthworms and waxies , jigs and Rapalas, brand new pliers and glow-in-the-dark bobbers. If my small amount of planning worked, we'd be kicking

A s I sit typing pecking (I'll explain later), I can hear countless birds singing, wind rustling the canopy of leaves above, the occasional meow or moo and not much more. Not a single car horn, siren, whistle, screech or man-made noise. Some might consider this silence. I'm sitting just beyond the top of those steps, in the yard of an isolated farm in the rolling hills of Mount Horeb. It   is   HOT!   My beer is sweating almost as much as I am. (Sad but true.) The cookie in my hand reads "dunk head first", and that's what I'd love to do right now. Dunk myself, head first, mind you, in a crystal blue, spring-fed pool.  Not having such a pool near by, I'll have to settle for a late night, ice cold shower under the sprinkler while I water my own garden. Despite the heat and humidty, I am in paradise. This weekend I have had the pleasure of farm sitting for my friends John & Kattia. Besides feeding, watering and keeping after  their three potbell

Well, for the first time in about a year I started my work-week on Monday like the majority of the country, and I have to say, it feels fantastic! There's something precious about having a Saturday AND Sunday off consecutively, waking refreshed and recharged Monday morning ready to tackle the work week with gusto. I kicked the weekend off with making a biga for my favorite bread recipe; Cook's Illustrated 's recipe for rustic Italian loaf bread. This is by far my favorite loaf; it is quite time consuming (house-bounding) to prepare but creates the most delicious tasting loaf in my repitoire (and it really isn't that hard to bake). In the book that I'm reading, 52 Loaves by William Alexander, the author struggles to create a loaf that has both a crunchy crust and a bubbly interior. Well, this loaf produces just that with a moist, chewy texture that makes me salivate just typing about it! When I wasn't baking, I was out in the garden picking sugar snap peas

Well, the busy holiday weekend has come to an end I'm lucky enough to find myself home, alone (completely, oh thank god!). John and the dog are at the cabin, Bodie is at his dad's, and Scott is somewhere between Middleton and home, leaving little ol' me up to my own devices (read: doing something without a single TV turned on!). So, sitting in silence in the dimly-lit living room, I pulled out the camera, uploaded a weeks-worth of photos and realized I haven't blogged in a while. The last week and a half has been a total blur! It all started off with an entire day devoted to inventory at work, two Sundays ago, followed by two more days of work. Intense, to say the least! That was followed by two days of gardening/mommy-ing at home, with the intentions of getting everything ready for hosting our own pre-Fourth party on Friday. Saturday was filled with more work and our friends Steve & Sarah's Rhythm & Booms party. After a night of fun I was a peach at wor