Snow Day with White Bread

The snow and the cold abide with us still. The thermometer on the back porch never rose above 15 degrees today, the kind of cold that inspires gratitude for warm shelter. All the birds darting and flitting around beneath the feeders had their feathers fluffed out for warmth. ( My Beloved wishes we had that ability.) The snow both fell and drifted deeply enough that their movements left wandering dashed trails across the yard.


I forsook my daily walk around the field because of the temperature and wind chill. My farthest venturing from the delicious indoor comfort was onto the back porch to capture just a little of the beauty and mystery of the snow. The ragged edge of the drift looked a bit like the bubbly surf trail on a beach a world away.


My shutter trigger finger started aching from the cold quite quickly while I was having such metaphorical thoughts. Obviously time to get back inside and keep that empty kitchen company again.

Today I wanted to make white bread, which I haven't made in many years, not since I discovered that whole grain bread kept hunger and low-blood-sugar shakes at bay much better. Besides wreaking havoc on my hypersensitive system (Spiking and crashing is no fun), we all know that it lacks the nutrition and fiber of whole grains. But I need to add to the personal repertoire I'm trying to create for myself, and stout bread isn't appropriate for everything. Bakers who want to quit feeling like losers need to know how to make a good farmhouse white, too.

Finding a recipe that met my expectations again took a while. I consulted my mother-in-law's battered Betty Crocker cookbook from the early 1960's (which, much to my consternation, had a lemon pie recipe that I could have used yesterday if I'd remembered that her cookbook collection was there!) and one other well-used cookbook, then checked around online. Again, the variations--in yield (I wanted just one test loaf) and ingredients and technique--were myriad. I ended up cobbling together two recipes and a remembered method to get the loaf I wanted. If I try really hard, I may recall it for you later.

Baking is, as many a person before me has noted, very therapeutic. There's an alchemy in transforming the simplest of ingredients into a deeply satisfying food that makes me feel as if everything is clearer and more right. When I got past the fumbling search for my own experimental recipe and held that warm, happy, well-kneaded ball of dough, as tender yet weighty as a baby's bottom, I felt a peaceful pride, not in myself but in the creation in my hand. Somewhere during the familiar actions of mixing and kneading, I sorted out my disturbed thoughts from yesterday's deflating lemon pie experiment and cut myself some belated slack.

I'm not an expert on much that I'm doing now, because most of it is new. If I'd wanted to be an expert, I would have stayed where I was, doing what I've mastered through repetition, the only way to be an old pro at anything. As my talented friend Jay once told me (approximately), "If you want to be good at something, do it 100 times." I'm out on the leading edge of my next 100 times where learning happens, and that's not comfortable or smooth. I need to set my recovering-perfectionist ego concerns aside and feel proud of being a bold beginner, an intrepid explorer.

I also need to give myself some credit for what I do know. I'm no culinary star, but I know enough to have my own ideas and ideals in food. I knew some of the qualities I wanted in a lemon pie yesterday and in the white bread today. I'm not just following recipes anymore, because I've come far enough to know by reading them whether the outcome is what I desire or not. I'm even hybridizing my own versions. I used to envy my boss's ability to do both. Now I understand that she acquired these skills as a result of experimental doing backed by a little confidence, not some divine gift. There is no way to learn but to do and fail and learn from that failure and do better.

One of the important things I've learned from my dabbling is that the world of food is vast and varied. There are a hundred ways to do anything, including lemon pie and white bread. We all get to find the way that suits us--and then be prepared for our ways to evolve as needed or desired. (Buttermilk and honey bread, anyone?) I'll share my test recipe, just in case, but don't hold me to it.

Thankfully my white bread turned out beautifully--tall and smoothly domed. While I don't care to ever again plaster the roof of my mouth with store bought white bread, homemade is an entirely different animal. It's soft, but still has body, both fluffy and sturdy at the same time. Good old farmhouse white makes the classic grilled cheese, which will be our bread-starring dinner tonight, and fabulous French toast, which we're already planning for breakfast tomorrow. Today's experiment was a winner. But then they all are in some way, teaching us either what to do or what not to do. There's always gain in the end if we're paying attention.


Ann's Test White Bread
Yield 1 loaf

1/3 cup warm water
2 teaspoons active dry yeast
3 2/3--4 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/3 cup milk
2 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons sugar

1) Dissolve the yeast in the warm water in a small bowl and let stand while you proceed.
2) In a medium bowl combine 1 2/3 cup of the flour and the salt.
3) Combine in a small microwave safe bowl the milk, butter, and sugar. Micro cook until very warm. The temperature should be about 100-110 degrees if you have a thermometer to check it. If not, it should feel very warm to your skin, not hot. The butter does not need to melt all the way. You can also do this step in a pot on the stove.
4) Stir the warm milk mixture and the yeast mixture into the flour.
5) Add the remaining flour 1/3 cup at a time, mixing vigorously after each addition, until you have a soft dough that comes away from the side of the bowl.
6) Turn out onto a floured surface and knead for 6-8 minutes, until smooth and elastic.
7) Place the dough in a greased bowl. Cover and let rest until doubled in size or until the indentation made by your finger doesn't spring back.
8) Punch the dough down and shape into a loaf. Placed shaped dough into greased 8" X 4" loaf pan and let rise until it's at least 1 inch above the top of the pan.
9) Bake at 375 degrees for about 30 minutes or until the bottom sounds hollow when tapped.
10) Cool thoroughly (even though you don't want to) on a wire rack.

Snow Day with Lemon Pie

The frozen pond at the top of the hayfield. Not so common a condition here.

It's still snowing. That begins to seem obvious, but in Kentucky, snow and below freezing temperatures for days are news--not unheard of, but not normal either. In my busier past I had to go on to work anyway when it snowed, or go unpaid and cause others more work. Now, I can stay here at the farm feeling well kept and cozy while I do little chores, stretch, and bake, of course. There are few nicer feelings than being tucked up snug in your home while the snow flies and the kitchen fills with oven scents, like browning pie crust. (If that description doesn't give you aroma recall, you have been deprived.) I'm enjoying the luxury of being the one who stays home and bakes for those returning from the cold.

Poor hubby and mother-in-law had to go on to work at their desk jobs (Universities and banks don't give in to Old Man Weather so easily.), and father-in-law's cows require checking every day, regardless of the weather. Luckily, although it took them twice as long, they all returned safely on the slippery roads. Well, two of them briefly. A new calf that wasn't eating well this morning had to be checked on again in the evening. Hubby and father-in-law put on their boots (again), put the vintage Blazer in four-wheel-drive, and went back out into the snow. Mother-in-law and I had to wait dinner. Such is the life of a farm wife, she tells me. (Yes, I had a snack.)

Now to back up to the pie part. I wasn't sure this morning (before the snow started up again) that I would be home tonight. I was scheduled to be in Advance Techniques lab at culinary school whipping up chicken appetizers. Road conditions near departure time changed my plans, so today became the day to make the lemon pie that father-in-law had requested at Thanksgiving but didn't get because my oven died an electrically-fired death a few days before the holiday. Eating pie at home beats 120 round-trip miles of high anxiety any day.

Once I firmly and finally decided that I was going nowhere but to the kitchen, I needed a recipe. I've made dozens of lemon meringue pies at the little bakery/cafe where I used to work (Root-A-Bakers remains in my heart!), but not often enough to have memorized the recipe. With my cookbooks unavailable, my plan was to jump online and grab one. I would never have guessed how many subtle variations there are on lemon pie and how many usually reliable sites were devoid of the kind of recipe I had in mind. I wanted what I thought was the not-too-sweet, not-too-tart classic, made with lemon juice and water (no milk and certainly no sweetened condensed milk) and thickened with cornstarch only. To confuse myself further I contemplated and researched hot (or Italian) meringue.

After untold minutes puttering around search lists, I ditched my hot meringue plans and decided to choose a conventionally meringued recipe after lunch. (Never make important decisions when hungry is my motto.) Then while eating, I remembered that my cornstarch box has a lemon pie recipe on it. But upon inspection, I also remembered that I've made it before and found it skimpy in size and too sweet. So back to the computer and an executive decision on the straight-up formula I wanted with greater pan-filling quantities of ingredients. I have no idea where it came from at this point. I was so over the search by then that I just jotted down the ingredients while paying no attention to where in cyberspace I was. I mean, the recipe part wasn't supposed to be so hard.

Luckily the pie crust making (there's a whole post subject there) and the filling cooking and the meringue making went well. My only problem was with equipment, specifically a rolling pin. I called my mother-in-law at work to ask if she had one. She told me to use one of the two that have been hanging on the wall for the entire five and a half years that I've been coming to their house. Sigh. So I did.

Now, as to how the pie turned out? OK. The filling was well set and balanced in flavor. The crust tasted nicely of butter and toasted flour but was way too crunchy. Concerted effort was required to cut through it, producing not so much a pleasant shattering as a hard fracturing. I've made hundreds of pie crusts, and that has never happened. (I blame the dark nonstick pan.) The meringue, although it shrank away from the crust in one section and beaded up a little on top, was fine, but I wished when eating it that I had gone with my first instincts and made the hot version, even if it would have required piecing together recipes and improvising. Always trust your instincts, especially if they're as dreamy as Italian meringue--billowy, satiny, stable.

The important outcome was that it tasted good once we forcefully broke the crust into bite size pieces. My father-in-law ate two servings, in fact. Plus I had a delightful time making it. As my husband pointed out, my afternoon of pie making on a snowy day is many a person's fantasy (including my own), and I got to live it. While all of the above is true, I remain disappointed. I have thoughts on my case of loser-itis, but they will have to wait until tomorrow.

The truth is that at this point I feel like a fraud, wondering how I ever made a living as a professional baker and why exactly I'm in culinary school. I mean, I thought I knew pie crust, at least. My husband reminded me that I'm not in my own kitchen with my preferred equipment that's preferred for a reason. Besides, the joy and love of baking and cooking really are more important than the perfection or lack thereof in the finished product. I truly do believe that. Even OK homemade still always tastes better to me than the factory version. And everyone has off days, etc., etc., etc.


Anyway, I've included a picture as page jewelry, but I won't even bother posting the recipe, because today I'm no expert. Definitely still a spurt. (Sorry, couldn't resist. At least I still have my sense of humor.) Someday, I'll come back to this pie, with proper pie weights (not doubled foil topped with a Pyrex casserole), a French rolling pin, my own glass pie pans, and an Italian meringue formula that makes me swoon. Until then I want to remember how it felt to savor the bright, tangy lemon filling and its airy topping while outside all was dark and wintry, like swallowing sunshine in the middle of snow. The thought to hold is that in January lemon pie, however imperfect, is like a promise of spring.

Progress Where I Find It

In that picture is something of which I am just a little bit proud.

This Christmas, for the first time in about fifteen years, I made some of our gifts. The time I spent in the kitchen making these sauces for my sisters was one of the best parts of the holiday for me, a small part of life as we dream it--slow, rich, sweet, loving, handmade. It's a small step, but I believe in calling progress when I see it. I'm already noticing ideas for next year. Family, if you'd really rather have a gift card, be warned!

Here's something I'm proud of in a different way.

This is Eclair Dessert. It's pretty much everything to which I object in food--an assemblage of four processed or premade food products. There's not a scratch element in it. But I'm proud of it anyway, because that's what my son wanted for his 16th birthday dinner. It was (ahem) assembled with love by his mama, whose foodie principles he well knows, and devoured by the happy family.

There's progress here, too. My boy--make that, young man--is a low key, mellow guy who doesn't go in for much fuss. If he has any celebratory requests, I honor them, even setting aside my principles for the day (But that's all!). The fact that he asked for a special dinner this year (chicken and dumplings, mashed potatoes, mac-n-cheese, green beans, and...you know) means that maybe my festive gene is manifesting itself in my offspring. I love him just the way he is, but I celebrate with him eagerly when he's ready.

There's more progress in my principle-violating love offering--the love. I grew up feeling (whatever the reality) underloved and less important than a handful of rules. I have always intended that my child would NEVER know those feelings. If the occasional factory food will ensure that, so be it. Not many rules should apply on birthdays anyway. It's all part of the plan to be the safe, warm, loving, soft-place-to-land mama that every mother probably wants to be. Hey, at least he asked for a green vegetable! I must have done something right.

Progress isn't always about big money or happenings. It can be a steady victory by attrition, an accumulation of small steps toward big goals. Want big love? Maybe you bend the rules just a little every now and then. Want a fabulous life? Maybe a little time in the kitchen adds one tiny piece to the mosaic that is an artful life. That's what I choose to believe and why I write: to pile up treasure in the details that make life the finer thing I crave.

Snow Day with Birds and Bran Muffins

It's another snowy day here at the farm. With the excess busyness and freedom of the holidays behind me, I am swaddled back up in a comfortably roomy routine. (Yes, I needed to learn to be more self-destined, but a little structure does a mind good, too.) Yesterday was a satisfying day of office work. Today, as the flakes flurry about, I'm enjoying being home with just a few joyful goals for my time.

Left alone with an unchaperoned kitchen, my thoughts always turn to baking. I had, after what seemed like ages of deprivation, replenished our supply of Whole Grain Whole Wheat bread on Sunday. It's so not fancy, but when it was done and toasted and buttered and jellied, I gobbled it up as if I had never known bread. Nothing, but nothing, is like homemade bread, even if it's not perfect. Good thing I photographed my last loaf. Anyway, with the Staff of Life thus handled, I turned to an idea that's been percolating on the back burner of my mind for many months.

You know how the bottom of the cereal bags always have those crushed-up dregs that make way too much sog when eaten with milk? Having been raised a poor girl and hating to waste food, my bright idea was to save them up and make bran-like muffins out of them. I have been collecting these leavings for weeks (Note: We eat only whole-grain cereal. No sugaries here.) and even moved them to the farm in the insistent belief that I would finally get round to this experiment. Then I found Farmgirl Susan's Moist and Delicious 100% Whole Grain Bran Muffin recipe on her delightful Farmgirl Fare blog while obsessively consuming her archives (proper credit, check). Now I didn't even have to do internet research in the absence of my cookbook library, sadly stashed in boxes in a concrete and steel cell (My poor babies!). The project was meant to be.

There is one irony here. Farmgirl Susan's recipe actually calls for straight oat and wheat brans, not cereals, because she was trying to create a bran muffin that didn't require buying boxes of cereal. Despite our crossed purposes, her promise of tasty and moist muffins substantial enough to be breakfast (my blood sugar salutes her), without further recipe research, sealed the deal.

I chose the cranberry orange version, because we have seasonally-shipped citrus here at the house that I 've been itching to use for something other than noshing. (Christmas citrus is now one of our favored gifts to recieve. So much better shipped ripe from the grove than gassed in the truck!) Then began the tweakings to accomodate the other things on hand. I substituted equal measurements of my cereal dregs for the two brans, buttermilk for the yogurt, and local sorghum for the molasses. I opted for the suggested flavor boost of grated orange zest and squeezed the now denuded orange for part of the juice specified. (Part? I usually use only fresh citrus juices, so why I rounded out with carton juice escapes me at this moment.)


After first stirring it all together, I had my doubts about the batter. It seemed quite wet and too voluminous for the regular-size muffin tin that I was rapidly filling. As I was pondering how to handle this bounty (Overfill my regular tin? Or did "10 large muffins" perhaps mean those from a jumbo muffin pan?), my mother-in-law called to tell me all about how father-in-law hadn't yet returned from driving her to work because of two blown-out tires caused by running over a piece of a bridge that the snowplow had knocked off and left in the road, which event necessitated a trek through the snow, etc., etc. (Thank goodness the offending agency plans to reimburse them for the costs incurred during this little adventure. He just repaired a tractor tire last week, which this city girl now knows isn't cheap.) When I returned to my portioning after the news update, I found that the batter had achieved a more familiar thickness, but there still remained the question of what to do with the rest of it.I decided to fill two cups of my jumbo muffin pan with the remaining batter and popped both pans in the oven.

When the muffins were done, I could see that I had been misled by my retentive tendencies once again. The smaller muffins were quite flat on top, while the jumbo muffins were more properly domed. I had filled the smaller pan's cups two-thirds full as most recipes instruct. The remaining batter was not enough to make three jumbos, so it all went into two cups, filling them basically to the top. I'll have to make these beauties again to be sure, but I think I'm seeing Farmgirl Susan's (and my former boss Lana's) More, More, More policy in action. If so, this recipe could solve an old dilemma for me, in which standard regular-size muffins are a little small for a snack (my primary use for them), but jumbo muffins are too big. I want healthy, nourishing, medium-size muffins with tops and ledges. Next time, it's chockfull regular-size muffin cups for me.

The important thing to report is that they were indeed moist and tasty, as promised. The test muffin I devoured as a snack held hunger at bay quite nicely for an hour and a half or so, which is pretty good performance in a blood-sugar-challenged someone who's still on the infant feeding schedule of every four hours. Definitely stout and nourishing, but very pleasant to eat as well. I love it when taste and nutrition converge! It's my nirvana. My Beloved liked them, too.

I suppose I should have tested my personalized recipe until perfected before throwing it out to the world's wolves, but I what I really want to share here is the adventure of living and trying, without worrying so much about finished products. I have learned through being an untrained professional baker and a culinary student that experimenting--and enjoying it--is allowed and encouraged. Especially at school, a recipe, for the adventurous, is just a starting place. Besides, we should be responsive to what's available, what's seasonally appropriate, and what we desire, not be captive to a regimented cuisine or set of instructions. The enjoyable effort is the thing.

In that spirit, here is my version of today's bran muffins at this winter's Flora Farm. Do with it what you will.

Frugal Cranberry-Orange Whole Grain Muffins

3 cups whole grain cereal leavings (what's at the bottom of the bag)
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 tsps baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
Grated zest of one orange
2/3 cup orange juice
2/3 cup buttermilk
1/3 cup oil
1/3 cup sorghum
1/4 cup honey
1 cup dried cranberries

1) Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2) Mix all dry ingredients together in a medium bowl.
3) Mix all wet ingredients together in a small bowl.
4) Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients just until moist.
5) Stir in the dried cranberries.
6) Fill 10-12 muffin cups mostly full with the batter.
7) Bake for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
8) Let cool in the pan for 5-10 minutes. Remove from pan and let cool completely on a wire rack.

Yield: 10-12 generous muffins

And what of the birds in my title? Why, they accompanied the text in the same way they accompanied me whiIe I was baking--happily alongside.

**Update**I ate one of the jumbo muffins, split and peanut buttered, with a glass of milk for breakfast the next morning. It was more than I needed, and I wasn't hungry for hours! Anyone who knows me will now believe that these make a hearty breakfast. (I'm usually ready for first lunch by 10:30am and most always carry snacks.) The Farmgirl Susan regulation-size muffins should be just right when I make the next batch, which will be as soon as I have more cereal leavings--maybe with blueberries or raisins.

I Wasn't Careful What I Wished For

I learned something about myself yesterday. It's official. I am indeed my own worst enemy. But that's normal. We all should be careful what we wish for because we probably don't know what to do when we get it. Thank God the wise ones warned me.

Like so many people, I have chased around busily, wishing for free time. Well, yesterday I had it. And after the success of a blog post (Play at new passion, check.), I didn't know what to do with myself.

Granted circumstances were against me. It was 20 degrees at the warmest yesterday, and I handle cold poorly, so extended outside time was...well, out (Reynaud's syndrome and long winter exposure are mutually exclusive.) I wanted to be baking, which always helps my attitude, but the mother-in-law was working in her kitchen. I have no space to set up my sewing machine, so the crafty ideas that I now have time to hatch are a no go. I couldn't find my favorite reference pictures to share with hubby so that we could compare ideas for our new house. I have no current house to keep up or improve upon, projects for which usually keep me busy over Christmas break. My usual go-to activities were all removed from possibility.

By evening I was quite fussy, abandoned to a waiting room day--just waiting to go to bed again. When that time arrived, My Beloved, as he always does, listened to my tirade, after which I felt a little relieved and resigned to getting some sleep and starting over tomorrow. I chose Julia Cameron's Letters To A Young Artist to read for a few minutes before sleeping, in the hope that it would comfort my ailing artsy heart. It did, and then some.

I realized, while reading her admonitions to quit whining and just get busy making art when, where, and how you are, including bored (ouch), how easy it is to blame our circumstances or life demands (the child, the house, etc) for our inability to live our imagined good life in which we produce beautiful fruit. I found yesterday that it isn't the time you have, it's the use you make of it, whether it's a whole winter day or ten minutes each morning. I wasn't prepared for the time that came my way, and I got angry and upset about that situation, rather then calmly solving the problem. I have a tendency to do that.

So many wise and creative people warned me that this would happen. We crave, in the midst of seemingly imposed-upon-us busyness, free time and solitude. We live for vacation, which is fine as a balancing antidote to manic activity but not fine as a way of life. With the freedom in empty time comes the responsibility to fill it well, with what you keep saying really matters. Instead, most of the time, we go a little out of our minds at first. That's what Tim Ferriss, author of The Four-Hour Workweek, and Martha Beck in her little gem The Joy Diet both say. I see now what they mean.We may chafe against limitations, but they actually do us a backhanded favor, relieving us of the need to decide what to do. Unleashed from schedules and obligations, it's all up to you baby. Better know what you love and enjoy and feel called to give to the world. The work of finding that if you don't know it can be a little bumpy indeed.

Anyway, after reading a wiser woman's words, I resolved to find a way to redeem this time, which will not be forever at all. I start back to school on Wednesday, and mom-in-law has knee replacement surgery on the 25th, after which I expect to be homekeeper while she heals. I made myself a plan for today to use this time well while it lasts, with writing at the top. (Here I am. This is for me and maybe for others, too.) There's also a little business that's been ignored during the holiday-ing this week and a little baking, if the kitchen is clear.

I also thought of something wonderful to do when I don't know what to do--look around me (at the house, the field, the newborn calves) with capturing eyes and take pictures! I've often wished for time to play at experiencing and savoring the world this way. Now is my chance. I've been nudged into making a start already by this wordy blog of mine, which seemed to need some pictorial accentuation (Or is it relief?), so I chose a couple of stored shots of one of the barns at night to share. The first is at the beginning of this post, illustrating my belated light bulb moment. Here is the other.

Yesterday's crappiness was a teacher, in the way that negative experiences often are if we let them be. Here's what I learned.
1) I now know that I can always go looking for more beauty where I am, without leaving home or spending an extra dime, thanks to the miracle of the digital camera. I now have a space-efficient and creative hobby to explore.
2) If I yearn to live like an artist, I need to make artistic choices for my time and form artist habits for my days.
3) I need to relearn how to play. I'm a grown up's grown up from way back. Just piddling around with something or doing nothing needs to become OK with me again.
4) I really ought to get comfortable with the notion that just being is enough. I guess one shouldn't require a checklist of accomplishments to feel worthy.

What a lot of wisdom came from a seemingly lousy day. If I can manage to live by it in this new year, life should be a finer thing indeed.

The Usual New Beginning

Someone once told me that if you do something once it's just something you did; if you do it twice, it's tradition; and if you do it three times, it's how you've always done things. I guess we've reached the latter stage when it comes to this holiday time. For the third year in a row, My Beloved and I closed out our year with a New Year's Eve Extravaganza All-Day Date. We spent all day in the city haunting one of our favorite book stores, shopping for clothes, eating out (twice!), and seeing a movie. It's a thrill-ride day of spending and acquiring and savoring that pretty much sates us for six months or so and keeps me awake until midnight, which is way past my usual bedtime.

This year's acquiring portion was a little different in feel. Living in one bedroom and part of a den in someone elses house precludes buying unnecessary stuff. It's freeing actually. No wandering around stores that might have something pretty or getting more of things you already have (except books). We bought only things we needed (again, except books), things the current life tells us that it requires to function, like farm jeans and office attire to replace the husband's shabbier items and a new printer/scanner/copier to replace our dead one. In cramped spacial or financial quarters, you rediscover that you don't need much; that if you won't use it and don't have a place to put it there isn't any point in buying it anyway; and that there can be clarity in limitation. What has made the cut is loved and used and guilt free--one of the silver linings to what seems at first a daunting and unpleasant challenge.

When I was younger, shopping days like these left me feeling as if a hunger had been activated but not sated. There might have been more to see. There never seemed to be enough money to buy all I did see that I thought I wanted. If I found nothing worth buying, that was a disappointment, too. I would head home feeling not quite done. Now, when we hit the stores, I feel only grateful. I appreciate having the funds to buy what I need and a few things I want. Each bag I add to the cargo area of the car makes me feel lucky, especially since I know that all of it is paid for. I didn't have that assurance years ago, either. If gratitude replacing greed is a benefit of passing years, I'll take it.

However moderated now, this little city treat day of ours is a thrill for frugal wannabe-farmers. But it's not the best part of our New Year's Eve. These are the supplies for the sweetest part.

When all the running around is done, we return home, get into our good pajamas, and have a quiet, private time of reviewing the old year passing away and welcoming the new one beginning. We look through the previous entries in the notebook listing the major events of our lives in past years, while we nibble on a little something and sip champagne, after which we record this year's milestones and share our hopes for the coming year.

This year's nibbly was ginger snaps because one of the bloggers I've newly discovered this year said that they were good with champagne (She was right). The bubbly this year was Spanish cava, bought just because the bottle was so pretty. We knew we probably couldn't finish it (although we tried mightily), but it was cheaper than the half bottle of good French stuff, so what the heck. We poured the last third out with just a little regret before we tipsily headed to bed.

Our little ritual reminds us, partly to our relief, that life can change so much in a year or in any of the moments it holds. The family-heirloom mantel clock was still bonging at midnight because my husband wound it well. He is the third generation to do so, and that winding was the first one by him. A baton has been passed in a small but poignant moment that deserves marking, like the turning of the year. It's just a clock stroke that happens on the same night of every year, but it gives us the hope of new beginnings. I'm a sucker for hope every time.

We had a bonus this year in our blended household. The mantel clock and the grandfather clock are a few minutes off from each other. We indulged ourselves with two kisses and Happy New Year toasts, one for each chiming. Double wishes can't hurt.

Another Beginning's End

Yesterday, in a few surreal minutes around a banker's table, we completed the sale of our former home. There is no going back. After weeks of packing, procrastinating, and moving in stages, we left the ranks of the homeowners with a few simple signatures and committed ourselves absolutely to a new direction, whatever it may be. As this year draws to a close, an era of our life does also. We now have the punctuation in our equilibrium (rest in peace Stephan Jay Gould) that we have been craving.

All those ominous words make it seem like a big deal (which it is) when it actually felt strangely anticlimactic. We were a little excited while waiting in the lobby, and after it was over there was numb shock, but during? The weird fact is that the legally and officially important part of a home sale is not the emotionally interesting part. The search, the dreams, the plans, the weeks of loan processing during which you hope that nothing comes up to make the deal fall through, the move (!!), and the years of your life that you spend making the payments--those stages hold the drama. The defining and binding moment is a few signatures, paper shuffling, a check or two, and handshakes all round. If you're lucky they give you a mug (I still have the one I got when I bought the cottage we just sold).

Many of the big events of our lives happen just this way, like marriage and parenthood. After months of thrilling anticipation, it takes only moments to pronounce vows or achieve conception, but a lifetime to carry through on the commitment. There's a strange inversely proportional relationship here that almost amuses me. Acting in a play or completing a marathon take much longer to do, but neither is a guaranteed life changer. Some of the biggest shifts in life announce themselves officially with a whisper, not a bang. Well, maybe a public service announcement in the middle of a fireworks show.

After our brief and solemn rites of property passage, we returned to the glamorous job of clearing the last things out of the house and cleaning. When all was done, I took a glance down the hall and said goodbye to my now former home--and suddenly felt teary. What a surprise! I was ready to go, but even appropriate partings are a little sad. I want my son to grow up, too, but that necessitates a few tears on occasion, as well.

It's comforting to me that we pass this important milestone under a blue moon, or the second full moon in a calendar month (I only recently found this definition after a lifetime of hearing folks say "Once in a blue moon."), and a special one at that. A blue moon at the new year occurs only every nineteen years. I'll take all the confirmation I can get in this transitional time.

And transitioning we still are. We've made it from the beginning of the end to the end of the beginning. Now starts a new life in which we must decide our heading and sort out the devilish details. How fitting for it to fall at the turning of the year, when thoughts naturally examine what has been accomplished and what might still be achieved. If we're lucky, we've half a lifetime left to chase the promise and keep it.