Study Reading Strategies

Oh geez--it's nearly June. Time to consider my summer study reading. 

My usual process- I grab likely titles from the books I've purchased but haven't read, and a book or two that I need to reread.

A stack of aspirations is one thing. Actually reading the books is quite another.

So, strategies--

Narrow down that pile. Thirty-seven books WILL NOT be read, and that's just a lot of hauling and getting daunted. Start with ten or less. A dozen if you absolutely cannot help yourself.

One book at a time. I'm easily distracted and often read several books in the same stretch of time. My brain doesn't appreciate this when it comes to professional reading.

Notes of some sort. If it's on my Kindle, I highlight and export the notes later. On paper, I have a notebook for my reading, with a page for each book-- I jot down a quick insight and the page number so I can come back to it as needed.

Small chunks. Most often I set a 10% goal. If it's a 300 page book, that's 30 pages until I take a break. (This is even easier when technology puts the percentage read right there on the screen.)

Rewards. Not just a burgeoning Goodreads number. Getting to read fiction, hang out in a hammock, find a frosty beverage, go for a swim.

The Last Place You Look

That time when an important binder goes missing only to show up in a box of craft supplies... including the stash of empty tequila bottles for bath salts.

Accountability Measures

Today was deadline day at work. Newsletter and e-blast and reports. I struggled to get it all done, but I managed. 

And now I am home and there's a blog entry to put up? Honestly, I would rather find a movie to watch. 

I am going to be responsible and get the blog done and put myself to bed at a sensible time. More work to be done in the morning...

So a quart of ice cream is sitting out on the counter. I get a scoop of it as soon as I click publish.

Apologies for a short post, but I wouldn't want the ice cream to get too melty.

Holes

It was two months ago that my son had his medical emergency. Life, in many ways, is back to normal-- school and work routines and all that. Our familial sense of humor is a bit darker, perhaps, and sometimes we worry about things we wouldn't have earlier.

Today, looking over the agenda for a conference call, I saw my name listed as a member of a task force. I emailed a colleague on the task force, sheepishly asking what that task force might be?

You see, I have a hard time recalling things that happened shortly before the crisis days. Even when I read over notes I took in meetings I attended, I cannot form a real picture. I'm told this is not uncommon--my brain got full of other things.

It just makes catching up interesting. Thankfully, I have understanding colleagues.

Yum.

Chocolate lava cake.

Cake on the outside, free-flowing rich chocolate inside... it seems magical, but really it's just a matter of timing and temperature.

My son made these today and they were amazing. It's a good trick to have in your pocket, I told him, something both delicious and a little mysterious.

We all have our little tricks. Ways to impress someone, or to make a rough day a little easier, or a Plan C (X?) in case of a flop. These days, I'm told, they're called life hacks.

Whatever, they're delicious.

Church Weekends

'Tis the season of concerts and youth services, auctions and plays atop the usual rich tapestry of meetings. And so very much of it takes place on the weekend.

Here's my starter list to myself--ways to maintain some sense of life:
1) Share responsibilities whenever possible
2) Date on Thursdays (or whenever you don't have a meeting)
3) Figure out what you can say no to
4) Bubble bath or what creature comforts you can fit in
5) Keep in touch with the people you live with. You need them for #1 and because you like them
6) Vegetables, water, sunlight. Not just melted cheese, coffee/beer, dank cave.
7) Sleeeeeep

Maybe Next Year

My partner sent me an email today. "Hey! Passover starts today."

I sent back a quick, "Yeah, I'm not going to get around to that this year. Good thing you bought yourself (half-sour) pickles."

Seriously. Store-bought pickles are the closest I'm getting to doing a Seder this year.

Easter's only happening because my mother's in town and we already had a turkey in the freezer. But there will be no dyeing of eggs, no carefully arranged baskets, and no way will I attend sunrise service, even though it's half a mile from my house.

I'm a Sunday School director, so there will be some amount of Happy Bunny Land at work.

Getting back to 'normal' is hard work. Getting to full holiday observances? Another mountain entirely.

Closing In On Normal

We got home from the hospital on Monday.
Today my son went back to school, surprising all of us by making it through an entire day.
I spent more than a couple of hours in the office, though I did not make it through the whole day, because the Mom Job is still expecting overtime.

We are not yet fully unpacked. I know I haven't put away my clean laundry or found any number of things.

But I am getting back to normal in a different way--I've started tomorrow's sourdough. Or at least an attempt-we'll see how the starter survived my absence. It did not get fed as regularly as I would have liked, and the containers should have been scraped and washed. But it was something I could delegate in a week when I was needed elsewhere.

I am hopeful that tomorrow we'll have a true boule (water, starter, flour, salt) as well as a brown sugar oatmeal bread.

The Energy of Avoidance

How much energy do I exert each day avoiding things I don't feel like doing?

If I could harness that energy, this laptop would not be running out of charge.

If I hadn't spent the last two hours in other windows on said laptop, it would not need that charge.

And yet--often those side pursuits have value, too. Reading something that leads to new understandings. Deepening relationships with colleagues and acquaintances. Contemplating a big challenge and figuring out a new way through.

In all its inefficiency, it works.
Eventually.

Not Ready To Change

Look! Look! It's a new computer!

I've had my sweet little netbook for most of five years now and it's showing its age--slow, the down arrow doesn't work, and I've bought enough batteries for it.

So spouse told me I was getting a new machine for Christmas. As soon as I figured out what I wanted.

Decisions are hard, y'all.

I finally got this sweet new thing on Thursday.

I've yet to figure out all the bells and whistles, to navigate between touchscreen and touchpad, or the downloading of critical software beyond a few goofy entertainment apps. 

The poor thing is neglected* while I continue to pound out my important works (OK, mostly Facebook updates) on the old comfortable system. 

How often do we stick with the comfortable rather than switching to the new? How much pain is required to push us to change?


*And yes, I have a personification habit.

Fake It 'Til You Make It

On my day off I considered making a true laminated dough--basically, you get a bunch of butter to fifty-five degrees and pound it into flat sheet. Then you roll out your bread dough to be twice that size. Make a butter sandwich. Then you take on a series of rolling and folding and chilling steps, multiplying your layers of butter and dough with each set.

Then there's shaping and proofing and when you finally bake off the dough, not only do you get exquisite richness from the butter, but you get an airy crumb as those layers become distinct.

It takes hours, on top of the hours already involved in the basic dough*. 

I am not that patient. Especially not on my lazy day.

So I faked the process to produce this swirly cinnamon bread.

I rolled out the dough, spread a layer of room temperature butter, sprinkled with a little brown sugar and a generous sprinkling of good cinnamon, and then folded the dough in thirds like a letter.

I turned the dough ninety degrees, rolled it out, and repeated the process with another smear of butter, more brown sugar, more cinnamon. I did this probably four or five times.

No whacking butter, no chilling stages. Maybe fifteen minutes of work total. 

When I was tired of folding, I put the dough into a greased glass pan, and let it proof once more.

Baked it off in a 375 degree oven and was rewarded with this deliciousness.

At least once in my life I will likely do the full lamination thing, if for no other reason than I want to be able to say that I made pain au chocolat.

Until then, well, no one complains when cinnamon bread shows up. 

*My basic dough ingredients these days are something roughly like this:
1.5 cups warm water
1 cup sourdough starter
1/2 t. yeast
2 c. bread flour + extra
1-2 T. salt
1.5 c. whole wheat or white wheat flour
Sometimes I put in a couple tablespoons of oil.

This batch was split between the cinnamon bread and dinner rolls, so I did not put any sugar in the dough. Otherwise, I might have.

Dessert

I just finished a pretty darned good chocolate lava cake. DARK chocolate, not sweet, gooey, and pretty much no work for me. I preheated the toaster oven and put the disk on a tray. Fifteen minutes later, yum yum yum. 

Oh Trader Joes, your freezer aisles contain so many blessings!

(I assure you, I got some real food there, too. The heirloom tomatoes are amazing, and the haricot vert increase my chance of getting a veggie on the dinner table.)

Making Home

I'm a lousy housekeeper. I don't necessarily notice messes, and even when I see them, well, I'd rather read a book than tidy things.

But I am not without some domestic graces. I can cook and bake up a storm, and generally I can keep us in clean clothes and such.

Today was my day off from church work. I relaxed most of the morning, and then managed the following:

• Hard boiled eggs (14 of them did not make their own sculpture in the boiling water)
• Sourdough, transformed into rolls for dinner, and this many-layered cinnamon bread
• Pinto beans, cooked up from scratch, which were then split between charro beans and venison chili
• Delish Swiss chard (because there has to be some vegetable to counter the cinnamon bread...)
• Two loads of laundry, washed and folded

And I managed to have conversations with everyone I live with.  Bills and paperwork (and tidying) will wait for another day.

True Reasons I Have Done Chores

I know there are people in the world who take pleasure in a clean house and the knowledge of a chore well done. 

Me, I can deal with a fair amount of chaos as long as I can find something I want to read, there's room for a nap, and I have some way to make coffee.

And then there are the motivating factors for doing my chores. Among them:

1) All my pajamas were in the dirty wash, and I really wanted a jama day.

Covered in warm laundry, 2/2/15

2) Someone on the Internet claimed I could easily clean my oven glass, and I had to prove their method wrong.

3) Laundry fresh from the dryer is an extra blanket of warmth. (This one works best when you can convince someone else to fetch the clothes from the dryer and dump them all over you.)

4) Procrastination. 

What motivates you to clean?

Don't Forget! Don't Forget!

Last night as I drove home, I realized that today would be the day.

The day the car's odometer hit 22222,

I adore palindromes, especially in numbers. Symmetry is pleasing.

So I drove to co-op and the office and home again, keeping an eye on the odometer as I could.

Traffic this evening was horrid--surface streets backed up enough that we were waiting through several light cycles. And then suddenly it all cleared up... right as the odometer hit this milestone. This picture was snapped in the six seconds before the light turned green, hence the blur.

But I did not forget to pay attention. To the odometer, or the traffic.

Sudoku

I am a bit of a Sudoku practitioner. For ages I had puzzle books full of them, and in this digital age I have an app on my phone.

When my mind is all over the place, I can open a game and focus. Make sure all nine numbers are in each boxes and each row and each column. 

Some puzzles seem obvious, even the really difficult ones. Others I have to stare at for quite a while, figuring out where I can start and how it all comes together.

I usually stick to the hard puzzles, but when I am feeling overwhelmed, I will flip back to the early ones. 

There's a single solution for each puzzle, and things fall into place. Unless I get it all tangled up--I can hit a button and restart the game. 

Oh, if life were so simple.

The Start of Something Delicious

They say that simplifying your life is a good thing.

So I, of course, do something to make it more complicated. No, I'm not pregnant or getting a puppy. A little less maintenance than that.

I've adopted a sourdough starter. The note atop the container tells me

Starter Instructions: For the next three days, keep the starter at room temperature and feed daily with one cup all-purpose flour and 1/2 c. water.

At that point, it is ready to use and should be refrigerated. Feed it every 4 to 5 days (1 c. flour and 1/2 c. water.)

After four feedings, discard half or give it to a friend. After two regular feedings (that is, after you have started refrigerating it) transfer to a clean container.

If old bits are allowed to cling to the side, they can contaminate and kill the starter.

We've made it through the three day period, moved the starter to the fridge, and today I made some sourdough dinner rolls.

And because I'm me, I have a spreadsheet to track feedings and usage and recipes.

That whole "work-life balance" thingy. It's a dream or a myth or a struggle, or maybe it's a dance.

Choosing Among Good Things

As a director of religious education, I'm pretty busy on Sundays--mornings and some afternoons.

This is not the best schedule for someone who likes to catch football games. It takes a VERY light Sunday for me to be home before halftime of the first game, and some Sundays I fall asleep even during my most anticipated games.

The playoffs make things a little easier, with three games beyond church hours. I may even manage to take my partner out to watch the Patriots game with fellow fans.

Too bad the game I most want to see starts at noon Sunday. 

Go Pack Go! (I'll check scores and try to see a screen when I can...)

Growing Up Is Hard For All

Weatherman says there's a cold front coming.      I can't remember the last time we bought coats for my sons.

We went through the closet and oh goodness. It's been a couple of years. The growth spurt years. And as one of them said as he struggled out of too short sleeves, "These colors are awfully bright for me."

So we made our way to the store. To the men's department. Somehow they're wearing men's clothes. And given that they're within an inch of their parents' heights, it's possible that the coats we bought tonight might fit them when they are fully grown.

That's a lot to process.

So we needed ice cream. (Or, at least, I did. And it would have been rude to make my young men wait in the car.)

Easing Back Into Grooves...

My sons have been off school for two weeks now, and the week before had half-days and an open campus during exams.

To put it mildly, they are very off their usual schedules. They sure have excelled at video game conquests, though.

Tomorrow we're back at church, and Tuesday is back to school.

Getting back to reality might take every moment we have between now and then.
(Step one: get them to clean out their backpacks. This probably should have happened BEFORE Christmas...)