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Gorgeous fall day and all is well.  Sitting comfortably in the sun, sturdy twin-seat andirondack chairs beneath us, favorite beverages in hand, we are enveloped by nature.  Babbling brook, stellar jays and magpies flitting about, congregating three abreast on a branch high above, wildflowers and tall grasses slightly swaying in the warm autumn breeze.  Perfect venue for playing with my camera, inspired by two new photography books I picked up at Barnes & Noble earlier this week.

Bill and I took a class when we bought our first SLR almost fifteen years ago.  The assignments were fun and we learned a lot.  However, while I ‘got’ it at the time, working the manual dials on my camera is a bit of a challenge for me.  Bill retained pretty much everything and so is a good mentor.  My brain just can’t think that fast.  But I know practice is key and this is something I’d love to master.

Auto mode is easy and, for the most part, a no-brainer.  From my perspective, composition and subject selection are what I enjoy most but as Bill and I played around today stuff was starting to click.  The books I purchased include assignments to complete to help drive home the concepts.  I’m looking forward now to becoming a student again and photography is one subject I heartily look forward to studying any time, any place!

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The light this time of year is like no other.  At certain times of day, whether early morning, late afternoon or early evening, I’ll glance up from whatever it is that I’m doing and be utterly transfixed by the soft glow sidling across furniture, covering walls and streaming through the windows.  It is simply lovely as it casts everything in its path in the mellow gleaming of these autumn days.  Whether you choose to bask in its warmth or grab your camera for some great photos, don’t fail to appreciate the light in these precious weeks and short months before the gray and gloom of late fall descends upon us and skies turn white and angry with ice, wind and snow.   Yes, the light is gorgeous this time of year and it only serves to amplify the reds, yellows, golden browns and purple beauty of this – my favorite – the very best season of all!

 

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I want to bake!

Fall weather, that wonderfully cool, crisp time of year, entices many of us back into our kitchens to whip up quick breads, muffins, biscuits, scones, pies and cookies. Seasonal spices that evoke sharp memories of childhood – cinnamon, pumpkin, nutmeg, ginger, cardamom – will soon fill our homes with the heady aromas of autumn.

Three overripe bananas sit on my countertop and fortunately, I have a new banana bread recipe to try. Facebook recipes jump out at me left and right as do offerings found in several of my favorite magazines. I peruse each of these publications when they arrive in my mailbox, scribbling small ‘to try’ notes in the margins. Interesting how, despite my best – and lofty – intentions, I often find myself baking the same ‘tried and true’ concoctions. Still though, I love to seek out new ideas to implement in my pursuit of Adventures in Baking. Occasionally I hit upon a real winner now and then, something to add to my entertaining tool belt.

Although I grew up the eldest of six girls, I never picked up any kitchen domestic skills from my mother nor (to be fair) did I have an interest in acquiring them. For family get-togethers it was understood that my contributions would fall into the category of food stuffs and eating supplies such as hamburger buns, potato chips, plastic silverware or a six-pack of soda. After Bill and I were married I became interested in learning to cook and bake. In recent years cable television programs such as those aired on Food TV and the Cooking Channel have further whet my culinary appetite and aided my self-confidence in navigating previously daunting tasks such as ‘turning on the oven’.

Early in our marriage I stumbled across a recipe for a Two Ton Bourbon Pound cake. It looked scrumptious and (most importantly) doable. I made it for a family Christmas and proudly posed for a photo that my husband snapped before we left for my parent’s house. The thing was massive (hence the name), covered with nuts and flavored with bourbon whiskey. I recall that it tasted very good and was really quite lovely. Unfortunately my family is not that much into sweets and hardly anyone touched it. Despite this seeming rejection, I now had more confidence in the kitchen and was eager to try new recipes.

Some folks love pie, others cake or cookies. As for me, I love bread (scones come in a close second). Two years ago I decided to try working with yeast bread recipes. Quick breads are easy to make and delicious but there’s just something wonderfully appealing about the aroma and texture of the dough and the satisfaction of baking delicious bread from so few ingredients. The pièce de résistance, a moment even more gratifying than the time I made my bourbon-infused cake, was when I first made ciabatta ‘Italian slipper’ bread. The whole process of making the bread is like a circus for all of my senses: getting the yeast to activate, preparing the dough in my Kitchen-Aid mixer, hearing the whir of the dough hook and the slap, slap, slapping sound as the dough encircles the mixing bowl, kneading the dough, watching it rise, punching it down, shaping the loaves, savoring the heady aroma as it bakes, pulling those beautifully colored ‘slippers’ out of the oven, slathering them with butter and then – oh! – sinking your teeth into that fabulous crumb. My mouth waters just thinking about it.

Yes, fall is a wonderful time to reacquaint oneself with the kitchen preparing comfort food at its finest. Soups, stews, harvest vegetables – my taste buds relish the change of pace this time of year – but mostly, I just want to bake!

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Like a window into my soul, I suppose a visitor (welcomed or otherwise) might be able to glean quite a bit about this home’s inhabitants by exploring my work space – from either the jumbled mess covering the not-quite-large-enough desk or the cluttered hodgepodge of receipts, lists, newspaper clippings, notes and photos tacked up on the bulletin board – that I use in our home office (aka My Sanctuary).

The baskets sitting on top of the desk unit store all manner of keepsakes and mementos gathered over the years. Some of their especially prized contents include every card, every note, every material witness to the history of our relationship that Bill and I have exchanged over the years. One regret I have is that there are very few photos of the early days of our courtship and marriage, practically nothing in fact. Those were the days of BD: Before Digital. Word to the Wise: Keep snapping those pics. Years from now you will be so glad you did.

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The Desiderata, a wonderful piece of prose, has been a favorite of mine for years, since I first heard in a song on the radio when I was a teen-ager. Our family used to do a gag gift exchange each Christmas. No one wanted this particular book filled with photos to accompany each of the verses. I was surprised that everyone else treated it with disdain. No matter! I gladly snapped it up and enjoy looking through it from time to time.

These photo gallery items, a small sampling of what’s on display in my little work alcove, are described as follows:

  • My son’s ID card when he served as a volunteer in North Carolina while in grad school makes me smile. Wesley read to the children patients in the hospital there and I never learned of this until he was hospitalized himself some years later and we found this in his wallet, which he then gave to me. That he never tooted his own horn while volunteering is in alignment with my own views of good deeds: they should be done anonymously and not ever for the bravos and pats on the backs they might elicit from others. Doing good should be your own reward. Learning this about my son made me proud.
  • A local theatre group performed a rousing rendition of Rocky Horror several years ago. ‘Nuff said!
  • One of my early ‘hunting’ trophies when we bought our first SLR.  These pumpkins at harvest time begged to be photographed.
  • The Sunflower Pottery postcard, tacked up here because of its interesting design, also serves to provide the contact information for a Christmas gift my sister Molly gave me last year.  (Bob & Connie:  you’re welcome!)
  • On my recommendation, Bill read The Winds of War when we were first married.  (Great book!)  Just like me when I first read this in my early 20’s, he was interested in knowing the geographical makeup of Europe and printed this map, partially obscured by a ‘silly shot’ taken one year at Thanksgiving, a 2008 Obama campaign pin and a diagram of our basement’s dimensions.
  • I picked up this little plaster red & white, laced-up ‘sneaker’ paperweight at an art fair one summer for one dollar.  Grade-school kids made and painted them for a school fundraiser.  Now how can you resist something like that?
  • An elderly neighbor crafted this wooden catch-all when Wesley and I lived in an upstairs apartment in a tiny burg located in north central Iowa.  It holds a two-dollar bill, a small pink box labeled My Tooth (not mine but Wesley’s), the tiny armband that he wore in the hospital after he was born, the tassels from when I graduated from Iowa State University in 1995 and assorted coins, foreign and domestic.
  • This wooden keychain was a gift from my first boss after graduating from college.  Carrie brought this back from one of her many trips (I believe this is from India).  Carrie, no longer my supervisor but now instead a dear friend, was the first woman I’d ever heard of to travel the world on her own.  What a novel idea!  At the time her husband had no interest in going with her but eventually (and happily!) he succumbed to her requests to join her on her travels.
  • Two items of note in this last photo.  The news clipping documents Bill’s first hole-in-one.  It happened on a golf outing to celebrate his 40th birthday.  Not too shabby of a gift to self, eh?  The other is a photo from my ID card when I was a student at Iowa State University.  I was 36 years old here, just starting my junior year after completing the preparatory work at a local community college.  Being a non-traditional student in a university setting was beyond anything I’d ever imagined when I first quit my job to enroll in a drafting program three years earlier.  Very good times indeed.  (And how about that ‘big hair!)

Reflecting on what I see here before me has provided a thought-provoking trek down memory lane.  I imagine home offices everywhere (perhaps yours?) are similarly appointed.  What’s in your sanctuary?

 

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Opening day of Iowa State football was gorgeous – sunny blue skies, slight breeze and warm temps. I love the carnival-like atmosphere of tailgating with the sights, sounds and wonderful aromas, friendly laughter and big-screen TV’s set up for watching the game in the parking lot for those folks without tickets. People-watching at its finest!

Too bad that the game, which started out so promising with a 14-0 lead early on, ended the way it did. Our beloved Cyclones lost 34-14. Ouch! Here’s hoping for better days ahead.

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Once again our Iowa weather this year is unusual. We had a bitterly cold winter and come spring, multitudes of Iowans discovered lost shrubs, sickly trees and normally hardy Knock-out Roses that were down for the count. Now, in the month of August, that time of year where I am sick to death of all the heat and humidity and weary of the huge water bills we’ve been paying all summer to water our grass (which, for all our efforts, still manages to look brown and spent), our fair state has been deluged with rain, rain and more rain. In just the past week and a half our little rain gauge has measured out more than five inches of precipitation. Our lawn is as lush and green as it was in June and mowing the lawn demands ever more of our time.

At bedtime last night the rains began yet again – an almost nightly exercise now for about two weeks (or so it seems!) — accompanied by fairly strong winds and plenty of thunder and lightning. During the storm flashes I looked out at the fairway the runs alongside our property and yet again it looked like a small river. Today, the sand traps bear witness to the side effects of all that rainfall.

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Knock on wood – our basement remains untouched. Dry as a bone and no sign of runoff leaching its way indoors. Our house is situated on higher ground in relation to the golf course and water in our yard travels toward the fairway. In the nine years we’ve lived here we’ve been lucky but we know there are no guarantees especially not when record rainfall such as what we’ve experienced here this past month continues to inundate us with all this moisture.

While the rain was initially welcome – grass was getting brown and a bit crispy after a hot spell just last month and riverbeds were dry – I think I speak for most Iowans when I say I think we’re good now. Mother Nature, you can take your foot off the accelerator and back off a little. Not everyone, though, is ready for the rains to end I suspect. Flocks of geese seem just fine with all that water, some of it still sitting on the fairway late this afternoon.

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Tinier creatures yet lap up all this excess moisture, making a (very) brief appearance on our wooden deck rail this afternoon. Later in the day, after the sun came out for a bit, they were gone, all shriveled up. Still though I found them both fascinating and beautiful – in their own way.

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After all the rain we’ve gotten this month, one can only wonder what fall and winter will bring. Does this indicate another harsh winter with record snowfall to match the precipitation we have received in August? Or is that old gal simply getting it all out of her system and a mild December through March is in store for us? Makes no difference to speculate one way or the other. She’ll do as she pleases and there’s nothing we can do but sit back and mentally prepare for whatever comes our way.

Wait. Was that thunder I just heard – yet again?

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Is there anything more exhilarating than golfing on a beautiful fall day and to then encounter some of the magnificent horses that pasture alongside the golf course where we live? If I ever win big at the lottery, a huge spread with a few horses to call my own (AND a personal riding instructor) will certainly be at the top of the list!

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tal·ent·ed: having a natural aptitude or skill for something

One of the few TV shows that my husband and I watch each summer is America’s Got Talent. It is incredible – and very entertaining! – watching so many amazing individuals taking the stage and sharing their talents and skills. Some of the acts are simply fantastic, some are just okay and many fall into the what-can-I-do-to-get-myself-on-TV category – some of which are entertaining, others not so much. The season begins with a panel of judges who decide if the act is worthy of moving on to the next stage of competition. If any of the judges dislike what they’re seeing they hit a button and a red ‘X’ lights up above the contestant accompanied by the sound of one very loud (and annoying!) buzzer. If all four judges give them the ‘X’ the act is over and the competition moves on to the next contestant. Later on in the season it’s up to the American people to do the judging and ultimately select a million dollar winner in the fall.

To encourage talented people everywhere to apply for next season the host of the show, Nick Cannon, proclaims that everyone has talent. Everyone? Everyone has talent? Hmm. I’m not so sure about that. I cannot think of a single thing that I’m able to do that even remotely falls into the TALENT bucket especially as defined above. At least nothing of merit that might win me a million dollars let alone get me past the original audition without sending each judge to slap his or her hand on that button to boot me off the stage!

I’ve never been athletic or musical or artistic. While some might say that I have a good sense of humor, showmanship and a solid sense of delivery is not my strong suit. I cannot sing or play a musical instrument. I’ve performed in community theatre but I fear my acting skills tend more toward the melodramatic than anything theatrical.

Maybe I’m overthinking this. Something a little less obvious perhaps?

I am double-jointed. Does that count for anything? The middle toe on my right foot is shorter than all the others, prompting my dad to jokingly ask me once ‘what are you – a freak’? I make a mean cheesy potato casserole and my nephew loves my cowboy beans. My ciabatta bread is to die for and my sister Theresa thinks I have great taste in movies as well as music from the 70’s. But can I take any of this to the bank?

I better not quit my day job – at least not yet.

Not unless I can come up with a really killer act where I knead the dough to make ciabatta bread with my fingers bent in the double-jointed position while Pulp Fiction plays on a large screen just over my shoulder in time with Norman Greenbaum singing Spirit in the Sky. Now THAT just might be the ticket!