Promises, Promises...

I always go into school vacations with really good intentions.  I make a list of all the stuff I am going to get done.  I become annoyingly virtuous about the many things I shall accomplish and look pityingly upon all those poor individuals who do not have my high level of commitment to excellence.  I even make lists.

The vacation arrives.  I spend the weekend which kicks the whole thing off resting in preparation for my upcoming burst of finishing-frenzy behavior.  After that, it all starts to go downhill.

I suspect I just like the whole planning phase more than anything else.  Lists make me happy.  I have lists everywhere.  Some of them are years old.  It is unlikely that I am ever going to get around to finishing my Y2K preparations...

This vacation was no exception.  I had a list.  I had a plan.  I had what you might even call A Vision.  Now, to be fair, no one could have foreseen the whole nightmare with the truck and the sudden need to spend my children's college funds on a replacement vehicle.  There was a whole lot of sitting in a frozen panic whilst contemplating the best way out of this mess involved, as well as trying to convince myself that I could live without food for a couple of years if need be.  It was time well-spent, frankly.  I remembered that I don't actually have children so I didn't have to worry about any college tuitions.  That put things in a new perspective for me.

But that was really only a few days of angst.  I could have done far more on the to-do lists.  I was stuck at home for a while there and could easily have knit, spun or carded something in between bouts of paralysis.  But I didn't.  Nor did I clean the fridge, shampoo the carpets or take clothes to the donation center.  

There's about a million things I coulda done, maybe even shoulda done.  And didn't do.

I did, however, manage to pull off one little thing on the list.  A while back, the Future SIL asked if I had tried any of the recipes from the copy of Brother Juniper's Bread Book she gave me for Christmas this past year.  I was appalled to realize that I had not.  In fact, once the holidays are over, I tend to put the baking on the back burner.  Except that you bake in the oven and not on a burner so that metaphor is really kind of silly when I think about it.  But you get what I mean...

On Saturday, I broke out the book and made some of the foccacia with oodles of garlic.  Garlic is good when you are stuck at home with no car because it has an engine ready to blow up at any given moment.  It's not like it matters that your breath is capable of wilting mighty oak trees.  You're not going anywhere.  Foccacia is good.  Lots of garlic is even better.

Today, with an appointment to go visit with Mommy and Daddy Sheep on the social calendar, I decided to try a little of the sweet, whole wheat french bread.  I even followed the directions for making a round of bread instead of just a loaf.  Normally, I make lumps instead of loaves.  The bread sort of takes on a life of its own and expands like an alien life form intent upon consuming my oven.  But look:

It's round!   Really, really round!  

There wasn't room in the oven for two rounds so I tossed the rest in a loaf pan.  That worked, too!

Not as impressive as the round...but still kind of lovely.

If you, like me, have a love for the baking of the wheat with the yeast, I'd highly recommend that you scamper off for a copy of this book.  It's a fabulous resource as well as a cookbook.  It will help you make round bread.  Everyone should make round bread that doesn't morph into an amoeba sort of thing at least once in their lives.

It's not knitting.  Nor is it housecleaning or anything else remotely related to my Vacation To-Do list.  But it is edible.  Which is just as good...

SA