This was originally a Facebook post.
Here we have something I said I wasn’t going to do this summer. August wanted gold bars so badly, and wanted them way sooner than I was ready to be doing them, and they’re only five ingredients plus chocolate chips after baking, so I let him. I know kids cook and bake at 11yo all the time, but my patience helmet is wearing thin. I’m happily blaming Monica for the power of suggestion — even though he had no idea she suggested it, I suspect it’s the reason I conceded.
Anyway. Gold bars. Easiest bar cookies known to mankind and worth every minute of what feels like a painfully slow cooling time. Start with 1 cup margarine creamed with 1 cup brown sugar. Add and blend 1 egg and 1 tsp vanilla. Add and blend 2 cups flour. Spread in a sprayed pan and bake 23 minutes at 350 degrees. Sprinkle chocolate chips (or we recommend mint chocolate chips) over top immediately after taking them out, let them get melty, and spread. Then cool FOREVER (20-30 mins in the fridge), and eat.
In other more exciting news, Sola’s SEED — an online subscription resource for confessional Lutheran Sunday school materials — is taking shape so awesomely. Tara and I have read all of the first quarter of the fall materials. You can see the preview image on the Sola Publishing facebook page. After June 1, preview materials will be available at www.solapublishing.com as well.
Not that I’m excited or anything. These are good materials. Very Bible-based, very doable, span ages 3 to 111, not overproduced or flashy, and reasonably priced. If you used Sola’s Sunday Schoolhouse in the past, you’ll notice similarities, but this is much more comprehensive.
Maybe you’ve noticed (most people that I know, anyway) that it simply will not stop raining? Yeah. This is doom. Or feels like it. I did reframe my screen time plan for summer. The kids are only allowed to draw names for choosing a TV show during actual rain. So far this has really not been an advantage over the former plan (one show per kid per day, which is flat-out too much), funny-not-funny. But it has a major advantage in that they simply don’t ask for TV if it’s not raining. Win some, lose some?
I haven’t forced them to do worksheets yet. Maybe next week. Our focus this year is handwriting and math maintenance.
Jeremy is now on Plan D or maybe Plan E for getting cattle to pasture. This mud is just as inconvenient as it was during calving, though perhaps not as deadly.
My sister-in-law Lauren’s cousin Eliana is National Spelling Bee Speller No. 302, sponsored by the Albuquerque Journal, and she is in the finals tomorrow. I might have to figure out how to watch. She’s living my childhood dream — except that if I’d made it, I would certainly have choked out early! Go Eliana!!
After a week of VBS, a family reunion, and visits from Mom and Kimberly, we are going to eventually be not exhausted. No promises on a timeline. The meal plan for VBS went marvelously, and resulted in gobs of leftovers. Yesterday we emptied 13 containers and today looks to be another five. Pretty sweet.
Cheers to one and all.
This Prairie Life. 