Happy Halloweeen!

Free downloads of the pug stencil and other breeds at BetterHomes&Gardens. Stencil designs by Diane Starkey.

Banana Bread

I promised Daniel we'll do some cooking/baking this weekend. Banana bread sounds good right this minute... I like this recipe from Betty Crocker - last time, we used star shaped pans for an extra special look.

Banana Bread

Prep Time: 15 min
Total Time: 3 hours 25 min
Makes: 2 loaves

1 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups mashed very ripe bananas (3 to 4 medium)
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped nuts, if desired

1. Move oven rack to low position so that tops of pans will be in center of oven. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease bottoms only of 2 loaf pans, 8 1/2x4 1/2x2 1/2 inches, or 1 loaf pan, 9x5x3 inches.
2. Mix sugar and butter in large bowl. Stir in eggs until well blended. Add bananas, buttermilk and vanilla. Beat until smooth. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt just until moistened. Stir in nuts. Pour into pans.
3. Bake 8-inch loaves about 1 hour, 9-inch loaf about 1 1/4 hours, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes. Loosen sides of loaves from pans; remove from pans and place top side up on wire rack. Cool completely, about 2 hours, before slicing. Wrap tightly and store at room temperature up to 4 days, or refrigerate up to 10 days.

Substitution
If using self-rising flour, there is no need to add baking soda and salt.
No buttermilk on hand? Mix 1 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice or white vinegar and enough milk to make 1/2 cup. Or substitute 1/2 cup plain yogurt.

Mirror, mirror...

Alice laughed. "There's no use trying", she said; "one can't believe impossible things."

"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. There goes the shawl again!"

Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

e-book

Chaco

Chaco Culture National Historic Park in northwest New Mexico is well worth the visit. I was there for the first time close to 8 years ago - would love to go back and see it again.

"Chaco Canyon was a major center of Puebloan culture between AD 850 and 1250.
It was a hub of ceremony, trade, and administration for the prehistoric Four Corners area.

Chaco is remarkable for its multi-storied public buildings, ceremonial buildings, and distinctive architecture. Its structural elements combine pre-planned architectural designs, astronomical alignments, geometry, landscaping, and engineering to create an ancient urban center of spectacular public architecture--one that still awes and inspires us a thousand years later.

The Chacoan sites are part of the homeland of Pueblo Indian peoples of New Mexico, the Hopi Indians of Arizona, and the Navajo Indians of the Southwest."

O Poema

My favorite poem from Brazilian poet Mario Quintana published in his book Poesias.

Uma formiguinha atravessa, em diagonal, a página ainda em branco. Mas ele, aquela noite, não escreveu nada. Para quê? Se por ali já havia passado o frêmito e o mistério da vida...

A loose translation

A little ant crosses, in diagonal, the page still blank. But he, that night, didn't write anything. What for? If by there had already passed the essence and mystery of life...

Family "Fortune"

Dinner at Mai's has become a family favorite. Their Pho' Tai is the best.To wrap things up we always get a fortune cookie each. Sunday's messages were just right:
Daddy - "Be yourself and you will always be in fashion."
Kaila - "You have an active mind and a keen imagination."
Daniel - "You will always be surrounded by true friends."
Me - "A small act of charity will go a long way."

Athletic Conditioning

I started an athletic conditioning class at the gym on Wednesdays. The instructor keeps the class fast paced and challenging. We usually end up with 100 push-ups in 10 to 20 increments, work with free weights, medicine balls, figure 8 elastic bands for squat-jacks, and bosu balls. On Thursday my legs were tired and a bit sore (in a good way). I guess the class is working as intended - it complements my running really well.

String?

Nothing like jumping on the bed listening to good music. Yes, a favorite of my kids. Last week I bought them a new tape with children's songs and they were having a blast. The tape ended and there was quiet for a little while.

"Bath time...", I call. As Kaila comes to meet me she asks, "Mommy, what's all that string for?"
"String? What string, Kaila?"
"Come see...", she says.

I get to her room and Daniel is happily pulling the ribbon off the cassette. The 'string' is pooled by his side! Luckily the tape was not torn and after a few minutes of manually rewinding the 'string' back into the cassette, we had music again.

One of the reasons I purchased the old-tech cassette tape was to show the kids how the tape deck in their little boom box worked. I guess they got that and a little more. It's fun to see Kaila FF and wait for the tape to get to the next song - rather than just pushing one button in the CD player for the immediate gratification of her next favorite song.

Atchung!

Today Daniel sneezed and before we could say anything he went "Bless you, Daniel!". It was too funny and sweet.

Picnic in the Park

The kids enjoyed a picnic in the park today. The second day of Fall brought us the first cool evening to Houston since early Spring.

Kaila insisted on sitting on a blanket on the grass - "because when we have a picnic, we sit on the ground not on tables."

Daniel was delighted to have all his favorite foods and family together - "Mommy, we have every thing we need!" He said this very same thing on 3 or 4 occasions during our outting. It was pretty sweet. It's nice to hear from a 2-year old that life is just perfect at that very moment.

Abbey Road

Winnie, the Pooh, turned 80 in 2005. Old news, I know, but yesterday I came across the book The Art of Winnie the Pooh by Disney celebrating Pooh's birthday. Richard Sherman, the composer/lyricist for The Many Adventure of Winnie the Pooh, wrote an inspiring foreword describing his adventures with Pooh since the 60's.

Several Disney artists were invited to submit an art piece for the book. One of my favorites was Abbey Bridge by Eric Hutchison inspired by The Beatles' Abbey Road album cover. Hutchison captured the four friends Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore and Piglet crossing Abbey Bridge. Here is his description: "Tigger displays the same bravado that Lennon made famous. At his heels is Piglet. (Sorry, Ringo!) Behind him is the leader of the pack, Pooh, as Paul McCartney. And last but not least, Eeyore, whose striking similarities to George Harrison are almost eerie."

What do you see?

Earlier this year there was at lot of discussion and controversy around Wikipedia publishing the Rorschach plates and their interpretations.

Well, Daniel's class had a perfect answer to the whole thing with their art project "My Little Alien". They created their own Rorschach plates - or so I say.

This one is Daniel's piece. What do you see?!

Delusion

This quote by Paul Watzlawick just seemed to fit right in here after O'Keeffe, illusions,and hypnic jerks.

"One’s own view of reality as the only reality

is the most dangerous of all delusions."

Hypnic jerks

Sounds bad, but that's what those "electric shocks or jerks" you get just when you're falling asleep are called. Alternatively one may also use hypnagogic massive jerks - even worse.

See wikipedia for more details...hypnic jerks.

I haven't gotten one of these in a while; at least, not that I remember. They are quite disconcerting and annoying to me, since I always take a while to fall asleep. A hypnic jerk sends me right back to the starting line.

As I put Daniel to sleep a couple of days ago he had a pretty big one. It sure startled me as I sat beside him; but Daniel didn't even budge - asleep he was, asleep he stayed. At the end of the day he is one tired boy.

Optical illusion

This has to be the best optical illusion I've ever seen. The magnitude of the movement perceived in the leaves is incredible!

This picture was part of an article in Woman's Day. The magazine links it to a Flickr account that describes the picture as " found on some academic website". (It's sad and unprofessional that the magazine did not credit the author.)

After a brief web research I was able to track the original author: Akiyoshi Kitaoka. He calls it "Plastic Dongurakokko". For great tutorials on how to build optical illusions and other amazing images visit Kitaoka's website.

http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/index-e.html

Sea Shells by Georgia O'Keeffe

A few days ago I finished the O'Keeffe Biography. The first few days I missed being transported into the artist's world. Interestingly enough, today through a few unrelated links, I came across a post on the blog Completely Coastal displaying 3 of O'Keeffe's wonderful seashell paintings.

A Flowers link in the Completely Coastal post sends you to art.com that carries a large line of Georgia O'Keeffe prints. The quote in one of the prints pretty much symbolizes who O'Keeffe was:

"Nothing is less real than realism. Details are confusing. It is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis that we get at the real meaning of things."

Umbrella Day

I'm getting ready to go for a run in the morning and I hear this tingling noise on the window...rain...I wait for a while and the weather clears a bit - humidity is at 100%, but it's not too hot. I get home and I poll the kids for a trip to the zoo. Yes! We get ready to go and it starts sprinkling again...hey, get the umbrellas. Let's go. And off we went, umbrellas in hand. The kids actually had fun in the rain - thankfully it never got too hard while we were walking around.

After the zoo, we waited out some showers and went on a train ride around Herman Park.

A fun day. Zoo promise kept.

Trip to the Zoo

I owe Daniel a trip to the zoo.
He asked so politely today - Mommy, can we go on a trip to the zoo?

Jump Rope

Kaila jumped rope for the first time today. It all started with a drawing posted on a cabinet in her class.
Mommy, what is she doing?
Jumping rope.
Do we have jumping rope in school?
I don't think so, Kaila.
(But her teacher readily interjected - Yes, we do!)
You have a fun class, sweetie. Hug and kiss... bye.

When I came to pick her up in the afternoon, she was all excited.
Mommy. Mommy, do you know what I learned today?!
No, what did you learn?
Jump rope!

I hope it takes a while for her to have her "Sally" day with the jump rope... ;)