January Day

I am not sure where the time has gone, but here it is: January. Fall is done, Christmas came and went and is packed away for next year. It's a gray, snowy day, perfect for catching up on a good book and baking a loaf of bread. I spent today doing homey things: Gathering eggs, checking on the rabbits, baking and a bit of cleaning. A good portion of the early afternoon I spent sewing upstairs. When I go grocery shopping, right now I use market bags from Wally World and other grocery chains to load up my goodies. Not only are they cheaply made and retain stains and develop mysterious tears after a few months of use, but I feel like a walking advertisement for these stores. I may shop there, but I don't feel the need to broadcast to the world. It also is a bit embarrassing when shopping at "fancy" stores like the local co-op or bulk food store. We all like to pretend that we aren't products of mass media, and there I go: "Can you load it into my giant, tacky Walmart sack, please??" (What can I say? They have the best prices on some life necessities...) So my new market bags are free of campaign slogans and store related ads. I found in my fabric stash a large piece of heavy, nearly-like-canvas upholstery cloth with large blooming peonies across it. After slicing it into appropriately sized rectangles and finding some funky chintz prints (I so have a thing for retro fabrics!) to act as inside liner fabric, it was simply a matter of seaming the sides and stitching on bias tape handles. I even used iron-on hem tape to make the top edges all tidy. Five new market bags, all one of a kind and straight from the stash. Not bad for a girl who never took home ec!

My loaf of bread turned out lovely and brown and smells delicious. I'm excited about toasting a nice slice and slathering it with butter---mmmm. Thanks to my third-new-to-me bread maker picked up for $5 at a local yard sale, I can enjoy homemade bread without needing to hurt my hands by kneading. The trick is, use the dough cycle and then turn out into a greased loaf pan for the final rise and bake. You get the normal loaf shape instead of that weird tubular loaf, and your oven smells yummy. The recipe is a piece of cake to make: Use the wheat bread recipe in the little booklet or find one online, use real butter in the recipe, and add finely chopped walnuts and dried tart cherries when the machine indicates. See? Easy-peasy.