My (Current) Chore System

I’ve tried a slew of ideas, some have worked better than others, sometimes I change because of the ages and abilities of my children. Anyway, this seems to be working for now.

I put the above chore chart in a sheet protector and it lives on the side of our refrigerator. I made some temporary circles from construction paper and use tacky putty to stick them where they go. I made this to be a 4-week rotation and each week’s allotment of chores includes 1 kitchen chore (to be performed after each meal), 1 bathroom chore and 1 Room Of Focus chore.

In the example above, Mom (purple) empties the dishwasher after each meal (or whenever the dishes are clean if there is a lot to wash), cleans the tub and mirrors, and keeps the living room tidy (everyone is responsible to put away their own things, then I sweep, vacuum, and tidy up what’s left);

Eli (green) sweeps the floors in the kitchen and dining room after each meal (or at least as often as necessary to keep things neat), sweeps the bathroom floor and wipes up any grubby spots on the floor or around the toilet, and helps all of the rest of us with our chores (at least 5 minutes of hard work for each person who is actually doing their chores);

Geo (blue) loads the dishwasher as soon as I unload, keeps the toilet clean, and keeps the front of our house picked up (tosses trash, puts bikes and scooters in carport, etc.);

Nina (pink) keeps the counters and table cleared, wiped and everything put where it goes, the counters and sink clean in the bathroom, sweeps the hall and keeps it clear of things and keeps the music room tidy (music straightened, piano turned off, etc.)

And last, but not least, Ana (4) checks to make sure our dog, Lucy, has food in her bowl and water in her dish, helps make the bed and keep her 1/2 of her room tidy, puts “hair and teeth things” away, and helps Eli with is chores (when she isn’t bothering him so much that he asks for me to keep her out of his way, sigh).

I made the chart pictorial, not because most of my workers aren’t readers, because they are, but because I can see from across the room what any given person is supposed to do. Also, I tried at the very beginning to change chores daily, but it got to be too hard to remember what chores we were on so I changed it to weekly chores which works much better. After the first day, I can remember what I did the day before and don’t even have to look at the chart to know what I’m supposed to be doing. It’s a real time-saver.

The number next to each row of chores is the order of evening showers except that my number trickles down to Ana. I have been trying to get the younger 2 to take their baths/showers earlier in the day so there’s not such a bottleneck during supper/shower time, but that might not work as well in the summer when there will be more playing the dirt, even in the later hours of the day.

Since I don’t always have time to (1) do all the chores by myself or (2) check everyone’s work myself, I came up with a way to designate. If I can’t check someone’s work to make sure they are done, I made this little wheel chart (which I can change every week based on my rotation schedule below). It helps us all know who should check whose work. So in the example below, Eli would check Nina’s work and on around the circle.

I came up with schedule because a certain older sister has a problem doing the dishwasher duty with a certain younger brother every other week (because he is “so slow”) so I came up with this chart to keep things “fair.” (I also made the rule that if the unloader takes too long, the unloader can expect to also be the loader, that helps too).

We try to do a “Family 15” every day outside of “chore time” and that helps a lot to keep things mostly tidy. If any of my crew doesn’t do an adequate job in their area and it requires my help to get the job done, I do their chores for them, but they know I don’t come cheep.

I’m a good worker and I do a good job and I expect the “workers” on my crew to do the best that they are able to do (I understand that they each have their own best and it’s not anyone else’s best, though I do try to help them improve their best when I can). When I don’t think they did their best or didn’t even try to do their jobs, I either put on my red bandana, or just inform them that I’m working for them (sometimes I give them a few minutes warning), set my stopwatch and go like crazy. It usually doesn’t cost them more than $1 when I do work for them, but there is a certain worker who seems to be taking a long time learning the lesson of diligence and hard work. I feel bad, and I have discounted my fee to him since he is less experienced than his older siblings and still in the training phase, but I want him to understand that there is a consequence to not doing jobs in this house.

I have recently started “hiring” help when I don’t have time to do someone’s chores. They all know that they can be hired to help Mom and that if they don’t do a good job or do their chores, Mom will hire help to work for them. I don’t pay them my going rate as I don’t think they work as fast or as well as I do (yet), but at least it’s something and it gets the job done. It also tends to cut down on the “No fair! You’re stealing our money!” complaints if they can turn and earn some of it back working for someone else.

So, I say this is my current system, it probably won’t last forever, but for now it seems to be working pretty well for us. I’ll post again if I come up with anything better.

Copying the Bible

Not long ago while browsing Anne Elliott’s blog I read how she has her children copy the Bible (not just verses, but the whole Bible) for their copywork time. This is an idea she got from the Klein Family who got the idea from Art Dappen who got the idea from the book of Deuteronomy:

When he [Israel’s king] takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the Levitical priests. It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the LORD his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees and not consider himself better than his fellow Israelites and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel. (Deut. 17:18-20, NIV)

Art Dappen wrote a book, a compilation of some of his thoughts on the subject, called The Education of Kings. (pdf / mp3)

His thoughts on the matter (very basically) are that if we are called priests and kings (Rev. 1:6), and if we are called to imprint the word of God in our minds, teach them to our children, and talk about them all the time (Deut. 11:18-21), and if Jesus directs us to seek his kingdom first, then all the rest will follow… (Matt. 6:33) then we should put God first in everything, including our homeschooling, give him the first, best part of our day and spend time imprinting his Word in our hearts while we copy it down in a book. He does a much better job of explaining this all so read his book (or listen to the mp3). It’s not very long, I found it very enlightening.

This sounded pretty good to me so we’ve started. The first day flowed really well with my normally change-hating child actually loving the idea. All was peace and quiet at the table… it was wonderful!

Then the novelty wore off and we’re now dealing with more noise and time-wasting, but I’m sticking with it. I think everything will normalize at some point and we’ll find a happy medium and hopefully my children will all learn to love it as I love it because…I love copying the Bible. It’s so relaxing and it gives me time to think about what I’m writing as my writing speed is much slower than my thinking speed. Try it, you might like it.

Bible Memorization Tool

This particular tool is my favorite offline tool for scripture memorization. There are some great online ones such as iMemorize, but for memorizing at home (see Scripture Memory System), this works great.

I stumbled onto something similar in the past but forgot to bookmark it. This was mighty hard to find this time around so I wanted to post it so I don’t forget it again (and plus, you might find it useful).

Input whatever you want to learn, click “convert” and presto, a whole bunch of stuff that looks like gibberish, but really is just the first letter of every word which will hopefully be enough of a crutch to get you to the point where you can say your verse(s) without any help.

 

For instance, here is John 3:16

F G s l t w, t h g h o b S, t w b i h s n p, b h e l.

Sad Rhino

I was trucking along, doing ok in the Orange Rhino department when Friday happened. It was one of those days. You know, the one where the kids can’t get along to save their lives, me constantly having to play referee and keep them directed where they are supposed to be directed. Then when I went to the restroom, the one place where I should have some semblance of privacy, I had not one or two, but three children in the room with me at the SAME TIME! There were a couple of times I kind of lost it, just a little. Once when Geo was playing around on the piano instead of doing his school work and wouldn’t respond to my repeated calling of his name for anything. Finally I had had it. I gave an extra loud, irritation-driven shout of his name… and this time he looked. I felt awful. I knew I’d just tripped, rhino-style. I wasn’t happy. Then I let fly on Eli for something else he was doing, can’t remember now what it was, but I was just SO frustrated. No excuse.

I didn’t yell anything besides their name or QUIET! but it was enough for me. I don’t want to do that, but I guess it’s going to take awhile to learn how to travel a different road.

So, this week in a humble attempt to get back on track, I’m going to make myself an orange bracelet to keep my goal in plain sight. Also, I’m going to print off the list of alternatives to yelling found on Orange Rhino’s blog.

Oh, whew, I feel a bit better… I just went back over to Orange Rhino’s blog and I realize I just did 2 “Oopsie Snaps” rather than crossing over into the super-nasty, yelling zone. I think it will still make it easier to stay in control of my stress if I keep the goal fresh in my mind throughout the day so I’ll still go again with my game plan. Trucking along, I guess I’m on day 18.

Orange Rhino Challenge

Ok, so I don’t consider myself a raging, out-of-control kind of yeller, but I do sometimes snap and let out an “argghhhhhh!” kind of holler usually followed by a question to whoever will listen hinting at the cause of the outburst such as, “Can everyone just be QUIET so you can hear me read?!?” or “Why did you just hit your sister/brother?!?” It rather reminds me of my days in school when our much beloved choir director, tired of all the chatter would raise the lid of a nearby desk letting it SLAM, making us all jump, but definitely getting our attention.

With four littles running around competing with each other for the title of  The Loudest One Of The Bunch, I find myself raising my voice a lot just to be heard over the din. But, when I heard about the Orange Rhino challenge, I figured I was not without sin in the yelling department, but that I really would like to get control of this little area of my life. So here goes, today was Day 1 of my challenge and so far so good, I haven’t yelled. I have used my stern mommy voice which Geo misinterpreted as raising my voice, but I told him I could still speak with authority and it not be yelling (which it wasn’t).

If you feel like joining me, head over to The Orange Rhino, read the details, and jump right in. I’ll be glad for the company.

Twins and Tens tri-corner cards

Here are some tri-corner cards I made for my daughter. It is a single page, print on card stock and laminate for best results.

 

Download Twins & Tens printout.

Number Bond Flashcards and Worksheets

I made these Number Bond flashcards and worksheets for my daughter who seems to be having a difficult time getting the facts to cement into her head. This is an approach I haven’t tried yet (except for some triangle cards for the 10’s family and number twins to 20) so we’ll see how it goes.

The first tab in the Excel spreadsheet was my first attempt at cards, but I didn’t end up liking them all that much. You can fold them in half with the question on the front and the answer on the back. I’ll leave them in just in case you can find a use for them.

My second attempt was tab 2 which are larger cards to be printed front and back like traditional flashcards. There is plenty of white space at the bottom for holding on to the card and flipping it over to see the answer.

Tab 3 is the same as tab 2, except it includes multiplication facts from 1-20 (zeros not included).

The last 2 tabs are worksheet generators. Mixed Families is for a variety of fact families, while Same Family is for learning a single fact family. I have directions in there on how to make adjustments to the numbers before printing.

Download Number Bond spreadsheet here.

Old Yeast

I’m definitely having some rising issues. My last batch of bread took parts of 2 days to complete (some of it spent in the fridge), even with the addition of an extra tsp. of yeast. I use Fleischmann’s ADY Instant Yeast in the 1 pound vacuum pack. The yeast I’m using right now is probably over a year old, but it has been kept in the fridge the whole time.
I do think that its age is part of the problem and I have been aware of the slowness of this yeast for awhile and got around it by proofing it in warm water with a pinch of sugar added to perk it up. However, since I started doing a preferment and soaking another portion of my flower, I’m left with no water to proof my rather large yeast particles (about the size of mustard seeds). The texture of this last batch of bread was fine, no complaints as to the tooth feel/crumb, but I do wish the loaves had peaked about 50% higher than they did.
My plan is to try just doing a preferment with the whole wheat flour and when I’m closer to the point of mixing everything together, proof my yeast in the remaining 1/3 c. water with a pinch of sugar to get it going, then mix it with the dough conditioners, sweeteners and some of the flour to autolyse for about 30 minutes before adding the oil, salt and remaining flours. I’m hoping this will get the yeast good and infused into my dough and that it will rise like I expect it to. I’ll keep you posted.

My Other Bread

When I’m not making sourdough (which I need to get back into since the temps are nice and warm again), or when DH is tired of sourdough and is pining for “store yeast” bread, this is my bread of choice.

I think it’s loosely based on a recipe I found on King Arthur Flour website years ago, but it has morphed and changed a bit into what it is today.

Ingredients: 1 1/3 c. warm water handful rolled oats 1 Tbsp. molasses 1/4 c. sugar or honey 3 Tbsp. oil 2 c. whole wheat flour 2 c. white bread flour 1 1/2 tsp. salt

Before we moved where we’re living now, I used to make decent bread and I even had people willing to pay good money for a loaf or two, but since I’ve moved up here, not sure if it’s a location thing or if I have just forgotten how to make bread, but whatever the case, I haven’t been as happy with my breadmaking results.

The crumb has been crumbly recently and I’ve been longing for that lovely, gluteny, chewy tooth feel that I get with less healthy, White Mountain type, store brand breads.

I went on a mission to figure out what I was doing wrong. I think I’ve figured it out. I wasn’t kneading the bread long enough (or at least I wasn’t having my machines [either my Kitchenaid stand mixer or my Bosch Universal]) mix long enough to develop the gluten properly. For some reason my brain was telling me that my dough was cracking as it rose because I’d overmixed the dough, but I was doing just the opposite.

Also, in reading Tammy (of Tammy’s Recipes)’s rundown of natural dough conditioners, I remembered some of the dough conditioners I used to add to my bread (i.e. ground ginger, ascorbic acid powder…) so I’ve been adding those back in as I can get them.

I also have been reading how bread consistency is helped by a preferment and autolysing or soaking some of the flour before mixing all the ingredients together, so I tried it yesterday and was so excited by the results. It adds a little more work, but accomplishes my desire to have my flour (or at least most of it) soak for 7+ hours before baking thus minimizing the phytates in the flour, plus the texture is so So SO much nicer! If I can figure out how to soak my flour overnight, I might try that, but for now, what I’ve managed is:

Preferment: 2 c. ww flour 1 c. water 1 tsp. yeast Autolyse: 1/3 c. water (try 1/4) 1/4 c. honey 1 Tbsp. molasses Rolled oats Enough of 2 c. bread flour to mix with liquid   After Preferment and Autolyse have sat at room temperature for 3-4 hours, Add: 1/4 c. oil 2 tsp. yeast (dissolved in just enough milk to cover) 1 1/2 tsp. salt Pinch of ascorbic acid 2 tsp. pectin Rest of 2 c. bread flour plus enough to get right consistency 2 Tbsp. vital wheat gluten   Will try a.s.a.p.: 1 rounded Tbsp. Malted Barley Flour 1/2 tsp. ground ginger 1/4 c. lecithin granules (I might start with less, Tammy uses 1/2 tsp. per loaf for her bread recipe so 1/4 c. per here sounds like an awful lot!)

Based on the aeration info here, I also tried to whip my preferment and autolysed mixes for about 3 minutes till they

were good and “fluffy” before I added the rest of the ingredients.

Then I added enough flour to get the right consistency and mixed on a 2 setting for about 10 minutes, let the dough rest for 5 minutes, then mixed for 10 more minutes (see here, then here) before transferring to a greased bowl for the first rise.

I’m not big on really crusty bread, I like a softer crust so have been in the habit of baking at 325 deg. for 20-25 minutes, but yesterday, I preheated to 475 deg. and turned the heat down to 325 deg. as soon as I put the loaves in. I think that helped with a little oven spring. Next time I might try an initial temp of 500 deg. Geo gave the crust 2 thumbs up. He said he usually doesn’t like crust, but this crust was nice and chewy like the bread, “kind of like Dad’s potato bread,” so it was just fine. I consider that a compliment :).

As far as more dough conditioners, I will add in lecithin granules and powdered ginger when I can get them from the store.

Another benefit from extending the time it takes to make a batch of bread is that I can slow the baking process down as needed (with the help of the fridge if need-be) allowing me to bake in the cooler evening parts of the day.

Mmmm, I’m anticipating this next batch of bread, can’t wait till it comes out of the oven…

ETA: Note to self--I really need to work on my loaf shaping technique. One thing at a time…

The oven spring wasn’t as high today as yesterday so I’ll go back to 475 deg. instead of 500 deg. for initial temp. Also, I think for the preferment, I might try adding less yeast  and more yeast when I mix everything together. Either that or I’ll just add a little more yeast to the recipe as a whole. When it’s time for the final rise, I would like to see things work a little faster than they did tonight.

Ok, just tasted it and…. yum! And DH gave it the green light as well. I’m glad that the dough conditioners I added (pectin & ascorbic acid) didn’t alter the flavor negatively.

Bread Soup (Pappa Al Pomodoro)

While looking for a way to use up stale bread, I stumbled upon an interesting recipe on Food.com. It’s basically an herby tomato soup with pieces of stale bread added near the end of the cooking time so it has time to soak up some of the liquid and become nice and spongy. The results are similar to a soup made with dumpling, but because it is a previously baked yeast dough, the dumplings are much more tender than the baking soda variety. My kids and I really like it, my husband not so much so ymmv. Here’s how I make it (for a tribe of 1 adult and 4 hungry yungins).

Ingredients:

     several cloves of garlic (4-6)

     1-2 onions, sliced

     a little olive oil for sautéing onions and garlic

     1-2 dashes red chili pepper seeds

     1 large can or 2 smaller cans tomatoes (whole, chopped,

             diced, whatever)

     stale bread, sliced, torn into bite-sized pieces (somewhere

             around 8 c.)

     12 c. water

     6 bullion cubes (beef flavor is nice, but vegetable is fine too)

     1 Tbsp. dry basil (called for 1 c. fresh leaves, torn in small

            pieces which I’m sure would be even tastier!)

Directions: (how I do ours)

    1)    Put onions and garlic with oil in a large pot, salt onions and garlic. Sauté with lid off for a little, then add lid so O&G don’t burn or stick; Before the O&G start to stick, add the tomatoes; add the basil; if using whole tomatoes, crush them with the back of a wooden spoon and stir; add water & bullion cubes; add more water/bullion if needed to make a liquidy soup; cook until the tomatoes fall apart (about 20 minutes).
    2)    Put the bread into the sauce; the bread will soak up the sauce; cook until the bread becomes a kind of mush (this is called 'pappa').

Some notes: I make this with my own stale homemade bread (2-3+ days old at least) and it works great. We tried English muffins once but weren’t too impressed with the results, they turned out rather gooey. I’m thinking it might work to add bread to any kind of soupy soup, but we’ve only ever tried it this way. I suggested it once and my kids said, “but I like the tomato soup!” so that kinda settled it for me.

Sleep in Heavenly Peace, Grandpa

Carroll Ray D____

2/23/23 - 10/11/11

 

If I were to point to any human person as a hero to me personally, I would have to choose my grandpa. I remember spending summers at Grandma and Grandpa’s house and the fun we used to have. We did plenty of playing in the house, but we also had great fun outside with Grandpa. He had a terrific garden, a barn full of all sorts of “treasures,” and their close proximity to a lake inlet only added to the charm of their house. I remember him taking my brother and I fishing on the lake or exploring one of the small islands in the bay. Sometimes we would go hiking in the woods, other times we’d help him in his garden or help get the firewood stacked in the basement through the small basement window. On summer evenings we would sit on their front porch and Grandpa would play his guitar or saw (Grandma would play her accordion) and we’d sing while watching the sun set over the lake or the lightning play tag with itself. Once when we were visiting, a small tornado came quite close to their house while we stood watching from the barn door. The transformer across the house blew from the force, but because Grandpa was there with us, we weren’t afraid.

Grandpa had such an upbeat personality, loved everyone, and had a great sense of humor. He would often remark at mealtimes, “My stomach’s beginning to think my throat’s been cut” and at the end of the meal he’d comment,“It’s a good thing I ate when I did because now I’m not hungry.” He also claimed he would never retire, only retread.

He was a hard worker and in his later years (after many years as a colporteur), he did a lot with his hands (carpentry, plumbing, etc.). Sometimes his hammer would miss the intended target and he’d smash his thumb or finger. Every time, after the pain had subsided some, he would say something to the effect that he was glad he had a thumb to hit. He tried to find the positive in everything, definitely a “glass is half full” kinda guy.

In the autumn of his life he and Grandma (and my great grandma who was living with them) went to live near my folks. It wasn’t too long after moving there that Great Grandma and then Grandma closed their eyes for the last time (till the resurrection). Not too long after that Grandpa started showing signs of Alzheimer's, becoming more and more forgetful. During one winter ice storm he forgot that Mom had told him to stay inside and went out on the porch to take his little dog potty. He slipped and broke his collar bone. The bone jutted out into his skin and never healed together and he seemed a bit subconscious about it. Unfortunately there was nothing that the docs could do about it in its location. Finally my parents moved him into their house to provide better supervision.

It’s been so hard to seem him slide into decrepit  old age. He was always so strong, but his last few years he’s been getting weaker and more feeble. Recently my parents made the decision to place him in a nursing home so he could be monitored 24/7. Ironically, less than two full days after he was admitted, he fell and broke his hip (or broke his hip and fell, not sure which). He went through surgery for that (replacing the ball part of his femur), but he had some complications after the surgery (aspiration pneumonia, food from feeding tube not assimilating…). He was in much pain and weakening. My mom and sister finally decided that it was time for hospice care. He was kept on morphine most of the time to handle the pain.

This morning around 1:00 a.m., he stopped breathing and fell asleep in Jesus. I’m sad that such a great man is no longer in this world, but I am glad that he’s not in any more pain or discomfort and the next conscious thought that he has will be Jesus coming to wake him up and take us all home. “Grandpa, it’s not ‘good-bye’, it’s ‘see you soon!’”

Pattern Sale!

I bought a bunch of McCall's patterns the last time they went on sale for $0.99 each and have been waiting what seems like eons for Simplicity patterns to follow suit. Well, it appears my wait is over! :) Joann Fabric is running a $0.99 sale on Simplicity patterns this coming weekend (Friday, Oct. 7 – Monday, Oct 10) so I have made out my list and am checking it twice. I’m mainly going to get costume patterns (historical type outfits which might come in handy for homeschool situations) with a few doll clothes patterns thrown in for fun. Now for some time to sew…

PDFTK4ALL

In searching for a program that could join and split pdfs easily, I stumbled upon PDFTKhttp://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/ (stands for PDF ToolKit). I am sure it is very functional and a power workhorse of a program since is runs from the command prompt, but wishing for something a little user friendly, I was very happy to find PDFTK4ALL. This program offers a GUI which makes the tasks of splitting, joining, extracting, rotating, etc., a lot simpler. So if you need a free solution for these tasks, I recommend you give PDFTK4ALL a try.

Flying Again

I tried FlyLady when I was a mom of 1 little and did ok until I was a mom of 1 slightly bigger little and morning sick with little #2. Then things started falling apart. I guess I fell off the wagon and took about 9 years to find my way back on. Now, I wouldn’t say I’m fully flying yet, but I’m taking some steps in that direction, I guess I’m in flight training :).

I’m kind of doing it all wrong by not starting with her babysteps, so maybe I’ll have to check in and make sure I’m not getting off track any. But I think I have the main bits together.

I made Control Journals for me and the rest of the littles (including the 2 yo). Sticking with our kid colors, Gigi, miss pink, chose 2 cute fairies (cleaning fairies) on a pink background, the boys wanted something more guyish so we went with the firefighter theme (putting out “hot spots”) on blue and green backgrounds. I found another cute fairy princess for Missy’s journal (against orange) , and of course, mom’s had to be FlyLady on a purple background, lol. I figured it would be a tiny bit harder to lose them if they were brightly colored.  Some have still somehow managed to go missing since I made them a couple of days ago.

The insides are 1/2 sheets encased in plastic report covers folded in half. This keeps the pages safe from tearing or being spilled on and also makes the pages easy to turn. The very first page is the Morning Routines, then Evening Routines, then Daily Routines, then Zones.

Geo and Gigi have school control journals in the very back part of their control journals. Our school schedule pretty much recycles each week so that part is in plastic with one sheet with specific assignments out of plastic so they can check things off as done.

Everything else can be checked off with dry erase markers or grease pencils (haven’t tried these yet, but I think I might). They seem to have a problem losing their pens so I might have to put a pencil case in each journal for the pens to live so they won’t wander away as easily.

The numbers in the boxes are estimates on how long I think it should take them to do each chore. It can give them a goal to beat with a timer.

My morning and evening routines are probably too long for right now, but I’ve highlighted the ones that I want to make habits at first (5 each) and will build from there (so I don’t feel bad if I don’t get to my whole list just yet). I don’t want to crash and burn like I am so prone to do.

Encyclopedia Interactica

I’ve always been a fan of the French children’s site Poisson Rouge and was happy to see that they are trying to find ways to illustrate educational concepts as well as their mainly entertainment oriented content. I do see more room for growth, but I’m so far pleased with what I see. There are math, science, and music applications along with a few other ideas.

Gimposition PDF Booklet Creator

I rarely pay for software if I can find free ways around all the features of the pricier versions. One example is .pdf booklet creation. Adobe Reader is supposed to handle it just fine, but for some reason, it kept messing up a document I was trying to print yesterday. The pages were all mixed up, 17 on one side of the page 53 on the other. It was just not working. So, after trying everything I could think of doing, I went hunting for a free booklet creation solution and happened upon Gimposition. It is so intuitive, it’s not funny. You just load in the .pdf document you want to bookletize, tell it where you want the output file saved, and in about a second or two, the brand new booklet is waiting to be printed. It gets my vote!

My “This Can’t Be Sourdough Bread” Recipe

Since I started my sourdough journey on March 12 when a friend of mine showed up at a church social with a jar of starter for me (not something I had asked for, but I’m so glad she did!), it’s been a bumpy ride. At first it just sat in my fridge waiting for its weekly feed. One week I thought for sure I’d killed it because I let it go longer than a week between feeds, but I started feeding it again and it came right back to life. I’ve since learned that wild yeast isn’t that easy to kill and I could have neglected it for a few weeks and it probably, with some coaxing, would still have returned to its former glory.

I finally got brave enough to attempt a loaf of sourdough and used the recipe from S. John Ross’ Sourdough Baking – The Basics website. I actually did make some fairly decent bread to begin with and then the urge for more sourdough experimentation took over and I started trying other recipes and techniques (like baking inside my deep cast iron skillet with a lid on to trap steam), but either the taste (too sour), or the crust/crumb (too tough) weren’t just right and I started to feel downright deflated. My kids were pining for the fleshpots of commercial yeast bread . Also, my starter started to look a little peaked and I didn’t know what I was doing wrong. It wasn’t doubling in 4 hours like I thought it should, it was starting to separate which didn’t look like the Google pictures that I had seen of lovely, vital sourdough starter.

But, I’m not one to give up a fight easily. I had read some interesting reports on the nutritional value of sourdough bread over commercial yeasted breads and I wasn’t wanting to throw in the towel yet. I tried adding a little pineapple juice to my starter which did help some, I also ordered a food scale which, as soon as I started using it, seemed to have an amazing effect on my starter. I realized that I hadn’t been keeping my starter at 100% hydration like I thought, more like 120% or more. When I mixed equal weights of water and flour, the result was more like a wet dough, much less like a thick batter. It was almost hard to stir.

Finally my starter was doing better and I was now on the search for a non-sour (or mildly sour), soft, thin/light crusted sourdough. I tweaked John’s recipe to include an egg (lecithin), milk (dough conditioner), and baking soda (acid neutralization). I also took his advice of lower temps as I’d been baking at much higher temps and the crusts were always so crusty.

I’ve made this recipe a few times now and my kids have stopped wishing for the “old” bread and are quite happy with Mommy’s new wild yeast bread. Geo even got so into things that he’s started his own starter (we’re calling it a science experiment, lol). So, without further ado, here’s my 50%+ WW TCBS bread recipe:

2 c. (500 g.) 100% hydration starter (mine is almost 100% white)

3 c. (400 g.) whole wheat flour

1/4 c. (80 g.) honey (or molasses)

1 egg + milk = 2/3 c. (1 egg + milk = 160 g.)

Autolyze (rest dough) for 30 minutes, then add:

1-1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking soda

1 Tbsp. oil

Add more bread flour if needed.

Mix in bread mixer for 5-8 minutes or knead by hand for 8-10 minutes (ok, guessing here, lol).

Place in a greased bowl, coat both sides, cover with plastic wrap (or a plastic shower cap) and let it rest in a warm place (i.e. in the oven with the light on) for 30 minutes to an hour. Punch dough down, knead in bowl till dough firms up a bit. Cover and let rest again. Aim for 3 or 4 punch ‘n’ kneads (or stretch and folds) during the first 4-5 hours. Then turn dough out onto greased surface. Cut dough into half. Place one half back into bowl, take other half, cut side down, on your work surface. Roll out with rolling pin into a long, semi-rectangular shape. Flip bread over so cut side is now facing up. Begin rolling bread at top, rolling toward you all the way to the bottom. Pinch seams. Place seam side down into greased bread pan. Repeat with other 1/2 of dough. Place shower cap (or plastic wrap) on top of each bread pan. Let them rise in a warm place for 2-3 hours, till top of dough is at least 1 inch above top of pan. With a sharp knife or razor blade, slash top of bread in whatever designs you would like. Heat oven to 350°F and bake for 20 minutes. Let bread cool before slicing. Store any bread that’s left in plastic bags like these to keep the bread moist for a few days (if it lasts that long). If you don’t like heels and no one else wants them, they make great breadcrumbs after they’ve been dried.

Note: I aim to have my bread in a pre-cooked dough state for at least 7 hours to give the phytates in the wheat time to neutralize. I personally don’t like my bread to go much longer than 12 hours before baking as that increases the sour taste and we’re not fans of that at this point. I generally aim for 7 hours total dough time, but lately, with the weather being as unseasonably cool as it has been, my bread has inched up closer to the 12 hour mark. Unfortunately for me, the light in my oven is blown. Lately I’ve been mixing the dough first thing in the morning (around 8 a.m.) and then into the loaf pans around 12 or 1 and bake around 3 or 4. It would also work to mix it up before going to bed in the evening, then shaping into loaves in the morning and bake 2-3 hours later, but you’d have to do without any punching down of the dough which I think helps develop the gluten strands.

Keeping dictation shorter

I have the hardest time keeping my children on task during our Riggs dictation. They can turn a 10 minute spelling or phonogram test into an hour if I let them. I admit that I’m easily distracted by the youngers and can tend to lose track of time so I’ve been on the hunt for a free timer program that would help keep us on track, but the ones I had used would always restart at zero and I wanted one that would let me restart back to 30 seconds after each phonogram or word as the case may be. I finally found what I was looking for! :) It’s called TimeLeft and its basic version is free.

I chose to keep it down to its bare bones and do without the title, headers, play/pause and restart buttons. This allows me to have a very small timer which remains on top of all windows, but which can easily hide in less used parts of my screen. There are easy to remember keyboard shortcuts for start (ctrl+s), pause (ctrl+p), and reset (ctrl+r).

Here’s how I use it. I get the timer window active, press ctrl+s to start it, then say the phonogram or word that is being tested on and press ctrl+r to reset it back to 30 seconds (or however much time I’m allowing for each item). Then if they beat the timer, I say the next thing and press ctrl+r again. If they don’t beat the timer and it dings, they leave that space blank (and subsequently get it wrong) and we move on to the next phonogram/word. They really don’t like having to skip one so they try real hard to beat the timer.

Is it a D or a B?

I’ve seen several other helps to remember the difference between a lowercase b and d. Here’s my own take on the ol’ “D vs. B” beginner reader quandary. Click here to download.

Our Workbinders distilled down from Workfolders which are a spinoff of Workboxes…

Ok, I could not think of a decent title, but the point is that my Workbinders are inspired by Jolanthe’s Workfolders which are derivative of Sue Patrick’s ubiquitous Workbox system.

I tried traditional workboxes a couple of years ago with Geo and they went well with the downside of taking too long to load each night. I always felt like I was forgetting something. It was enough to make me go slightly batty. I took a year off from workboxes and this year decided to give them another try after reading about Jolanthe’s workbox twist and revision. It seemed like it would work so well with the Gs so I set off to imitate it (please feel flattered, Jolanthe).

I saw the folders that Jolanthe said she got from Wal-Mart, but they were a bit more expensive than these tabbed pocked folders by Avery.

My math failed me and I bought 3 packs not realizing till later that I’d only need 6 dividers per kid if I wanted them to have 12 pockets. I ended up with a bunch extra but it didn’t turn out to be a bad thing after all as you’ll see.

I decided not to do a separate weekly grid for all the tabs, my kids would just lose them anyway.

Instead I put 12 velcro dots on the inside cover of the flexible poly 3-ring binders that I have the workpockets in. I put one tabbed divider (from a pack of these, again from Avery) in front of the pockets and I put more velcro dots on both sides. The front side is for their completed activity/subject cards and the back is for extras or activities/subjects that aren’t assigned on that given day. On the right tabbed divider you’ll see a smaller (older) card which says, “I’m ready to work!” I made (and had laminated) a lovely school clock-in / clock-out setup , and they just don’t use it :( So this way it hopefully will still give them the idea that before they get started on the other stuff they should “clock-in” in their workbinders at the very least.

I had originally thought I would use all 3 dots on each pocket for the subject, a place for them to match up the subject card from the front cover of the binder and an extra one for a “with mom” card. But since it’s easier for them to just move them from the binder cover to the tabbed divider, we’ve just been doing that. It also makes it easier for me not to have to hunt down the cards on several different pockets.

Like Jolanthe, I have a week’s worth of assignments for each subject that gets assigned, then in the evening, all I have to do is to reload the front cover with the cards for the next day and we’re good to go. I only put papers or very small/thin books in their workfolders and the rest of their books are in their “workboxes” (I love our Trofast setup by the way!). 

I put workboxes in quotes because I’m not using them in a typical workbox way in that the boxes aren’t numbered, but have labels for their category. So, for instance, I have Geo’s reading books in one box, Gigi’s in another. Geo’s reading comp. and grammar books share a box. Their workbinders share a box and my teacher’s books get their own box. It’s nice because the kids know where to go to get the things they need, they know exactly what’s expected of them from their workbinders and my job of refreshing them each evening is a breeze.

Oh, and the extra pockets? I made my own workfolder and in it I put my daily routines, weekly schedules, monthly calendars, my little notebook for jotting down things I don’t want to forget, our Keys for Kids devotional, reward stickers, a knitting pattern, memory verses, and whatever else I want to put in there. It has helped me get a lot more organized too and that’s always a good thing.