Pretzels

Who does not like large, soft pretzels? I love them. I rarely ate them, because as a treat they were just too much to buy all the time at the mall, but I would take a nice long sniff as I walked past Aunt Annie's or Wetzels Pretzels. I wanted to be able to enjoy these treats more often then once a year. I knew that would require making them. I was little nervous about making pretzels. I didn't want to ruin them and I thought they might be complicated. One day I ran into an issue of what to have for dinner and I was craving pretzels. That night I went for it and decided to try making pretzels. I decided to use the recipe from http://www.recipeboy.com/2014/01/how-to-make-homemade-soft-pretzels/

Turns out making pretzels was not that complicated. Making the dough was pretty simple, it was a lot like making bread. I think the most complicated part was twisting the dough into pretzel shape. After making eight balls with the dough, I would roll each dough out as long as I could, like making a snake with play dough. Then I would twist the ends around each other twice before bring down the edges to the middle section. Then I would shape the dough to look like a pretzel.

After cooking and buttering the pretzels we ate them. I and my kids loved them. They were delicious. I have made this recipe twice with great results each time. The first time I shaped all the dough before dipping it in the water/baking soda bath and the second time I dipped the dough immediately after shaping. It did not make a difference to the flavor or taste or size. They were still delicious.

Basic Muffins

Easy, quick and delicious, muffins are a wonderful compliment to breakfast, snacks, even dessert. I have been trying to find a basic muffin recipe. I wanted one recipe where I can add different ingredients to make different muffins, without having a ton of different recipes. I decided to try the basic recipe from http://hubpages.com/food/Making_Muffins_from_Scratch_-_Basic_Muffin_Recipe

When I think muffins, I think the more sweet variety with fruit or chocolate chips. This recipe looked like it would handle these different flavors. First I wanted to find out how good the recipe is and if it is a recipe that I want to continue to use. I decided I would bake the basic recipe with the chocolate chip addition, mainly because my family really enjoys chocolate.

First, I pulled out my ingredients and bowls.

Usually, I use my nice Bosch mixer to make up my dough, but muffin dough should be mixed only until the ingredients are combined, so I prefer to mix muffins by hand. Unless you are doubling or tripling a batch, it is not any harder to mix muffin batter by hand than a mixer.

As usual when I first use a recipe I try to follow it exactly as possible, so I mixed my dry together and then my wet before combining them.

Generally, though, I mix my dry together and then throw my wet in with the dry, mixing as I go. I haven't found that this causes too much of problem and saves on the dishes I have to do later.

I added my chocolate chips, a little more than the recipe called for because my family really does like chocolate, put it in a greased muffin tin and baked them for 18 minutes. They came out looking beautiful.

The muffin was delicious, not too dry, and had a nice flavor without being too sweet, even with the chocolate chips. I will definitely use this recipe again, probably with even more variation, just to try some more flavors that I enjoy. Hopefully this basic recipe can stand up to my experiments.

Basic Muffin Recipe

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
3/4 cup milk
1/3 cup vegetable oil

In a large bowl combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. In a small bowl beat the egg, milk and oil. Pour into the dry ingredients and stir just until moistened. Add in your flavor. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups three-fourths full and bake at 400 for 18-20 minutes. This makes one dozen muffins.

Chocolate Chip Muffins:  Add 1/2 cup of chocolate chips

Blueberry muffins: Add 3/4 cup of blueberries and 1 tablespoon of lemon juice. Add lemon zest if wanted.

Cinnamon Raisin muffins: Add 1/2 cup of raisins and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon

Quick Bread: Pour all the batter into a greased loaf pan and bake at 400 for 45-50 minutes.

Day 1: Five Problems with Social Media

Social Media is great. It provides many, many ways to stay in touch with family and friends. Through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and others, there is constant updates about people. The wonderful new technology, like smart phones and tablets, make it simple to update and stay informed on what is happening. Like every good thing, there is a bad side. The ease of use of social media has resulted in many different problems. Five of these problems are a lack of interaction with the physical world, over sharing, ease of stalking and cheating, and lack of intimacy. Overall we need to consider the message being taught to the next generation.

When you walk into a store, a restaurant, or Starbucks and look around you will most likely see at least 50 percent of the people interacting with their phones or tablets. There is little to no interaction with their friends or family sitting right besides them. Amusingly, some of these people may be looking at social updates of the person sitting right there. We have become a world of zombies. Technology has made communication with long distance friends or family members easier, but our focus on social media has destroyed the simple art of interaction. Everyone is so focused on the latest facebook post, tweet or instagram no one is taking the time to talk to the person right next to them.

Technology has made using social media easier, so much so that is common to see over sharing. Over sharing is revealing an inappropriate amount of detail about personal life. Sharing happy, joyous, sad, or important news to people quickly is a wonderful benefit of social media, especially to out of town friends and family. Though the ease of use has created the habit of sharing the mundane or unnecessary. Most people do not want to see a hundred selfies of their friends or care if they went to the bathroom. Popular posts are nasty fights between couples held over facebook or twitter. As amusing as someone else's life might be, somethings should be kept private. In fact, over sharing has become so commonplace, it is used as stupid jokes.

All this information has made stalking easier. Most social media have an option of posting your current location for everyone to see. No need to follow someone around, all a stalker needs to do is check the latest facebook post. In fact, facebook stalking has become a catch phrase. Facebook stalking occurs when someone uses social media profiles, pictures, and posts to learn about someone. While most of the time it is harmless fun of girls and boys just wanting to know how to approach each other, this catch phrase takes away from the danger actual stalkers present. Stalking is not fun and games. People can end up hurt.

Part of the appeal of social media is the games that can be played with other members of social media. As a result, social media has also become a hotbed of controversy about cheating. The question is being asked of what is cheating on social media. Some games allow people to live completely different lives, which may be enjoyable, but how far is too far? Is it cheating if all that was done were intimate conversation held through social media? I have recently read about a couple that divorced because the wife felt that the husband had become too intimate with another person through social media. She felt that he was cheating. Cheating also takes a different dimension as people can easily create different profiles and hide them from their significant others. Cheating is not acceptable. Most people do not cheat, but unfortunately cheating seems to have become easier with social media.

Social media seems to say that intimacy is a thing of the past. A time shared between couples or friends is not complete if it was not shared on social media. There is a growing lack of intimacy, brought about by the ease of use of social media. For example, a person proposing is a very intimate act, yet often that act is now recorded and shared to the world. An intimate dinner with friends is first posted about then tweeted about throughout the dinner, destroying intimacy. Social media is taking away the intimacy. The things that used to be shared with a few is now shared with a few million.

Think of the message that is being passed to the next generation. They are being told that it is more important to share something on social media than to talk face to face. It is expected to over share, that everyone should know everything about you, that privacy is non existent. They are setting themselves up to be targets of stalking and may someday even accept cheating. The next generation is learning that nothing is intimate, it is only to be shared and must out do someone else. Basically, the next generation's priorities are being turned around. This generation needs to teach the next the values that we learned from out parents. They also need to be taught the best way to handle social media so that the downside of social media is mitigated. If this is done then the great part of social media can come through.  

30 day writing challenge

I like to write. It is easier for me to express myself on paper than with words. I'm not very good with proper English grammar. I know this, because my husband and friends have to correct me, often. On paper I can read what is written and correct what I think may be wrong. It isn't perfect, but it is usually better than what I say. To continue to challenge my brain, I decided to start this 30 Day Writing challenge. Hopefully I will finish it too.

Wish me luck

Service

I lost count of the service I did my birthday week. Not because I feel I did a ton, but because things became busy. I know that throughout the week when I walked I stopped to pick up litter. It was great for my neighborhood, and a great sort of squatting exercise while walking. I did other things throughout the days, as well.

My main goal in trying to do so many acts of service was to try to learn to focus on others and not on myself. I hope to continue.

Monday

Today I didn't feel like I did much. I cleaned my parents house: vacuumed, changed filters, mopped, and took out the trash. In the evening at my husband's suggestion we took over dinner to my parents. Also, I sincerely thanked my daughters teachers. She loves going to school where she is at and she is doing a great job. I really am grateful to them for their help.

I count 5 today. Yes, I am counting the different jobs that I did for my parents. This week total is now 9.

My birthday

My birthday is coming up. I am turning 30 years old. I never thought I would make it this far. Oh, I didn't think I would die, I just never imagined myself at 30. I'm sure many young people are the same. Being 30 seemed so far away and now suddenly it is here, less than a week away. To celebrate this momentous event I decided I would try to do 30 acts of service/kindness before my birthday. I will try to detail what I did to see if I can make it. It is difficult to do things when I have a little baby and he takes up much of my time. I feel like I rely more on others service than I do serve but I will try my best to serve.

Today on our walk to church, one of my neighbors' mailbox lid was open so I closed it. I know that is simple but I'm counting it.

At church, my daughter and I passed a young lady wearing a pretty dress. We made sure to stop and compliment the lady on her dress.

After church, we went over and visited my parents. My dad had surgery a few weeks ago, so I try to go over every few days to give my mom a break and help out where needed. Today was just to visit and enjoy their company. I am also counting this.

Tonight, my nephew you called and asked if his sister in law could borrow something of mine. I immediately said yes. I think the best part of this was that when I said yes I wasn't thinking about this goal. I did it because someone needed it. How grateful I am that my parents taught me to serve others.

I reached to 4 today.