Old Fashioned Lard Biscuits

2 c all purpose flour*
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/3 c lard**
2/3 c milk

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.  Mix the dry ingredients, and cut the lard into the dry ingredients until everything resembles coarse meal.  Stir in the milk until a sticky dough forms, sprinkle flour on a flat surface and turn the dough out.  Knead until it's elastic and no longer sticky--probably about twelve turns.  Maybe fourteen.  Roll out, cut biscuits by pressing straight down, form the remnants into another pat of dough and keep cutting until you've not got enough left to cut and make that last biscuit, and bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for 12-15 minutes. 

Now.  That's the standard recipe.  

Here's lard biscuits for those who have to be gluten free:

2 c all purpose gluten free flour--I don't recommend almond flour for this unless you like eating hockey pucks
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/3 c lard
2/3 c milk***
1 large egg

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.  Mix the dry ingredients and cut in the lard--this version of the recipe works better if the lard is COLD lard.  Beat the egg into the milk, then work into the dry ingredients.  Add more milk if needed by teaspoons.  Fold and press four or six times, to make flaky layers in the biscuits, then sprinkle flour over the top, roll out, and cut.  Mash the remnants together and roll out and cut a couple more biscuits.  Continue until dough's all on the cookie sheet.  Bake until golden brown. 

These are, hands down, the best gluten free biscuits I've made.  BEST.  They turn out like soft wheat biscuits--the Southern style ones.  They hold together for butter and honey or jam; they also work really well under sausage gravy.  Best thing of all?  They don't end up so dry you feel like you're choking down formed sawdust. 

It truly doesn't take any longer to mix these up and cut them out than it does for the oven to preheat.  And it costs a lot less than biscuits in a can. 

*I haven't made these with standard all purpose flour, but I can't imagine them turning out anything but good, considering how good they turn out as gluten free biscuits.

**You can use room temperature lard, but cold lard turns out better biscuits.  And cold lard isn't nearly so hard to cut in as cold butter is. 

***You can leave out the egg, if you're allergic, but be aware you're going to need more milk--start with 3/4 c milk, and add more by teaspoons if you need it. 

Budget recommendations

My budget just got a lot tighter.  My son hit sixteen, and there's now a small truck to insure.  

So.  It's time to sort through and figure out where I can tighten things down a bit more.  I'm really, really thankful for my aunt helping me buy a WonderMill last spring--that is an enormous budgetary help.  One 25 lb bag of white rice from Sam's Club costs the same as 4 lbs of rice flour.  4 lbs of flour that I grind and mix costs about the same as a 5 lb bag of all-purpose wheat flour.  

If you have to eat gluten free, get a grain mill.  It makes a huge difference.  You will break even in the first few months, I promise. 

My particular all-purpose blend* is a combination of white rice, sticky rice, and brown rice, with corn starch and xanthan gum added.  I use corn starch because it's a) locally available, and b) much cheaper than a lot of other starches.  I usually mix two batches of flour to keep on hand and cook with. 

I have successfully made gluten free bread, biscuits,** gravy,*** and a couple of desserts (wacky cake and cookies) with this flour.  It's an excellent blend.  The most expensive part of it is the sticky rice, but it's well worth it.  The sticky rice flour makes an enormous difference in how well your gluten free breads and bread-ish things hold together. 

The biggest difference in cost is that mill.  When you can buy the rice and grind and mix it yourself, you're not paying for a massive commercial mill, and you're not paying labor and convenience costs.  And trust me: both add up.  Fast.


*2 c white rice flour, 1 c sticky rice, 1 c brown rice, 1.5 c corn starch, 2 tbsp xanthan gum

**Best biscuit recipe is actually lard biscuits.  Butter ones are...okay, but mildly disappointing.  The lard biscuits turn out spectacularly good, and they brown.  

***Gravy is one of the things that actually turns out better using gluten free flour: no lumps.  (The other thing is breaded and fried foods.)

It's alive!

 Liquid Diet Chronicles book 4 Meals on Wheels is live, and ready for borrow through Kindle Unlimited, or purchase (or first one, then the other, if you're inclined). 

New foods!

It is like pulling teeth to get my Imp to try new foods.  I think I've found the trick though: he's more likely to try something if I tell him it's spicy.  

Case in point: we got him to try pad thai, recently, by calling it "spicy spaghetti."  He tried it, and liked it well enough to ask me to learn how to make it so I could teach him.  

Last night was another new food: buffalo chicken dip.  I started with a recipe found online, but ended up modifying it a little bit.  I'll probably half the recipe, more or less, next time I make it, and will just make it on the stove top.  

Hot Buffalo Chicken Dip

2 cans chicken, drained
2 bricks cream cheese (I used reduced fat, and thank God I did)
3/4 c shredded cheddar (grate it yourself so the dip doesn't turn out gritty if texture bothers you)
1 c ranch dressing
3/4 c buffalo sauce
1/4 c Louisiana hot sauce (optional--if you need more heat to be happy with it)

Drain chicken (my cats demanded some of the chicken water, so I drained a little into paper bowls for them), dump in crock pot, break up a bit.  Dump in cream cheese, cheddar, ranch, and buffalo sauce, and turn the crock pot on low.  Go back in an hour or so, depending on your crock pot (mine runs way too hot on all settings), and start the process of mixing it up.   It's ready when it's fully incorporated and hot all the way through.  It's good with Freetos, tortilla chips, celery sticks.  Probably would be good with club crackers, but I can't vouch for that, since I can't have those anymore. 

The picky kid ate probably a cup of dip, last night.  He only stopped because it was starting to make him queasy (as much cheese as is in it, I'm not surprised).  I had maybe half a cup...and a bottle of hard cider to mitigate the gallbladder attack I knew would follow.  

It was worth it.  This recipe turned out good.

Derp. Forgot to annouce.

 Light Up the Night dropped live on Wednesday.  It's available to purchase, or to borrow through KU.  

Eggs...and abject stupidity

 So.  

Eggs.  

They're something of a staple.  You use eggs for breakfast, for making cookies, for adding into recipes.  Eggs are just...they're ubiquitous.  They're in a lot of things.  They're supposed to be some of the cheapest protein out there.  

We use a lot of eggs in this house.  A lot.  Spouse eats French Toast egg muffins for breakfast on work days; Imp eats fried egg sandwiches with hot sauce for school day breakfasts (and on Sunday before church).  I make cookies, cornbread, and gluten free bread--all of which use eggs.  Two of them, each time.  I also have a recipe that uses four to make a can of spinach palatable (basically turns nasty, slimy canned spinach into spanikopita filling).  So, yeah--we use a lot of eggs in this household. I get them in the big boxes (5 dozen) from Walmart about every three weeks or so.  

I got groceries Friday.  The box of eggs had jumped from $10/box to a bit over $18.  Yeah.  Major jump.  I got them at Sam's Club instead, for a bit more than $13 for the same size of box.  (That had gone up, too, just not as much as Walmart.)  

Yesterday, I ran across a news story about yet another food recall.  I'm sure you'll remember the great lunch meat recall for listeria?  Back in July?  Where they went screeching that lunch meat would kill you because of this particular bacteria? 

Yeah.  When I got pregnant for the first time in 2008?  I was cautioned that lunch meat can carry listeria, and that since I was pregnant, I would be particularly susceptible to it.  And that I needed to take lunch meat I got and heat it to steaming in the microwave, then put it in a new, clean container, before I put it back in the fridge.  And then it'd be safe.    

There was no need for a panic and recall.  It's stupidly simple to mitigate the risks.  All that was really necessary was a public service announcement.  

Back to the eggs.  They're the current recall.  Because salmonella.  

Wait just a damn fucking minute, here.  Eggs have always risked salmonella contamination.  It's one of the reasons you're not supposed to eat raw cookie dough.*  I have never been unaware of the possibility.  And I've never had a case of salmonella from eggs.  Wanna know why? 

I wash the fucking eggs.  And then I cook the fucking eggs.  

Again: a recall is not necessary.  All that should have been done was to draft a PSA.  Here, I can do it for them: 

Attention: this is a public service announcement from the FDA and CDC.  Recently, there has been a multi-state outbreak in cases of salmonella food poisoning that has been linked to eggs.  Salmonella is a dangerous food-borne illness that can be controlled with a few, simple steps.  Step one: wash the outer shell of the egg with soap and warm water before you crack the eggs for use.  Step two: cook the eggs until the yolk is set.  These two steps will prevent you from contracting salmonella from eggs.  We will not issue a recall for egg-borne salmonella.  Thank you.

Then...leave the eggs alone.  Leave them on the shelves.  Stop fucking treating the American public like toddlers.  If people ignore the PSA's instructions and end up killing themselves with salmonella?  Awesome.  Each easily avoidable death is one fewer stupid fucker voting.  And breeding.  And encouraging the government to treat the rest of us--you know, the ones with brains in our heads--like toddlers.  

Stop issuing food recalls for things that the consumer should be responsible for mitigating for ourselves.  Save them for the arsenic-tainted apple juice, or the metal-shavings-tainted chicken nuggets. 

Incoming!

Got a new novella dropping live, next month.  On the 18th.  Light Up the Night. You can preorder now, if it looks interesting:

Dane Crockford is tired. Tired of the green energy crapping out and leaving his wife Rose gasping for breath when their air conditioning dies, tired of trying to hide his use of his own solar panels from the nationalized electrical company, and tired of worrying about his daughter and son-in-law, trapped in an abusive indenture program to pay off their student loans. He’s not the only one, either. Everyone in his home town is in a similar situation, many of them with their children doing dangerous jobs without pay to offset crippling student debt. So when his grandson Toby accidentally discovers an energy generation method that isn’t wholly owned by the federal government, he jumps on the possibility of building something that works, in spite of and around the federal monopoly.

But what the monopoly doesn’t realize is that their grip on Dane, and on his home town, is far less secure than they think. When they disconnect his house from the power grid, they have nothing to hold over him, to force him to work for small rebates on his monthly bill. The utility has unleashed the power of a cranky old man with a rare skill, and they’ve got no idea that they’ve tossed the pebble that starts an avalanche.

When it drops live, it'll be available to borrow Kindle Unlimited. 

There will be more announced in coming weeks, too.  Cheers!

School is back in session.

 Last week was a half-week.  Monday saw "Back to School Night," where the kids take their supplies to their classrooms/lockers, and pick up their schedules (for secondary).  Pixie (who's now much taller than me) is in 8th grade, this year, and Imp...Imp is in high school.  

I'm really, really proud of that.  

I actually wrote this past summer.  Yeah, the housework went to shit, but I wrote.  I finished a short novel, a novella, and am about 2/3 of the way done with another collection of short stories.  

And since school has been back in session, I managed to get the revisions done on the short novel and get it sent out to one of my beta readers.  The novella?  Beta reader finished it, and I've got it up for pre-order.  It'll pop live in mid-September, at which point it'll be available to borrow KU.  

I'm thankful the kids are back in school.  They've got their own friend groups that they hang around with in school, and they don't spend their time abrading each other's nerves...and mine.

Milestones

The kids are hitting them.  They're both teens, now, which means I've gotten them into the adulthood-training stages.  I'm actually really proud of them.  They are, by and large, really good kids, even in the throes of puberty hormones. 

Imp has his learner's permit, and Other Half is working on teaching him how to drive.  Yes, he's really that old, now.  And is going into high school next year, with a couple of ideas of what he wants to do with his life.  He wants to learn welding.  I think it suits him, because it's as much art as science, and it's a skill that will support him quite well.  He also wants to learn to make pizza.  And run a food truck with a friend or two.  We're...working on that.  I've got him started on learning to make pizza from scratch, since that's what I do for them on Fridays anyway.  He can assist me, then take over when I think he's ready.  It'll probably be slightly before he thinks he is.  

Pixie is also a teenager, now.  She's working on learning how to cook from scratch, too.  She can make from-scratch oil biscuits, helps make bread (both in the bread maker and my gluten free bread), cookies, and wacky cakes.  She's still not sure what she wants to do for a job, but that's okay--she's only thirteen.  She's positive, though, that she wants to get married and have a family.  

The kids have four and five more years, respectively, of learning to run their own households, then some more time paying rent in mine* before they'll be moving out.  

Next month is Other Half and my 20th anniversary of marriage; we've been together for longer than that.  

Next February--so, eight months and a bit from now--will mark ten years that I've been on a wheat-free diet.  I routinely test that, hoping that the intolerance will clear up, but...yeah, it really seems like that isn't going to happen.  Last year, I started working on learning to make bread with rice flour.  And then, I started grinding rice for flour, starting with my blender.  Then I got a manual grain mill, and recently, I got an electric one.  I've learned a lot about gluten free baking, mostly in the last two or three months, since flour isn't so very expensive, now.  

Five years from now, we won't be having to save every single penny we possibly can to just be able to pay tuition; at that point, there's a lot I want to do for my house.  Yeah, our tax returns will be less without the child tax credit available...but that has always gone to pay tuition, from the time they started school.  Once it's gone, I won't really miss it because I've never really had it. And while yes, we are planning on donating some to the school to repay them for the years they've given us a tuition break, it won't be on a deprivation level like tuition alone--even the discounted tuition--keeps us on. 

*The rent the kids pay to me will go into a separate savings account, so that they can afford to move out: First and last months' rents, deposits, utilities deposits...it actually costs in the mid four digits for people to be able to move from their parents' home...or from one apartment to another. 

Well. *That* happened.

Monday.  Woke up feeling stiff and achy; day got progressively worse from there.  Doctor's appointment right before picking the kids up from school, got there barely in time to park before Imp was climbing into the back seat.  

Evening went like they always do, and then kids went to bed, and I got a LARGE bourbon.  Because I wasn't going to sleep without help.  The storm hit around the time I went to bed, and hit in earnest about the time I managed to drift off, just before midnight.  

And then the power went out.  And the sirens went off.  We got the kids and pets gathered up and huddled  in the bathroom, listening to a battery-operated transistor radio until the all-clear sounded about half an hour later.

Shuffled the kids back to bed, and Other Half took a flashlight and went out to see if anything had damaged the roof, as best he could.  Still no power--all of the local lights were out.  We could tell we'd lost some limbs from the trees, but not how many.  

Went back to bed, and slept for the rest of the night, until the alarm on the cell phone went off.  

Still no power.  But we had light--the sun was starting to come up.  The driveway had a limb across right behind the cars, and there were limbs laying on the roof.  And on the fence into the dog's yard.  And...yeah.  

Other Half got a text that there would be a delayed start for the kids' school day, and let me know.  Then he headed to work.  I waited, then took the kids to try to get them to school...and the road was blocked.  "Road closed."  And I could see why (both for the road block, and for the lack of power to the area): there were no poles left standing as far as I could see down the north side of the road.  

Turns out, that storm?  The sirens?  Was an F1 tornado.  It went through between the little side road that connects our street to the next big east-west artery through town.  Lots of trees down along that little road, too.  Went down it, around the next street, then up the north-south back street that the college backs onto.  

...and there was a road closed sign preventing a left turn.  No way to get the kids to school.  Dog was out of food, so we went to Walmart to grab a bag.  Went home.  

School closed, Imp's band concert postponed.  Road--and school--stayed closed through Wednesday.  Power came back about lunch time on Wednesday, or maybe a little before.*  Still no internet.  Cable co-ax had been taken out with the power lines. But the power was back, and the city had semi-opened up the road around the school, so...the kids went back yesterday.  Internet came back yesterday right before I had to go get them.  

I'm glad I'd left five minutes early--the city'd closed the street between us and the school again, and I had to go the long way 'round.  

So, yesterday and today have been spent scrambling to get caught up on what I didn't get done Tuesday (dishes and some housework) and yesterday (the admin stuff for the household that requires internet access...and the admin stuff for writing that also requires internet access). 

Since May started, I'd estimate we've probably had about four or five inches of rain, going by the standing water in the low spots in the yard, where the saturated soil just couldn't take anymore.  We're supposed to get some dry time...but not much.  It's supposed to start back up Sunday night.  

Missouri in severe weather season.  Fun times.  Be sure your radios have batteries, your cell phones are charged, and your generators (should you have them) are ready to go. 

*Wednesday afternoon, there was another nasty storm system move through; however, the tornadoes that one spawned were south of us. The kids, pets, and I still spent a good chunk of the afternoon huddled in the innermost room without windows, thankful it was a bathroom not a closet. 

Musings: On complications

So, last week in our discussion on charity and the direction the church should be taking, we discussed how complicated charity actually is.  

Better, it was acknowledged that there were different types, different levels to charity work.  And that it was really difficult to figure out in the moment which type of help was needed.  

The lesson broke it down into three levels: relief, rehabilitation, and development.  

In short, relief is what you do to get someone through the initial crisis, the rehabilititation gets them back on their feet, and development helps them move forward. To further clarify, we used a huge example that we were all familiar with: the F5 tornado that ate Joplin thirteen years ago in May.  

Relief was the initial response: when one of the two hospitals was picked up off  its foundation and set down three feet to one side, relief was the rednecks rushing in to help evacuate the building before it fell down.  Relief was the sick and wounded transported en mass in the beds of  pickups a few blocks to the other hospital, and room made at the other hospital.  Relief was digging people out of the rubble, digging storm shelters out of the rubble to rescue people that managed to get into them.  Relief was the initial rescue.  

Once that was done, we moved on to rehabilitation: the day after the tornado, there were people walking through, and shifting rubble out of the streets so that vehicles could get through.  Rehabilitation was getting the rubble cleared  out enough to get insurance companies in.  Rehabilitation was getting what was left of people's lives pulled away so that rebuilding could start.  So that people could get back on their feet.  Rehabilitation was Walmart cancelling the remodeling and upgrades on Supercenters statewide to rebuild the one that the tornado destroyed, so that people could get back to work, and pay for what their insurance wouldn't--or rather, couldn't, given the volume--cover.   Rehabilitation was Home Depot putting up a tent in their parking lot, opening for business before Walmart had even gotten their lot cleared, and bringing in the bones of building materials for people to cover broken windows when their houses were otherwise livable.  

After that comes development: some businesses didn't come back.  We built new ones.  Some streets had to be totally torn out and redone.  The mall--left more than half-empty by a few anchor stores going bankrupt years earlier--took in the high school while the city built a new one (in partnership with a local community college and technical school...which turned out to be good for the city, the high school students, and the tech school).  Yes, the city made some really stupid choices, but that's par for the course.  A lot of good was done, too.  

When we turned it from city level to individual...things got a lot more complex.  How do you tell which step you need to be on?  How do you get the person you're trying to help to buy in, to cooperate?  The last two steps are hard, folks.  And yeah, accepting "relief"--handouts--is easy.  And a lot of people won't try to get back up on their feet.  

How do we as a church figure out who wants help up and out of the hole, and who just wants food packages and comforts added to the hole?  It's hard.  

It takes getting to know people.  It takes building a relationship.  Once that step is in place, it's a lot easier to tell who actually needs help, and who wants to coast on no effort expended.  

Relief is easy, because it's in the moment, and it's instant gratification.  Boom--done.  It's as easy and tempting for the helpers just as much as it is for the helped.  Rehabilitation is a lot harder.  It takes more time, it requires a lot of effort from both sides, and progression isn't always linear.  Development is the hardest of all, because the helper has to step away.  And yeah, the person being helped is going to stumble, and probably fall a couple of times.  But it has to be done.  

But first of all, the church has got to get the relationships built.  And that isn't easy, either.

Musings: on charity

Faith.  Hope. Charity.  All are key Christian traits.  

Sure. 

But what is charity?  Is it a meal when someone's hungry, clothing when theirs is thread-bare? Money thrown at the problem?  

If that was all, then we wouldn't need to worry--welfare throws money at the problem all the damn time.  However, it's done nothing but make things worse.  

What is charity, then, if not a handout?  

Say you're walking along, and you find a deep, deep hole, with somebody at the bottom, yelling for help.  How do you help them?  Do you make them comfortable in their hole? Toss down food, water, blankets?  Maybe a pillow or two?  No.  You pull them out.  You get a rope or get a ladder and toss it down to them, help them climb.  

Throwing money at the problem is proving to do nothing but make them content enough to not climb out.  No, not totally content, but content enough that it seems better to stay put than to struggle.  

So, how do we do that?  How can we, as a group, help people?  

The hard truth of the matter is that you can't help some of them.  They don't want help, they want to lay in their hole.  They just want a minimum of comfort while they do.  

As for the rest...it's even harder.  You have to get to know them.  Without knowing who they are, you can't know what they need.  You can't know what they're struggling with that put them in the hole to start with.  You can't help someone who wants help if they're addicts by just pulling them out of the hole--they'll just fall back the second you let go.  And you don't know if that's what put them in the hole if you don't know them.  

Some people that want out of poverty need help with addiction, yes.  Some need help with other things: learning to budget, learning to do some things for themselves to free up some of what income they have, learning to feed themselves--dear God, do you know how expensive it is when you can't cook???  

A lot of us have forgotten that we have to know people to be able to help them.  

Before I was born--hell, before my mother was born--that used to be the responsibility of the church communities.  They'd pitch in and help: they took care of widows, orphans, helped those injured in their work (because almost all the jobs were heavy, dirty, dangerous work)...they knew their people, and knew who needed the hand up, and who needed support through a rough spot with a few months of handouts.  They knew who wanted out, they knew how they fell in the hole to start with...

...and they knew who were just lazy bastards that weren't worth trying to help, because they wanted the minimum for comfort in their holes, not help out.  They'd help their kids, but not them.  

We need to do that again.  We need to build community.  We need to be open, we need to pull people in.  We need to get to know each other.  

Because without that, all we can do is offer handouts and hope for the best.  

That way, though, leads to apples and sandwiches abandoned on street corners.  I'm sure you all know what I'm talking about.  

And I'm tired of trying to help and getting my hand slapped for offering because I'm offering help instead of money. 

Musings: on poverty

Other Half and I attended a...well, a class, of sorts...at our church last night.*  The class was the first of a six week series on poverty, charity, and how the church should participate.  Honestly, I wasn't expecting a lot, but it triggered a couple of thought cascades with a couple of the questions. 

First question: What is poverty? 

The answer the group came to was...wrong.  "A persistent, day-to-day lack of resources" isn't  poverty.  That's being broke in a big way.  But it can turn into poverty in a twitch. 

The pastor suggested it was a sense of shame, powerlessness, helplessness, of being invisible.  Again, no.  Those people aren't there yet.  Those feelings of shame?  Poverty isn't that.  

So, what is poverty?  

It's a series of habits and patterns of thought that keep people broke.  People who are broke can slide into true poverty scarily easy: all they have to do is apply for government help. 

Welfare/food stamps are a nasty fucking trap.  Regan was entirely correct when he said the scariest words in the English language were "I'm from the government and I'm here to help."  No.  They aren't.  They're there to remove your agency and your choices.  They're there to take control of your life by miring you into poverty. 

I said poverty was a series of habits and patterns of thought.  And that government "charity" systems force people into those patterns, but I haven't defined what they are.  

First, people get so mired in today that they don't think about tomorrow.  This is something that starts to take shape when someone goes broke.  It's like addiction: all the addict thinks about is where their next hit is going to come from, but the broke person's worried about paying the next bill.  And then...then, they start making choices that look stupid from the outside (and, frankly, are stupid)--"There's money, so I'm going to get this small thing I want."  Dumb, but human.  Broke can't afford wants, but society's trained people to believe they should prioritize wants to be happy.  But that money could have/should have gone on needs only.  Because that couple dollars spent on a soda? That five dropped at Starbucks for a coffee?  Might have been the difference between being able to pay the next bill, or...not.  

This is one of the forks that separate the person that's broke from the person sliding into poverty.  The broke person looks for ways out.  Might start regretting getting that little stupid thing that is already gone.  Will be focused on "up and out." The broke person probably does feel shame. The person about to slide into poverty...sits down in a flood of self pity. And stops feeling shame, and starts feeling entitled to more.  

And...they complain.  They complain about not being able to afford things (news flash: most people can't afford everything they want).  They complain about always being broke.  And they start looking around for how to get money.  Not how to make money, how to get their hands on money.  

Broke isn't lazy; poor is.  Broke isn't characterized by an over-developed sense of entitlement; poor is.  

Broke isn't scared of bettering themselves.  Poor is.  

Because those who become mired in poverty?  The ones complaining about never having enough, never getting what they want?  The ones saying they deserve more?  

They apply for welfare.  And often get it.  

Welfare, as I've said before, is a trap.  A nasty, pernicious trap.  Sure, they hand out money...but only a little bit.  And there are strings and rules attached.  First string: you have to stay poor.  You can't get an income stream going--or they remove the money they give you, and tax the income stream.  And new income streams are rarely sufficient to needs.  And then when taxes are added in...they were getting more via their welfare checks.  Second string: your kids are not allowed to have jobs without getting the household check cut off by the gross amount.  And yes, they track.  I can't swear to it, but I am convinced that this is to make it a generational thing--if the kids don't develop a habit of work, they'll end up on welfare, too.  

Welfare is a root cause of generational poverty.  It alleviates nothing.  It does nothing but teach those mired in it that they're helpless to improve themselves and their lot.  

Broke is often frustrated with their lot, and look for ways out.  Poor believe there is no way out, and refuse to do more than look for ways to be comfortable.  Broke is angry; poor is depressed.

In a couple of days, I'll talk about the other question.

 

*Last summer, the church broke away from the Methodist hierarchy, and hired the guy currently preaching as an interim pastor, partially because he'd been a pastor there before and they knew him, and partially because he's retired. The interim pastor has taught a six-week course last fall, over Nehemiah.  We'd get dinner, and a sort of a college level lecture, every Thursday for the six weeks.  He's doing another over poverty and charity, and what we as a church should be doing that we're not, and maybe what we are doing that we shouldn't.  

Life goes on.

Mom made bread.  Mom made bread often.  Not as often as Grandma used to, but she made a lot of bread.  

I...made a mistake.  The Tuesday after Mom passed, I was going through the motions and I threw ingredients into the bread machine Odysseus got me for my birthday, last year.  No, not gluten free bread.  Regular bread.  

As soon as the house started smelling like bread baking, I started leaking tears and could not stop.  

I didn't make bread last week.  We took that last half loaf from the previous week and turned it into garlic toast to go with the pasta bake I'd made.  And, since that was the day after Mom's service?  If I hadn't had bread on hand, I'd have asked Odysseus to just pick up a loaf.  

Today was pasta day again.  The "start bread" alarm on my laptop went off...

...and this week, I didn't leak tears.  

Not while I was smelling the bread baking, at least.  I still randomly leak tears (I'm sure y'all understand), but that smell of fresh bread didn't trigger it for me, today.

Life does go on.  It took my mom a little while after Grandma passed before she could make bread without bawling.  Guess it was my turn. 

Yesterday

Yesterday was Epiphany.  Liturgically when the Magi found their way to the Christ child. 

Yesterday was when my mother found her way home.  

Friday night, my sister told me that Mom had lost consiousness, and she couldn't wake her, so called the ambulance.  She was taken to their local hospital, and they discovered she'd had a massive brain bleed.  She passed at 3:30 a.m. Saturday morning, never having woke up.  

It was fast, and hopefully painless.  Which was more than I'd hoped for.  

I'm going to miss her so much.

Delusional

I have a cousin who is an avowed atheist.  She swears that she's a good person without needing external rules and guidelines imposed by an "imaginary friend/sky daddy." 

Given the things I've seen her post to FB, I would...not agree with her.  At all.  

I mean...

Yeah, let's look at this.  

I didn't particularly want to teach the kids that Santa brings gifts for kids on Christmas.  It's dumb.  And I'm really kind of sick and tired of the ruse--this is going to be the last year, since I have teenagers.  But it was useful while they were smaller to use the ruse to get them once-a-year expensive toys, and not have them begging us to get them expensive shit year-round.  

That said...there's no fucking way I think this  picture is remotely funny.  What the actual fuck.  

This isn't schadenfreude.  This is deliberately causing pain to a child. Hurting a child for the fun of it.  

I know she'd probably protest that it's "art," and "it's a joke," and "it's AI generated."  

Thing is...I've messed with AI art.  Bing Image Creator is actually a lot of fun to play with, and you can make some really gorgeous pieces with it.  

AI art is made by inputting descriptions.  This art was designed by someone who thought it was funny--was fun--to make a little kid cry on Christmas morning.  

This is the least of what I've seen her post.  

She mocks Christians by cherry-picking things from the Bible--that slavery's okay,* and polygamy,** and that horrific punishments, like "an eye for an eye" were allowed and encouraged.***  

And yet...

...and yet.  

Christians are not the ones posting things that show joy in deliberately causing pain, much less deliberately causing pain to the innocent among us.  Christians are not the ones suggesting that dissenters should be raped and tortured to death (yes, I've seen her post things like that).  

Full disclosure: yes, I laugh my ass off at people hurting themselves.  I think the shocked dismay that people who are suddenly thwapped with the consequences of their own freely-chosen actions and decisions is hilarious.  

I do not think causing pain to children is funny.  Nor do I think it's funny when a child  actively hurts him or herself because the adult in charge of their well-being either dropped the ball, or set them up.  

Nor do I think it's funny for adults to get hurt because someone lied to them, or set them up for the sake of a video prank.****

Love thy neighbor as thyself.  Love your neighbor as you would yourself.  TREAT PEOPLE LIKE YOU WOULD TREAT YOURSELF.  

It's not a difficult concept.  It's the base command in Christianity.  Love God, and love your neighbor. 

That is what makes a good person.  And atheists are far too prone to allowing the monkey-side--the fallen side--full control over their actions toward their fellow human beings.  Atheists are far too prone to dehumanizing those that don't march in philosophical lock-step with them.  

Atheists don't just go tribal--they go full monkey-band primal. Because they lack the guidance--the reason--to be better than their own worst impulses.  To do better than their own worst impulses.  

You know, my cousin swears she loves children.  That she'd never hurt them.  

Yeah.  I don't believe her.  And I won't let her be anywhere around my kids unsupervised.  

*Slavery isn't okay.  And the rules around slavery in the OT? Those put limits on how people were allowed to treat their slaves, and turned slavery into indenture.  The Israelites were required by God to offer freedom and adoption to their slaves every few years.  This, in contrast, to how horrific slavery was literally everywhere else, was a MASSIVE social change for the better.  

**Polygamy was everywhere.  Men died early and suddenly, and a woman alone was at enormous risk of victimization and violent death...or death of exposure and starvation.  

***An eye for an eye was a hard, upper limit, not a "this is the least of what you can expect." If someone puts out your eye, you're not allowed to do more and worse to him, much less his entire family, blood-line, city, and/or tribe.  Remember Jacob's sons, and what they did when their sister was taken in marriage without family permission (aka, "raped" which had different legal definitions in OT times). 

****It's not funny when teens self-harm because of the trans trend.  It's not funny when teens hurt their futures because they're told they must go to college, whatever the cost and however much debt they have to take on to get there.  It's not funny when people choose one focus over another because their advisors lied to them about income potential ("you'll keep a higher percentage!" but not "you can't charge as much, so your actual net will be far lower.").  It's not funny to sneak up on people and sucker punch them on video (although it's funny as hell when the jump-scare pranksters get shot).

Bread

Growing up, and even in adulthood, I always took bread for granted.  It was just...always there.  For sandwiches, or for if I had heartburn, or when I was a little queasy.  Not something I made myself, really (except when I got a bread machine when I was a young adult), but always available.  Either as homemade bread (my mom, my aunts, and my grandma all made it), or as sliced commercial bread.  Bread was just...always there.  

And then, when my youngest was in pre-school and my oldest in kindergarten, they brought home a stomach bug.  Laid them out for a couple of days, and my husband out for about the same.  

It knocked me on my ass for a week.  There were five days where my entire digestive system just...shut down.  No movement, no noises, nothing.  And then, when I finally started recovering (first noted because things started grumbling loudly), I reached for a slice of bread.  

Holy crap did that hurt.  

I thought it might be because it was high fiber bread--you know, a little bit rough on the guts--and tried a tortilla, then saltines.  

Nope.  That virus had left me with a lasting issue with wheat.  I still can't eat it without a lot of pain.  My younger sister's got pre-celiac's,* so I guess my issue is probably permanent.  

Great Value bread costs $1.32 for a 20 oz loaf of plain white bread.  A loaf of Great Value gluten free bread is $6.74 for an 18 oz loaf.  And it's not an apples-to-apples comparison, despite the weight being almost the same: the gf loaf is smaller.  Visibly smaller, with slices less than half the size of the other one.    

I...really don't like spending that much more for something that's...quite frankly not that good, and I'm the only one that needs it anyway.  

So I started looking into making my own.  It started with getting the bread machine.  

Which...well.  It sort of works, but not on the gluten free setting.  See, it still punches down the raised dough.  And gluten free bread dough will not rise again.  So, I tried it on the rapid setting.  And it worked.  But the recipe was...not great.  So I went hunting.  

I found a lot of recipes for gluten free bread, in varying levels of difficulty.  I snagged an easy one to try.  And it worked.  Tasted fairly decent, considering I grew up eating homemade regular bread.  

It's actually just as easy to make in my stand mixer and oven as it is to make in the bread machine. Which is one thing I cannot say for wheat bread.  Gluten free bread does not have to be kneaded, and doesn't need shouldn't be punched down. So, once the dough comes together, you just...put it in the pan, smooth it down, and give it time to rise.  

I did find one trick that I added that is stupidly simple, and makes an enormous, positive difference: beat the liquid ingredients until the eggs get sort of frothy.  It makes for a much better texture than only mixing the liquid ingredients until the eggs are only just mixed in. 

Gluten Free Bread

 3 ¼ cups gluten free flour blend (I’ve used Bob’s Red Mill with great success, as well as whole grain options—if the one you pick doesn’t have a “gum” as part of the ingredients, add about a tbsp of xanthan gum)

1 tbsp instant yeast

1 ½ tsp salt

1 1/3 c warm water

2 large eggs, room temperature (they MUST be room temperature—gluten free flours will NOT absorb cold liquids at all)

2 tbsp + 2 tsp oil

1 tbsp honey

Preheat oven to 200 degrees, then turn it off.  This works best for helping the bread rise. Crack the door so that it has some time to cool a little before you put your bread in to rise. 

1. Add all liquid ingredients to a mixing bowl (I use a Kitchenaid knockoff, and will probably get a Kitchenaid when I have to replace it), beat until frothy. 
2. Mix flour and salt together in a separate mixing bowl; add slowly to wet ingredients with mixer on low.  Add yeast to the dough at this point. 
3. Run the mixer until you have a soft, sticky dough that looks kinda like cake batter, scraping the sides of the bowl often. 
4. Scrape the dough out of the mixing bowl into a glass or non-stick bread pan, oil your fingers, and smooth the top out (optional step—you can opt to not do that, but the bread will end up looking like the moon’s surface). 
5. Loosely cover the pan—you can use oiled plastic wrap or waxed paper, or you can use a muslin dish towel—and set it in the oven to rise.  You’ll want it to be half again larger when it’s done.  Should take half an hour in your warm oven. If you want to let it rise on the counter, that works, too, but takes twice as long.
   
6.  Uncover your bread loaf—it should be peeking up over the top of your pan—and bake at 375 degrees for about 55 minutes.  Since gluten free loaves don’t really brown, you’ll want to check the internal temperature with a thermometer: it should be about 205-210 degrees. 

There are variations you can do with this loaf--one of my favorites is that I leave out a quarter cup of flour blend, and add in a quarter cup of ground flax seed.  It makes it taste better, and adds a bit of texture and fiber. 

*She has the issue with gluten, but not the damage from having eaten it after the issue popped up. 

Advent

 I grew up in a religious tradition that didn't teach about or acknowledge Advent.  The only religious seasons we observed weren't seasons at all, but just...just two holidays: Christmas and Easter.  

I did not remain in the tradition I grew up in--in point of fact, I see it as only very little better than Islam, in a lot of ways, mostly because of how that church treated abuse inside of a marriage, and abuse of children.  My dad was a minister, and led the church we went to...and committed adultery with a lot of his flock that went to him for marriage counseling...bullied and threatened my mother...and beat (not spanked--closed hands, kicks, shakes, and physically throwing at walls) both me and my little sister...and worse.  And the church castigated my mother for leaving, and attempted to pressure my sister and me into silence.  So, yes, I abandoned that church with a quickness, as soon as I could. 

I never abandoned my faith in God, just...had (and still have) very little faith in His churches.  And none at all in my fellow Christians.  

So I mostly quit going to church.  Between bad early experiences, and ongoing issues with panic attacks triggered by some churches (back-brain knowing there was something wrong, even if front-brain didn't really know the place well enough to recognize it, I think...or a gut feeling and whiff of sulphur telling me that something wasn't on the up-and-up), I didn't want to go, nor did I see a reason to.  

Until I decided it was time to have kids, and realized I had some real hang-ups where talking religion and faith are concerned.  And I realized that the best way to get around that was to find a church.  I had help, there.  I'm pretty sure God led me to the Episcopal church back in '07 or so...and, at that point in time, it hadn't gone full woke.  The pastor was all-in Catholic Lite (same religion, half the guilt), and had been raised Catholic before he felt two callings: one, to be a husband and father; and two, toward the pulpit.  

And, yeah, it was different.  Really different.  There was ritual.  There were kneelers in the pews, and there were points in the service where we were called on to kneel for prayer.  And then stand for hymns.  The order of the service didn't vary, and included a recitation of the Apostle's Creed, Communion with every service, a psalm sung, a responsive reading, the Lord's Prayer, scripture reading, and the sermon based on the scripture reading.  And then...then I was introduced to liturgical seasons.

That was...that was really different.  Advent, then Christmas season, then Epiphany...wow.  It felt huge, big enough that I couldn't wrap my head around it.  (By contrast, the burning of the greens and the BYOB party with it was...something that was culture shock, but not so much that I couldn't react to it).  

I didn't understand Advent.  I mean...really.  It's just part of Christmas, right?  

Actually, no.  But it took me a while to really get that.  

It took becoming a mother.

It isn't celebrating the birth of Christ; it's celebrating the last month of pregnancy.  It's that breathless pause (because there's no room to breathe), the quiet (or not so quiet) anticipation of the birth of the baby.  It's the last bit of grueling discomfort and hard work of getting the baby ready for the world, right before the blood and pain of pushing the baby into the world.  

It's a time to think of His mother, in her last few weeks as she traveled with Joseph her husband to his family's ancestral lands, from Nazareth where he lived and worked to Bethlehem, where his ancestors were from.  On donkey-back.  

I didn't have that last month for either of my kids.  They were both early--unexpected in their timing.  But I have deep sympathy for Mary, and Advent means something to me now that it didn't when I started attending the Episcopal church, and started learning about the liturgical seasons.  Because that last month I was pregnant with each of my kids?  I was bent backwards because I couldn't sit up straight--not and breathe.  Not and eat.  There was more baby in my torso than there was anything else.  How in the world did Mary carry Christ that last month, while traveling as she had to?  How did she put her sandals on?  How did she deal with it?  

And I wonder, did she think about the baby she was carrying like I thought of my two?  Did she want to hold Him, stare at Him, count His fingers and toes, pet His hair?  Did she worry about being the mother He deserved, like I did with my children?  Did she wish the idiots in charge had just let her stay home and prepare for His birth in peace?  Was she just ready to be done with the pregnancy, like I was (even early like my two were) because of the discomfort?     

 So many people think about Christ, and anticipate His coming, His birth during this time of year.  I get that; however, after I had my own babies, I found myself wondering about Mary's last month of pregnancy, and feeling that anticipation with her. 

In a lot of ways, I hate Christmas.  I hate the mess, I hate the stress, the fighting, the break in routines that mean behavioral difficulties follow.  

But Advent?  Advent has brought an introspection into it that I didn't realize I needed.  And, in some ways, it's brought back some of the joy in Him, if not in the celebration of Christmas. 

Contentment

A lot of people today aren't happy.  And it's their own damn stupid fault--they throw it away with both hands.  Reject their happiness with all their strength.  

And the reason why is really fucking stupid:

It's because they've allowed profoundly dissatisfied and unhappy people to define happiness.  Especially women.  Women are really, really bad about letting other people define them, and define what they should want, what should make them happy.  

And it usually backfires.  

Beyond that, a lot of people have allowed others to define happiness as ecstatic joy at every moment of every hour of every day.  

It isn't.  The human body and human brain does not maintain that type of emotional intensity, not if it's healthy.  Emotional intensity like that will burn you out, and burn you out fast.  They found that out with the drug ecstasy--it was initially developed for an entirely different purpose, but then used briefly in marriage counseling before it made its way to the party scene.  And then they found that long-term use wrings the parts of the brain that produce feel-good hormones dry.  

Happiness--real, sustainable happiness--is better described as contentment and satisfaction.  And that...that's actually sneaky.  You don't notice contentment while you're actually, y'know, content.  

You don't notice it until you've lost it. 

I'm absolutely sure that this is the case because most people aren't looking for contentment when they're pursuing happiness.  They're looking for the wild, ecstatic joy that they've been told is happiness.  

(They really need to listen to Dennis Leary about that.)

So, how do you find contentment? That...that's a lot harder.  

It varies.  What makes me content won't make you content.  The most I can offer you is advice: 

Find what you're good at.  What makes meaning in your life.  I promise it won't be something necessarily fun.  It won't be travel, it won't be "gathering experiences." It won't be something where you're focused on yourself.  

It will be something else.  Something you do for someone else--maybe something you build.  Something you volunteer for in your spare time.  

I'm a housewife.  I build and maintain home for my other half and my kids.  That, right there, is not something I necessarily enjoy.  Who does? Housework is tedious beyond belief.  But having it done? Looking around and knowing that I've done something for my husband and kids?  Something to make their lives more comfortable?  That brings me a lot of satisfaction, and a lot of contentment.  

It gives shape and meaning to my days.  More than anything else.  More than anything else ever has. More than reading, more than writing, more than teaching.  

Yes, I'm looking forward to empty nesting.  Because that means I've been successful in my work.  

Funny thing is, I've been told all my life that I was meant for more than this.  That, in staying home and managing the house, the budget, and the kids, I'm wasting my potential.  

If that were truly the case...don't you think I'd be frustrated?  Angry?  Anxious?  

I'm not.  Not about being a housewife.  No, I was a lot more frustrated and anxious when I had responsibilities outside taking care of my family--because my energy is limited, and I couldn't fulfill all of my responsibilities.  Not having a job outside my home means I don't have to neglect my family anymore.

Honestly, I've noted a lot of moms who work outside the home have to drop something.  Normally, it's their family responsibilities.  And most of them feel guilty about it--and also feel guilty about feeling so torn.

(If there's anything to be grateful for the covidiocy for, it's giving women permission to drop out of the workforce.  It's really hard to justify working outside the home when your family's better off by almost every available metric if you don't.  And a lot of women discovered their "second income" was more than devoured by child care costs, dinner-out and fast-food costs, and other incidentals their families wouldn't incur if they were working in the home for their families instead of working for someone else outside the home, often doing the same things.)

I don't know how to help others be happy.  I can't share the secret of being happy.  Every time I do?  I get "What? That's it? No, there must be more to it than that." 

And there really isn't, but a lot of people have bought into the redefinition of happiness so hard that they can't admit that yes, that is all there is to it.  

Anyone telling the general public that you must be joyfully ecstatic all the time to be happy is trying to sell you something, or trying to push something actively harmful, one of the two. 

Unkind and unfair

I was thinking about the resurgence of the '70's policies and their inevitable consequences, and I realized something. 

We, as a nation, have become profoundly unkind and unfair.  

History repeats; or if it doesn't straight up repeat, it rhymes.  Or at least, that used to be the case, when it was actually taught as a series of choice/consequence pairs. Now, it just repeats.  Over and over.  About every twenty or thirty years.  

We used to learn from history, until people who were kind and gentle and didn't want to traumatize the kids changed the way it was taught (at the behest of people who thought that they'd find it easier to seize power if it wasn't taught...and they were right).  We no longer learn from the mistakes others have made; instead, we make our own.  

When I was in school, I read history.  I read a lot of history.  Mostly because of the self-esteem movement blocking me from reading-level-appropriate fiction because "we don't want to make your classmate that can't read feel bad."  I read a lot dissecting how this act led to that reprisal.  

And then, I saw similar playing out on the playground: one of my classmates would be an asshole, and another classmate would bop them, or kick them, and their behavior straightened up.  Action/choice led to obvious (and fair) consequences.  

And so, children used to learn not to be dicks to each other.  

I also saw when the "anti-bullying" turned from "Hey, y'all, stop being a dick to the weird kid" to "Oh, you poor, disenfranchised baby, you can be mean to anyone, and we'll punish them for applying consequences." 

That was profoundly unkind, and unfair: kids are dicks.  And they've got to learn that there are consequences.  By preventing the consequences of their actions from being applied, the "kind" grownups removed an opportunity and an incentive to learn socially appropriate behavior.  

It's spreading, even now: we've seen it with people living way above their means; we've seen it with businesses going under because they've made long-term stupid their missions statement.  And it's because kids aren't taught consequences of their choices at young enough ages, because kids are protected from the fallout of their own stupid choices.  

It's a profound disservice, and we're really starting to see the economic fallout: in slapping layers of regulations on businesses, the government are jacking up the costs of doing business.  The businesses start jacking up prices, and people stop buying from them.  The government slaps more regulations on the businesses, limiting how much they're allowed to charge, so the business cuts prices...but also cuts quality.  Which drives more people away from them...and then the business starts failing. 

We've seen what happens when they're allowed to fail.  Yes, it's horrible for the people employed by the business; however it's worse when the business is bailed out by the government.  Especially when part of the bail out is new regulations that prevent new businesses from rising up and doing what the failing one was doing, but better and cheaper and higher quality, because there are better choices--smarter choices--being made.  

Case in point: car makers with plants in the United States.  The ones owned by American companies are infested with unions and slammed with regulations; the ones owned by foreign car manufacturers have some of the same regulations, but they're not infested with parasites on top of it.  American car makers are failing; they're failing, and their flailing for government bailouts.  

Unfortunately, those come with more shackles strings attached.  

I say let them fail.  Let the unions murder the jobs that they claim they're trying to protect.  Let the government murder the industries.  Let them fail.  

Maybe, just maybe, we can figure out where the fail point was, and fix the problem.  

But it takes failure, it takes natural consequences to punish bad choices before we can even begin to recover.  

The fail point is government.  The fail point is regulations, regulatory costs, and the push by the stupid and uneducated toward the impossible. 

It's not fair to the rest of us.  It's not kind to us, or to our children.  

We're not allowed to hit the bully back.  We're not allowed to side-step the increasing regulations laid on vital infrastructure.  

Sarah Hoyt says "Build over, build under, build around." And we're going to have to.  Because the Gods of the Copybook Headings will not be gainsaid.  

Not teaching that has been the harshest, most unfair, most unkind thing that weaponized "nice" has done.