Tuesday night – sourdough

just  realized I fell asleep on he couch as I sat down to write.. I’m beat.. but not sure why.. I’ve been feeling pretty low for the last week or so… maybe it’s work.. maybe it’s the the sunlight.. .. don’t know..

hmmm.. not much to report on today. We’re all hunkered down awaiting a big snowstorm. Making big predictions about a storm is a sure way to scare it off. I remember as a kid, the more we prepped for a big hurricane, the smaller the storm turned out to be.. Of we went to the trouble of taping up the windows, the storm would miss us altogether.

Ahh.. one thing I haven’t talked about here is the wonder bread binge we’ve been on. We inherited (adopted ?) a sourdough starter culture from our friend Jean.. I believe it’s been in her family for more than 40 years.. and .. if I’m not mistaken.. they got it from a family who’d had it for 75. The goo sits in our fridge most of the time.. I think Diane throws in some flour occasionally to keep it fed.. but other than that.. it just sits their and waits for us.


once a day. diane tosses some of the starter in a big bowl with flour, water and salt, stirs it up .. and sets it to rise up on the china cupboard.. no kneading necessary

then she usually puts it in a cast iron dutch oven, bakes it in a hot oven covered for 15 min then uncovered for 15 minutes..
.. and out it comes..

sometimes Diane makes it with whole wheat, sometimes half and half, sometimes with oats, other times with chocolate and fruit. Sometimes it ends up as pita bread, or pizza crust or rolls.. whatever the shape or ingredients .. it’s delicious… it’s by far the best bread I’ve ever tasted….

and to think the yeast  cultures. has been in the neighborhood for more than 120 years.

OK.. I’m going to try and get some sleep..

nite all, nite sam

-me

Monday night – More space

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My theme for the next couple of weeks is ‘space’ I gotta find some peace and clarity to think about my work in a new way. I have a project I really believe in ..   and I really want to make it work.To do that, I need to really  think differently. I think I work best  when someone else points me at a problem they don’t know how to solve. ..What’s a challenge for me is when someone asks me what problem  we should solve. That’s what I’m looking at now..   I called my dad for advice.. he was very helpful.. we had a good long talk..the gist of which was basically ‘stop whining and kick butt’..    . I think that’s exactly what I need to do.   I hope I can give my kids that kind of useful advice when they’re in their 50’s.

I one reassuring sign today as I walked to my car..   I found this pile of mud in the ice in the parking lot. (I swear this is an actual picture) .. Fate seems to be trying to smile on me.. or maybe it’s telling me not to wind up with mud on my face.. we’ll see.

nite folks.. hope you have found your space, nite sam

-me

Sunday night – winter ball

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We’re now in the center of winter.. it’s one of my favorite times of the year.. cold and unpredictable..   Folks get more resourceful about finding things to do during this part of the year in order to protect their sanity.   I think that’s why MMU and several other high schools held their winter balls last night. Gabe went with Kristin and a bunch of other friends..  They all dressed their best.. the theme was ‘candyland’ (don’t you wish all days had themes ?).. Gabe decided to go in white tux with red accents.. and he made it look good


He even worked out some ‘underglow’ with a red LED and a magnet..  nice accent . 

the kids all looked great.. here are Kristin and Gabe, Katy and Marcello and Madison and Logan


Kristin looked great !

It sounded like they all  had a great time last night.. ,, a night which ended up with about 2 hours of sleep.. Gabe was pretty groggy when we woke him up, strapped on his board and pushed hi down the mountain for the USASA slope style competition at Bolton.. It was a lonnnnng day.. about 90 folks competing.. 9 in gabe’s age range..

Hannah and Dave came up to the montain to let Adah practice on her skis.. Diane and I watche Senyah  while they rode.. SOmehow I managed to compeltely miss getting a picture of Dave or Senyah.. but here are Hannah and Adah.. both looking cute !

Gabe had a very good first run .. good enough to get him 2nd place in the competition.   He was so beat by the end of the day.. we were all glad to get home..

OK.. I have a really busy week coming up.. I better get soem sleep.. happy mid winter to you all..

Nite everybody, nite sam

-me

Saturday night – making space

Glorious day.. did very little.. just wrote some code to make a movie of about 3000 pictures of folks at work..    Mid day, Diane and I got out with the dogs for a snowshoe with the dogs. We climbed up a ridge in Honey Hollow… it was beautiful.. about 3 feet of snow everywhere… weather in the mid 20’s.. it doesn’t get better than that..

While we were walking I was telling Diane about the meeting I attended yesterday in NY.. I was really taken by one of the things our senior leaders said in his talk.. he talked about ‘making space’ to think. I took his point to be that sometimes we get overly focused on fighting the wrong battle .. in doing that we can sometimes spend all of our time knocking our heads against a wall and  exhausting  ourselves   as we continue to try and do the thing we’ve always done. He said that sometimes we need  to ‘make some space’   to step back away from the struggle  we’ve been locked in, reduce the clutter in what we’re doing, think clearly then act with a more clear and longer term intent..    He was talking about a specific set of challenges at work.. .. but I am taking it as a more general suggestion… I like it.. and I’m going to try approaching the next few weeks like that. I’ll let you know how it goes !.

night all.. nite sam

-me