“Home, the spot of earth supremely blest, A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest”

Dear Husband,

We are going to build a fortress.   Together we will transform wherever we reside into a safe house where we can take refuge from the storm.  There will be pictures of you and me and our children littering the walls, displaying captured moments of our life together.  Our home is going to be a place of happiness and joy where we may live and love and learn together.  

Our children will feel refreshed and calm when they return from school, you will have a place to kick off your shoes and read to them after work.  I'll bake pies often.  We'll listen to fabulous music and dance barefoot in the living room.  On Sunday evenings we'll drink hot chocolate and read books in bed together.  We'll build a tree house.

We'll have family prayer daily and tell our children often than we love them.  I'll let you get a dog if you want.  I'm going to cook a big dinner every Christmas, but you have to put up the lights on the house.  We'll go on a road trip and see the nation. 

I'm so excited for our future.  I can't wait to create a home with you.

All my love,

Amanda

This started off as a post about my future home and how it's going to be, how it's going to feel.  Somehow it developed into this letter.  I find that I am filled with hope and am giddy with excitement to get started on this life, even if the idea of marriage scares me.

Maybe I just want a tree house.

"Cooking is at once one of the simplest and most gratifying of the arts, but to cook well one must love and respect food."

Last night I did a test run with the religieuses.  It was a pretty basic test run, mostly to make sure I have a good solid recipe for pâte à choux.  I had some trouble mixing the eggs into the paste, but a little help from an electric mixer and I was good to go.  Instead of using a pastry bag (all of mine are in California) I used parchment paper.  It worked pretty well, but the downside to using parchment is it's hard to refill it, so you end up using more than one bag.  Piping the dough out resulted in slightly odd shaped puffs, so I think when it comes time to make the actual religieuses, I'm going to forego the piping and just spoon the dough onto some parchment.  I think that will help them maintain a better shape for filling them.


I had all the intentions of making pastry cream for this test run, but I ended up making whipped cream instead.  The cream puffs turned out delicious and relatively easy.  They weren't as filled as I would have liked them to be, as a result of the odd shape, but that's what test runs are for.  Ideally, I'd like to use manufacturers cream for the filling since it's heavier than the cream you can get at the grocery store, but I haven't the slightest idea of where to get that out here.  


Sometime I think my roommates and I are going to make a ton of cream puffs together and freeze them.  Then we can have those delightful treats all throughout the winter without the process of making them (which is a relatively easy process, but we're lazy college students.)  


Overall, the test run was a success.  I realized that for the larger portions I'll have to have a longer baking time; the ones I made last night fell as they were cooling due to being undercooked.  The taste of the dough is light, but eggy, just like I hoped.  I like the taste of pretty sweet cream in the center to offset the savory flavor of the dough.  


I think sometime soon I'll try my hand at some swans.

"“He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened.”

Times come and go, bringing in happiness and sadness and all those other silly emotions.  Every moment should be cherished, held dear, woven into what you are.  Be it good or bad, pleasant or disturbing.  We are made up of a series of little moments strung together, comprising who we are.  Who am I to say that won't be a part of me when clearly it is?  It's things like that that will shape you and mold you into what kind of person you will be.  It's those kinds of things that help you move forward down the path of life.

I don't know what I'm getting at.  I'm rambling with my writing.  I've got a lot on my mind tonight.

The things we experience have purpose.  I look at where I am now and I can see how things have affected me and how I handle situations.  I can see the development in my character.  Some of the changes I accept willingly, some of them I'm struggling with.  Overall, however, I feel good.  I feel wiser, better prepared for the challenges that lay ahead.  I'm on my way to becoming my most perfect self.  

I knew this year would be my year.  Looks like I was right.

“Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again”

I just finished my 25th journal.  It took me nearly a year to fill it and now that it's done I feel almost relieved.  A lot happened in this past year.  Now I literally don't have to carry it around with me.  I was listening to Anberlin's album New Surrender and the song Breathe stuck out to me.  I feel like that song describes how I feel right now.
It's long overdue, but I've finally closed that chapter of my life.  Sam isn't someone I need to waste any more time on.  I don't need to dwell on what happened. I'm free.

Breathe
Anberlin

This is surrender
To a war-torn life I've lived.
Scars and stripes forever
In need of change I can't resist.

No need to hide anything anymore.
Can't return to who I was before.

I can finally breathe.
Suddenly alive.
I can finally move.
The world feels revived.

This long of a struggle
Finally opened up my eyes.
Revolution's not easy
With a Civil War on the inside.

No need to hide anything anymore.
Can't return to who I was before.

I can finally breathe.
Suddenly alive.
I can finally move.
'Cause I realize.

I can finally breathe.
Suddenly alive.
I can finally move.
The world feels revived.

I can finally breathe.
Suddenly alive.
I can finally move.
'Cause I realize.

I can finally breathe.
Suddenly alive.
I can finally move.
The world feels revived.

I can finally breathe.
I can finally move.
The world feels revived.




Hurray for beginning again!

"Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first"

Today in my brit lit class we somehow got onto the topic of nun hats and their shape.  My professor went off on a tangent about these pastries he had in France called religieuses which means nun's hat in French, that was the connection between Hopkins and this delectable French pastry.  He jumped on google images, showed us a picture, then took a good portion of time telling a detailed story about how one goes about eating a religieuse.  Brother Bruggar's stories are so fun.  The tangents make that class so worth it.  I guess the literature is pretty good, too.  I discovered this week that I really like Christina Rossetti.

Anyway, earlier in the semester we were told we would get extra credit if we used British recipes and brought in British desserts, such as figgy pudding and other delightful treats.  Unfortunately, the idea of making a religieuse is much more appealing than whipping up some mediocre pudding.  It wouldn't really be that hard, it's just pastry cream and  pâte à choux.  Essentially, it's a giant cream puff with a smaller cream puff on top.
  

See?  Not that hard.  I've got experience with  pâte à choux and I've watched a pro make it. We had a guest chef (from France!!  I wish I remembered his name) come and teach us the proper method for making it.  It's a slightly difficult dough to work with, but it's not the hardest thing to do.  I haven't made it since culinary school, but my professor told me he'd give me extra credit if I made religieuses for the class.  He also said he'd pay for the ingredients.  Awesome?  Awesome.

I'm going to do a test run this weekend, just to make sure the method I've come up with is going to be appropriate for making my own religieuse.  I've never had one, so I'm being daring and making them my way. I'm really excited.  This is the kind of thing I live for.  If I could just drop out of school and experiment and create desserts, I would.  But then I would get fat.  And be uneducated.  I don't want either of those.

Hurray for religieuses!

"I used to lie in bed in my flat and imagine what would happen if there was a zombie attack"

Obsessing right now.

"Life is real! Life is earnest!"

            A PSALM OF LIFE


      WHAT THE HEART OF THE YOUNG MAN
                    SAID TO THE PSALMIST


    TELL me not, in mournful numbers,
        Life is but an empty dream ! —
    For the soul is dead that slumbers,
        And things are not what they seem.

    Life is real !   Life is earnest!
        And the grave is not its goal ;
    Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
        Was not spoken of the soul.

    Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
        Is our destined end or way ;
    But to act, that each to-morrow
        Find us farther than to-day.

    Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
        And our hearts, though stout and brave,
    Still, like muffled drums, are beating
        Funeral marches to the grave.

    In the world's broad field of battle,
        In the bivouac of Life,
    Be not like dumb, driven cattle !
        Be a hero in the strife !

    Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant !
        Let the dead Past bury its dead !
    Act,— act in the living Present !
        Heart within, and God o'erhead !

    Lives of great men all remind us
        We can make our lives sublime,
    And, departing, leave behind us
        Footprints on the sands of time ;

    Footprints, that perhaps another,
        Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
    A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
        Seeing, shall take heart again.

    Let us, then, be up and doing,
        With a heart for any fate ;
    Still achieving, still pursuing,
        Learn to labor and to wait.


That is my favorite poem ever.  I figured I'd share.