the yard in winter

blueberry scones

blueberry oatmeal scones
1 cup oatmeal, blended into a coarse flour
2 cups white flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 stick salted butter (chilled)
about 3/4 cup milk (or soy milk)
about 3/4 cup blueberries (fresh, frozen or dried. If you use frozen, don’t thaw them first)
optional: 1 TBS coarse sugar

preheat oven to 375 degrees
grease 2 cookie sheets
• In a large mixing bowl, combine dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. (Be very careful to break up any lumps of baking soda. I hate biting into a bit of baking soda in a scone. The first scone I ever remember eating bit me back with a lump of baking soda. It’s a wonder I ever tried scones again. But I did, and we are friends again.)
• Cut the stick of butter into smallish marble-sized chunks, then add to bowl of dry ingredients. Cut the butter into the flour mixture using a pastry cutter (also called a pastry blender) if you have one. (If you don’t have one, it sounds like you can use 2 butter knives.)
• When thoroughly blended, and the mixture appears to be a crumbly, grainy powder, add the milk a little at a time. Add just enough to achieve a very stiff, sticky dough. (I had to add a bit more than 3/4 cup.)
• Add the blueberries, and stir in. (I used frozen blueberries.)
• Drop lumps of the dough onto the cookie sheet in whatever size you think looks scone-like. I tried one pan of roughly 1/2 cup-sized scones, and another pan with maybe 1/4 sized scones. They will expand and spread a little bit, so give them a good inch or so between lumps.
• If you want, sprinkle a bit of coarse sugar on the tops.
• Bake at 375. The big scones took about 20 minutes, the smaller ones more like 10. The scones are done when you can see bits of lightly browned edges.

(This recipe is based roughly on recipes found here and here.)

I made scones with Phoebe this morning. It was the first time I’d made scones from scratch, but I was quite pleased with how they turned out. I was also quite pleased to be able to use my vintage pastry cutter for the first time. I’m pretty sure it’s from my grandmother’s house.

The scones were really yummy by the way. I use the past tense because they are long gone. I can’t tell you how well they preserve because they didn’t stand a chance in our household.

Borrowed Pants: Selected Texts from the Pants Archives

From my place in the seat of the Pants Institute, I am on occasion privileged to receive interesting pockets of Pants Knowledge from fellow Pants Scholars from the wider Pants World.

PoetTraveler of Reaching for my pen… recently left the following gem of Pants Lore in the comments of my about page, an article which surely deserves your clothes attention.¹

The quest for perfect Pants is a longstanding one. Many have searched for the ideal symbol of this emblematic icon. There has been much coverage on the subject. Some academics argue that perfection is impossible. Others say not so, it’s all down to genes.

Indeed, the great pants-philosopher, Levy of Denim, produced a schematic that took Plato’s theory of Forms further . For Levy, Pants was all about form. His addendum to Plato’s idea was not a re-butt-al, figuratively speaking. He postulated that Form clings to genes and to this day one of most widely used expressions in the field contains both a noun and an adjective incorporated in the effusive expression “I’m panting for more”.

- Excerpt from “Pantalonia – The Path of Bottomless Knowledge” -

After a brief discussion of the Text, he also shared the following:

Some dissidents – notably Diogenes of Sinope were critical of Levy of Denim’s association with Plato’s ideas. He accused Levy of being inelastic in his coverage, of dressing part of the Form concept in such a way so that it became an inelastic pro-position. Levy of Denim was noted for labeling his ideas carefully and when Diogene’s criticisms reached him he was said to have sighed and murmured “That Diogenes is not exactly a barrel of laughs” The ancient greek translation is inaccurate because of ambiguity in this context and another meaning could be “He’s not getting me over a barrel”, but there is no collective agreement on this possible alternative meaning and in any case Denim of Levy was, at that time, apparently happily married to Levytica, a seamstressed lady from Syracuse.

I expect you will agree that briefs of this fashion are a tight fit for the body of Pants Knowledge assembled in the Pants Institute, and should be stored in the venerable drawers of the Pants Bureau Archives.

This message was approved by the Ministry of Pants.

———
¹This pun was also borrowed from PoetTraveler.²
²Even more Pants material can be sewn, or um, seen here, as well as more of our off the cuff³ exchange.
³…or on the fly, as it were.

head in a fog

I’ve come down with a bad cold, and my head is in a total fog. It’s really remarkable how hard I find it just to put words together. (I tried to write something funny, but apparently my sense of humor has been impaired by the virus, along with my sinuses. Or maybe my sense of humor resides in my sinuses, and is now inflamed.)

I also find myself really annoyed that this is the 4th time I’ve been sick in as many weeks. I’m not sure what my point is, beyond, um, blech.

I guess I should be relieved that this cold waited to strike till after I was done co-teaching my class last week. (It was a week-long intersession class on prosodic transcription.) As it was, I really enjoyed the class. And found myself quite relieved to not be pregnant while teaching it this time. (This is the third time we’ve put on this class. The first time, I was 8 months pregnant. The second time I was only a few weeks pregnant, and had morning sickness.)

—

Meanwhile, Holly and I have been making great progress with our project to highlight some of the best Just Posts of 2009. We’re quite grateful to have gotten loads of help from readers, bloggers and other friends. Since evaluating posts is so subjective, in the interest of fairness, we are having each post evaluated independently by 2 different reviewers.  Holly and I will then be making the final cut based on the ratings and comments we’ve received, plus our own two cents. (Or possibly 4 cents, since there are two of us. Is someone keeping track of the pennies?)

We’re getting close to having our reviews together, but there’s still more to be done. (A few batches of posts to review have gone astray due to spam filtering or other irreconcilable email woes, and need to be reassigned.) So, if you have the time and inclination to join in (or join in some more!) and look at 5 or 10 posts over the next few days, let us know.

spotted

Hidden in this scene is Phoebe when she was about 2 months old.

Can you spot her?

This week’s PhotoHunt theme is “spotted.” For more spots to spot, see what spots tnchick is sporting.

new doodle

(Old doodle.)

2010: The Year of Looking Back at 2009

Here we are, entering the last week of January. And I’m still working at getting together those “end of year” posts I had planned.

Case in point: Holly and I are still going strong with our efforts to put together a compilation of the best Just Posts of 2009. We’re asking readers and other friends to look over lists of 10 posts, and let us know which are the best of each batch. Since we have around 300 posts, and since we’ve decided we’d like to get 2 independent reviews per post, we still need help. So, if you’re willing and able to participate in this project, let us know!

Meanwhile, I haven’t made any further progress with my self-indulgent favorite posts of 2009 from this blog list that I had planned to post. I seem to recall that I had narrowed my list down to about 50. Clearly, my ego is healthy! Or perhaps inflated. (It could be bloating. Is ego edema a documented condition?)

There are also many things I meant to post last year, but still haven’t gotten around to. Loads of pictures, and details on life and travels and such. (For that matter, I’ve also still been thinking about my apparent loss of a decade. I’ve been thinking back, and realizing that there were highlights for me even beyond the decade’s defining feature.)

In keeping with looking back at last year, in any case, I thought I’d share some photos. I’ve grabbed 2 photos of Phoebe and Theo for each month. A calendar of cuteness, as it were. Behold!

January

February

March

Theo started solids (photo by John) and we travelled to Texas and California.

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

(Okay, I cheated. The second photo is from November 1st. I didn’t take all that many photos in October, it seems, and got very few with both Phoebe and Theo in the frame.)

November

December

Today’s forecast

Hour-by-hour forecast for Thursday, January 21

2:00 a.m. 95% chance of baby wakefulness
3:00 a.m. continued baby wakefulness with intermittent parental snoozes
4:00 a.m. continued baby wakefulness with intermittent parental outbursts
5:00 a.m. 85% chance of fitful slumber, punctuated by dreams of wakefulness
6:00 a.m. 99% chance of beeping alarm clock, chance of snooze button 100%
7:00 a.m. Blustery tempers and high-speed chases, chance of toddler eye precipitation 98%
8:00 a.m. Frosty windshield combined with hot tempers lead to isolated storms
9:00 a.m. 80% chance of showers skipped
10:00 a.m. 75% chance of feeling snowed over

Mood likely will continue to be partly cloudy throughout the day, with scattered thoughts and intermittent storms of crankiness.

Image from wpclipart.

blue state blues

I’m feeling blue today.

Massachusetts held its special election yesterday to fill the seat that had been held for decades by Senator Ted Kennedy.

I did not like the results.

Massachusetts is considered by many to be a liberal stronghold. What has come to be known as a blue state. I like it that way. I like it that we allow same sex marriage. I like it that there have been reforms to the health care system in our state, and that measures have been taken here to ensure that everyone has access to health insurance. Legislation and voting in this state often reflects progressive values. In case you hadn’t guessed, those are my values.

Now my state has elected a senator whose values greatly diverge from my own. As Keith Olberman put it:

In short, in Scott Brown we have an irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, ex-nude model, teabagging supporter of violence against women and against politicians with whom he disagrees. In any other time in our history, this man would have been laughed off the stage as an unqualified and a disaster in the making by the most conservative of conservatives.

And you know what? I’m not just blue. I’m angry.