Back to the "normal" and Christmas is coming!

Normal. What is normal? Normal is our usual schedule of life but a new home with different needs makes normal abnormal! Adjusting is required. Change is good? Change is stressful. Change is exciting. Life goes on.

School has to be structured but we don't like structure all the time... Such a struggle of inner thoughts and frustrations. Getting down to it is hard but moves along once we start. Homeschooling is interrupted by life. Only my homeschooling friends will relate to these thoughts and frustrations and ideas. Trying to be too much like normal school is not fun and not possible when doing it at home unless you take one room and make that your school room and you closet yourselves in there during specific times. Perhaps that works for some people but we haven't succeeded. Our happiest, most successful strategy is to snuggle in on the couch in the living room. Why not! Good memories will come from learning while sitting side by side on the couch with our doggies close by. I think they're learning a lot too!

The Christmas decorations are sitting patiently waiting in the garage and the corner of the living room will soon be a busy place with a big, beautiful tree. Tonight will be the time for decking the halls and transforming this new house into our home with thoughts of Christmases past and present. Only 12 more days until Kristen arrives!

Adventures in using Italian ingredients in American recipes!

Only today (Christmas Eve) did I realize that we didn't have any yeast for our Christmas morning cinnamon rolls!  So we called Ernesto at the office and he told us yeast is called lievito di birra.  Off to the PAM store we went and bought milk for the 3rd time this week, some eggs, and 2 packets of lievito.  Before our dinner of pappardele con cianghale, Kristen and I assembled the ingredients and placed them in the bread machine.  Then, Kristen asked me if the blade was in the machine bowl... uh, I don't know was my answer.  Then we started the search for the blade which obviously wasn't in the bread maker during our move from the Netherlands to Italy.  It isn't very big and could have been anywhere among all of my cooking utensils.  Finally, we found it in the drawer and I turned the machine on (perched on top of the microwave using the only electrical outlet in the room).  Can you see the whole microwave cart rocking with the rhythm of the bread machine as it kneaded the dough?

After dinner, we pulled the dough out and let it rest.  Kristen completed the process by rolling, topping and cutting the dough and placing the rolls into the pan.  Only then did she realize that the recipe said to let them rest for 30 minutes in a warm oven!  So, the preheated oven was turned back and the rolls are happily resting until things cool down a bit.  Our kitchen is very much like a magazine test kitchen except that we tend not to want to read the recipes that carefully or worry about the small details!  This is what happens when ADHD is running amok in your house!  Only the tasting will prove whether we placed the right amount of lievito in and whether they were prepared properly.  I can't wait!