Birthday Ideas On Picnik

It is the universal problem:

What to give 

(fill in any man in your life) 

for birthday, Christmas, Father’s Day . . . 

Sophia’s dedushka had a birthday yesterday.  

Anton and I started discussing what to get him at least two weeks ago.  

Every night Anton would turn to men and ask, “What can we get my dad for his birthday?”  

I would answer, “I don’t know.  What do you think?  It is so hard to buy for men.”

Every night the same conversation.

Every night the same conclusion:                         

We have NO idea!

Since I’m sitting with a hot water bottle on my hurt back for a few days, I’ve had time to play on the computer!  

One of my favorite sties is Picnik.  

You saw the subway art I made for Valentine’s Day here.

Yesterday, while playing around on Picnik, I decided to make Dedushka a photo collage - with pictures of him with Sophia thru the years. 

What a great idea!

I just know it will make him smile!

Then, I got the idea to make him a bookmark:

Both were such fun to make!

Might be a great Valentine’s Day gift for that special man in your life!

True Love Subway Art - I Corinthians 13

I have fallen in love with subway art.  

It is all over the craft blog world.  

Painted, printed, made of wood, sewn in quilts . . . the options varied and numerous!

For Valentine’s Day, I wanted to print out a True Love subway art using God’s definition of Love from I Corinthians 13 in the New Testament.  I have a heart now for  Sophia to learn what Real Love is, what it does, doesn’t do . . . if she will learn to recognize real Love now, in herself and in others, how much heartache it will save her in Life!

So, to get started, I looked all over the web for a free one that I could print.  I didn’t find one but I did find this tutorial on one of my favorite blogs, The Mother Huddle, about how to make subway art using Picnik.  

It was easy and so much fun!

Here is what I made in about 30 minutes:

Now, what should I do with it?  Printed out it is 5X7.  

Any ideas?  

I would love to share this with you, as a free printable, if I knew how . . . 

Give Picnik a try . . . I can’t wait to see what you make!

Playing With Patterns

We’re entered the world of patterns - both with numbers and letters.  

Sophia is fascinated with them.

She is getting to be such a good reader!  

My favorite time of the day is the early morning.  

Papa has gone off to work.  

Sophi and I jump back in bed and snuggle under the covers for a few more minutes.

She reads a book to me and I read a book to her.  

Then, we start our day!  

The other day, I was cooking in the kitchen and she got the idea to make her own word

searches!  

Here are a couple of her puzzles - can you find her words? 

There is one word to each puzzle. 

(remember, 4 almost 5 yr old spelling is involved!)

The First Puzzle

The Second Puzzle

Leave your answer in the comment box.

The first one to get both puzzles correct will win a special treat!

Raw Milk - The Perfect Food

Do you remember your first sip of fresh whole milk?

        Some of you may have grown up drinking it from your own family cow.

        Others may have never ventured farther than the skim milk shelf in the dairy 

            section of your local grocery store.

        Or maybe you’re like me, and your first real raw milk experience may have 

            happened to you in a far-away land. . . where little old ladies still rise before 

            dawn, pull up a worn wooden seat, and collect it in sliver buckets.

I remember my first sip.  I was camping with Max, Sveta, and Anton in Prezhevalskoye, a lake district about an hour from Smolensk.  The days had been cool and we had eaten glorious camp-fire meals and rested under the pines . . . and had become restless.  We were ready for an adventure.  

Max suggested we take a walk to the village up on the hill and see if we could find some fresh milk.  We took off - walked for about 1/2 an hour and made it to the village of some 10 houses.  At one house a Babushka gladly gave us a big glass jug full of milk.  My 3 Russian friends readily drank and passed it on to me, with words like, “It’s wonderful, so rich!  You have to try it.”  I was thinking things like, “Has it been pasteurized?  Are there live bacteria in there waiting to infest me?”  

And, so, reluctantly, succumbing to the Russian collective, I took my first sip of fresh raw milk.

OH MY GOODNESS!!!

It is NOTHING like the skim milk I had grown up drinking!  

It is rich, creamy.  It sits on your tongue a moment before going down.  It fills your tummy with a couple of sips.  It feels real, sweet, mellow, whole.  

You gotta try it at least once in your life!  (Just be careful and know your source!)

Since then, I have drank it many times.  In our village, Selifonova, we have a lady that we buy milk from regularly.  Her milk cow grazes on the lot next to our house - very local source!  

I drink it, but have never tried to make anything else from it.  Russians make all kinds of things:  sour cream (the BEST you’ve ever put in your mouth!), cream cheese, cottage cheese, buttermilk (several different kinds), kefir, hard cheeses, tvorak (something like cream cheese but a little sour . . . 

This New Year’s week Anton and I went with our friends, Volodya and Natasha, to their dacha for Russian banya (Turkish bath).  While we were there, we drank milk from their local Babushka’s cow.  On the way home, they stopped and got us 3 liters!  

We had so much . . . so I decided to try to make something this time.

I read several websites about what to make from raw milk and decided to make buttermilk and soft cheese.  

First, I separated the milk into two jars.

I added about 1/2 cup of buttermilk that I had in the refrig (from the store) to each jar and             shook it up really well.  This was the “starter.”

After about a day, I uncovered the jars and took a wif - - BUTTERMILK!  Really yummy!

Next, I decided to move on and make sour cream cheese - a kind of tvorak.

I kept the buttermilk sitting and waited - looking for the separation of curds (white balls) and whey (clear liquid).  It took a while.  I set the jars on the floor by the heat in the kitchen and in about 2 more days I saw this:

Pretty clear separation!

Now, at this point I was afraid to take a smell . . . I mean, we’ve all seen milk look like this and the smell impression is still so real it makes us pucker just thinking of it.  Everything I read said that the smell would be sour, but not a sickening smell, a nice sour.

I pulled off the cloth . . . put my nose down  . . . “ahhhhh, yes, nice sour it is!”

  

Next step - drain the whey from the curds.  

I got a dish towel, put it over a strainer, and put them both over one of my cooking pots.  I wondered how it would ever drain like this . . . but, after about 8 hours . . . 

This is what I had - Buttermilk cheese.  Firm but soft, creamy and sour.  

I LOVE it!

Sophia and I ate it for breakfast.  Just a little in a dish with some homemade raspberry jam.  Delicious and very filling!

I’m hooked - loved the process and the result!  

Disclaimer:  I am not a professional dairymaid!  These were my own escapades into the world of sour milk.  I did all of this without help of professionals, based on my own research on the internet.  I know that there are differing opinions on the safety of raw milk.  

We know our Babushka’s and their cows and feel comfortable with their products.  

If you enter this raw world, you do so at your own risk.

The King of Breads - Borodinsky!

There is no Russian table without bread.  It’s not even imaginable . . . 

Bread is present at every Russian meal.

    For breakfast:  a open-faced sandwich with cheese and sausage

    For lunch:  a big bowl of soup; eaten with soup spoon in one hand and a slice of 

                    fresh black bread in the other

    For dinner:  salad, meat, potatoes . . . and bread!

I have always loved bread, but I never ate it as fresh or as tasty until I moved to Russia.

My absolute favorite Russian bread is this beauty:

Borodinsky Bread - made from rye flour and rye malt and sprinkled with coriander seeds.

It is thick, moist, a little tart and a little sweet.  

Borodinsky is the perfect compliment to almost every salad, soup, and meat. 

My favorite pairings for Borodinsky are salads with oil dressings and soups with tomato bases.

Sophi and I ventured out on this slippery, hovering around 32 degrees, day . . . we were out of bread!  We made it to our local bread kiosk where we bought a baton of “Nareznoi"

white bread and our favorite small loaf of Borodinsky!

As soon as we got home, 
before we even sat down to try the homemade chicken and wild rice soup I made today, 
we cut two pieces of Borodinsky and oo’d and ah’d over the freshness!  


BREAD HEAVEN!

I wish I could send you all a loaf!

My Kindle Keeper!

For our 6th wedding anniversary, just a week ago, my dear husband gave me the gift I’ve long wanted . . .  a new KINDLE!

It is a dream for me . . . I love to read, especially in my native English!  It can be difficult and expensive to find good books in Smolensk, or even Moscow, in English.  When I travel to the States I always buy stacks of books to bring back . . . using precious space and weight in our trunks.

With the Kindle, I can browse Amazon on-line, check out old favorites and new hits, choose what I need/like and, in seconds, download and begin reading!  All my books, thousands of them, will be kept here, on my new “virtual” bookshelf - the Kindle!  LOVE it!  I still get a tingling feeling all over my body when I think of it!  WHOO HOO!

Well, I just had to make a cozy home for my new best techno friend!  I looked at several tutorials for Kindle Keepers on-line and finally settled on this one from the Moda Bakeshop.

Here is my version:

I added velcro to secure the closing and left off the application.

I love how it turned out and the feel of it in my hand!  

So, what was my first whole book download?

    “The Dirty Life” by Kristin Kimball

It is a true story about a city girl who falls in love with a farmer and their first year building a farm in Northern New York state.  Their farm is a “membership” farm and provides meat, dairy, and veggies for hundreds of “members.”  

Thinking maybe we could start something like this in Selefonova . . . (am I crazy?!?!)

I have lots of new collectives:

Quilting

Games

Sophia

    and, for Anton - Fear of God

but, so far, I only have samples in the collectives.

I downloaded a sample of, “The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy” by Cathy Porter and seriously considering this one for my next purchase.

Do you have a Kindle?  What are you reading?

“The List” or Mama?

In Sophia’s room there is a list hanging on her wardrobe.  Every morning, after breakfast, I say some thing like, “Ok, now it’s time to go do everything on your list.”  Sophi runs and checks the list so she can do it in order: 

Sophia’s Morning “To Do” List:

•  Brush your teeth
• Wash your face and hands
• Brush your hair
• Take off your pj’s and hang them up
• Put on your clothes
• Make your bed

After the list is done, she comes and tells me and we start our day.

One day last week we were in a hurry to get somewhere. 

I told Sophia, “Brush your teeth and hair and let’s go!”

Sophia, “But, MOM, that’s not how the list goes.  I have to do everything by the list, MOM!”  

I stopped, thought, and said, “Sophi, who wrote the list?”

Sophi, “You did Mom.”

Me, “So, I’m the maker and keeper of the list.  Listen and obey ME.  Today we just need to do things a little differently.  Don’t worry about the list, we’ll get everything done.”

As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I knew that what I had just said, God was saying to me.

I know that God is calling me, wooing me, into a deeper relationship with Him.  

God:  “D’Anna, let go of your religion and follow Me.”

Me:  “But God, You said in Your Word that I need to . . . “

God:  “D’Anna, Who wrote that?”

Me:  “You did . . . so, how could You ask me to do something different? 

           WHO is this, anyway?  Is it really You, God?”

Me, to myself:  “What voice is that - God? or maybe it’s Satan? - or just myself trying to 

                            get out of something?”

God:  “Listen to Me, learn from Me, do as I say  . . . and all those things will get done and 

            more.”

Me:  “Father, it’s hard for me to let go.  But, I do want YOU more, so much more.”

God:  “You’re doing great.  Keep going, don’t give up.  I’m right here with you.  Do you 

            hear me?”

Me:  “Yes, I know I do.”

God:  “That’s My girl!  Let’s go!  I can’t wait to show you all we’ll live together!”    

I’m learning to turn to the Maker of the List more and more.  He is scarier and more wonderful than His List.  He can give me/teach me/show me more that the List ever could.  He takes me deeper into my own heart - far deeper than the List.  He searches me, He knows me and His Fire that is cleansing me is full of Love. 

I wish I could say that I’m jumping into this relationship.   But, it’s more like a slow wading in . . . feeling the waves gently lap at my feet . . . I’m still “safe” here, but I know I’m going deeper.  

One day I’ll be over my head . . . and it will never be “The List” that gives me all I need for that LIfe, but the Maker of the List . . . He Is!