Disappearing Circle Illusion

You see a circle of violet dots. Each of them disappears in order, like moving in a circle.

Concentrate your sight at the cross, and then you can see how the violet dots disappear.

If you do it right, you can see that the green dot is moving.

If you keep looking, all the violet dots will disappear and only green dot will keep moving!

It's Snowing!!!!

Abby wakes me up around 7 am, "It's snowing!!!" It's too early in the morning to get up, especially on a Saturday. "I don't care!", but she didn't get the hint, so I got up to look so she'd go away. Man, it was cold this morning, I didn't want to get out of my warm bed. And, I wanted to sleep in a little bit.

It was the first real snow of the season. It really makes it feel like the holidays when it's snowing. It snowed for a good part of the day, but that didn't stop the kids from playing.


Our street... it's so pretty when everything's all white. There's this peacefulness that's hard to find in everyday life...


Looking down at our backyard...



It finally got cold enough to pull out the kotatsu. It's a Japanese table with a heating unit underneath, it's such a cool piece of furniture. As you can imagine, once it's out, the kids hang out there a lot. It's a great place to take a nap too.








Look at those cute little squirrel paw prints!



Snow Angels!




I'm Superman! (or should I say, Supergirl!)

Goofying around with the neighbor girls...

My snowman...

Sage making an igloo..

Tried Ham Jerky today. Took only 1 1/2 hrs, which was nice. Not too much waiting. Pretty tasty too. Had also tried salami, but that one was just a little too salty for me.

Made some Focaccia for dinner. One of the easier breads to make...

Our dinner tonight: Crockpot Lentil Soup (the house smelled so nice...I could even smell it outside), Focaccia, and some Broccoflower (a first for us.) A nice simple meal.

Turkey Pot Pie

Leftover turkey pot pie. Had some pastry crust leftover so made it look cute.

More Baking...

Homemade croutons...One of those things that just taste so much better homemade, but often don't make the effort to, and regrettably pay the consequences after eating one out of a box. They are so simple to make too... Toss bread cubes with olive oil and some herbs, garlic, and black pepper, then bake.



There's something about lemon flavored baked goods that never appealed to me. For some reason they just have this 'artificial' taste to them, so I never baked them either. Till one day... I had some really good lemon curd with my scone. Hmmmm, I wonder if a lemon bar tastes like this but on a crust. Curiosity won, so here it is. Not quite as lemony as I had hoped, but good nonetheless. Not too sweet and heavy. It gets better the next day, so I'm looking forward to one later today.


I've been trying to make my food pictures look nicer. A good picture can make it look so much tastier.

I Cheated

I wanted to bake today, had initially planned on making lemon bars, but noticed I didn't have enough powdered sugar. I didn't feel like driving into town, so I pushed that aside till tomorrow. But I still wanted to make something and remembered this Matcha Green Tea baking mix from Trader Joe's sitting in my pantry for about a year. So I made that instead. Although it wasn't from scratch, it's still baking, and the cake was good.

I had the dehydrator running since yesterday. This time it was kiwis and persimmons. The kiwis were sour and tart, I had expected sweet. But as David says, if I think of them as sour gummies, they're not bad. The kids liked them though. They enjoy sour things and suck on lemons. The persimmons are a second time around. This time I left the skins on, which helped them from shrinking too much. We need to go pick some more persimmons...

Makeover

I gave my coin purse a makeover. That thing was just starting to fall apart, but I wasn't ready to throw it away it. It was just the right size, and I was holding on to it till I found a replacement. But its really hard to find a decent one that I liked. You never find what you want when you're looking for it. So I started picking it apart to see how it was put together. A fairly simple concept, really, so I went and got some fabric and brought it back to life.

BEFORE:


AFTER:

Homemade Natto

Tried homemade natto. I cooked soybeans till they are soft, then mix with a little pre-made natto, incubate 24-hrs at 100 degrees, refrigerate overnight, and its done! The process is kinda like making yogurt. Those darn soybeans took 24 hrs to cook, started off in the crockpot for about 12 hrs, then I grew impatient and transferred them to the stove. Kept checking every so often to see if they were done, and add more water. One time I stepped away a little too long and some of it burned. Man, I was bummed. I saved what I could and proceeded. Two days later, there was enough for us to have lunch. Tasted like natto, which was good. Just not as sticky. Made some miso soup with my homemade miso, and had a pretty healthy and tasty lunch.

She Finally Came

It's been several weeks since Abby lost her tooth. The tooth fairy just didn't show up. She kept telling me, the toothfairy didn't come. Well, she must be busy. Or maybe she's a little short on cash. She finally came, and decided not to take her tooth with her. Probably becuase it was in a cute teeth container Abby got from the school. I told her, if the tooth fairy gives you money and still leaves the tooth, that means she wants you to keep it. Emi says, how do you know, Mommy? :) Because that is the tooth fairy rule.

Belated Thanksgiving

Here's the mochi maker I got from my parents...Nice retro color...

We ate up all our mochi, so I thought I'd give this thing a try...

Good thing I've got some helpers...

One batch yielded about 40 mochi...

Got our first snow of the season, well, a light dusting, but the kids we're still happy...

Since we were in San Diego for Thanksgiving, we cooked our once-a-year turkey today...

Also made some mashed potatoes and gravy, cole slaw, stuffing, rolls, and kabocha pumpkin soup. It was a long day in the kitchen, but the results were worth it...

Sage pigging out on a drumstick like a dog...

Crazy Abby...

Looking forward to some turkey leftovers the next few days.

Chess Club

Chess is one of the few things I'm really glad the kids picked up. It was something I didn't think Emi was ready for when she was younger, so I waited till about a year or two ago to teach her. Sage and Abby showed interest right away so I taught them too. Turns out Sage and Abby learned it really quickly and are actually pretty good. (Abby beat some 5th graders the other day.) They can both beat Emi which is really funny since she's the smart one. It's just the wrong side of the brain for her, I guess. They've been going to Chess Club every Friday morning at 7:15am, it's a bit early, but we make the effort to go. When we wake up it's still dark outside, at first Sage was all, "It's still nighttime!" (because he didn't want to wake up.) Playing other people will just make their game better. (Hopefully... that is the plan.) The Chess Club is the only place I help out on a regular basis this year. Something about their teachers this year makes me not want to really help out in class. Sage and Abby are normally pretty aggressive when it comes to chess, but in this group setting they're pretty reserved and hold back a lot. At home Sage talks smack a lot, but he's well-mannered at school. They're such different kids when they're outside of their home. They're planning on having the club all year, it'll be interesting to see how their game matures by the end of the school year. They have the potential to be really good.

David tagged along today and got a game in...