Easy as pie...I mean bread

I came across this bread recipe with the outrageous and somewhat grammatically challenged claim of being the "best easiest" bread to make.

http://www.alexandracooks.com/2012/11/07/my-mothers-peasant-bread-the-best-easiest-bread-you-will-ever-make/

I had my doubts.  After all, I took Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman, at her word when she told me her orange chicken would be just like Panda Express.  (http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2014/09/orange-chicken/) It was not.

So, with all the ingredients on hand for once, having recently discovered the bulk yeast bin at WinCo, I set out to make the "best easiest" bread.  It involves no kneading, it bakes in a bowl, and it rises twice.  Unfortunately somewhere between the no kneading and the second rise, I had to go deal with some car difficulties and put a bunch of kids to bed.  I realized that unless I wanted to wait until midnight for my beast easiest bread, I was going to have to pause this process.  I stuck the bowl in the fridge last night and hoped I didn't just waste four cups of flour.

This morning I took the bowl out and split the dough into two halves.  I put one half in a greased Corningware dish as I wasn't sure my mixing bowls would be ovenproof.  Over the course of about 30 minutes it did rise again, so I picked up where I left off in Alexandra's instructions and baked the bread accordingly.  I gotta say, it is awfully good, and definitely easy and forgiving of my haphazard baking abilities.  It's a keeper!

Discipline

I listen to a lot of sports talk radio.  At least, I think I listen to a lot of it for someone who tries really hard to avoid all athletic endeavors.  I enjoy hearing the analysis, the predictions, the opinions.  This week I have heard variations on the theme of child discipline as it relates to the Adrian Peterson situation.

Let's be clear.  The situation is child abuse.  Whether or not he was trying to discipline, when he drew blood not once, but fifteen some odd times from his son's legs, he was being abusive.  He says he was parenting the way he was raised, and he turned out great, so it must be the right way to go.

I wasn't there, so I don't know if he inflicted this punishment out of anger or frustration.  But, we all reach the end of our patience with our kids, sometimes even before breakfast!  We're all trying to figure out what works the best.  And just when you figure it out for one kid, your next kid has a totally different personality, or your kid gets older and what worked for awhile no longer has the desired effect.

I am the first to admit that my kids rarely do what I want them to do, and it is not unusual for the dinner hour to culminate in a symphony of screams and tears.  But there are options that we should all keep in our arsenal so that we don't lash out with a violent reaction.  Off the top of my head, here are a few suggestions.  Granted, as I type this all of the noisemakers are asleep so it is much easier to do now than in the heat of the  moment when brother 1 is calling brother 2 an idiot and sister 1 is dropping brother 3 and sister 2 is pooping on the living room floor, but let's try.

1.  If siblings are fighting over a toy, put THE TOY in time out.  The top of our refrigerator is the home of many troublesome toys.

2.  For the screaming child: You can scream as much as you want, but you will do it outside.  There's the door.

3.  Instead of yelling commands at your kids, use "when you do this, then this will happen."  For example, when you pick up your toys, you can have ice cream for dessert.  Or, when you finish your homework, I will play checkers with you.

4.  There is a time for whining.  Tell the child that if he wants to whine about something, he can make an appointment at 2:30 am.

Most of these we learned from Love and Logic.  I strongly suggest you pick up one of the books at the library or Google it if you are not familiar with it.

By the way, in my experience absolutely nothing works to make my kids behave in church.  The one place I want them to sit still and try to be holy, they act the worst.  So if any of you have that one figured out, I am all ears.

Work ethic

I overheard a conversation between two HR professionals, one about my age and a supervisor nearing retirement age.  They were lamenting about a particular hire who only lasted a year because he didn’t like the grunt work that was assigned to him.  Then the conversation morphed into an attack on twenty-somethings in general who don’t know how to work, who expect everything to be handed to them, and who want to jump to the primo assignments without putting in the time.

 

Hearing this conversation left me with mixed feelings.  On the one hand, I hated the blanket categorization of a lazy, privileged generation.    Further, I thought it was wildly inappropriate for them to continue the conversation within earshot.

 

On the other, I thought these two HR professionals probably do have enough experience in the industry not only to make the claim, but to provide evidence, that there has been this shift in attitude about work.  We’ve all heard the characterizations of the generations, and my own company spends a fair amount of time studying generational differences to encourage better collaboration and workplace satisfaction.

  

Either way, I am responsible for raising the next generation of workers.  Dodge will presumably enter the workforce (you know, as a professional baseball player) in ten years or so.  Today we are shaping the people who will sell us products, shape policy, heal us, run the infrastructure, and so on.  Just like if you don’t vote you can’t complain about your elected officials, if you don’t play your part to foster independence and responsibility in the next generation, you can’t complain about the quality of young people entering the workforce.