Seeing Double & a Recipe

(A note about yesterday's blog entry. Apparently the updates on Identify Your Breyer were done prior to Janice Cox's passing. We will have to wait  for more updates to come.)

Between sewing for Horsiemama's Mercantile, 18th century re-renacting, and things for my family, I buy a lot of fabric. I'm not exaggerating; I often buy it by the bolt (generally 10 yards) and an entire corner of my sewing room has stacked bolts waiting to be used.

Sometimes I buy a fabric because I like it and later realize I have liked that fabric "before." Here's an example:

 

Horses? Check! Appaloosas? Check! My favorite color orange? Check! I was sorting fabrics the other day and as I came across this piece, I realized I had seen it, or something close to it, before.

My sewing notebook, where I draw diagrams as I adjust patterns, record what I've made and for whom, etc. Was my notebook the same print that I'd found on the fabric? They sure were close.

So, I pulled out the notebook to compare.

It turned out that they were similar but not the same. Maybe one was inspired by the other? Hard to tell, but it made me smile to see my taste in horses and color expressed so closely in two different products.

And now for my favorite bread recipe - I'm actually making it today for Sunday dinner. It's been in my recipe files since 1982 and while I don't know if it is an authentic challah bread recipe, I do know that it is delicious.

Challah Bread (Easily doubled. When my big family is in town, I quadruple it.)

Mix 1 tablespoon yeast with 2 tablespoons of sugar and 3/4 cup hot water. Let sit for a couple of minutes - the yeast mixture should begin bubbling up. 

Add 1 egg, 1 tablespoon oil, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1 cup of flour and mix well. 

Gradually begin stirring in another cup to a cup and a half of flour. Knead either by hand or with a dough hook.

Cover with a towel and let rise until doubled in size. Punch down, and either cut into three pieces and braid, or make a long roll and place on a greased or parchment paper covered baking sheet. Cover again and let rise 15 - 20 minutes.

Bake at 350 degrees until golden brown. 

This also makes great garlic bread.

50th Anniversary: Mrs. I Goes to School

In 1995, it was time for me to go after a long held dream - getting my teaching credentials. By then my kids were all in school and I had an open block of time from 8-3 every day. We were financially stable and so I quit my early morning vending box route and enrolled in school. (We did keep the kids' afternoon paper routes.)

I graduated from the University of Illinois in 1998 and was hired to teach at Yankee Ridge Elementary School in Urbana.  

I'll never forget walking into my classroom for the first time and opening a desk drawer.

Inside was an amber blown glass horse that the previous teacher had left behind. I kept that little horse in my desk throughout my teaching career and it's in my desk here at home now.

I had some interesting horsey connections while teaching. Remember Royal Kaliber and his rider Chris Kappler? Chris's cousin was in my 2003 - 2004 class, and she and her mom kept me up to date on Chris and Royal Kaliber's appearance in the 2004 Olympics.

They took team silver and the bronze individual in show jumping. Sadly, Royal Kaliber injured his leg and then died of colic shortly after his medal winning appearances. (Photo by Getty Images.)

Breyer honored Royal Kaliber by making a model of him in 2004. Only 750 were released but I was able to get one. (Photo from Google Images; mine is boxed away.)

In 2006 we moved back home to Indiana where Craig finished out his career at Purdue. I had been teaching as well as working on my Masters degree at the University of Illinois but was able to wrap it up and graduate a few short weeks before we packed up and returned to Indiana.

Despite being in Boilermaker country, I decorated my new classroom in the orange and blues of the University of Illinois. (They are also the colors of the high school my students would graduate from so the kids didn't mind.) 

Imagine my trepidation, though, several years later when I looked at my new roster of students and saw a very familiar last name on it. The father of one of my new students was Matt Painter, the head coach of Purdue's men's basketball team. And my classroom was decorated to celebrate one of Purdue's main rivals!

Good dad that he is, Matt came to parent/teacher conferences despite his very busy coaching schedule. I'll never forget him coming through my classroom door that first time. He stopped in the doorway and surveyed all that orange and blue a moment before coming all the way in. Flustered, I  greeted him and apologized, mumbling something about having graduated from the UI and that I really did root for Purdue, too.

Matt burst out laughing and told me not to worry - his grandfather had been a professor at the UI and he'd spent his summers there as a kid. He told me that he was quite fond of the University of Illinois and we had a good laugh together.

I taught a lot of really nice kids during my career. And sometimes they would bring me horsey gifts.

Take a look at this orange balloon horse  - a student made that for me!  His hobby was making balloon animals, probably the most unusual hobby any of my students had.

The color in the photo is off, but this is an orange and blue horse plus a blue I for Illinois/Mrs. I, the name I went by at school.

After reading the classic, Black Beauty by Anna Sewell, another student gave me a Black Beauty ornament one Christmas. I still get it out every year and hang it on my tree.

The passion for orange and blue spilled into my hobby life, and I switched Windsong's colors from blue and yellow to orange.

And open my tack trunk and you find a lot of orange and blue, too.

Why am I so attached to the University of Illinois? After all, I am from West Lafayette and did three years of study here at Purdue before becoming an Illini. My grandfather came to Purdue in 1927 to be a professor in the Horticulture Department, my parents and siblings all went to Purdue, and so has Local Son Curt. There is a long Boilermaker tradition in my family. So, why?

I interrupted my own education when I married Craig in 1976, and I vowed at the time that I would finish. All that orange and blue represent the hard work it took to go back to school at age 38 with six kids still all at home. They remind me of the culmination of that dream of finishing my education and then going into the classroom and working hard to make a difference in the lives of my students.

It took me 22 years, but I did it. 

Look for another blog post later today announcing the winner of the fourth giveaway!