busy days and a model mother

This past week has been pretty busy at our house. We've all had to be places one day or another, and it's been my job a few hours most of them to try to keep order in the house.... I have had a good chance to see my housekeeping shortcomings! If the boys are kept in line, the house is tidy but not like Mom would have kept it. Maybe there's plenty of laundry left in the laundry room, or only some of the dishes are done. Or, if the house is clean and kept up, then I find out the boys have been up to something they shouldn't have been up to! Mom, you have a big job! I hope I get better at this as the summer goes on. I'm blessed with a wonderful mother who manages to keep the house clean, the laundry done, the boys in line, and get everyone where they need to be, and she does it while making me feel very happy to be here :-). She's still my best friend, and we talk and laugh constantly. I love being in the kitchen with her, cooking and talking and listening to music. The boys are fun to be around (mostly, haha, they are twelve and sixteen!) and a change from living in a building full of girls. It's nice to be with lots of girls, but after growing up with these boys, I'm glad to have them back for a while. They're funnier and less dramatic than a dorm hall ;-) and they have sooo much energy!
Anyway, I've happily still managed to ride Charise again, have fun cooking in the kitchen while Mom is gone and testing my improvising skills (fun!), and finish a book. I read Gene Stratton-Porter's The Keeper of the Bees, which was wonderful :) I love anything by her. I love old-fashioned books so much! They're full of simple, good lives that are very refreshing to me to read.
Tomorrow I work until two, and then it's time to work on dinner and birthday plans, etc. I think it will be a fun day :) I will try tomorrow to work on being a domestic goddess... but you know, I always like the barn too much to truly be a domestic goddess, so maybe I'll just try for being helpful :-)

First Day

Tuesday was my first day of actually working at Aero. I like the job! It's pretty easy, but not boring. I like helping customers. :) I don't work too many hours, but hopefully I'll get more as the store gets busier- people are starting to buy clothes now for vacations, and celebrating school being out by shopping ;)
My friend Angie and I have made a weekly habit of having her come over every Wednesday. We watch a movie and usually fall asleep in the middle of it ;) and she brings her lovely Taylor guitar over! Yesterday she and I watched a few episodes of the BBC Robin Hood series, which we love :) it just came out on DVD, so she rented it last week and brought it over yesterday.

And finally, I rode my pony :) It feels so good to be in the saddle again! Okay, maybe my legs are sore ;) but that's a price I'm willing to pay. Six years of work with my little Arabian mare have really payed off, and she's such fun to ride. We just walked, trotted, and cantered in the pasture; once she and I are both fit again, I'll set up jumps- maybe build one or two with some old boards- and we'll have fun with those. Charise and I both love jumping! For now, though, just riding is wonderful. Making friends with my Rebel Man is going well, too- instead of trotting up and biting me, he now waits by the fence and says hello to me when I come out by standing in front of me, and sometimes sniffing my face. It's nice to be friends and not have to be so careful around him now! I'm glad to have such a big, cute gelding, even if he does need some work. I am so blessed!

Chocolate Souffle

Today felt like a baking day, but not just an ordinary baking day... I wanted to make something more involved than cookies or cornbread. But I also wanted to make something lowfat (coming home from college is really where the freshman 15 threaten to attack!), which I didn't think would end up being something chocolate. But then I found, on another blog, a recipe for lowfat chocolate souffles! I thought souffles sounded fun, so I made them. They just got out... and oh, they're so good! It's a wonderful recipe that doesn't taste at all low far or low calorie, but it is :) Mmm! They were also really simple, and took me just over a half an hour to get into the oven. Here's the recipe:

5 t. sugar for ramekins (optional)
1 c. powdered sugar
1/2 c. cocoa
2 T. flour
1/2 c. lowfat milk
4 egg whites
2 egg yolks
1/8 t. cream of tartar
3 T + 1 t. sugar
1/2 t. vanilla

(1) Move oven rack to lower third of oven and preheat to 350 degrees. Spray ramekins (1-cup size: 8 ramekins) with cooking spray and sugar cups, like flouring a pan.

(2) Sift powdered sugar, cocoa, and flour into top of a double boiler (two pans of the same size, stacked, with water in the bottom one works wel) and stir in milk and 1/2 cup water. Whisk until smooth. Cook over gently simmering water, whisking continuously, for about 10 minutes or until it thickens. Remove from heat.

(3) Beat the egg whites with cream of tartar on medium speed until medium peaks form. Gradually sprinkle sugar in and beat on high speed until stiff but not dry.

(4) Whisk the egg yolks and vanilla into chocolate mixture. Fold about a quarter of the egg whites in, to lighten, then fold in the rest.

(5) Divide evenly among the cups, leaving 1/4 inch under rims. Put ramekins on a baking sheet and bake 15-17 minutes, until risen (well) above rims. [You can add 1/3 cup chocolate chips to the batter along with the egg whites, without adding too much to these! Mmm!]

New Job!

I got a job today! I had a group interview at Aeropostale, at the mall. We had the interview, which was pretty short, and the manager told us that she would call us by Monday about the job. I went back into the store (we had the interview in the food court) to look at clothes, since I have to wear their brand or clothes like them, and the manager called me over and offered me the job right there! It was such a God-thing, since I've been trying for three weeks to get a job and had two other interviews and this one went so well. I think it will be a pretty fun job, too- just helping people buy clothes and keeping the clothes in order. I have start next week with training on Monday. Thank you, Lord!
Here are two of the shirts I got for work:

Home For The Summer :)

(watching one of Daniel's basball games ;) )
I got home on Wednesday night around eight o'clock. It was so nice to be home and to see Grandma Rosie again too. Since then we've been in the kitchen, out to tea, shopping, and out to see the horses. It's a wonderful feeling to be home for three months with no homework ;)
So far, my plans for the summer include reading books, spending time in the kitchen, getting a job, going to Israel, and talking to friends, both here and in Michigan. I'll miss them but I'm excited to see the people I've been away from for three months. :)
Yesterday, we had mother's day lunch (fish, rice, asparagus, pineapple, cherries, and challah, mmm!) and then we had a little birthday party for Grandma. We made a little brownie-cake (just bakes the brownies in a springform pan!) and drizzled caramel over the top, then sprinkled crushed peanuts on top. It was good! It's nice to have her here.
Today, it's supposed to get up to eighty, and I'm going to do a little baking before I go out and read in the sunshine!

The Final Weekend

This is the last weekend of my freshman year at Hillsdale! It's finals week, and it seems like there are more study break opportunities than ever... not good for me, because I still have all five finals coming up! Most of my friends have taken one or two already. Oh well, we'll all be studying crazily together this evening. Thursday night I went through older chapters of Wheelock to test my memory, and I was amazed at how good it was for practicing vocabulary! So that's one final looking a little less scary ;)
Last night some of our guy friends brought pizza over to our room, which was really nice and really fun. Then today we're going to "Seize the Cheese" (haha, don't ask why that's what they chose) Which is a picnic and then a race down a hill after a big wheel of cheese. =) Should be pretty hilarious! Then it's back to Wheelock, West, Hamilton, Jefferson...
God bless your weekends :=)

Almost Over

I'm so excited that this semester is almost over! I have one more of each of my classes, then five days until my first final, and I get home May ninth!
This weekend was a sort of end-of-semester celebration (I'm sure next weekend will be too whenever we're not cramming). On Friday we went out for dinner instead of going to SAGA, our cafeteria, which is always so nice. Then we had a few friends in and out of our room, playing guitar and talking, until swing club, which was open dance this time. It was really fun, especially since we spent most of the time teaching one of our friends to dance. At first he said he hated dancing, but by the end of the night when he'd done really well and learned everything we had time to teach him about East Coast swing, he decided to come back next semester every week.
Yesterday was a busy day. After brunch, we went to see As You Like It put on by some students in our arboretum. It was very well acted, and a lot of fun. After that was what our school called "Centralhallapalooza", which was a bunch of student bands playing good live music, some inflatables, and really good ice cream. That was also a lot of fun. Then, to top it all off, Clara and I came back and wrote papers. ;) They were short, just three pages, so that was nice to get them done. Today is just a homework day, finishing up work that's due by Tuesday.
I'm going to miss my friends~ we had a lot of fun this weekend, as we always do~ but I can't wait to be at home, in the kitchen drinking iced tea, or out in the barn playing with the ponies, or playing games with the boys. I know God will get me through these last few days of finishing papers before the end of the semester, and through finals week, and then I'll be back in Washington! :-)