Trashy Wheat Bread Meets Half and Half

A long long time again in a galaxy far far away . . . wait no not quite. A long time ago in a state far away, I bought a bread machine and proceeded to make bread bricks (literally – just ask my kids). Along the way I got better at bread baking and found a recipe on a usenet or forum for bread machines called “Trashy Wheat Bread” which was lighter than whole wheat. My twist was to use honey instead of sugar, so it became “Trashy Honey Wheat Bread” and my go-to favorite receipt for my many bread machines (I’m on my fourth one now and thinking about upgrading to the latest Zojirishi this year).

Once my kids left me an empty nester, the need to bake bread two or three times a week lessened, and my bread machine gathered dust. I’d pull it out of storage for Thanksgiving and Christmas for the dough cycle only (to make the family traditional Sticky Buns).

Skip to the Recipe

Early in the pandemic, I had a brief resurgent interest in sourdough but after a few months, the carbs weighed on me and both the sourdough starter and the bread machine suffered from my neglect.

Now that I’ve moved halfway across the country near my kids and grandchildren, I’ve been paying my rent in bread. Of course, my daughter asked for the aforementioned trashy honey wheat bread, which I attempted to make multiple times but could never quite get the recipe right. I went searching for a blog post here assuming that I had written up the original recipe for posterity, but the link took me to an old blog posting that was no longer viable.

So, I searched the internet hoping to find the original forum post but again no luck. Instead, I took a different tact and searched for recipes specific to my Zojirushi and found a Half-and-Half Bread recipe that I began tweaking to more closely resemble my Trashy Honey Wheat recipe. Two days ago, I hit the proverbial bread ball out of the park when my daughter took the loaf out of the bread machine and proclaimed success.

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Weekly Serial Release

Set in the Year of our Lord 1337 war gripped Europe. The Holy Roman Emperor sent the Teutonic Knights to conquer Lithuania and Russia. England and France opened their Hundred Years War. Ottoman Turks stalked the moribund Byzantine Empire.

The second son of the Willard of Willardhof in Saxony received a new name and a quest, neither of which he particularly wanted.

In addition to helping one of my favorite authors proofread her final manuscript, I’m also assisting my favorite uncle to self-publish serially, two chapters per week, an award winning ebook he wrote. This past Wednesday I published the twentieth chapter of The Dragon and the Dove, which officially marks the halfway point of the book.

In addition to being an author, my uncle is also an accomplished artist and painted the cover art for The Dragon and the Dove, to which I added the book title and author name.

Cover art for The Dragon and the Dove, written and painted by the author, Ron Andrea

Set in the Year of our Lord 1337 war gripped Europe. The Holy Roman Emperor sent the Teutonic Knights to conquer Lithuania and Russia. England and France opened their Hundred Years War. Ottoman Turks stalked the moribund Byzantine Empire.

The second son of the Willard of Willardhof in Saxony received a new name and a quest, neither of which he particularly wanted.

Return each Wednesday for the next two chapters in The Dragon and the Dove. Only ten more weeks of suspense left.

Start reading Chapter One today.

Privileged to Proofread

Song of the Mysteries by Janny Wurts ~ final manuscript proofreading

Final Volume Song of the Mysteries Forthcoming

For the past three weeks and three days, I’ve been honored and privileged to assist with the final proofread of the final manuscript of the final volume of Janny Wurts‘ series The Wars of Light and Shadow.

I’m only three-quarters finished with Volume 11 of Arc V entitled Song of the Mysteries, but the pace hasn’t slacked since the first page. In fact, it’s increasing with each subchapter to the point I’m finding it hard to sleep and constantly checking for the next installment to be proofread.

I was hesitant to share my excitement, but the author encouraged me to ‘shout anywhere’ I wanted to about this process. I will of course refrain from spoilers and only relate my feelings (minus specific details) for how the convergence is coalescing from every moment that came before, culminating from all previous ten volumes, into a wondrous, frenzied concerto of . . . and I’ll stop myself there. It has been, thus far, all I could have hoped for and beyond my wildest dreams or imaginings. Janny is the true Masterbard of her Paravian universe to my infinite delight.

Destiny's Conflict by Janny Wurts

This is my second time helping Janny with a final manuscript. The previous volume, Destiny’s Conflict, I help her proofread in 2016, before publication in 2017.

Much has changed in my life in the intervening seven years, but a return to Athera was just what my soul needed this winter, as I acclimate to a new location and continue to search for a new home here in the Pacific Northwest.

With only five chapters left to proof, I should have some final thoughts on this final manuscript in the next week or two.

Stay tuned and thanks for stopping by my much-neglected blog.

Take care!

My Reading Roars Back

Happy Lunar New Year and welcome to the Year of the Tiger!

Three dozen years ago, this Wednesday, I became a mom, bringing our son into the world. Derek did not slip quietly in, but roared with hunger and passion.

Today, he is a proud father and I’m a grandmother who lives too far away from her grandson. This year, I resolve to remedy this separation and cut my three hour flight, or three day drive, to less than a half hour. I also resolved, during my Christmas holiday family break, to return to reading, where I found my time better spent than hoping the next streaming series or movie would live up to its hype and being perpetually disappointed.

A few days before Christmas, I discovered an audiobook edition of one of my favorite books from the early 90s. Revisiting this novel thirty years later, it still brought tears to my eyes, but did not resonate as vibrantly as my rose-colored memories did. I’m glad I listened to it, but I’m not sure it rates a five star favorite ranking anymore.

I quickly followed that audiobook with my annual reading of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, this year narrated by Frank Muller and recorded in 1980. I immediately listened to many other Christmas short stories, including The Night Before Christmas by Moore, A Country Christmas by Alcott, The Fir Tree by Anderson, The Birds’ Christmas by Wiggin and “Yes, Virginia There Is a Santa Claus.” Betwixt and between all the classic Christmas tales, I enjoyed the Dune graphic novel. On the final day of 2021, I started Connie Willis’ A Lot Like Christmas, which became my first book of ten to finish since the beginning of 2022.

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A Wolfe by Any Other Name Might Be a Warg

I returned to reading The Annotated Hobbit after a two week hiatus, said hiatus caused by notes and illustration captions found in the Introduction and annotations in the first five chapters. As I noted last week in a Tolkien memorial post, I’ve since started reading and completed several nonfiction titles, some of which actually grew out of The Annotated Hobbit annotations.

  • The Annotated Hobbit
My Recent Reading

The first footnote of Chapter 6 delved into a connection between Tolkien’s us of “Misty Mountains” to a poem from the Old Norse Elder Edda. A few pages later, in the seventh footnote, I learned the chapter name, “Out of the frying-pan into the fire,” is a traditional proverb which The Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs has examples of going back to the sixteenth century. But turning to the next page, I discovered the best, and ninth, footnote of the chapter, containing a reference to correspondence, in 1966, between Gene Wolfe and Tolkien on the use of the word warg.

Tolkien described his use of warg in a letter to Gene Wolfe of November 7, 1966: “It is an old word for wolf, which also had the sense of an outlaw or hunted criminal. This is the usual sense in surviving texts. I adopted the word, which had a good sound for the meaning, as a name for this particular brand of demonic wolf in the story.” Tolkien derived the word from Old English wearg-, Old High German warg-, Old Norse varg-r (also = “wolf,” especially of a legendary kind).

Footnote 9, Chapter 6 Out of the Frying-pan Into the Fire, The Annotated Hobbit
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Apropos Postscript

In July, the Tolkien Society of Kansas City started reading The Annotated Hobbit with the intention of finishing it in time for this year’s Hobbit Day (annually on September 22nd celebrating both Bilbo and Frodo’s birthdays). The introduction presented me with multiple sources but didn’t provide it’s own bibliography. I made my first inter-library loan request in months for four books, only two of which could be filled by my closest local library. I then re-requested the two from a different larger library. Meanwhile, I received the other two ILL books and two other books I put on hold that were already in the library system. Since Tolkien & The Silmarillion by Kilby was only eighty-nine pages long, I immediately began reading it on Monday and finished it on Tuesday.

Overall, I enjoyed the small memoir of Kilby‘s Summer of ’66 with Tolkien, but by far the most powerful portion was his Postscript, written soon after Tolkien’s death. I felt my chest tightening and my eyes welling up. And that’s when it struck me.

  • Clyde S. Kilby
    (1902-1986)
  • J.R.R. Tolkien
    (3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973)

Today, September 2, 2021, is the 48th anniversary of the Passing of J.R.R. Tolkien. I read the Postscript again. I decided I must share at least part of it in the cyberspace aether. I added it as a comment to my final GoodReads status update. Then I decided I should post the Postscript here on my blog.

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Midsummer Doldrums

I realized when I woke up this morning that today was not only the Ides of July, but the seventh month since Terry passed. Also, that I have less than ten days left of my long summer visit with my kids and my grandson. The real ringer this week was learning of the recent sudden death of a classmate and one of my closest friends during high school. His birthday would have been tomorrow. I’m definitely fighting off some doldrums and melancholy.

I’ve had an amazing time here in the PNW since early June, celebrating my son’s second official father’s day, my daughter’s birthday and my grandson’s third birthday. This weekend we celebrate my son and daughter-in-law’s anniversary.

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All Souls Pass

Most of January I’ve spent distracting myself from my grief. I’ve binge watched shows, including nearly seven seasons of SG1 and both seasons of The Mandalorian. I’ve watched endless Hallmark Christmas movies. I’ve rewatched old favorites, like Sleeping Beauty, Prince Caspian, The Rocketeer and the entire Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings extended edition movie trilogy. Not all at once. I spread them out over three weekends, ending with Return of the King Monday afternoon, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the last office closed holiday until Memorial Day.

I spent the last two years re-reading The Lord of the Rings concurrently with the corresponding volumes of The History of the Lord of the Rings also known as The History of Middle-earth (volumes six through nine). So my head and memory are fresh with respect for what Tolkien got published and also his original imaginings, vision and what you might call deleted scenes as edited by his son, Christopher, who also passed away one year ago on January 16th.

While I appreciate what Peter Jackson managed to produce, much of it is jarring to someone who knows and holds dear Tolkien’s published masterpiece. Dialogue and sometimes thoughts are transplanted into completely different characters. But I digress. Jackson’s adaptation is the best we have at this time and despite it’s flaws, it still provides a window, however slightly skewed, into Tolkien’s Legendarium. I just hope it leads people to the font of Tolkien’s epic fantasy.

Just as I was starting the movie, though, I had a visit from the TSoKC Special Eagle Delivery Service. I received a large care package from my close friends in the Withywindle Smial via our illustrious leader, full of hobbitish victuals and elvish enchantments to further distract me. A hearty ‘thank you’ will be expressed Friday evening during our regular monthly gathering.

I returned to watching Return of the King, but had to take a break when I found myself dozing off at the two hour mark, just as thing were getting interesting around Minas Tirith. I needed to return some merchandise and went in search of a French coffee press (since I have no coffee maker because I mostly drink black teas). Disappointingly two stores had no presses. Although not my first shopping choice, I knew that Starbucks would have a press so I bought one there. When I got home and was able to read the instructions (which were buried inside the press and not readily available at the shop), I learned I cannot use this press with anything but course ground coffee. So no afternoon coffee to wake me up for the second half of Return of the King.

I confess I fast forwarded through most of the Frodo-Sam-Gollum scenes, at least until close to the end when everything is converging. Those scenes are difficult enough to read and doubly hard to watch. Having very recently re-read them, I felt no need to drag my already bruised heart through that much darkness and despair.

Terry (Aug 2015)
Terry on our trip to visit Rachelle and Nic (Seattle, WA in Aug 2015)

The key scenes that made me weep and resonated with my own grief over the passing of my husband:

During the Seige of Gondor, when a rock troll is pounding at one of the inner gates of Minas Tirith, Pippin and Gandalf discuss death and Gandalf replies with one of those transplanted lines which Sam actually thinks to himself (and references the much maligned Tom Bombadil):

And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise.

Chapter 9 “Grey Havens”, Book Six, The Lord of the Rings
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Annotations and Notes from Reading ~ A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis

On the second day of twenty twenty-one, in the early pre-dawn darkness, I read A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis. Having recently experienced the death of my spouse, I felt it apropos to absorb Jack’s observations to understand my own. The following are highlighted quotes that leapt off the page and resonated within me.

Chapter Two

Only a real risk tests the reality of a belief.

. . . time itself is one more name for death,

Up till this I always had too little time. Now there is nothing but time. Almost pure time, empty successiveness.

Chapter Three

What’s wrong with the world to make it so flat, shabby, worn-out looking? Then I remember.

And you will never discover how serious it was until the stakes are raised horribly high, until you find that you are playing not for counters or for sixpences but for every penny you have in the world.

Having got once through death, to come back and then, at some later date, have all her dying to do over again? They call Stephen the first martyr. Hadn’t Lazarus the rawer deal?

But now there’s an impassable frontierpost across it. So many roads once; now so many culs de sac.

They say, ‘The coward dies many times’; so does the beloved. Didn’t the eagle find a fresh liver to tear in Prometheus every time it dined?

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Farwell, My Love

Fifteen days ago, I became a widow.

Fifteen days ago, the love of my life left peacefully this mortal plane after years and years of fighting a disease that turned his own body’s defenses against itself.

My daughter was holding his hand when he slipped away. I had left a few minutes before to return home to tend to our dog, who was also sick. I had said my goodbyes and kissed him and prayed over him all night long. I’m not sure I’ll ever get over the feeling that I should have stayed just a bit longer.

I’ve not had the heart to post anything on my blog for months. The last quarter of the year has been an unrelenting stressful fog of hospital visits and home health conundrums that ultimately resulted in the death of my husband of thirty-five years. I will spend many more sleepless nights second guessing myself and what if-ing myself into melancholy.

I am very grateful my daughter has remained with me in this big empty house for the last couple of weeks. She has kept me distracted and has supported me through this the bleakest and darkest winter solstice I’ve ever experienced. My next challenge will be surviving alone with my dog and a houseful cluttered with twenty years of memories when she returns home next week.

Terry, with Rachelle, Royna and Derek (Aug 2015)

I’m going to memorialize the published obituary here and will supplement with other memories of my life with Terry over the past thirty-five years (technically, thirty-seven this past September) in future blog posts. I also plan to celebrate his life communally next November on his birthday, when I hope we will all be able to congregate safely in a post-pandemic world.

Derek and Terry (Thanksgiving 2018)

Terry Randall Moss, 62, Lansing, Kansas, loving husband and father, passed away peacefully December 15, 2020 in hospice at Providence Medical Center surrounded by his family.  He was born November 14, 1958 in Wichita, Kansas to Robert William and Eula Odessa (Coleson) Moss.  On May 1, 1986, he married Jon Michelle Andrea and together they raised a son, Derek Randall, and a daughter, Rachelle Gwendolynne. 

Terry was a very talented musician and loved playing guitar with his bandmates. He also greatly enjoyed motocross, kart and F1 racing.  He was outspoken and charming, which made him a great friend and businessman. He excelled in sales, customer service, management and owned and operated his own business. Terry adopted many rescued Rottweilers throughout his lifetime. Those close to him knew he was quite the story teller and always wore his heart on his sleeve.  He was fiercely passionate in his love and support for his family.

Terry was preceded in death by his parents.  He is survived by his wife, Jon Michelle (Lansing, Kansas); his two children: Derek Randall (Royna) and Rachelle Gwendolynne (both of Auburn, Washington); one grandson, Senna Randall; his sister Bonnie (Moss) Kopper (Murdock, Kansas); and several nieces, nephews and cousins.  A memorial service will be held at a later time due to the current pandemic.  In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to a local food bank or Feeding America (https://www.feedingamerica.org/) or to the Lonely Instruments for Needy Kids Program (https://senseneymusic.com/link-program/)

Originally published via Davis Funeral Chapel web page (follow this link to post your memories of Terry via the Guestbook).

Terry with grandson Senna (Christmas 2019)

Farewell, my love.

I will always love you.

I will always miss you.

Until we meet again.

Farewell.