Random Stuff

Item #1:
I was thinking I'd like to be Red Riding Hood for Halloween. At this point, it's not going to be for this year, but I did find this pattern for a chemise that would be a great start to the costume. Plus, it's about the easiest thing ever to make. The hard part seems to be finding a pattern for the overdress. I'm thinking something like this. Only, not $200. I don't have that to spend on a costume.

Item #2:
I've been reading the Gospels to Monkey, and this week we're working our way through Luke 1. Monkey asks good questions. Today, after he went to sleep, the Daddy and I got talking about Gabriel. Gabriel announced both John the Baptist and the Lord, and he also visited Daniel. Modern revelation tells us that Gabriel is Noah, and that Noah is second only to Adam, the Archangel. This got me to wondering, what is an archangel, anyway? Turns out, it's pretty interesting. I spent some time wandering around dictionary.com learning about it.

Archangel comes from the Greek, from "arkh," meaning first, ruling, or chief. So the archangel is the first, or ruling angel. Another interesting thing I discovered, in the Bible Dictionary this time, is that Michael means "who is like God." So when we say, "Michael the Archangel," we are saying, "The ruling angel who is like God." That's high praise!

Item #3:
I've been making yogurt. And when you make yogurt it's all goey, so I strain it. Thus, I have whey. If I strain it too much my yogurt becomes cream cheese, but that's not all bad. I don't want to waste the whey, so I've been looking at uses for it. And it turns out there's plenty. So far, I've tried it in bread. Works for rolls, leave it out of the pizza crust. I put some in rice - can't really tell a difference, but the whey isn't in my fridge any more, and it didn't get wasted. Also, my cookbook Nurturing Traditions has uses for whey. I haven't tried most of those. Apparently you can also make ricotta cheese out of it, but I haven't tried that yet. Or, another cheese called "zigger." One of these days I'm going to try making cheese too. But I need to figure out where to get this thing called, "rennet."

Item #4:
This clip amuses me.