Last week, we acquired a bread machine from my dad, who had acquired it from my grandmother some time ago. I lost no time in trying it out. For Sunday, I made a loaf of white bread, which I took to church along with peanut butter and jelly in order to make us PB&Js for lunch. Because several other families stayed at church that afternoon, we ended up pooling our food to make a makeshift potluck. Apparently my bread went over well–it was all gone by the time we left for home after the evening service.

Yesterday I used the timer function for the first time, as I prepared the ingredients and set the machine to make the bread just so it would finish when we were getting home. To my somewhat surprise, it worked–the machine beeped to indicate its finishing just as we walked in the door. We are still enjoying that loaf.

My next project will be to try some kind of dough, whether pizza dough or rolls or something like that.

P.S. In other unrelated news, Lincoln’s sister Emi got engaged to David Gardenghi yesterday. :) Congratulations to them!

The Metaphysical Club. By Louis Menand. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2001. 546 pages.

Most self-described intellectuals have joined a discussion club at some time or another. Though a few intellectual clubs have left their mark, such as the Holy Club of John and Charles Wesley or the Inklings of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkein, most groups disband, leaving behind few records and even less influence. Scarcely any informal gathering of intelligentsia can claim to have promulgated a new philosophy that remade a nation.

But that influence is what Louis Menand claims for the Metaphysical Club, a gathering of intellectuals in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1872. [Read more »]

Before getting married, I worried about many things about wifehood, mostly about domestic duties. I’ve never been particularly fond of cooking and cleaning, so I looked toward household maintenance with some apprehension.

I’m not sure how I’m doing on the cleaning part, but I’ve discovered that I actually like cooking. Lincoln calls many of my meals “Abby Specials” because I don’t use one particular recipe to create my dish. I like “tinkering” with pieces of recipes so that I can make something with the ingredients we actually have on hand. Last night, I made monkey-tail bread (I did follow the recipe, though), which is banana bread with chocolate chips and peanuts. To use up the leftover mushed bananas, I made hot fudge-banana milkshakes (for which I did not have a recipe).

Lincoln helps with the domestic duties–he is more interested in cleaning than I am, so he does cleaning, but he also has contributed to the cooking side. He made dinner for us on Saturday night: chicken fried rice. It was quite good. :)

So far, Lincoln says that I’ve been successful in all my cooking endeavors. Just like a baseball player batting 1.000, I know it can’t last, but I’d like to keep the streak going as long as possible. Any suggestions or recipes would be greatly appreciated! :)

After July 26, I’ll be one step closer to going to graduate school—or at least, to applying to graduate school. That’s the day I’ll take the Graduate Record Examination, a standardized test required by nearly every graduate school.

Between now and then, I’ll be studying for the test. I haven’t decided how frenetic I’ll be about preparing, but at I will at least take every practice test I can lay my hands on.

As promised, here is the first installment of wedding photos. We hope you enjoy looking at them. More will follow.

These photographs were all taken by John Barnett.