That Darn Cat

That Darn Cat is a very funny 1965 Disney movie featuring a Siamese tomcat who helps FBI investigate a serious crime. Not alone, of course, but together with his owner, a cute teenage girl. That Darn Cat is a great film for the whole family, and especially for the animal lovers among us. Made me think about what is our cat doing when he goes outside every night. He is probably up to no good, as well:)

Watch the whole movie over here: That Darn Cat

Below is the opening title sequence:

XXI Century Housekeeping Trends

Housekeeping, just like everything else is influenced by the current fashions. There are some interesting trends in modern housekeeping which I'd like to write about.

Little House On The Prairie trend is all about living a simple, pioneer style life. Those who are trying to follow it will often tell you that cities are full of sin and iniquity and that living in the country is much better. If they can't right away move to some remote farm, they will try to recreate the farm life as far as possible, growing their own food, raising chickens etc.

The Back To Nature trend is close to the one mentioned above, with one difference: while the Little House On The Prairie lifestyle appeals more to conservative/ fundamentalist Christians, the Back To Nature style is more for the environmentally minded people (who may or may not be Christians). For the rest, they are chiefly interested in the same thing: local produce, thrift, making your own things, which will sometimes include such exotic hobbies as spinning and weaving.

Vintage/Victorian trend is similar in some ways to the two others, but there is more accent on refinement and old-fashioned values and often clothes. Women who follow it will often wear vintage styles, organise Victorian tea parties and study calligraphy in order to write letters. In their free time instead of spinning they will practice playing the piano.

Efficient Housewife style is for women who want to run their household as a little factory. Their day is usually planned till the last minute, and if you want to visit them, you must make an appointment a month before. The floor is so clean you can eat from it, and everything is always in its place. Children aren't allowed to bring their schoolfriends home, because they will make a mess.

Bohemian trend is in total opposition to the efficient one, as there is usually a creative mess everywhere in the house. The husband has to search for clean shirts, and the meals are never on time, but the wife is always busy with something creative, like working on the latest dress or her home business (which in that case seldom brings any profit, but just gives her "something to do").

Then there is posh housekeeping where the family are wealthy enough to hire help and where there are standards to keep. Think along the lines of "Keeping Up Appearances", and you will get a general idea of what it means. On the other hand, we have tightwad or extreme thrift trend which some people practise because they really have no spare money, and others do it because they are a modern version of Scrooge.

Well, I hope it was helpful. If you know any other trends which modern housewives follow, feel free to mention them in the comments section. In case someone didn't notice, all of the above was written tongue-in-cheek.

Tea Bread

I baked it on Monday. Here is the recipe:

5c all purpose flour
2pkg dry yeast (14g)
3dl milk
1 egg
50g butter, melted
2TBSP sugar
2.5 TSP salt

Combine flour and salt, mix well. Dissolve yeast  in warm milk, stir into the flour mixture, together with melted butter and the egg. Mix and knead till smooth end elastic (it was actually very easy to knead and didn't require much effort); cover and let rise for about 35 min. Knead one more time and roll out, spread about 1 TBSP jam and roll up. I also twisted it a bit, hence the form of the loaf. Let rise for another 35 min. Place on the greased baking sheet and bake at 240*C for about 25 min. Take out, brush with milk and return to the oven for 1 more minute. It tastes great with butter and jam by a cup of tea or coffee.

Home Magazines I Like

Someone asked me about European home magazines, so I decided to write a post featuring some of the magazines I read. I don't make any money on advertising, I just really happen to like them. Unfortunately, nearly all of these magazines are not available in my country, so when I go on vacation to Germany I always buy a whole bunch of them.

Germany has a great choice of all sorts of ladies' magazines, about cooking, gardening, interior decoration, crafts and such like. I think Burda is famous all over the world. I'm not that good at sewing, but I always buy the knitting magazine from Burda called Verena which is also available in Dutch:

I like the patterns they feature and they also have some interesting articles about new yarns and trends. It's practically the only knitting magazine which I buy.
 Rezepte Pur is a cooking magazine in German which has no articles of any sorts, only the recipes:

In contrast to similar Dutch magazines it only costs 99 cents and you get a lot for your money. They also publish menues for the whole month and have the suggestions for quick meals for busy people (like me!:)

Then you have Lisa, which publishes several magazines for women on various topics. I'm not sure whether they are all wholesome, but I always buy two of them, Lisa Wohnen, about interior decoration; and Lisa Blumen und Pflanzen, about gardening:

Lisa Wohnen has Do-It-Yourself projects and sometimes even features housewives, like the issue above. German interior magazines also often show normal, average people instead of wealthy double income couples who buy houses for more than one million euros and then pay one more million to renovate them according to modern standards. Lisa Blumen Und Pflanzen, for instance, also has suggestions for people who have a small balcony instead of a garden:

Lisa Wohnen offers entertainment tips and, of course, recipes. Besides Lisa, there is also Laura Wohnen, a great magazine which is basically a different version of Lisa, it also has DIY projects, articles on different decoratiing styles, home makeovers, recipes etc etc. It's more about home than about garden though, and by some reason I prefer it to Lisa Wohnen, probably because it's more shabby chic.

The last magazine I'd like to talk about today is Wohnen Und Garten, which is all about cottages, cottage gardens and things like that. The photography is simply gorgeous. The June 2013 issue had an article about Jane Austen:

and some delicious summer recipes:

Well, that about sums it up! I hope it was helpful.

Summer Modesty

A lot of ladies complain that they can't find modest clothes in the shops. It may be true to some degree, but I believe sometimes it can be helped. Take this dress, for instance:

It's low cut and sleeveless:

And this top:

It looks more like underwear and is made of sheer fabric. Both items are not the most modest things to wear. However, what happens if we combine them?

As you can see, the cleavage is covered now. Here you can take a closer look:

It is now decent enough to wear around the house in warm weather, but it's still sleeveless, so if you go out, you'll probably want to pair it up with a cardigan, like this:

A short-sleeved cardigan is ideal when it's hot outside:

When the weather is cooler, you can opt for a cardi with long sleeves, like that:

Add the shoes of your choice, and your outfit is complete!

Chastity And Modesty

Some time ago I wrote several posts covering lessons from Helen Andelin's famous book Fascinating Womanhood. They were quite a success judging by the amount of traffic they received and I was planning to write more but my attention became diverted by other things. So many subjects to blog about, so little time:)

Anyway, today I decided to return to the topic of good character and what qualities constitute it, as described at length in the Chapter 16 of the book The Worthy Character. You can find my previous posts about it if you click on the label Fascinating Womanhood on the right side of the blog.

So far I have written about self-control, moral courage and diligence. Today I'd like to talk about chastity. Chastity nowadays is a very politically incorrect subject, and one needs a lot of moral courage to discuss it in public:) Isn't it strange that certain sins have become so politicised that in some countries they are protected with a special set of laws? According to Mrs Andelin, chastity "...means to be sexually pure, to not have sexul relationships with anyone but the person to whom you are legally married, and not to have any impure thoughts or actions. " (FW., p. 220, Bantam Books 1992).

The author goes on to enumerate various sins against chastity and proceeds with a list of reasons why sexual immorality is harmful. She mentions such consequencies as broken relationships, emotional illness resulting from the rebellion against the spiritual laws and even downfall of the nations.

Since the majority of my readers are probably Christians and have heard about theTen Commandments, I don't think there is need to go into much detail on this topic, however, there is something which I'd like to point out. Nowadays we have a tendency to talk about things which are better left to the private sphere. When watching "I Love Lucy" I noticed many times that men would not discuss certain things in the presence of the women and vice versa.

In one episode Lucy pretends to be a man but is easily outed by Ricky because she won't listen to a dirty joke. Chastity is more than not commiting adultery or fornication, it's also refraining from watching porn or reading trashy novels with pornographic themes in them, or discussing bedroom preferences of your husband with others.

Chastity is closely connected with modesty as modesty is based on the same idea: not revealing things which should be private to the eyes of strangers. As Mrs Andelin puts it: "Higher types of civilisation have traditionally been modest." (FW., p. 250). Which reminds me: it's summer again!

The weather may be warm, but still it's better to resist the temptation of going out in the equivalent of underwear (actually, Victorian underwear used to cover more than what some people are wearing now), if only from the purely practical point of view. While we need some exposure to the sunlight for the vitamin D production, sun burns can lead to skin cancer, and it's a serious thing.

Summer modesty and summer fashions could be the topic of discussion on their own, so I'll quit here. Next time I'm planning to write about some home magazines, as requested. Stay tuned!

The Case For The Traditional Marriage

Traditional marriage  has long been under attack. Contrary to what some people think, this attack didn't start in the 1960s, but much earlier. It has been rather popular nowadays to assign the blame for its demise solely to women, but how true is it?

Not so long ago, the law of many Western countries recognised the man as the head of the family, but this authority came with the responsibility, as it was expected from the man that he would provide the living. I remember a sermon in our church when an elderly guest preacher said that in his times men didn't see their children, because when they came home from work, children were already in bed, and by the way, Saturday was a working day too, until the end of the 1960s. Than the reform was undertaken, which reduced working hours for men and also eliminated their legal status as the head of the family. Was it a coincidence? Somehow I don't think so.

Since that time most women moved into the workforce and assumed part-time positions, while their husbands started working less and less. However, if you calculate the total amount of hours worked by an average couple with the man in full time employment and his part-time working wife, you'll come to about 50 hours a week and that was how long men used to work in them bad old days of patriarchal oppression. In short, men got emancipated, too, selling their birthright for shorter working hours.

Divorce laws in my country were pretty liberal already since the end of the 19th century, but the divorce rate started growing steadily since married women had entered the employment in large numbers. Several years ago there was a researh which showed that the longer hours the wife worked the higher chance of divorce the couple had, because the man started feeling neglected. When a case is made for married women to stay home, it's usually about the children who miss their mother, but apparently (what a novel thought!), men have their needs, too.

Another big problem with female employment is that a lot of women work in the government-subsidized positions, and their salaries are paid by the taxpayer. Most young girls graduate with diplomas in nursing, teaching and social work and have to compete for positions with married part-timers, while the economy is doing worse every year, and as the governments across Europe implement austerity measures, the amount of jobs for women keeps shrinking.

I believe in general it's rather unproductive to keep discussing who is more responsible for the current mess, men or women. The correct answer is probably both. The modern ideas about marriage are based on the idea of both husband and wife basically continuing to live their separate lives after marriage, which, of course, will never work in practise. The whole idea of marriage is two becoming one flesh. It's time we stopped demanding more rights and started remembering about our duties.

Happy Father's Day!

Just a bit of poetry for the Father's Day. 

IF, by R. Kipling

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting, too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build them up with worn out tools,

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss,
If you can force your heart, and nerve, and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them, "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And which is more, you'll be a Man, my son!

The Basic Bread Recipe

As you have probably noticed by now, I really do like baking:) This week I have been experimenting with a basic bread recipe from my cooking book. My first experiment was not very successful as I reduced both the amount of flour and water, and as a result the dough was too dry and I wasn't able to knead it properly. It didn't rise well, either, and that's what we got:

It doesn't look impressive, does it? We ate it all though, but I was determined to redeem myself, so I made one more attempt, and that's what I got the second time:

Looks quite different, doesn't it? Tastes different, too:)

Here is what I used: the basic recipe calls for 500g flour, which is about 5 cups. I used about 1c whole wheat flour + 4 c all purpose flour, 3tsp salt, 1 pkg (7g) dry yeast, 3.25dl water and 2 TBSP olive oil. As you see, the ingredients are very simple, especially comparing with the stuff they put into the bread from the store. You will need to knead it, then let rise for 30-45 min (I did 35 min both times), then knead it again, place it on a greased baking sheet and let it rise for the 2nd time. The book suggested rolling the dough into a rectangle, then rolling it up, which I did the first time, but not the second. You can also use a loaf pan (don't forget to grease it!), but I decided that I prefer my bread round.  You bake it at 240*C for about 25 minutes. When ready, brush water over it and return to the oven for 1 more minute.

Next time I'm planning to make "fine milkbread". Will write about my successes (or the lack thereof:).