I’m very much enjoying art journaling, beginner that I am. It’s a definite stretcher for me to break from using just words to dump my brain and to try to (literally) draw it out. Although, it’s funny, I still filled up the page with words! I was thinking about how I needed to guard my heart, to be its keeper, to stop being dependent on people or my circumstances and to just care better for me. And then I started thinking about what I really needed, and came up with a list. This is from my sketch book. Can you relate to any of these needs?
I decided to put it all onto a little canvas, something I could display somewhere and look at it and remind myself. I forget pretty easily! I love the birds, one in a cage and one without. Every word and drawing or stamp carries a meaning for me, and helps to provoke meditation and prayer. This was a fun project to do with my girls, too; they made their own pictures and have proudly displayed them where they, too, can see them every day. We used acrylic paints, stamps, and mod podge for the words. I’m looking forward to doing more of this sort of art journaling!
Blessings,
I rarely make yeast baked goods since (a) I don’t consider it the healthiest choice, (b) we don’t use grains much anyway. I’ve been using and rotating four sourdough starters for years, and lately I decided it was time to retire two of them. I didn’t want to throw them away however, so I dehydrated them for safe keeping and for any future need. Sourdough starter is a wonderful thing to have. With a little salt, some flour, and water…I can make bread.
To dehydrate my sourdough starter, I spread it thinly onto my dehydrator sheet. At this point I probably could have left it alone to air dry, but I didn’t trust my Pacific Northwest atmosphere to dry it out. Instead I used my dehydrator at the lowest setting. Here you can see it drying along the edges, still wet in the middle.
This was what I was waiting for: brittleness. It was still a *tad* soft here so I dried some more. It took about 16 hours or so.
Once it was brittle, I put the pieces into my Vitamix and powdered it all. I spread it out for another hour to insure it was really dry.
And that was it! Here are my jars of two sourdough starters. They still smell great and I have zero doubts about being able to get them going again whenever I want to. The last thing I’m going to do is put a moisture packet in each jar, and then seal them closed with my food saver attachment.
It feels good to have those done! And I still have the other two to rotate when we want to eat a baked good. This morning, we’ve got sourdough pancakes coming up. Mmmm….
Blessings,
