September Books, A Recipe, & Other Tidbits

I'm making myself sit down and write this post before I gather my things and trek off to town. I have no burning urge to write, but it's a new month, and I should at least tell you about the books I read in September. I can hardly believe this year, with the goal to read four books a month, has only three more months in it!! How?

1. Top left: Enthralling, inspiring, heart-twisting read. 

2. Top right: Interesting in a "I never thought of it like that" kind of way. 

3: Bottom left: Oof. One of those books I could turn right around and listen to again and learn just as much as I did the first time. 

4. Bottom right: Another one of the Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter. 

I also listened to Excellent Women and The Vanderbeekers and the Secret Garden. I'm finding that with school back in session, listening to books is my go to. I ended up with a lot of audio books coming in that I had holds on, so I listened to more!

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Our family has always eaten a fair amount of rice, and I generally felt like I could produce a decent kettle with the preparation method I grew up using. Occasionally it wouldn't turn out right though, and I would be frustrated with not being able to figure out what I had done wrong? Sometime this summer, when my stove was occupied with canners and I wanted rice for supper, I googled 'recipes for making rice in the oven'. I'm not sure that I'll ever make rice on the stove top again! Every person in my family declares that it tastes better, and it turns out perfectly fluffy every single time.

Easy Oven Baked Rice:

1) Preheat oven to 375 degrees.                          2) Place 2 C rice and 1 1/2 tsp salt in a 9x13 pan. 

3) In a saucepan, bring 3 1/2 C water and 3 T butter to a boil.  

4) Pour boiling water over rice in pan.          5) Cover tightly with foil and bake for 25 minutes.  

6) Remove from oven. 

7) Allow to rest 5-10 min.    

8) Fluff with fork and enjoy!

(Notes: For Sunday lunch, when I wanted chicken in the oven while we were at church, I made the rice in the morning, left it covered, and wrapped it in a heavy towel. Worked great. Also, for 1 C rice use 1 3/4 C water, 2 T butter and 1 tsp salt.)

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Other September tidbits.....

Lillian had a birthday and made herself a tiny, layered, pumpkin cake...

Sometimes we feel very watched...

Took a little day trip to meet up with my sister from Indiana. The only two pictures I have to show for it are the one above (seen along my way) and the one below (bought at a thrift store we went to). Those were not necessarily the highlights of the day!

Our church spent last weekend together

 at a retreat center.

Favorite memory made was connecting with other puzzle lovers around this table...

I am not the biggest fan of Fall

but the weather this week has been absolutely gorgeous!

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In closing, a favorite quote from Braving The Wilderness (one I will be reminding myself of over and over): 

"Stop walking through the world looking for confirmation that you don't belong."