When I was in my 20’s I loved to travel and I tried to vacation as much as I could. My sixth-grade teacher had lived very frugally and spent all summer in Europe. That sounded like a pretty exciting life to me.

As I got older, I traveled less, but I still thought of myself as a globe-trotter that had seen the world.

However, yesterday I came across an old map. I was amazed by all the flags lining the map, so I counted the countries. That’s when I realized I had only been to about 5% of the countries… and I had only seen a few regions of each of those countries. The world is a very big place!

It’s interesting how your perception changes as you get older.

As a kid, I hated dark chocolate. Hersheys Dark was the worst part of any variety pack of candy. But as a grown-up, I now like dark chocolate… and almost every dark chocolate bar has a number on it that shows how “dark” the bar is.

But the number never made sense to me. Sometimes a 70% dark bar would taste sweeter than a 50% dark bar. What good was the number if it didn’t tell you how bitter the bar is?

Well, a chocoholic friend of mine finally answered that question for me. That number is the percent of chocolate, but it’s the combination of cocoa butter and cocoa solids. The butter is smooth and silky. The solids are bitter. So a 70% bar that is all butters will be sweet while a 50% bar that is all solids will be bitter.

This month our hot water heater broke. It was a simple part that busted and Amazon guaranteed the replacement would be here in only two days… so we decided to go without hot water for a few days.

The first day was exciting. We had to boil water in our tea kettle to draw a bath. It felt like something our pioneering ancestors would have done when they first settled here. Life was an adventure… and our cold showers were a front row seat.

But Amazon screwed up our order… and a few days turned into a week… and they still didn’t know where the part was. By the end, everyone was dreading a bath in barely-warm, barely-deep-enough water. The replacement part looked like it would never come, so we called a plumber and everything was resolved that night.

Throughout this whole process I realized how many amazing inventions we take for granted. Our water is not only hot (or cold — depending on our choice), but it’s clean and abundant. Light magically appears with the flick of the light. A thermostat makes sure it’s always a comfortable temperature.

Even though I knew I was being ridiculous since not everyone in the world has hot water, I still felt irritated that I didn’t have hot water. And that really blew my mind about how dependent I had become on all these things. It’s hard to go back once you become so used to something that you can’t ever remember not having it.

I wanted to say thanks to everyone who was an “early reader” and a reviewer of My Sister Steals My Toys. With your help, the book has turned out better than I had ever hoped. Today I found out some really exciting news about the book that I wanted to share with everyone — it is a finalist in the Midwest Independent Publishing Association’s annual book awards. I am beyond excited and speechless. I can hardly wait to go to the awards gala, which is about 2 weeks away. I’ll update you all when I find out if the book is a winner!

UPDATE: Sadly, I did not win.  But I did get to spend a wonderful evening talking with other authors and paging through amazing books.  It was an honor to be a finalist and part of the celebration.

I saw this cake pan at the store. If you look at the bottom of the picture it says, “6 Cavities.” I thought it would be funny if that were how many cavities you got by eating all the cakes. Imagine if baking pans, candy bars, cookies, and soft drinks all started listing how many cavities you would get by using them!

I don’t overly like frost on my windows (since it can cause trouble when it melts), but I have to admin that this frost is extremely beautiful. When I look at it, I see New Zealand fern leaves blowing in the wind… or maybe that’s just me dreaming of summer.

Hey everyone. We’re going to try blogging a bit more and include some things that don’t really relate to our books, but we love.

I love fresh cooked bread (that amazing smell!) and I love eating those fancy breads you have to crunch through to reach a warm, fluffy, bubble-filled interior. It’s been a passion of mine to try to bake something like that at home. The last couple years, my wife has had to suffer through some pretty terrible loaves: rock hard, super salty, too mushy, and too sour (when I was trying sour dough).

BUT… over the holidays, I finally figured out how to do it! The secret was to bake the bread in a covered pot in a really hot oven. Here’s the recipe and technique I tried. The actual recipe is quite easy—you don’t even need to kneed! The hardest part was finding a pot with a lid that could safely be baked at 450 degrees.

How do like your bread? White bread? Whole wheat? No crusts? Crunchy French bread?

* Who helps little pumpkins cross the road to school?
– The Crossing Gourd!

* How do you get an Elephant out of your tree?
– Ask him to sit on a leaf and wait until Fall!

* What did one leaf say to another?
– I’m falling for you.

* What’s the cutest season?
– Awwwwtumn.

* What do you get if you drop a pumpkin?
– Squash!

* What did the tree say to autumn?
– Leaf me alone.

* Why did the scarecrow win the Nobel Prize?
– He was “out standing in his field.”

* Why did Humpty Dumpty have a great fall?
– To make up for his terrible summer!

* What snakes are found on cars?
– Windshield vipers!

* How do snakes weigh themselves?
– With their scales!

* Why are snakes hard to trick?
– No one can pull their leg!

* Why did the boa constrictors get married?
– They had a crush on each other!

* Why couldn’t the snake talk?
– He had a frog in his throat!

* What do you get when you cross a snake and a dessert?
– A pie-thon!

* What did the snake put on his floor?
– Rep-tiles!