Days of Our Lives

Our schooling got put on hold (well, depends on what you define schooling as though) the past few days because we were busy whipping up baked goods for the state fair. As we had decided weeks ago, the kids were to do their practice baking individually before Eid, and then the actual baking for the fair days before the fair. Though S decided to make Dixie Pixies for the fair instead, because making the Meringue Bubbles turned out to be more work than she had bargained for.

On Monday, we went to the fairgrounds and submitted the kids’ 4-H projects for the non-livestock exhibits. I had hubby drive us there because I wasn’t familiar with the road and it involved going on the interstate (and I hate highways) so that come Wednesday, I could drive by myself. We saw a lot of great youth entries, mashaallah!

That same Monday, S made her Dixie Pixie dough and refrigerated it, while N made her butterscotch brownies. We had gone out that Monday morning though, so there was only like a few hours for both girls to bake their stuff. When I came down from my much needed nap, N was pouring her brownie batter into the pan lined with waxed paper hanging over the sides. I told her to scrape all the batter off and replace the waxed paper with aluminum foil, which H claimed to be ‘finished’. This boy searches with his mouth rather than his eyes.  But by the time she was done doing that, there was no time left for her to bake it in the oven before we had to go to the fairgrounds to submit the 4H project items, so I told her to refrigerate it and bake it when we come home. That she did, and alhamdulillah that turned out ok. Otherwise, she’d have to bake it again the next day.

Tuesday, H started making his cookies after Fajr, and so did I, with my Pandan Chiffon and Cordon Rose Banana Cake. S also baked her Dixie Pixies. I was completely exhausted that day, as I not only baked one of each type of cake, but two; one for us and one for the fair. At first i decided not to bake the second banana cake becuase I was too tired, but if I didn’t I’d have to bake it the next day, right after Fajr. I thought of the hassle that would produce, as we had planned to leave for the fair around 8:30 a.m. So I ended up baking both banana cakes that day. Alhamdulillah I did.

We had spent Monday morning shopping around for a container for my Chiffon. That brought us to a cake store I came upon on google; Create a Cake. It offers cake decorating classes too. I emailed some moms in town about this in case they are interested for their girls, and a fellow homeschooling family expressed interest. Sv. called the store and told me that the class is a 4 week series, for $35 but the decorating tools are $25 and the book is $5. That would mean about $60 per child. Just yesterday, I called Hobby Lobby and found out that their cake decorating classes, by Wilton are cheaper, so I signed the girls up along with their friend My. As for S, she also attended the Off the Wall two part quilting session, pretty last minute yesterday, along with her friend My.

I was fasting that Monday and I just decided to use a foil pizza pan and wrap the chiffon in plastic wrap instead of driving around town to continue looking for cake containers that are tall enough to accomodate a Chiffon. So on Tuesday, that’s what I did, and oh boy, how ugly it looked. But since the fair will not return the containers we put our baked goods in, it makes good sense (at least to me) to send in such an economical solution.

While I was folding the egg whites into my egg yolk batter for the Chiffon, S stood by and asked questions. So I showed her the folding technique that is meant to minimize air loss in the batter, for Chiffons depend on the air whipped into the egg whites to rise, and if you mess that up, you will not get a Chiffon. It is also important to have the egg whites pure from any yolks, for if there are, it won’t beat up to stiff or soft peaks. Chemistry lesson right there. I wish some chemistry experiments in high school involved baking. That would have been scrumptious!

By evening, we were all done. Then N had to exercise some clumsiness. While trying to move the containers in which they had nicely arranged their cookies, she managed, yes, she managed to drop both hers and H’s. Result: H’s Pecan Shortbread Melts broke in unsalvageable crumbs! H at the time was at soccer practice. I was not too happy either, because I knew how hard H had worked on that, which included chopping the pecans very finely. Let’s just say I was very very very frustrated at N’s lack of care (not just in this, but almost any other time) in doing things (anything except her drawing).

When H came home, of course he wasn’t very happy either. But he got over it pretty quickly and decided to put some pieces that are broken (not whole, but missing some parts) to replace the completely destructed ones. He didn’t want to make another batch. To be honest, I wouldn’t have wanted to either. So, for sure, we though he was not going to win a blue or any ribbon for that one. What a shame…Qadr Allah.

Wednesday arrived, and we followed our planned schedule. We also brought along My, S’ homeschool friend. We had partly packed our backpack Tuesday night, so Wednesday morning was not that hectic alhamdulillah. The drive to the fair was alhamdulillah fine and dandy, despite my abhorrence for highways.

“Make sure you read your duas, kids!” was my reminder everytime we go out, but that day, it was especially emphasized.

Hubby had also recently bought S a cellphone, which is only to be used for calling him in cases of emergencies or urgent needs. So I felt a little better having that with us, because I don’t have one, and don’t really wish to have one.

H, N and I walked to the Special Events Building to submit our baked goods, and we left S, My and sleeping Baby Z in the van, parked on the Carnival grounds. It was not till later that I realized I had parked in the wrong area! I thought I was following the man’s instructions, and with puzzlement wondered why the heaven he’d tell me to park on the carnival grounds. Apparently, I was supposed to drive further up front and then turn right to a parking lot for the Special Events building. So H, N, and I had to walk quite some ways with baked goods in our arms to the Special Events building.

Subhanallah, there were a lot of entries! A table was loaded with decorated cakes by youth, by high schoolers actually, and they were just amazing! Mashaallah!

As I signed the kids’ baked goods up, the lady in charge asked,

“Your husband works for the extension?”

“Yes,” I said as I continued to fill in the forms. She probably recognized it from the kids’ last names.

“I’m G. I work with him, he’s our extension person.”

And it turned out that most of the people in charge of the Baked Goods section are the extension people working with hubby.

We spent the morning browsing the fairgrounds. Our first stop was the Super Scientific Circus show. I love it because tricks were performed but he also explained the scientific reasons behind it. He also showed us how to make a boomerang from a pizza box.

Our next stop was the petting zoo. Baby Z was kissed repeatedly by a very friendly Llama. He was not too happy about it.

Our plan was to roam the fairgrounds until the judges were finished judging the baked goods, at 1 pm. Since I had TQ class at 3:30 pm that afternoon, I had to leave the latest by 2 pm anyway. We ate our snacks, whom S had prepared the night before; amsll ziploc bags of banana cake and Chiffon, Baby Z’s pancakes and bananas, and of course our water canteens.

We went to the Veteran’s Building, where they had the exhibits. Lo and behold, subhanallah, S and N’s picture frame were awarded ribbons!

S got a blue ribbon and N got a red ribbon(second place). H didn’t get anything. I felt pretty bad about it because I know how hard he worked on that cloth banner.

We went to the 4H building too and saw some great items done under 4H projects by the 4Hers. More ideas for the kids. I love those exhibits as they also gave me and the kids ideas of what to enter in the next year’s state fair, as well as what to make for their science and history projects. In fact, I took N and walked with her along the exhibits, showing her some displays or projects to give her some ideas for her Science and History projects, which she was having some trouble with.

That day, I also learned a lot about wool spinning and weaving. RIght outside the 4H building was a booth and sheep pen. Two ladies were spinning yarn, and they beckoned us to come so we did. I ended up learning a whole lot about the whole process of weaving, spinning.

• First, the sheep is sheared
• Then she’d hand pick the dirt, grass from the freshly sheared wool
• She would wash them on a special screen submerged in a big tub of water, but has to be careful not to aggravate them too much or they will turn into felt
• Then she’d dry them on that screen
• It’s then carded so the fibers all run in the same direction (we stopped by a booth of the Farm and Heritage Museum and the kids actually tried carding some wool with the combs. It was NOT easy!)
• The dry wool would then be spun into yarn on the spinning wheel. It would take her about 1-2 hours to fill the bobbin
• The yarn can then be woven into a shawl

She told me about a competition called Sheep to Shawl where they would work as a team. The sheep would be sheared and they would skip the washing and drying stages and jump straight to the spinning stage and then weaving. According to these ladies, it takes 5 people to hand pick the dirt from the freshly sheared wool, and 5 spinners to keep up with one weaver. I can only imagine how the competition goes. It must be nerve wrecking but amazing to watch! Maybe something like Iron Chef.

These ladies also told us about wool’s itch factor. it depends on the wool itself, but sometimes, if the wool was processed commercially, where acid is used to clean and dissolve the dirt as opposed to the dirt being handpicked, the resulting sweater then becomes itchy. That was a precious information that was very interesting to me. I love that visit to that booth!

We stopped by some NMSU’s Science exhibit buildings too where the kids got themselves some astronomy posters and brochures. Then we went back to the exhibit building to wait for the baked goods to be done judged and put on display. When 1 pm arrived and no one from the Special Events building seem to be entering the Veteran’s building, I sent H to peek inside the Special Events building to see if they were done judging. He came back and told me there were only a few people there and they seemed to be done judging. I couldn’t afford to wait any longer since we had to leave soon, so I went with H to the building. We appraoched the adult baked goods table first, and to my surprise, I saw a blue sticker on my Chiffon. I then looked for my banana cake and subhanallah, another blue sticker!

As we approached the youth baked goods area, a lady hailed me,

“Hello!”

It was another of hubby’s colleague whom I had met and been introeduced to when we first moved here. I had actually talked to her over the phone before we moved. Hubs had referred me to her to ask questons about housing in this town. She was very helpful mashaallah. She apparently has been to Jordan a lot of times and is quite familiar with Muslims and Islam. May Allah guide her. Ameen.

Well, it turned out that she and another of hubby’s colleague, whom H said we had run across in Albertson’s a few days ago (and said to hub that she thought he has 6 children – me included as one of his kids. Don’t know whether to take that as a compliment or insult, but I think I’ll take it as the former) were just done judging the baked goods for the youth. So we looked for the kids’ baked goods. Again, subhanallah, it seemed to be blue ribbon days for all of us! Alhamdulillah! H’s broken Pecan Shortbread Melts got a blue sticker! N’s brownies got a blue (well, they had put yellow because they had run outof blue stickers) sticker! And so did S’ Dixie Pixies! H’s Double Chunk Choc Chip cookies got a red sticker! It was a multiple win!

And to think the kids had been reluctant to enter any baked goods in the fair when I suggested it. I had to coax them.

“Just enter. You guys bake a lot anyway. Why don’t you just enter. You never know, you might win.”

Alhamdulillah they did!

And to also think that I was quite iffy about entering anything either! Alhamdulillah I did end up making the Chiffon and Banana Cake. It was a Blur Ribbon day.

The only downside to all of this was that they were only going to put the baked goods on display later on that day, which meant that we were not going to see them displayed because we had to leave early. So I snapped pictures before we left. No blue ribbons. I guess blue and yellow stickers would just have to do!

We also didn’t get to hop on any rides in the Carnival because they won’t open till 5 pm that day. I emailed hubby, suggesting that he might want to go with the kids later on that day, and take pictures of the baked goods on display and so the kids could attend the carnival too, but at the mention that he’d have to pay for the tickets again, he said no. I figured as much, so unfortunately, the kids didn’t get to ride on any of the carnival rides. Alhamdulilllah either way.

Well, alhamdulillah for everything. I guess, we will continue to ‘dabble’ with the state fairs from now on. 12 years in the US and I never once bothered about state fairs. Interesting how 4H led us to it, and for our first involvement, it was a pretty good turn out! Walhamdulilah, wallahu akbar!