goldfinch

This cute female goldfinch slammed into our (glass) sliding door while I was eating lunch, and took a few minutes to collect herself. How could I resist? It's not every day that you get to pet a wild bird.

chocolate chip *granola* cookies

My family has used the same chocolate chip cookie recipe for as long as I can remember, and I've stayed loyal to it. (Just last week, I made a quadruple batch of the stuff.) But now, in a single afternoon, my loyalties have shifted.

(cream together:)
1/2 cup margarine/butter
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup brown sugar

(mix in:)
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

(add:)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
2 cups granola
1 cup chocolate chips

Bake at 375 for 10 minutes. Makes ~40.

the most beautiful place on earth

some summer goals

Last summer I had reading goals, which I kept pace with until the last two weeks of vacay. This summer, I'm still planning to read a lot (lots of it for my senior thesis!), but my actual goals are more linguistic:

I want to dust my Latin off after a year of comparative disuse:
- Reread Lingua Latina I (this will be easy)
- Reread Cupid & Psyche (this will be hard)
- Read Asterix et Fossa Alta

I want to firm up this past year's stock of Greek skills:
- Reread Athenaze Book 1
- Read 1 John (assigned: we're supposed to read it "several" times)

And... then there's French.
French will be the killer. I want to finish the book I've worked on every summer and never gotten past page 79 in. This will mean doing 3 or 4 lessons a week, which is probably unachievable. However, I will die trying.