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.

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 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?