Make It Mondays

When the temperatures start to soar and the "dog days" of summer are upon us, I often find myself lacking in both motivation and inspiration. In this state of mind, summer vacation can become monotonous, for parent and child alike.

To avoid this familiar scenario, which frequented the summer months when my children were young, I initiated Make It Mondays. The purpose behind Make It Monday was to provide a scheduled time each week for creativity.

While I am all about spontaneity, I tend to do best with schedules and routines. My children are no different. Coming off the heals of a school year run entirely by schedules and routine, my children were still in need of some sort of predictability, even while on vacation. Make It Mondays provided for perfect balance.

Because this was only a weekly event, I never felt too overwhelmed to help my children pull off a Make It Monday. This weekly time frame also gave my crew plenty of time to decide what their next Make It Monday project would be. Armed with a collage of interests, my children chose projects that covered everything from making chocolate covered strawberries to building their own mini-golf course in our backyard.

Make It Mondays provided an outlet for my children to explore topics that piqued their curiosity. In fact, during one of our Make It Monday projects, my children implemented the beginning stages for their own Tesla Coil, a project which continued throughout the summer that year. Without setting time aside each week for exploration and creativity the Tesla Coil project, and countless others like it, would never have taken place. Along the way, my children not only forged an incredible bond with one another, but they also built a cache of memories that will last them a lifetime.

This is one of our favorite Make It Monday projects, just in case you need a little inspiration. It's a recipe for Sturgis soft pretzels. Julius Sturgis Pretzels & Bakery is located in historic Lititz, PA. It was established in 1861 and is touted for being the 1st commercial bakery in America. With that said, they know a thing or two about soft pretzels. Here's a recipe that we made on repeat when our children were young.

Sturgis Soft Pretzels

2 1/4 t. yeast (1 package) 2 T. vegetable oil

1 c. warm water 6 T. baking soda

1 T. sugar 3 c. all- purpose flour

6 c. water (for large pot) coarse salt

Whisk yeast into 1 c. warm water and sugar. Add 1 1/2 c. of flour and vegetable oil to mixture. Beat with wooden spoon or use a mixer with dough hook. Slowly add remaining flour to form dough. Poke dough with finger - if it bounces back, it's ready to knead. Keep the dough in the mixer and beat for an additional 5 minutes or knead by hand on lightly floured surface for 5 minutes. Do so until dough is smooth and elastic. Shape the dough into a ball. Let rise in a greased bowl (30-60 min.) till dough doubles in size. Deflate dough. Cut into 12 pieces. Roll out and create a pretzel twist for all 12 pieces. Place on a baking sheet covered with wax paper. Cover with a towel. Let rise on baking sheet (20 min). In a large pot, bring 6 c. of water to a boil. Add baking soda to the water. Using a slotted spoon, gently place pretzels into boiling water. Flip each pretzel over after about 30 seconds in the baking soda bath. Keep pretzels in the baking soda bath for 30 seconds on the flip side, as well. With the slotted spoon, drain each pretzel and remove from pot. Place on baking sheet. Sprinkle with coarse salt. Bake at 425 for 10-12 minutes.