Rediscovering Old Tricks

Since I've been home, and my days working are few and far between, I find that I am spending more and more time in my kitchen. In an effort to save money, I am phasing out convenience foods and making more stuff from scratch. I've been baking our sandwich bread, using this recipe. It's so easy, and my mixer does all the kneading, which is great. Since the recipe makes two loaves, I decided to get adventurous and turn one of them into a cinnamon-swirl loaf. Yum! I sure do wish I could find my camera. I would LOVE to post pictures of all this yummy stuff!

Yesterday I also made turkey pot pie, with made-from-scratch crust and cream of mushroom soup. It was delicious. I am so proud to turn out so many homemade goodies. It gives me more of a feeling of accomplishment than working for minimum wage ever did. I have always loved being in the kitchen. There is not much that gives me more joy than to watch people enjoy something I have cooked. I know it seems quaint and simple, but it fulfills me. I look forward to paring back more; to discovering new culinary talents. I made an Alfredo sauce to go with lunch. I haven't made Alfredo from scratch since before Jackson was born, almost 9 years. It felt so good to whip that up from memory.

I feel so peaceful right now- enjoying the cool weather, the smell of good, homemade food, and the sound of my laundry tumbling away in the dryer. A clothesline is a project I have been meaning to get to. I'm going to the Habitat ReStore tomorrow with my dad (I love hanging out with my dad on Fridays)- maybe I can get a 2x4 and get that put together.

I'm rambling. Suffice it to say- Life is good.

Living with less

I've been on a bit of a purging streak. With the holiday season upon us, I feel the need to get rid of all the things we aren't using. Appliances that have broken and are beyond repair, books I don't or won't read, home decor items that were given to me by well-meaning relatives with questionable taste.... It's junk. It's all just junk. We're going to be getting more junk. This day and age, junk is pretty much inevitable. My children have expressed the desire to gut their room. They have told me they are tired of tripping over toys they don't play with, and they have outgrown so many clothes and books. This is what I intend to do with all those unusable kid things. The Carolina Kids Consignment sale is wonderful. I had a booth at the last one, thanks to my Scentsy sponsor. The booth did kind of "meh", but getting to see the sale was pretty great. There were people lined up out the door, including one of my neighbors, whom I randomly decided to introduce myself to at the event. Haven't spoken to her since... wow. Apparently neither of us are very good neighbors.

Anywho... got on a bit of a tangent. I've been reading some blogs about tiny eco-houses. It's all well and good if you are comfortable living in 70 square feet. If I was a single person, I could probably manage something like that very well, but I think I am reasonably comfortable in my small (rather than tiny) house. It' s 16x80, which is the larger end of a single-wide, but it's still a mobile home and a comfortable fit for our small family. It'll also be paid for in less than a year now, so that is very much a positive. There are a lot of things I would like to do to make this house better, maybe even a little bigger, but I think this will be it for us. That said, I still want to throw 3/5 of the stuff in my house in the garbage.

I am going to make it a point to re-use, re-do, re-gift, and upcycle as much as I can. I want so much gone, but there's no point in waste either. I'm sure someone out there would love to have a glazed ceramic votive holder that looks like a cross-eyed puppy in a beehive. Right? Maybe I can go ahead and trash that one ;)

The Struggle Continues

Still trying to get this whole bread nonsense under control. I think the issue is that I am using only whole-wheat flour. It tends to be tougher, and apparently causes headaches in bread-baking novices. People have been doing this for centuries. Why am I so clueless? Maybe I'm over-thinking it. I've got two loves rising in the oven now... and two balls of useless dough in my backyard. Don't ask.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the loaves in the oven will turn out okay. They loaves should be risen in the next ten minutes or so, but I am terrified to check. This is where things always seem to go awry.

No more whole wheat for me. Maybe half-wheat. Otherwise, I'm going to need to get some sort of gluten additive to make it get to the texture I'm supposed to get it to. It's just so darn... heavy right now. I made a rustic free-form loaf the other day, and except for the top getting a little too brown, it was delicious. Light and fluffy and tasty- and not whole wheat.

I hate all the waste. Wasted time, wasted materials. I've used almost an entire bag of flour today, with nothing to show for it. I'm going to have to go to BJs at some point and get a giant bag of flour. I did get a bigger container to put my flour in, so that's a plus. It's one of those giant popcorn tins that you get during the holidays. Trouble is, it's pretty ugly. I have some ideas to make it look awesome, but I won't be able to give it a makeover until I can clean out the sewing room.

Deep breath, it's almost time to check the bread. Regardless of how these loaves turn out, I'm probably not going to bake any more today.

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Gave it a check- and it actually looks... okay. It's rising fairly well. Not quite as tall as it should be, but I do seem to be making a little progress.

I really wish I knew where I put my camera.

Disasters in Bread Baking

I don't know what is wrong with me. I've baked bread before, and it has turned out perfectly lovely. I want to start baking bread for sandwiches instead of buying it. It's cheaper and I stay home, so I have the time. But something is wrong with me. I bought new yeast, and it foams up nicely, but somewhere between the mixing and the rising, everything seems to be falling apart. The bread is not rising high enough, for starters. First rising (in the bowl) seems to go fine. I let it rise in the oven, since my house is much too cold. The second rising is where things go crazy. I don't know if my loaf pan is too big or what, but I can't seem to get a nice sandwich-sized loaf.

Just pulled the English Muffin Bread out of the oven. It's pretty good, but at only 2 inches high, it's not going to make much of a sandwich. The color on the outside is nice, but the inside is just shy of being under-cooked. Whatever. It'll be fine with the soup.

The first batch that I did this morning- for which I used the loaf pan I was SUPPOSED to use, was also a failure. Again, did not rise adequately the second time around. Frustration. The resulting loaf was pretty much a useless brick. A tiny, useless brick. I let it rise as long as I was supposed to, but it just didn't turn out right. Argh!

I'm going to try the "Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day" approach. Seems pretty easy. They have a whole-wheat sandwich bread recipe, so let's just see what happens. I tried the basic recipe once, a long time ago. I can't remember if I had any success with it or not. I know that I only made one loaf. The rest of it got pushed into the back of my fridge and froze. When I finally dug it back out, it had turned into something... else. I'm going to keep at this, dammit. I want fresh-baked bread!

Making do

I want a new couch.

I can't begin to tell you how much I want a new couch. The one we have is falling apart. Two of the legs have snapped off, and since I haven't gotten around to replacing them, my couch sits at an angle. The covers on the cushions are messed up. The zippers won't stay zipped, which leaves the delicious (according to the dog) foam exposed. The dog tears up the foam and that layer of polyfil batting between the cover and the foam. The fabric is... well, it's ugly. It's a pastel print with giant roses on it, it's stained from years of immersion in cigarette smoke, and it's kind of itchy. But... it was free. My aunt had packed this set away in the barn and when she saw a picture of our old couch, she took pity on us and gave us this one. The last couch was leather, or something sort of like it, which is something I am not a particular fan of. Couches ought to be cozy. I can't get cozy on a leather couch. Looking back, I don't think it was in as bad a shape as this one. Sure, it wasn't pretty, but it was structurally sound. Anyway, we don't have that one anymore. We have the floral monster, and it looks like we are going to be stuck with it.

So, instead of sleeping (which is really what I should be doing), I am up contemplating what I am going to do with this couch. It needs some new legs, for starters. I'm thinking about just getting some wooden blocks from my dad (he always has scraps) and sticking them on in place of the ones that are missing and the two other plastic ones that probably won't last much longer. I don't want to remove the legs entirely, since that will put the couch very, very low to the ground. It needs legs. I am also thinking about just covering it. I have huge, HUGE bins of fabric; surely some of that can be pressed into service as furniture covering. I have a great deal of plaid. Turns out, you can get scads of cotton plaid at Wal-Mart for $1 a yard, and several years ago (when I had more money than sense) I stocked up on hideous plaids. Don't ask me why. Most of them are still on the bolt. Trouble is, I don't particularly want to go through the trouble of matching up all those piddly little stripes. My brilliant idea is to cover the back and sides of the couch in heavy muslin or canvas (painter's drop cloth=cheap!) or some other kid and cat-proof material, but cover the cushions in different plaids. I think it could end up looking quite cool. The other thing I like about this idea is that the cushions would be fairly easy to re-cover if I get tired of the plaid, or if I just want to swap it out seasonally. I'm a big fan of cozy and country (roosters everywhere, I kid you not), but the hubby prefers sleek and modern. I think I might be able to blend the two together if I use dark stained wooden blocks for chair legs and plain muslin or canvas for the slip-covers, but tossing that plaid on there will give it that nice touch of homey coziness that I am so fond of. Let's see if I can put this plan into action.

I still haven't gotten much done in the kids' room.

I did get their beds separated, and that has made a huge difference, but sometimes it seems like a bit of a lost cause to me. It's always such a mess in there, and I don't have the money to do all the things I want to do. The "m" word again. I need to make do. I've always been pretty crafty, and this is really a make it work moment for me. I need to get on the ball. For reals.

The choices I have made

I’ve been going back and forth over my decision to leave the working world. I wasn’t fired or laid off. I made the conscious choice to walk away. I don’t feel like I walked away from a major career opportunity or anything. It was childcare, for crying out loud. It was a job, a means to an end. I was making just over minimum wage, and had no hope of ever making more unless I went back to school. The return for the years of education isn’t worth it, and I wasn’t crazy about the job anyway. Sure, I didn’t hate it, but I really didn’t see myself taking care of other peoples’ kids for the rest of my life.

I made the choice to stay home for the good of my family and my marriage. The amount of stress that we were dealing with wasn’t worth my measly wage. Gavin was working late nights and having to get up very early to get the kids to school, and most of the time, he got them there late. That leaves the kids getting in trouble and getting behind in school, and him cranky from very little sleep, and me cranky from dealing with screaming toddlers all day, only to come home and have the demands of my own family to meet. I was spent. There are women who seem to breeze through it all beautifully. I envy them, but I know I am not one of them. Everything around me seemed to be falling apart, so I left my job. In the equation of my life, I needed to get rid of something, so I got rid of the thing that meant the least to me.

Now, I think I may have made a terrible mistake. I spent the weekend in my grandmother’s spotless house and listened to her go on and on about people who worked hard and were successful, and I realized that I am not one of those people. I will not BE one of those people. I’m not going back to school so I can get an education and get a better job; I am not currently looking for full-time employment, and I have no desire to do so. I will, of course, find work if I must, to help support my family. I am trying to make it work without doing that, though. I feel like it is more important for me to be here and to make sure my household is run properly.

Admittedly, this is something I am also failing at. I am trying very hard to get better. I am trying to make it work. I know where I have been falling behind and have a pretty good idea at what direction to take from here. Still, it nags at me. Did I do the right thing? I’ve been asking my husband that question. I feel like I need to be validated in my choice. I suppose that is why I am blogging about it. I need someone to tell me that I did the right thing.

Internet gems

Since I have been at my grandmother's (perfect) house all weekend, I have had some time to catch up on blogs I haven't read in a while and some new ones as well. With the holiday season steamrolling this way, I have been looking for great ideas for things I can make for those on my gifting list. I don't know about you, dear readers, but I enjoy something handmade. My friend Julie always makes some sort of tasty chutney and gives it to us in a little jelly jar (reusable-holla!). Her chutney is amazing. I have no idea how to make it, but it certainly is delicious. My husband made a delicious rib roast last year for Yule and I spread some of her chutney on it... YUM!

I'm not going to give away too many hints about what I'm making in case the friends on the receiving end of this creativity try to jump on and catch some sneak peaks at what they are getting :) I will probably post teaser pics (if I can find my camera) closer to the holidays and hopefully post some pics and tutorials after everything has been passed along to its new owner. Suffice it to say, I am really ready to get home and clean out my craft room. Let's see if the excitement lasts :) It might do me some good to drag out a decoration or two- early, I know, but still.... If I can sort of get the ball rolling, maybe I'll be able to maintain my momentum.