The One About the Breads that Never Stop

Amish Frienship Bread and Sourdough Bread never stop... you take some from it, add some to it and it keeps going and going. I've had Amish Friendship Bread starter for 20 days now and have made a whopping 12 loaves so far. Sheesh! That's a lot of bread. I've found that it does freeze... and I also made some of the loaves into muffins, bundt cake and such. I don't have enough friends to keep giving the starter to, so I devised a new plan that I'm trying this week. Today I only added 1/2 the ingredients you're supposed to and only scooped 2 cups of the started into ziplocs so I only have 2 bags of starter this week instead of 4. I did end up tossing one bag. Eek. I felt guilty, but I didn't have enough ingredients for it. It sure is yummy once it's cooked and I enjoy experimenting with it. This week I have a vanilla bundt cake that I'm going to serve w/ strawberries, 2 loaves of butterscotch, 2 doz mini muffins and 1 loaf that are french vanilla w/ craisins and white choco chips. We'll see how these turn out once they are done baking... right now it sure smells good in here!

And the sourdough bread... I started my starter about 2 weeks ago. I made a loaf the other night and Matt is raving about it. He loves it. So I'm going to keep it up as long as I remember to feed and care for the starter. We'll see how long it lasts!!

The One With the "Guy Factor"

Levi is 8 and I often just view him as one of my children, not his own person and certainly not that he's a 'guy' (i.e. male). So when he seems to ignore my request I get frustrated. This evening I had something dawn on me. Here's how it played out.

Levi sitting on couch reading a new book.
James eating but not involved in anything.

Me: "Boys. I need you to put your shoes by the front door."
James hops up and does it immediately.
Levi continues reading.
I do nothing... just continue my cleaning.
James: "Levi, Mom said to put your shoes by the front door." (he got right in Levi's space so interrupted his reading.)
Levi: "No. Mom said to take them off by the back door."

Interesting. I DID say to take them off when he first came in from outside.... so he completely didn't even hear me when I said to put them by the front door. Sounds just like what his dad does when he's involved in something... he seemingly ignores what I say... but in all reality never hears me!

I guess it's a "guy thing".

The One With the Grins

There's nothing more precious than opening your sleepy eyes in the morning to find your baby's big eyes fixated on your face and see a grin spread over her face as she sees you wake up. Yup. That's how I woke up this morning. I love those precious baby grins.

She's so fun lately! She's interacting more and more. She loves to copy what we are "saying". She growls when we growl and giggles when we giggle. She claps her hands when she's excited. She's just such a joy. Last night Matt was eating ice cream and she sat there saying "Dadadada numnumnumnum" It was so cute!

The One With the Sauce

I had some 'need to use now' tomatoes and cucumbers, so I decided to make a pasta sauce tonight. I threw those w/ some chopped onions and garlic into a pot and started to simmer them. Then I remembered that I have fresh herbs on the porch, so I put in some fresh basil and parsley. YUMMMYYY!!! I served it over whole wheat spaghetti w/ a side of sourdough bread (home made too. ) YUMMYYY!. Did I mention that yet? It was really good.

The One About a Well

Wow... so... no bites on the house yet. HA ha! Actually we have found that we apparently have no rights to the well. Or at least no deeded rights. This is insane, really. We were told one thing and now find out we were flat out lied to when we bought this house. Thanks Michele Tahy and Whitbeck Associates. Blech!

We got an estimate and will be putting a well in next week. Craziness... but it'll be good...

Just waiting on God's timing in all this and doing what we need to do to make it happen. :) That peace that surpasses all understanding is pretty amazing stuff. ;)

The One With All the Craziness

As of today our house is on the market. The ONLY issue may be that we have a shared well & can't find the deeded rights to it????? Scary business... but otherwise it's on the market and we'll see what happens from here. Good thing it's not in our hands! ;)

The realtor gave me a huge list of things to do to help enhance our selling prospects. So I've started that today... and it's a lot of work. Doesn't help that I have a teething baby... or at least I hope it's just teething & nothing else. And a toddler who is going through a crisis every 1/2 hr or so. *sigh* Right now he's trying to climb on my lap... eek.

I'm taking a quick break from cleaning... I just finished the front closet and that was a lot of work.

This is good tho. I needed to declutter and get rid of things.

The One With Direction

Forget it. I'm not posting any more pictures from our trip! I keep meaning to, but then I don't... and by now they are irrelevant, right?

So... life is fun. Getting more fun by the month! We're in limbo stage at the moment. We have a direction and a path and a plan.... it's just going to take patience & God's timing. It's all job/move related. Should be a fun next 6 months!!

I am taking a parenting class at church. It's by Kevin Lehman. Matt went last night in my place. He liked it... and we're learning a bit. We did realize that we're probably the only positive parents there. Lots of jokes about 'swatting' or 'whooping' flying around. I dunno... sometimes that just makes me uncomfortable.