Not Important

I am breaking my blog silence with a totally unimportant and silly post.  See, there’s this website called Better After that shows makeovers.  Mostly of furniture.  I catch up on it once in a while because the author is so funny.  She comes up with the most funny and creative post titles and her writing style is sarcastic and hilarious.

Anyway, she has an annual Ugly Lamp contest where you get to vote in several rounds of ugly lamps, and finally, vote for the ugliest lamp of all.

There was this super ugly lamp at the Share Shed in town, so I snapped a picture and sent it to her.  She replied, “HAAAAAAAA! Ok, this one made me laugh out loud.  What in the world???!!!  Thanks so much for submitting this Rebekah, it’s hilariously terrible!”

And then I forgot all about it.

Until this morning when I clicked on her website and found the Ugly Lamp contest results.

No, my lamp didn’t win.

Told you this was unimportant.

But my lamp make it into the competition!  It was in the 3rd round, but it was up against some of the nastiest, worst lamps on the planet, so I wasn’t surprised that it didn’t win.

I know you’re on the edge of your seat to see the ugliness of this lamp I found, so click here and scroll down to entry number 18.  Don’t forget to read the commentary on all these lamps.  And if you want to see the winning lamp, click here!

FYI, these lamps are pretty horrific.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Artisan Bread In One Shower A Week

I used to make bread back when I had one angel child and ate a lot more carbs.

Now I have three angels, one of whom is itchy a lot and wakes up at night for no apparent reason.  I spring out of bed and flit over to hers in the dark with one blurry eye propped open, always avoiding tripping over the bear head on the floor in front of the playpen, cause sometimes looks trump practicality and it LOOKS cool to have a bear rug under the baby’s bed.

I have to get there before she actually makes a noise, cause I need the extra time to grope around for one of the 3 soothers hiding all around her and poke it into her mouth before she knows she woke up.  Otherwise I’ll have to feed her again.  Which isn’t so bad cause I just take her back to bed with me and drift in and out of consciousness until she starts snoring, at which time I pop the soother into her mouth that I remembered to bring with me from her bed, if I was able to find it at all, and carry her back to bed.  She goes back to sleep, and I tiptoe back to bed, always avoiding tripping over the bear head, and fall back asleep whilst retrieving my half of the blankets from the other side of the bed.

Repeat 3 more times.

Now thanks to daylight savings time, I can see the bear head for the last two treks across the floor.

What was I talking about?

Oh yeah, BREAD.

I love bread.  I used to make 4 loaves a week of lovely whole wheat bread with my very own recipe that I made up (it’s on this blog somewhere) and my Kitchen Aid.  Then my Aid up and quit and I was pregnant and didn’t want to couldn’t knead the dough.  That was two summers ago.

I found other things to eat for breakfast and let the kids eat store-bought bread once in a while, while I recovered from being pregnant and prepared to move a full day’s drive away.  I took last summer off making bread too.

Then I ran out of alternative breakfast ideas because I stopped eating dairy and eggs for baby’s sake (and mine).  Totally awesome to stop eating those when you own a cow and chickens.

So Darryl has been buying the kids the store bakery’s whole wheat bread and buying me the nice artisan sourdough, which isn’t REAL sourdough and MAY contain milk.  Ugh.  So because I’m just feeling lazy even though I get all the sleep I want, I’m trying the Artisan Bread In 5 Minutes A Day recipe, cause I can carve out that much time every day if I skip one shower a week.  I figured it all out.

Basically, you stir some salt and yeast into warm water in a big bowl, then dump in some flour, give it a stir, and let it sit, covered, for a couple hours before storing it in the fridge.  Then whenever you want bread, you pull off a chunk and let it sit on the counter while the oven warms up, then you dust it with flour and slice perfect patterns in the top with a knife and pop it in the oven for 30 minutes.

Cute.  I did it the way they suggested the first time cause that’s how I roll.  I pulled off the recommended grapefruit sized chunk, and I totally remember how big a grapefruit is cause I’ve totally bought one since I got married.  I guess I underestimated how much flour to put on my hands before handling the wet dough and fumbled with the sticky glob for a while, trying to pry it off my fingers in one piece.  That was amusing.  I should have let one of my angel kids do that and taken a picture to prove they do school sometimes.  But, like I said, I’m feeling lazy this year.

The recipe says the lump may not rise much depending on the age of the dough or something, and they were right.  It stayed grapefruit sized, more or less, until I slashed the top in a perfect pattern and slid smushed it off the cutting board and onto the baking stone in the  450 degree oven.

It came out perfect!

The only downside was…it was only slightly larger than a grapefruit.  But it tasted AMAZING.

It didn’t make it through the day.  And I didn’t want to do that EVERY day either cause I like showers, so the next day, I doubled it.  I pulled off a lump the size of TWO grapefruit and baked that, after remembering to use WAY more cornmeal on the cutting board (it actually slid nicely onto the baking stone!), only I didn’t leave it in the oven long enough and the middle was raw.   I tried again, cooking it until it sounded hollow when thumped on the bottom, but by then, the entire crust was so chewy that everyone else in my family complained.  No one appreciates crusty bread in this house.

Soooo back to the drawing board Pinterest I went and found instructions for cooking this exact bread recipe in the crock pot.  That sounded more like it.  I used the double-grapefruit batch and the parchment paper and it cooked for about 3 hours before I risked taking it out.  The bottom was crusted, but not too bad, and the top was a light dough colour, so I browned it under the broiler.  Not quite long enough, but at least the top was soft.  Yum!  It lasted 2 days.  Perfect.  I can do that every 2 days.  Especially with NO cleanup!

So that is how I make bread now.  Except next time I’m going to put the parchment on one of those expanding steamer thingies so it’s not touching the pot, and maybe it won’t get so crusty on the bottom.  And I’ll remember to slash the top when I first put it in so it looks like artisan bread instead of a mound of pale dough.

Now watch, I’ll have to quit eating wheat for Pete’s baby’s sake and I’ll have to eat hash browns for breakfast every morning.

Can I make those in the crock pot?

2013 Anniversary Photo

Hey.  I know, it’s been a while.

Just wanted to share our anniversary photo(s) with you!

I had 6 spots left on my camera, and trying to get everyone in the photo is tricky when you’re dealing with a cow not used to being led, a dog who is scared of the cow, and a chicken who would rather be anywhere else.  And then getting a 2 year old boy to look AT the camera when we’re behind him telling him to look at the camera.  Gets a little crazy.

The horses, especially the white one, were pretty dirty and their manes are full of burrs, so we were content to show their rear ends instead of their heads.  The cow was supposed to be standing in front of the garbage cans.  She’s not very cooperative though.  I’m holding a chicken in the photo above, but Kai didn’t make it into that photo.

He’s in this one though!  Grovelling at our feet trying to look as harmless to the cow as possible.  She’s eyeing him up for an attack.

I cropped the next one so the quality isn’t as good.  But it kind of reminds me of a Norman Rockwell painting, with the dog wandering off (getting away from the cow as quickly as possible), Chad looking the wrong way, and Sadie looking frightfully bored with it all.

I probably could crop out the truck in the first two photos, since just that day Darryl was pulled over and told he’d have to get it fixed and inspected before he drove it again cause it’s been belching a lot of smoke lately.  It needs a new engine, but I think we’ll just try to get a different truck eventually.  One with 4 doors!

Only two months till we meet the next addition to our family!  Yay!

6th Anniversary Photo!

As you may be aware, we take a photo every year around our anniversary (Sept. 23) just to show us in front of our house with our vehicle(s) and animals (Here’s #5, #4, and #3).

This year, we were a couple weeks late, but that’s cause we decided to clean out the shed the weekend of our anniversary so the whole front area was covered with piles of random stuff for 2 weeks before we found time to finish building new saddle racks and shelves in the shed and hauling most of the stuff back in.  Oh, and Darryl also sheeted most of the walls in the shed in an attempt to reduce the mouse problem.

Anyway, we finally got the yard cleaned up just in time for my seester Hannah to come over to take our photo.

So here it is.

Part of the fun of this photo is figuring out how to get all the animals in it.  We didn’t.  And I’ll tell you why.

(Deep breath) Darryl had the rooster under one arm and grabbed the cat with the other arm, but the rooster didn’t like being so close to the cat and started squawking, which made the cat hiss and try to run away.  Darryl grabbed the cat’s foot and Kai thought this looked like fun so he tried to get the cat while the rooster kept squawking and the cat hissing.  There was no making peace between them all so Darryl let go of the cat, who streaked away, and then for some reason Kai DID NOT want to come anywhere near the cow (maybe because she gives him the stare-down and threatens to run him over if he gets anywhere near her).  So he was cowering over by Hannah while she took the pictures.

At least we got the rooster in the picture.

Oh, and to add to the chaos, Sadie was scared from the rooster squawking and was crying the whole time.

Moola and the horses were pretty cooperative.

And, yes, I was laughing most of the time.  That’s how I deal with chaos.

Thanks Hannah!

Farmgirl Fashion

Now that Sadie is dextrous enough to dress herself, I usually let her pick her own outfits.  Some are rather interesting, some have pieces worn wrong, but for the most part, they’re all very creative and actually look pretty cute.

There are times when I do veto her choices, like when she wants to wear pyjamas or spaghetti strapped dresses outside on a cold, rainy day, or wants to wear her good shoes outside to play (she has farm shoes for that purpose).  I also give her suggestions when she’s frustrated because she can’t find anything in her drawers (that would be because all her clean clothes are strewn about her bedroom floor and the just-washed clothes are in the laundry basket.  She hates looking in the laundry basket and usually quits as soon as she sees it).  I help her pick out outfits for church sometimes, but she usually does pretty good.  I might only suggest a jacket or sweater or accessories.

I try to let her be creative with her dressing and if it’s not terrible or embarrassing I let it go.  That doesn’t happen too often though.  It also helps that I keep her wardrobe small, with one drawer for tops and one for bottoms, including pyjamas.  The tops drawer has sweaters, long sleeves, t-shirts, tank tops and pj tops, while the bottom drawer has pants, leggings, shorts, shirts and pj bottoms.  If she starts getting so many clothes that they don’t all fit, I get rid of my least favourite, or the ones she doesn’t wear much.  It’s pretty easy for her to mix and match cause most things seem to go together pretty well (notice I said MOST).

When I get her up in the morning (I taught her to stay in her room until I come get her), she’s often dressed in a combination of items I would never have thought to put together, but they work on her.  It’s fun seeing the outfits she comes up with.

I’ve been snapping photos of her outfit choices on and off since I got my new phone, and I’m going to compile them all here for your enjoyment.

I think I helped her a little on this outfit by suggesting the jacket.  She wanted the necklace, which is actually a t-shirt necklace I made.  She wears it a lot.

I wasn’t too crazy about this one, but we didn’t have to go anywhere, and she actually was rather coordinated without looking like she was trying too hard.

She chose this outfit to wear to a friend’s house and donned the hat when she got there, and wouldn’t put the kitten down.

The jacket didn’t really work here, but the rest of it wasn’t too bad (there were pink flowers on the pants).  We were only outside to do some chores anyway.

Hee hee.  Red skirt, hot pink leggings, top with pink and red stars, red boots…it kinda works.  She let me put a pony tail in her hair.  That doesn’t happen every day, or every week.

This was after her nap the same day.  Different shirt, add a necklace and a scarf.  Lose the pony.

I think this one is my favourite.  The sparkly shoes complete the look.

Sparkly shoes on backwards.  I only let her wear them outside because they were pretty much too small anyway, and she got new ones.

This was the same day as the previous photo, only she added a sweater and a red skirt.

I have no words.

She did up the buttons herself.  And that’s an apron she’s wearing as a necklace. (I’ll show you the finished playground soon!)

And then there’s this outfit from the previous post.

This is what she wore to her cousin’s firetruck birthday party.

And finally, a sporty little number for doin’ chores.

She cracks me up.

Quick Change

I woke up this morning and I just hated everything.

(Name that movie)

Ok, it wasn’t that dramatic (or this morning.  Try last week.) but with spring around the corner (or several corners) I was wishing my living room was a bit brighter.  This room suffers from a complete lack of outdoor light, other than the intense spotlight of sunshine beaming in through the kitchen skylight at certain times of the year.  When there’s actually sun.  And then all it does is heat up the spot on the floor.  It doesn’t share light to the rest of the room, which is still shrouded in darkness.

Anyway, there are 2 side-by-side windows overlooking the covered porch that have had nice red drapes I made shortly after we moved in, but since that was almost 3 years ago and I’m female they had been too dark for too long, I HAD to change them.

Here’s what my drapes looked like before.  Sorry about the Christmas shot.  It was the best I could find.

Here’s what they look like now!

I got the urge to make these about 6 hours before a bunch of my friends were coming over for my birthday party.  I had an extra white king-sized sheet that I got from the thrift store for $2, originally for a crocheted rug, but I can always get another one for $2.  They always have lots of white sheets in stock.  I cut it across the middle so the top and bottom hems (which were identical) could be the inside seams of each panel.  I had to hem the other side of each panel, then fold over the top and make a pocket for the rod.  So 2 seams on each panel.  I didn’t pin or iron anything (as you can tell from the photo), and I didn’t hem the bottom either.  If I get tired of the puddling on the floor, I can slip them off and hem them easily, but I like them for now.

I might still add a strip of green or red grosgrain ribbon down the inside seam of each panel, just to add some interest and colour.

It definitely lightens up the room a bit.

This is how I plan to finish the two 8 foot windows in the addition when it gets finished.  One day.  But let’s not talk about that.

 

Note: Yesterday when I posted this, I tried doing a little rollover trick where the picture would change if you roll your mouse over it.  I copied a code that was supposed to do this and inserted it with the correct URL’s for each photo, and it worked!  Until I published it.  After a lot of frustrated research where many people said it wasn’t possible in WordPress, I gave up.  I need a better understanding of HTML code, and apparently Javascript and CSS too.  That’s not exactly what I signed up for.  Ugh.

Oh, and the creepy photo I was telling you about (in case you saw this post yesterday) is shown here.  Totally loses it’s creepy effect when it’s shown this way.  But it’s still a goofy picture at least.

A Moment In Time

It’s friday again.

That means it’s time for the weekly photo, remember?

Well, the two of you who voted may remember.

Some bloggers do a similar post where they post one photo on fridays with no words, like Soulemama.

I like the thought of posting a photo and not having to write anything, and I would hope that my pictures tell enough of a story that I could do that, but the truth is, I like writing words.

Talking, not so much, but when I write words, I can take as long as I want and nobody interrupts and I can delete anything that sounds retarded.

So here is my weekly photo.

I’m sure you can guess what’s going on.

We were driving through Saskatchewan.

All was quiet in the back seat.

I looked back.

I turned to Darryl and said “She has a beard” (true story).

We snicker.

It’s dry erase marker.

What Do You Think?

I’m thinking about starting a Photo Of The Week post, just so I can show you random silly or amazing or ridiculous or sentimental photos.

Of course, that means I’d have to blog more often than I have been and that’s no good.

But it was the following photo that inspired me to come up with the idea.  It took about 5 nanoseconds to think about it and start writing this post.

Now as I have second thoughts think about it more I realize what a great idea it is, because if I can’t think of anything to write about, I can find some obscure photo that never made it to the blog yet and would make for very boring reading should I try to expound on the subject of said photo, and call it a day (or a week).

But in this case (and probably most cases, should I actually post a weekly photo), I will tell you how I came to take this photo.

I was on facebook (don’t judge) late at night and saw a picture posted by a friend of her son’s bed, with the covers pulled up and Elmo’s head sticking out.  She mentioned how she “almost died laughing” and I got a good chuckle out of it too.  Then I happened to look over and see Woody smiling back at me from inside this large glass vase, and I almost died laughing.  He’s hanging by his hat and his feet don’t quite touch the bottom.

Maybe I should go to bed.  It’s not really that funny, is it?

Ok, if it at LEAST made you smile, please leave a comment and let me know if my brilliant (sleep-deprivation-inspired) idea is a good one or if I should stick to my usual scattering of posts.

I’m going to bed now.