We Have a New Friend

I am excited to introduce you to our new friend! We first discovered him when my hubby was out back mowing and he hopped out of some tall grass. We suspect that this little guy is hanging out under the A/C compressor, and he comes out at night to eat bugs with his gecko friends. He come up to the patio when it gets dark and the lights from the house attract lots of bugs. When we scare him, he hops over and hides under the A/C. I figure he probably likes it under there with all the condensation and whatnot. So, here he is for your viewing pleasure - Mr. Toad!

Bread

I have always wanted to make my own bread, but thought that kneading was some sort of intricate and tricky process that I just wouldn't be able to get right. I finally decided to tackle my fear, and the hubby and I set out on a breadmaking adventure. We thought it would be fun to have a pictorial documentation of the process, so here it is for your enjoyment!


This is the recipe we used, from my Joy of Cooking cookbook:


Here I am mixing the yeast with warm water. I opted to buy the jar of yeast instead of the packets, because it is actually much cheaper in the long run:


While the yeast dissolved, I worked on mixing up some other ingredients in my trusty Kitchenaid mixer. Apparently I had some sort of weird ponytail thing going on that day:


Adding the melted butter! Actually, it's margarine, but that works too:


And a little salt:


And the yeast! Without this, it would have been a breadmaking disaster:


Now just add the flour and mix:


Mix until it looks like this:


And get ready for some kneading fun! It actually turned out to be super easy, so I don't know what I was afraid of for all those years.


Here it is, all kneaded and ready to rise. See you in a little while, ball of dough!


It grew:


And now I get to punch it down - Take, that ya big ball of dough!


Forming it into mounds for each loaf:


And forming it into loaves:


And here are all my pretty dough loaves all lined up in their pans and ready to rise:


Get on in there and cook up into some tasty bread!


Hmm... Somehow I thought it would turn out bigger than this...

Ok, I know that was cheesy, but we just had to do it!

Here's what it really looked like:


So I put it on the cooling rack to cool before I sliced it up.


After much impatient waiting, we finally got to slice it!




Let me tell you, this bread was so good, I don't ever want to buy store bought bread again! As a matter of fact, I have another batch ready to go in the oven right now.

Sports

I think this speaks for itself. I like it.

I Cleaned Out The Refrigerator Today

It was due a cleanout since there was no place to put the new food because all the old food was in the way. There was lots of stuff to toss in there. I actually cleaned it out about a month or so ago, but I didn't do as good a job as I could have. So there was stuff I had neglected to take care of during that cleanout as well as the stuff that had built up since then. Fun things like the remnants of our New Year's Day dip fiesta. Uh-huh, you read that right. New Year's Day. It's June now. There was the remnant of a cheese ball that was even on a Christmas plate to add a little holiday spirit to the fridge. There was also the hardened chunk of cream cheese with crusty jalapeno jelly o top of it. Appetizing. Then, of course, there were the requisite bowls of leftovers that didn't get eaten. Then there was something unexpected.



Cheese! Yummy! Not much left in there, but a little cheese is better than no cheese, right? Hmm... Let's check the date...


April 27, 2008. I guess we shouldn't eat this cheese. With it being June of 2009 now, I don't like the chances of still being safe...

Lolly Lolly Lolly Get Your Egg Burps Here...

Ok, I have more Youtube fun to offer for your enjoyment today. When I was little, there was this educational ad that played on TV. I think they played it during Saturday morning cartoons or something. I liked the tune, and I would sing along with it. Here's the kicker: I thought they were singing about something completely different than what they were really singing about. The ad has some people in a store singing about adverbs. They sang "Lolly, Lolly, Lolly Get Your Adverbs Here..." This is the only part of the song that I "knew the words" to. Obviously I was not paying enough attention to the ad. What I sang was "Lolly, Lolly, Lolly Get Your Egg Burps Here..." I know now that there is a distinct difference between an adverb and an egg burp, and I think if I had paid more attention to the ad when I was little, I may have figured it out then, too. And here is the ad for your viewing pleasure!

I Like Weird Stuff

Hello! I have something fun to share today. I have had the CD this song is from for years, but I never thought to look for it on Youtube until recently. I like weird kinds of music, and this is one that qualifies. You may not like it, but at least watch it until he starts to "rap", because that's the best part! Feel free to let me know what you think of this artist who I affectionately call "The Bobo".

Darn Bird!

Hello there! We love birds here at our house. We have lots of bird feeders and we put out tasty seeds for them and watch them eat it. We even have binoculars so we can get a closer look at our feathered friends and enjoy their presence to the fullest extent possible. We have houses for them out back and every spring, we enjoy keeping tabs on the new little baby birds.

One particular bird has me a little annoyed, though. Well, I suspect it was a bird, but there is no actual proof. You know how sometimes the birds fly into the windows? Well, last Friday, I was all excited because I didn't have to leave for work until 10:00. I was having a nice, relaxing lazy morning. I was just relaxing in the tub when I heard a really loud "THUD". I thought "Oh goodness, that bird hit the window hard!" You see, birds have hit our windows so many times that I have gotten pretty good at identifying that sound as opposed to other sounds. Well, this ruined the relaxing bath, so I hurried to check on the poor bird that hit the window. Sometimes they end up sitting around on the ground below the window for a little while before they fly away. And then there are the poor little birds that don't recover from their collision, but we don't want to think about that, now, do we?

Anyway, back to my story. I went around the house, looking out the windows for a sad little bird. When I went into what we call the "Fun Room" (where we have the computers), I saw glass on the ledge outside the window. That's right, the bird broke the window. I was sure that if it broke the window, it would be on the ground outside looking all sad, but there was no sign of it. There also wasn't anything else out there that didn't belong. The only evidence was a broken window. Fortunately, we have those double paned windows and it only broke the outside glass, so it's not like there is a hole there that is exposing us to the elements. Still, I am not too excited about having a broken window.

Here are some pictures of the fun for your enjoyment.