Gone!

I will be out of town at a work conference this week, and I am leaving my computer with my husband at home (his blew up and I don't really need my laptop there). Hope everyone has a great week!

Please send your thoughts

If anyone reads this, can you please take a minute to send some kind words and thoughts to my friend Jewels....she can be found HERE. She is now the mother to another angel baby, and her heart is understandably breaking. =(

It's been quiet

Sorry for the quiet around here...honestly things have been pretty dull. We have a contractor coming next week to give us an estimate for the upgrades and then we are going to get the loan to fix up the house which has to be finished before November.....work still sucks (I'm changing after the new year, thank god) and the family is good. There have been some major milestones in preggo land, and some *minor* drama (which has been straightened out). So, all in all, all is well....boring, but good ;-)

This makes me sick

Literally, sick to my stomach....I couldn't even finish watching.

Headline:

Shocking Baby Launch Video Lands Teen Behind Bars

Video of the news clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKfYT7Zvpqg

Seriously....watch at your own risk because even on a good day, this just, well...hits on many levels.

Well, maybe not...

So, let me tell ya...this finding land to build on is a crazy stressful process (with limited options these days), and given our shortening time line since it takes 3 months to build a house we choose I *think* Thomas and I have decided to suck it up and just fix the house we are in. This means we will have to stay in it until the market comes out of this slump (hopefully in the next 3 years-ish) so we will actually get the equity back, but for the short term it is the best option. It is going to take about 10K to "fix" a lot of the things that need to be done, and even that won't finish everything the way we like it, but if we put any more into it we will never get it back so there is no point. We are going to focus mainly on the kitchen and bathroom and opening up the upstairs, and *if* we have money left over we are going to tackle the basement. The basement in our house is nice and it is already insullated, vented for heating/AC, and wired electric, and all it really needs is drywall and carpet to be finished BUT there is no entrance into the basement from the inside of the house, you have to walk outside. SO, it is going to take a good chunk of money to fix THAT issue. Luckily however, there are a lot of people in my family familiar with the construction business so we can do a lot of the work ourselves and only pay for material.

It isn't my first choice, but right now it is the *best* one...so we will go from here and see.

Things have been hectic

I haven't been blogging (or commenting!) a lot this week because things have been a bit hectic. Last Wednesday DH and I had a serious talk about the house and decided if we can move before November, we will. Our house, although fine for us just isn't suitable for a growing family nor does it have enough land for our dogs, so on Friday we met with our mortgage lady that we dealt with last Jan/Feb (of 2007) to see where we stand. She gave us some great options, one of which is to buy land and build a modular....so we have been searching our town for land plots ever since AND looking into the three companies her "modular guy" works with. For those of you confused about the difference between a "modular" and a "manufactured/mobile" house is....click here or here to see what we are looking into.

So, we started that process on Friday and have probably physically looked at 5 places so far with 3 or 4 more scheduled for this weekend. Then, on Saturday, DH and I went out of town to pick up our "new" car....a 98 Audi wagon and I LOVE it! Right now we are in the process of making a list of minor repairs to the house (touch up painting, waxing the floors, loose nails on the deck, etc) so we can schedule a "work" weekend (or two!) with some extra hands and put our house on the market. We plan to set it a couple thousand under market value so we attract more buyers and hopefully sell it within three months (which is the length it takes to build our home after we sign the land/construction contract) AND before the big day in Nov.

Now, if everything will just go as planned right?

A day for bread!

So, as promised, I made another loaf of no-knead bread and documented the steps along the way.

First last night around 9pm I mixed all of my dry ingredients into the bowl.


Then the water....and this is what it looked like.


THIS is what it looked like after it had been covered and allowed to rise for about 15 hours.


Next, it comes out of the bowl onto a non-stick surface (I chose wax paper) and then it is folded over on itself 3 or 4 times and ends up looking like this....


After 3 more hours of being covered and rising, it should approximately double in size again, like so...


Then, it gets put into a pan and baked (covered for 30 minutes), in which is begins to brown.


Lastly, the lid comes off and it bakes again for 20-30 more minutes with the finished product looking something like...ta da, rustic bread!


Then cool, cut, and enjoy (I prefer mine with a little bit of garlic and olive oil dip!).
YUMMY!