Bread Machine: My New Best Friend?

Over the last few weeks, I have used intermittently a bread machine that my mother picked up at a yard sale some time ago. I've wanted to bake more of our family's bread for both health and budget reasons, plus, the bonus of having fresh bread. There are few things that I think are more wonderful than a warm piece of fresh bread with a thick spread of butter across it.

Today, I am trying a new recipe. I've already tried a couple of recipes that came in the machine directions (I'll post reviews reviews on them another time), and ready to expand my horizons beyond the two practical recipes that were included. The experiment today is from Bread Machine Digest and the recipe is called Ultimate Sandwich Bread.

I did have to change the recipe a little bit because I did not have rye flour on hand, so I just used additional white flour.

THE VERDICT: Absolutely Delicious! The first thing I noticed when I cut the first slice was how easy it was to cut, i.e. light crust. The other two recipes I've tried were heavier breads that produced a heavy crust even when baked on the light crust setting. The crust is crisp and crunchy, but it didn't wear my jaws and leave them temporarily sore for a while like a heavier crust does.

The texture of the bread was light and tasty. A very mild flavored bread. I would like one with a little more flavor, but it's a nice neutral. Lucy likened it to store bread, which she has preferred over previous bread machine recipes. This was a winner in her opinion.

No more store bread from us now that I have a good base bread for our daily eating. Time to cook some more. The loaf hasn't been out the machine for an hour, and already half of it is gone.

Carpal Tunnel Means My Forearms Hate Me

Okay, so specifically, my right forearm hates me.

A few weeks ago, I received an amazingly HUGE stash of yarn - five garbage bags of yarn. In exchange for it, I committed to knit some scarfs to donate to the GPS (Greater Paducah Sustainability) recycling center for fund raising. Pretty sweet deal considering the awesome collection and variety I had gained.

I picked my first yarn and, after some trial and error in deciding needle size and gauge, I finally start knitting my first scarf. Cast on, *knit three rows, purl three rows, repeat from *. I threw in a second color for some stripes. After six sets of that pattern, I went to bed.

The next morning, my right forearm was sore. Knitting too tight, I thought, Those muscles haven't had such a work out. But then it was still pretty sore the next day, and the next. Yesterday (day3) I tried to pick up a piece of dry spaghetti to throw away. I couldn't pick it up without putting my hand in a really odd position. The rest of the day, I tried to figure out what muscles were still out of whack and decided the aches were connected to my index finger.

Last night, I asked Chris to massage my forearm and when I said "ow" in some specific spots, he stopped and said the dreaded statement: "Deana, I think you have carpal tunnel." NO!!! It's just work out soreness - it's just nothing - it's just...okay, maybe it is carpal tunnel. Dang.

Thinking through it, I haven't had problems from being on the computer. I haven't had problems holding Edmund with only one arm and my wrist bent at a 90 degree angle. I haven't had problems knitting. I didn't any problems...until I was doing all of those forearm-intensive-activities so close together.

So now I'm trying to pay a lot of attention to my posture and correct as much as possible, and, of course, get as many massages out of my husband as I can. :)

Finally Updating

While typing this one-handed, I'm glad to be updating the blog at all.

Edmund was born in October, and Lucy is the best big sister.

At 8 1/2 months old, Edmund first tooth is coming through, and a few days ago, he took his first steps! I knew i was in trouble when he was standing at eight months. Nothing is sacred now.

Considering restarting the blog

So i'm considering starting again on here. Feel free to vote yea or nay.

The Ultrasound Sneak Peek

IT'S A BOY!!!! Very exciting (and Lucy's getting pretty excited, too, even though she really wanted a sister; she's confidant the third baby will be a girl).

Ultrasound--Coming Soon!

In two weeks, I'll have an ultrasound to check on the baby...and we decided that we're going to find out what we're having. It breaks our tradition (Lucy was a surprise!), but we're quite a bit poorer this time around since Chris is in school. After two weeks, I'll either be buying baby boy clothes' at yard sales, or go get baby clothes from my parents' to wash in the laundry.

But before I let myself start doing pre-baby laundry and getting ahead of myself, we'll be switching Lucy's room with the third bedroom that's been the pantry/craft workshop (in reality, it's been more of a dumping ground--it's pure chaos). But I'm so excited to find out! I had bought tons of pink fabric about a year ago to make curtains for Lucy, and I hadn't done it yet, and now I'll feel (a little) bad if we have a boy and the kids' room (I can say "KIDS" now!) is all pink.

May 12th is the big day!

I know I haven't blogged for a while, but I had to wait

What I've been going through lately, has been underwraps, and there just hasn't been really anything else to write about, but now it's time to write, proclaim to the world...that....

I'M PREGNANT!!

Yes, I've been sick. Yes, I've had constant nausea. Yes, I'm feeling better now. And yes, I'm EXCITED!!!

Baby #2 is due 15 October. I am 12 weeks along now, and I just retrieved my maternity pants from my parents' attic because my pants are starting to get pinchy.

My appointment in the beginning of May is when we'll find about the baby's sex. Lucy was a surprise, but this time, there's less cash flow and I want to make good use of yard sales this summer. That's just how it goes when you're husband is in school and the baby will be born after yard sale season.

I think I'll throw myself a party.

Ice Storm 2009--The Ugly Side of It

Here's a neighbor a few doors down.

These are the trees behind our next door neighbor.

Broken trees on the main street in our neighborhood.

My favorite tree in my neighborhood destroyed!

Besides tree destruction, there was also widespread power outages. We only had our power out for about three days (we like winter camping, and I was a little bummed to go back to normal), while some people we know like my parents are still without power (today is day 16 for them) because of damage to power poles.

Fortunately, the ice and snow cam on Tuesday and Wednesday--by the weekend we had 50 degree temperatures, and it's been relatively warm since, a couple of days hit 70 degrees. The storm was quick and brutal, but it has been a great blessing that the Lord has sent warmer weather for the area to defrost. This was good experience in emergency preparedness.

Ice Storm 2009--The Pretty Side of It

Here's the nice layer of ice that blanketed our area. This piece I scraped from the driveway.

Lucy hard at work. I was shoveling the drive to have an ice-free zone for our charcoal grill for cooking.

Here's the front of our house. Beautiful isn't it?

It's a rare treat to get to play in the snow in Kentucky. There's always plenty of ice, but only a couple of times during the winter is there enough snow accumulation to play in.

Grass icicles in my front yard.

A Beautiful View of Our Clothesline.

It iced and then snowed on January 27th and 28th. Very Pretty. But there was an ugly side.

One of My Favorite Blessings...

...is Lucy. What an amazing combination of traits that makes up her personality. I wrote on her blog about being head butted by her accidentally and her sweet compassion that came out in that event. It's incredible to see her grow and learn. She has grown since her birthday as evidenced by increasing shortness to her clothes. She talks all about growing, and getting bigger these days, and she looking forward to it. And as she grows bigger, I think about how we would love to have another baby, and then that in turn makes me so much more thankful that we have her smiley, bouncing body jumping around the house.

So many things to be grateful for. So many ways the Lord has blessed me. Lucy is just one.

A Summary

So keeping up a blog recently has been too much for me. I seemingly don't have that much to do, but then I count up everything and, well, it all adds up. Since I haven't written a post for quite a while, I'm going to summarize:

Right before Thanksgiving, Chris's brother and his family came into the area from Texas. Chris's sister-in-law is from Marion, IL, one hour north. We were quite glad for the opportunity for Lucy to play with cousins.

We needed to take family pictures for Christmas presents to Chris's parents, so we all went downtown in Paducah for some nice backgrounds.

Our successful family portrait--we went through a few photos until we picked out the one that we liked best. Thank goodness for digital.

The beginning of our trip to Utah. Lucy and I got to tag along with my parents. We left the day after Thanksgiving.

Lucy watches WALL-E with her cousin, Jaden, son of Chris's brother, Steven.

The whole reason Lucy and I got to go to Utah--my sister, Denise, had a reception to celebrate her marriage to Cody Dunne (sorry, Cody, that your picture didn't make it in here--but you're on facebook!)

We got to go to Temple Square in Salt Lake City.
We didn't get to spend much time at Temple Square, but the time we did, was great family time.

Lucy with her Grandma Bobbee.

Lucy and her cousin, Camden, son of Chris's sister, Susan. We played at Chuck E. Cheese.

When we came home from Utah, Chris surprised me with a piano. It was given to him by a mom of one of my friends. Thanks, Caroline! When I saw it, I cried--First time I have ever cried at a surprise. There's a first for everything.

Mid-December, we had our first snow for the winter season. Our driveway is a hill and Chris showed Lucy one of the many uses of a snow shovel.

Lucy helps put away her panties. She saw Cinderella carry stuff on her head and Lucy was quite proud of her tried posture.

The Christmas Party of the Ruth Johnson School of Dance.

I made cookie baskets for Christmas presents. There's something magical about a stockpot full of chocolate chip cookies.

Chris and I took a nap, and Lucy decided to eat some powdered sugar... with a cookie scoop...on my yoga mat...on the couch.

Christmas Eve was spent at my parents' house. We had quite a group, even if it was just a small portion of the Harris family.

Lucy got her first makeover from Aunt Denise on Christmas Eve.

For the first time, we put out cookies for Santa. Not because we really wanted to, but because someone asked Lucy about it right before we got home to go to sleep for Christmas Eve sleep. Sorry, we just weird about what Christmas traditions we want to do.

Makeover #2 on Christmas Day. Again, compliments of Aunt Denise.

Lucy tried out an icing bucket.

At our New Year's Day Party, Queen Lucy asked one of our guests to arrest someone and bring them before her. Donielle got arrested, and was thrilled at the prospective of being a subject to Queen Lucy.

Beginning of January, we said goodbye to our friends, Cat & Bethany, as they move to Washington. We'll miss them, but with Facebook, there are no goodbye's.

At Cat & Bethany's farwell party, Lucy went around to a few tables and made still-life setups (which she did photograph) with her Barbie and Ken dolls.

There's the summary of our holidays and in-between adventures!!