More Goodies from "Artisan Bread"

I'm definitely going to buy the Artisan Bread book! I made sticky pecan rolls this morning for Easter brunch and herb dinner rolls for Easter dinner!  I'm channeling my inner Martha today...

The Lawn, The House, or a Life?

As we gear up for the baby to arrive (less than two months to go!) we've been discussing the possibility of getting a yard and house-cleaning service to help us out.

We've realized that neither actually enjoys taking care of the lawn. We love growing veggies and get really excited to plan new landscaping, but can't get motivated to maintain the grass. Parts of our yard are in pretty bad shape. Although I have to say it looks much better today! BIG thanks to mother nature for a dry day and my hubby breaking out the lawn mower. :) It doesn't help that the lawn is completely filled with weeds and moss.  I do try to weed in the front yard, but I've given up on the back.  We both agree we would like to remove most of the grass over time any time so I look the other way as the back yard is taken over by bright yellow flowers and fuzzy orbs all summer long.

In addition to the mowing, neither of us enjoys picking up after the dogs. It's just not a fun chore. So...we have been searching for a lawn mowing and dog clean-up service around Seattle. Along with the lawn, we're also anticipating that house cleaning is going to be low on our list of priorities with a new baby...so I've got a few leads and I'll be meeting with house cleaners in the next month.

I think we both felt a little uneasy with the idea of hiring out these tasks.  I felt like maybe we were giving up--shouldn't we be able to keep our house sparkling clean, grow a beautiful yard, rock full-time jobs, be the best parents ever to our new baby, and maintain an exciting social life?

In the end, I'm pretty happy we're thinking about this now instead of four months from now when it would inevitably be totally overwhelming. Today was a perfect example of why this will be a great use of our money. Seeing and smelling our freshly cut grass put a huge smile on my face, but I would much rather have taken a walk on a sunny evening with my husband and our dogs.

Book Review: "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day"

A friend recently saw my "bread fail" post and recommended that I check out this book: "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day". The approach is very simple. It consists of making a large batch of bread dough (enough for four loaves) and refrigerating the dough. According to the authors, the dough stays good in the fridge for two weeks.  When you have time to make a loaf of bread, you can just cut some of the dough off the large batch of dough sitting in your fridge and bake it!

The book has a "master" recipe for simple loaves, which I'm starting with, and then a lot of other great sounding bread with nuts, fruit, and herbs added. There is a short video on Amazon.com with the authors showing their basic recipe, which you can watch here if you want to give it a try.

I'll do a follow-up with a picture after I bake some bread!


Success!  Not bad for a first try!!

Safety First!

I picked up a baby gate with a swinging door yesterday and Tony installed it at the top of the stairs last night. Joy!  You might be thinking that we are ridiculously organized and already baby-proofing our entire house. Not the case! The baby room floors are still being refinished..and then we have to paint!

We previously had a regular baby gate in the same spot  to prevent the dogs from getting to the basement (and cat box...which they like to make a mess of).  The other baby gate was working for a while...but I've gotten to "that" point in my pregnancy.  You know, the point where I should probably stop wildly swinging my legs over a three foot high barrier at the top of a steep flight of stairs. Although I'm sure it would be entertaining for anyone who happens to be watching.

Anyhow...we've had it installed for a day, and I'm so inspired I decided to do a blog post :)  But it really has made doing laundry a lot easier!