Monday Madness

Well it has certainly been a full Monday at our house today.

We did homeschool this morning and I am liking having the classroom upstairs as it means we can get an earlier start on the day and then be done and accomplishing other things so much earlier in the day. It is a bit of a pain having Princess Magpie in there pushing furniture around and trying to make a nuisance of herself, but we will work that out.

Even though I am still sore as heck from my fall the other day, I even went out and shoveled off our bridge so that the mountain of snow we got in the hurricane is now gone and we are free to use both doors to our house again. I am so glad!!

We embarked on our new baking bread journey today too. We have a nice batch of bread rising on the counter as I type this and I am looking forward to trying the rewards of our labour. I used to make all our family's bread when I was a teenager and I would be happy to do so again. I just wanted to try different recipes than the one I used to make as it make a LOT of bread. So I told Princess Belle that we will try a few different recipes in the future and maybe we would be making all our own bread from now on.

Prince Belle washing her hands to bake with me. She is really love this new part of our daily life

I have made a cleaning schedule and stuck it to our fridge. We have been doing a good job at sticking to it so far. We have even been making our beds every day and I am ashamed to say that that was something that didn't get done every day in our house in the past. I have always thought that my mom would be ashamed of how I kept house compared to the way that she did (Prince Charming says she is obsessive complusive about it) but I am confident that these days she would be as proud of my house as I am. Well, she would be if she came by after the kids go to bed. I will admit that during the day while the kids are up, my house is a mess. I haven't found a way to have three kids around all day long and not have it be a disaster. I am working on it, but I haven't found it yet. For now, I content myself with knowing that every evening after the kids go to bed, the house is tidied and remains that way until they get up again the next day.

I still have some thing that I want to accomplish. I have been wanting to learn needle felting and wet felting. I think it would be so much fun for me in the evenings to sit down and do needle felting while relaxing with Prince Charming. Here are two videos I have seen which inspire me:
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GychGBLkEO4
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-4s9IWqAms

Once I get doing some felting, I am planning on making a nature table for our classroom. I would like to include things we make as well as things we find outside. I would like to spend some time every day outside and a part of that will be collecting things to put our seasonal nature table.

This is the recipe I tried for making our bread today:

Easy Bread

Ingredients

* 1 tbsp. active dry yeast
* 2 cups warm water
* 1 tbsp. sugar
* 5-1/2 to 6 cups flour
* 2 tsp. salt

Instructions

1. In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast in the water, which should feel pleasantly warm when dropped on the wrist. Whisk in the sugar. Add 2 cups of the flour into the bowl. Whisk the mixture well, then let it "proof," or sit for 10 minutes. If tiny bubbles appear and the batter looks slightly expanded, you're on the right track.

2. Stir in the salt, then add the remaining flour, 1 cup at a time. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured countertop. Knead for 10 minutes. (To knead, fold the dough in half and push it down and away with the heel of your hand, rotate the dough, and repeat until it is smooth and elastic.)

3. Place the ball in a bowl rubbed with vegetable oil and turn to coat. Cover with a damp cloth or plastic wrap and let the dough rise in a draft-free area for 1 to 2 hours, or until it has doubled in size. Punch the dough down. Knead it again to remove air bubbles. For no-frills bread, divide the dough in half and roll each half into a rectangle. Fold it into thirds as you would fold a letter to put it into an envelope. Turn the ends under and place the dough, seam-sides down, in greased loaf pans. Cover the pans with plastic wrap and let the dough rise in a draft-free area for about 45 minutes.

4. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and bake the bread for 30 minutes. Remove the pans from the oven; if the bottom of the loaves sound hollow when tapped, the bread is done. Cool in the pans for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack. Rub with butter or margarine for a shiny finish, if you want. Cool the loaves and wrap tightly in plastic until ready to eat. Wrapped loaves can be frozen. Makes 2 loaves.

My thoughts remain with Princess Notsosnowwhite as she goes through this tough time of losing her father. I know she has so much to deal with right now and I wish I could ease her burden in some way.