A new day.

Project 365. Photography class. Photoshop class. Homeowner. Home decor and repair. Singledom. Recovering. Scrapbooking. Today Is The First Day Of The Rest Of Your Life. It's never too late to have a good day.

My Daily Bread

I have a sunbeam mixer ( I know, I know, it's not a kitchenaid, which is ten times better but ten times more expensive too.....). Somehow I was browsing sites about using stand mixers for baking yesterday and got sucked into some bread blogs and sites. I remembered that when I cleaned out my pantry the other day I had a packet of yeast, so I was thinking it would be really cool to bake some bread last night (Bread = Love :) Anyway, I rushed home from work and while I was cooking dinner I pulled out the mixer and flour and shortening, ETCCCCCCCCC. I stirred the yeast and brown sugar and warm water, and as I was watching it dissolve, I was thinking that I had read that It Will Start Bubbling, and if it doesn't, the yeast is no good or something. It didn't bubble but I pressed on. After all maybe I didn't know what I was supposed to be looking for. Maybe it would rise after all. I also realized almost every step of the way that I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be doing.... there are TWO bread hooks, do you use them both at the same time.... Is the bowl supposed to be jiggling like that.... "the dough will clean the sides"... by itself? or am I supposed to be helping it with the spatula? Well, press on. I rolled it and patted it and marked it with a D. I put it in a greased bowl with a kitchen towel over it, and put it in the oven with a bowl of hot water on the lower rack. And set the timer for 90 minutes. Crap, is that how long it was supposed to be set for? Anyway, it Did Not Rise Even One Tiny Bit. But I punched it down anyway and split it and put half in a loaf pan and half on a cookie sheet for monkey bread. Remembered as I was rolling the last ball that I was supposed to have dipped them in melted butter before I rolled them in sugar and cinnamon. So I melted butter and poured it over the top, and put the pans in the oven with a bowl of hot water on the lower rack. And set the timer for 45 minutes. (is that right? :) Took them out, UnRisen, and heated the oven, and put them back in to bake. Omg. What a waste of time. The loaf of "bread" thumped and almost knocked over the garbage can as I threw it in. And of course I TASTED the unrisen monkey bread. I was so disappointed I had to make cinnamon toast. It was yummy. I'm gonna try again on Saturday :) I'll keep you "posted".

I'm Online

Everyday. At a few scrapbook sites. At a few blogs. (not to mention playing games)
And it gets more involved all the time. I can't read anyone's blog without checking into something or someone else they make reference to (ummm... to which they've made reference?) I can't resist clicking on a link in someone's post. Anywhere. I've thought before that it was weird how some people are so into reading other people's blogs. But I have a couple scrapbookers' blogs that I look at almost every day. I take a side road off to look at someone's blog about baking homemade bread or making natural toothpaste. Yikes, I think I might be hooked. I'm blogging about blogging.