the quest for a tall loaf

After one miserably failed attempt at whole wheat bread today (I forgot to put all the flour in – so it was… less than desirable), I am trying again, but I think I miscounted and still put not-quite-enough flour in the dough. I think that I am overly cautious trying not to use too much flour that I use too little. And I am certain I don’t knead the bread enough.

If tomorrow weren’t Sunday (and if I had more milk) I would try again. Perhaps I will a try a recipe that just uses water – just to see if I can ever get the dang thing to be tall enough.

One of my concerns is that perhaps there isn’t enough dough to fill the pans (i.e., my pans are too big) But I use the same size pans my sister used, and she got hers to rise tall…

I also read that letting the bread rest between mixing it up and kneading it (autolyse?) can help it rise tall, so next time I am going to try that.

I’m feeling a little bit like a failure today… two ruined batches of bread (when I am making the bread in the first place to stretch our grocery budget this month), I lost my patience with the kiddos, it’s 7:36pm and they still aren’t in bed, I lost my patience with my sweet husband, I haven’t prepared my Relief Society lesson for tomorrow, and I didn’t get a load of laundry started this morning. In order to accomplish everything I would like to accomplish tonight, it will require me staying up too late (which I hate doing on Saturday night – I like to be well rested on Sunday! Plus, the choir is singing tomorrow, so that means choir practice before church…)

On a brighter note, we took back our cable box today (no more TV! Yay!) and set up our internet and home phone service with Qwest to start in a few weeks (saving us a LOT of money). So that’s good, right?

I also wanted to blog more, but my blogging marathon will have to wait until tomorrow (unless I decide to sleep tomorrow because I stay up too late tonight…)

 

Some days are just bad days. Today is a bad day.

Lightbulbs

I had an epiphany the other day. Let me catch you up on a few things, first.

Things have been crazy here. Sometimes good crazy, sometimes bad crazy. I feel like I’m always writing that on here – my life is crazy. Well, it is.

And I have been struggling a lot with feeling like I am doing a much as possible in the day. Most days I get to bedtime and I wonder where on earth the day went, and how on earth I didn’t get the laundry done, the dishes washed, and the bathrooms spotless. Because I stay home all day, and don’t have any obligations outside of my family, I feel like I should be able to be super mom at home – super spotless house, great meals cooked, clean laundry folded and put away, not to mention spending hours playing with my children, reading to them, and going places with them.

Well, here was my epiphany. There are not that many hours in a day, and when most of them are punctuated by unexpected messes, potty accidents, and children fighting, they seem to get used up a lot faster.

I have always tried not to have too high of expectations for a clean house and home cooked meals because two small, very high energy children (if you know my kids, you know what I mean – touch touch touch touch, fight fight fight, talk talk talk talk talk, sound effects sound effects sound effects… it never ends. Seriously) make doing all that very hard, and I don’t want to spend my children’s entire childhood cleaning the house. I’d rather play with them, and the other stuff can wait. Sure I can teach them to clean with me – but honestly, that doesn’t really get stuff any cleaner because they make a bigger mess than they fix. But like I said, I’d rather do things with them and have a little bit dirty house because “babies don’t keep.”

  Back to my epiphany (that was only part of it) – I went though in my head what my day looks like. I wake up around 5:30 or 6 (on good mornings – i.e., when Russ hasn’t kept me up all night watching TV shows or movies or talking), so that I can have a few hours (usually only one) to myself to prepare for the day – I usually spend this time reading the scriptures and writing on my scripture blog. Then the kids wake up and I feed them breakfast around 7:30 or 8. By 9am I have cleaned up breakfast, and have the kids dressed and ready for the day. Then around noon, we eat lunch, then we read together and I put the kids down for naps around 2pm. By the time Joseline wakes up (and Vincente, if he even napped) we eat dinner, and then it’s time for bed. So, If you look at things this way, the only time I have to do much of anything is in the morning, for about 3 hours. Sure I have nap time, and I do a few things, but I don’t really like to spend my kids’ down time doing things I could do when they are awake, like cleaning. I prefer to do things I can’t do when they are awake – like reading a good book, writing, or taking a quick nap, myself.

Sure, things will change as my children (and our family) grow, but right now this is how it is, and I think that if I can keep realistic expectations – that is, be okay with only having essentially 3 hours in the day to get things done, then I should be fine. In fact, the reason I’ve been doing so much better the past several days is because I have been okay with it, and I’ve been planning my days better to take advantage of those few hours. And I’m much happier.

When I am feeling down for not keeping the house spotless, my dad reminds me of this poem:

Mother, O Mother, come shake out your cloth,
Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
Hang out the washing, make up the bed,
Sew on a button and butter the bread.

Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She’s up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I’ve grown as shiftless as Little Boy Blue,
Lullabye, rockabye, lullabye loo.
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
Pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo

The shopping’s not done and there’s nothing for stew
And out in the yard there’s a hullabaloo
But I’m playing Kanga and this is my Roo
Look! Aren’t his eyes the most wonderful hue?
Lullabye, rockaby lullabye loo.

The cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow
But children grow up as I’ve learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down cobwebs; Dust go to sleep!
I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.

(“Song for a Fifth Child” by Ruth Hulbert Hamilton, Ladies’ Home Journal October 1985)

My Wonderful, Fabulous, Amazing, Very-Good Day!

Today I woke up at 5am.

Did some stretches (i.e. Yoga… it felt great) (did I tell you that my quads feel as if they have been mauled? More about that later… ),  studied the scriptures, blogged a bit, went for a three mile run, did some laundry, took the kids to story time, checked out books from the library, ate lunch, played with the kids outside, went to the chiropractor (really needed that!), ate Coldstone ice cream with my sweetheart (the best part was being with my sweetheart), did some more laundry, made dinner, had FHE with the babies, tutored for an hour, and now… I am going to get in my jammies and snuggle with my sweetie again while we watch a movie.

What a great day!

What did you do today?

a dog

No, we didn't get a dog (although we've been talking about it lately - we want to get one sometime this summer, but we'll have to see how finances work out).

I have been sick as a dog - hence the no blog posts. But I repenteth , and shortly to follow (hopefuly today) will be some posts updating you on what we've been doing around here.

An update on my health - I have mastitis, it hit suddenly on Sunday during 3rd hour of church (I was sitting in Primary trying to keep our 10-12 year olds in line). I thought it was just a bug or something, and rested a little after church to see if rest would get rid of it. I had checked my temp when we got home from church - no fever. After my nap, a 102 F fever. And chills. And crazy sick feeling. That's when I realized that it was probably mastitis - I had it with Vince, too - in the same breast :-6 It's funny that I didn't even notice the sore spot in my breast until Monday evening, after I took a shower. And it got worse. I was taking Tylenol to keep the fever down, but it only got down to 100 degrees, and occaisionally just below that. Anyway, my OB prescribed me an antibiotic, and I picked it up yesterday evening and started taking it right away. I feel much better today (well, no fever, at least - even without Tylenol). I feel like I've gone 15 rounds, but I somehow managed to have enough energy this morning to do the dishes, make breakfast, and do a few loads of laundry - that is, before the power went out. Yeah, the power was out for about 3 hours. Luckily, most of those 3 hours (it may have been 4, now that I think about it) was during nap time. Joseline napped in her bed, Vince napped in his bed, and I napped on the couch because currently the 75% of our laundry (the clean stuff) is taking over my bed. The power turning back on startled me out of sleep because the washing machine, dish washer, and all three fans turned back on all at once. Our house went from creepily quiet to busily loud all in a second.

So, we're back in functioning mode - power's back on, and Mamãe is feeling mostly good again.

Now to the blog.

The Weekend is Here!

It is finally the weekend, and after three days of taking care of myself by myself, I am being allowed to just lounge in my bed and do absolutely NOTHING (although I volunteered to fold laundry as it gets clean - that's something I can do from my bed, so I don't mind).

This morning I slept in until 9 (Joseline slept from 10pm-9am with only TWO feedings - and I had to wake her up for the first one, otherwise I have no idea how long she would have slept!!!) and I had to wake her up at 9 to eat again - she probably would have slept for another hour or so had I let her. When we finally woke up, Russ came in to get me breakfast, and then I fed Joseline. Then the two of us sat on the bed folding laundry, blogging, and facebooking until now. Now I am going to go take a shower (Joseline is napping - hooray! She's such a good sleeper!!) and get ready to go to the Wilde's Kabob-eque. Staying inside all week has been making me crazy, so I'm excited to go out for some low-key fun. We'll just chill at their house for a while, eat lunch, then come home and I will rest some more. I love resting, and I love my baby, and I love love love my sweet Russ who is taking such good care of me!

I'll probably post some more pictures this evening after our fun little get together at the Wilde's. What else do I have to do? :) I'm going to watch a few movies, too. Yay relaxing... it is soo nice, and my body soooooo needs it.

It Posted!

My degree finally posted to my transcript!! That means that I am officially a BYU graduate! :D Hooray!! It gives me goosebumps all over. All those years of hard work finally recognized ;)

And I have been thoroughly enjoying my time as a stay at home mom. Russ hooked up the dryer last night, so I am doing laundry today. Six loads, and probably more once Russ gets home and sorts out all his uniform stuff he wants me to wash. Six loads - that is crazy. I don't think I have EVER done six loads in one day. My worst days have been four. And that was with three people (two adults and a toddler - one of those adults goes through as many clothes as a toddler!). I can't imagine how laundry will increase once I've got a four person to wash for. Hooray for expanding families! :)

I feel so productive every day. I keep wondering what I'm going to do to keep myself busy once "everything is done" - but then I keep remembering that the great thing about life (especially with a toddler) is that everything is NEVER done... even when you THINK you're getting caught up on all the work that piles up, you turn around, and there is twice as much to do! But I like being busy, so it works for me :)

We will offically have our OWN internet (we've been stealing internet from a distant neighbor... I say distant because we can only get the signal sitting as far to the outside wall in our kitchen/dining room as possible) on Tuesday, the 20th. I am super duper excited. Once we've got our own internet, I will start uploading pictures of our new home and all our exciting adventures. This weekend is a big training holiday (because of MLK Jr Day) so we're going to explore the penninsula (well, we're going to do everything that is free, since we don't really have any money right now... the move took a big chunk out of us, and we haven't got our reimbursement yet... hooray for the army). I will be sure to take lots of good pictures, and I've instructed Russ that he is to be the photographer more often so everyone can see pictures of me. I realized that the reason you don't see more pictures of me is that I'm usually the one behind the camera. So, this weekend, I am going to dub Russ the camera man for every outing (I'll probably steal the camera a few times...). And I promise to take a family picture of us somewhere (probably by the beach). I wanted to on Sunday, but we were all so exhausted after Church, we didn't want to do anything else.

So check back Tuesday for pictures and updates! I almost guarentee I won't post anything before then.

twice

I don't know why I'm posting again today. Maybe because I'm feeling a little better? I got to take a nap. It was the best. And I got to donate my BYU ticket to my very good friend and her hubby, who also ended up being able to get a ticket, and they got to go to a BYU football game. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I love friends, especially the ones who have you over and watch your kid and feed you food all the time when you're missing your SOS.

I think really the only reason I'm writing again today is because I have to stay up to do laundry. Instead of doing my laundry this morning like a relatively sane person (and without Russ, I only have to do two small loads each week! It's amazing!) I waited, because I was lazy (and tired, and hurting... you get the picture) and then my MIL had to do her laundry (and I guess that's only fair, since Saturday isn't technically my laundry day ... I get the afternoons during the week ... plus, it is her washing machine and dryer, so I really can't complain, especially since we're completely mooching off them anyway!) by the time I decided to do my laundry. So now I am up doing laundry. I would just wait until Monday, but all of Vincente's Sunday clothes need washing. His shirt, his jacket, his pants. Pretty much the only things that stay clean on Sunday are his tie and his belt (he has multiple pairs of Sunday socks, so those don't count). It probably has something to do with this weird idea I have that we should stay dressed in our Sunday clothes the whole Sabbath. I think it's more a personal thing for me. If I stay dressed up, I'm more likely to remember Whose day it really is, and keep it holy. If I get in comfy clothes, then I feel like the day is for me to cuddle on the couch and watch a good movie. Unless the movie is The Testaments or Legacy, that doesn't really fit my idea of worshipping the Lord. I won't say I'm the perfect image of keeping the Sabbath day holy, but I do like to try. I like to dedicate all my time on the Sabbath to serving the Lord. Some activities I like to do (once I'm done with Church and choir practice) are playing hymns (on the piano or violin), studying conference talks or BYU devotionals, working on Family History research, reading the scriptures, or watching Church videos with Vincente. We like watching the Living Scriptures videos, even though we only own one. I know they aren't 100% accurate all the time, but they are pretty close, and they are really good for Vincente to watch, when he wants a show on Sundays. I'd rather him watch that than commercial television. 

Anyway, the point is, I am awake doing laundry... sucks to be me, I know. Eventually I will go to sleep (probably as soon as I get the whites in the dryer and the other load in the washer... if I put the other load in the dryer as soon as I wake up, it will be ready just in time to head out the door!)

And... nursery for Vincente tomorrow!! I'll have to remember to scamper over after RS a little faster. We went over last week, and then I lollygagged for a minute before I realized that Vincente wasn't just hanging out with Russ!

Oh yes, and the best part about tomorrow (hopefully) - a PHONE CALL from RUSSELLHEAD! You will most definitely know if I do or don't get the call. If the title for tomorrow's post is in all caps, you'll know I got one. If it's only one or two words, all lower-case, and with the words "lonliness" in the heading... well, you'll know I didn't get the call, or I missed the call.

But here's to hoping I get a call tomorrow :)