A lot has happened in the past couple weeks, and I finally feel like things are winding down. First thing to note is that last Sunday, Bill and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary. Our marriage had a (surprising to naive me) rocky start. One year together by no means makes us experts, but I am glad to say that I think we are getting better at this whole marriage thing. I really do love being Bill's wife. To celebrate, we had Sunday brunch at Zencha Tea Salon, which I highly recommend. They make beautiful tea inspired pancakes and waffles. And I always love the tea there, favoring their Indian Chais. For dinner we went to Marcella's, which was pretty nice. The food was good, although they didn't have a ton of vegetarian options. What we had was made with very delicious ingredients though. I enjoyed our experience there.
I am also happy to report that last week I started a new job. I am working part time as an administrative assistant at a funeral home, and I am really liking it. The people I work with are great, the hours are perfect (9-2, M-F), and the field is interesting to say the least. People have been asking me if I am weirded out by working around dead people, but I am not. I view death as a part of life. I do feel compassion for those who have lost loved ones, but I don't feel personally sad. I did often feel sad working at my previous job where many troubled youth and broken families came in. That was really hard for me.
Starting my new job (and also shopping around for professional and color conservative clothes to add to my mostly colorful wardrobe) , and also dog sitting last week left me in a bit of a tizzy. But things have settled down now and I feel like this week I can start working at a routine that balances work and home life again, this time with the priviledge of working only part time.
I feel like my life, in general, has been going in a really good direction. I praise God for His blessing, for answering prayers, and for challenging me continually in my thoughts and actions. I am thankful for my lovely family, my amazing friends, my new job, and the great community that I live in. I am ready to fully engage in all of it.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Bialys- the bread adventures continue
Last week, I baked my first successful loaf of yeasted bread. It was a simple recipe for Hearth Bread from The Bread Bible. I had tried making bread several times, but had never had a successful loaf before. I believe that I rushed all of my previous attempts, never letting the bread fully rise. The loaf I made last week took all day to go from flour bin to oven, but almost all of that was inactive time, letting the sponge ferment and the dough rise. But it turned out quite delicious.
High off of my victory, the taste memory of home-baked bread still lingering in my mind, I turned down Bill's request for bagels while we were at the grocery store. No. I can make bagels at home. For Christmas, I received the book Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day, but had been hesitant to use it because of the books unique technique of making large quantities of dough and storing it in your fridge to make several loaves over the course of a week or two. I had failed all previous bread baking attempts, what would i do if I mixed together all that dough and it went to waste making loaf after loaf of sunken, underdone, cakey bread? Well, last week's success gave me the confidence to proceed with the 5 minutes a day technique (which is a bit hyperbolic, techinically you might only take 5 minutes to form the loaf, but it must still rest for a while before you put it in the oven). Instead of following the authors' advice and starting with a simple boule, I went in head first with bagels.
And I failed.
I followed the instructions to the tee, and things looked promising at the start, but somewhere between boiling and baking the dough, something went amiss. I ended up with flat, doughy, inedible rings. And a lot of dough left in the fridge. Exactly what I feared.
But! The dough was also good for making bialys, and so make bialys I did. And they turned out wonderfully, as can be seen in the picture below. I still have some of the dough left, which I will probably use to make more bialys. I think I will wait until I have a bit more experience before I attempt bagels again.
High off of my victory, the taste memory of home-baked bread still lingering in my mind, I turned down Bill's request for bagels while we were at the grocery store. No. I can make bagels at home. For Christmas, I received the book Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day, but had been hesitant to use it because of the books unique technique of making large quantities of dough and storing it in your fridge to make several loaves over the course of a week or two. I had failed all previous bread baking attempts, what would i do if I mixed together all that dough and it went to waste making loaf after loaf of sunken, underdone, cakey bread? Well, last week's success gave me the confidence to proceed with the 5 minutes a day technique (which is a bit hyperbolic, techinically you might only take 5 minutes to form the loaf, but it must still rest for a while before you put it in the oven). Instead of following the authors' advice and starting with a simple boule, I went in head first with bagels.
And I failed.
I followed the instructions to the tee, and things looked promising at the start, but somewhere between boiling and baking the dough, something went amiss. I ended up with flat, doughy, inedible rings. And a lot of dough left in the fridge. Exactly what I feared.
But! The dough was also good for making bialys, and so make bialys I did. And they turned out wonderfully, as can be seen in the picture below. I still have some of the dough left, which I will probably use to make more bialys. I think I will wait until I have a bit more experience before I attempt bagels again.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
more time, less money, less waste
Well, I am now officially unemployed (although I have not been working for over a month), and will receive my last paycheck next week. For the past month that I have been home I have been working over our budget and trying to figure out how we can get our costs of living down. It's amazing how much Bill and I have taken for granted, and how wasteful we have been merely due to not giving enough time to combing over our finances. For example, I never really look over our utility bills, I just see how much we owe and write a check. But after spending a little bit of time researching, I was able to see that we were spending too much money on our cell phones, and get that cost reduced.
Having the luxury of more time has also inspired me to implement some of the more environmentally friendly changes that I have been wanting to make for quite some time, but haven't seen as practical time wise. Mostly, we are going to try to live a less disposable life. I have decided not to purchase anymore paper towels or napkins. I have time now to sew the cloth napkins I have been wanting to make for a while, and will cut up some old towels that we have laying around to use for the potty accidents the small dog still has sometimes. I am also resolving to learn how to make the perfect sandwich bread. All previous attempts at bread have produced lackluster results, but I am tired of paying an arm and a leg at the market to get the tasty healthy bread we like, and hate the accumulation of plastic bread bags in our closet.
These measures, and others like them, will hopefully help me to trim down our grocery budget, which is our largest flexible cost. The other costs that I am trying desperately to cut are our gas and electric bills, which have both been out of control lately. I have been keeping the thermostat set at 62 for the most part, which leaves it quite chilly in here. I've never kept it that cold before, and I am glad that winter is almost over. However, I am finding that the space heater we purchased in hopes to cut the gas bill is driving up our electric bill quite a bit. That and the fact that I live with a man whom I affectionately refer to as the King of Lights, because he is incapable of passing a light without turning it on.
All in all, this journey of frugality and environmental stewardship is ever changing, but it certainly has been fun to learn new ways of thinking and looking at the world, and I love challenging myself to do things differently.
Having the luxury of more time has also inspired me to implement some of the more environmentally friendly changes that I have been wanting to make for quite some time, but haven't seen as practical time wise. Mostly, we are going to try to live a less disposable life. I have decided not to purchase anymore paper towels or napkins. I have time now to sew the cloth napkins I have been wanting to make for a while, and will cut up some old towels that we have laying around to use for the potty accidents the small dog still has sometimes. I am also resolving to learn how to make the perfect sandwich bread. All previous attempts at bread have produced lackluster results, but I am tired of paying an arm and a leg at the market to get the tasty healthy bread we like, and hate the accumulation of plastic bread bags in our closet.
These measures, and others like them, will hopefully help me to trim down our grocery budget, which is our largest flexible cost. The other costs that I am trying desperately to cut are our gas and electric bills, which have both been out of control lately. I have been keeping the thermostat set at 62 for the most part, which leaves it quite chilly in here. I've never kept it that cold before, and I am glad that winter is almost over. However, I am finding that the space heater we purchased in hopes to cut the gas bill is driving up our electric bill quite a bit. That and the fact that I live with a man whom I affectionately refer to as the King of Lights, because he is incapable of passing a light without turning it on.
All in all, this journey of frugality and environmental stewardship is ever changing, but it certainly has been fun to learn new ways of thinking and looking at the world, and I love challenging myself to do things differently.
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