February 11, 2007

Random Stuff

Since I have hardly a brain cell left at the moment, I will simply list some random descriptions of what has happened with our family over the last few days, and perhaps the next time I blog I can actually put together a coherent post and even add a picture or two. Our camera batteries have been charging all day--I haven't taken any pictures in quite awhile. Anyway, without further ado, here goes...

Friday afternoon I had my first day time stamp club meeting with 11 women and I don't know how many children here. There are 12 club members, so we'll get to enjoy each other's company for a whole year! The kids actually did quite well, considering there were so many of them, and the ladies seemed to enjoy the projects I showed, despite the rather numerous interruptions. I thank God over and over for giving us this house...it's so perfect for our home school set-up plus my business and allows me to hold workshops and be a mom at the same time. What a blessing.

Friday night Tobin was sick. I thought it was odd on Thursday afternoon when I went in to check on the boys during their room times and BOTH of them were sacked out...I didn't even tell them to nap! Arden does fall asleep on his own occasionally, but Tobin?! Never! He seemed OK Friday, though he didn't play a whole lot with the other kids but chose rather to watch a movie (which is not at all unusual for my media-addicted boy). However, I knew something was up when, at around 4:45 that afternoon, he brought his blanket out and curled up on the couch, promptly falling asleep. He was burning up when he awoke and wanted nothing to eat, though I did finally coax some applesauce and milk down him (his choices when presented with a list of options). I gave him some medicine, and thankfully he was just fine on Saturday--after sleeping until 9:30 a.m.!

Saturday we spent a very lazy day at home. Arden was in his p.j.'s until 4 p.m.! I did shower but wore my flannel pants and comfy sweatshirt all day. Charis and I made Valentine's Day cards, and I did lots and lots of reading aloud to the boys. Also, I made my first batch of bread from our breadmaker! It turned out wonderfully!! I suspect I'll be stocking up on flour and other ingredients so I don't have to buy store-bought bread anymore. ("Dead bread" is what some friends of ours call it.) One question, though, for any of you who happen to make your own bread...how do you store it?! I filled 2 large ziplocks with the slices I cut...is there a better method out there?? Do tell!

Today after church we went to Sam's Club to pick up Charis's new glasses--I'll post a picture of her wearing them when I can. She looks adorable with them on and says everything looks "more bright and bigger!" I may have to remind her that she's supposed to take them off for reading and close-up work.

So this evening Arden had a nasty cough--actually, he's had it most of the day. He's prone to asthma/allergy symptoms, and the cough doesn't seem like a "sick" sort of cough. I'm wondering if I should make an appointment for him to see the doctor. He got an inhaler to use temporarily during the fall, when his symptoms got really bad, but the doctor kind of expected him to not have problems after that. Every now and then he goes through these bouts, and it has been rather windy outside...so if it's allergy-related, I think we'll need more help than the cough medicine I gave him tonight out of sheer desperation.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm relieved to hear that my kids are not the only ones who spend all day in their jammies on occasion!

I've been using my breadmaker pretty much exclusively for almost two years now. I don't pre-cut the bread, because it tends to dry it out. My recipe calls for 4 & 2/3 C whole wheat flour. I use 4 C ww and 2/3 cup white flour w/ added wheat gluten since the white flour isn't actually bread flour. The little bit of white flour makes the bread slightly less dry and dense.

I cut the loaf down the middle, top to bottom, and store each half in a ziplock bag after letting it cool a bit.

I buy my whole wheat flour in a 50 lb. bag from Gordon Food Service. Whole wheat flour can go rancid, so I put the flour into 1-gallon ziplock bags and store it in my fridge. Yeah, it's a lot of flour, but it's less than $13 for the 50 lb. bag, and 50 lb. lasts for months and months and months.

Since my flour is cold, I have to let it come to room temperature before making the bread or else the yeast won't react properly.

Okay, that was probably more than you wanted to know. LOL Hubby broke my bread pan earlier this week, so we are eating store bread right now. Ick. We have been offered two bread machines, and I'm looking forward to getting back to making my own bread!

Bob and Claire said...

Hmmm, my friend Elizabeth puts hers in long plastic bags that are "bread bags", LOL. I'm not sure where she gets them, and she jsut reuses them. I'll ask where she gets them.

As far as Arden and his coughing, Caleb also has a lot of allergies, both food and seasonal, and whenever he gets any sort of cold or really anything, even not directly allergy-related, it always goes into a cough. It's more related to his asthma (which wind can stimulate), and I usually give him his albuterol puffer for a few days. I think I have read (and also heard Amy say) that over-the-counter cough meds do NOTHING for coughs that are asthma-related, and may even lead to more problems. So I wouldn't hesitate to give him his asthma meds for a few days and see if that helps.

Anonymous said...

Rhonda used to make bread all the time, before bread machines :) and they ground their own wheat. You might ask her how she stored the bread she made. She made a wonderful pull-a-part cinnamin bread.