painting of the day

Title:

Young Girls

we're addicted

...to the beach! It was 5 p.m. and breezy and chilly and overcast, and we still went to the beach! We bundled up into our jackets put pants on and walked over to our playground on the beach. Since it wasn't really "beach" weather, we were the only ones there for the most part. We always call it "our beach" when we don't have to share the playground with anyone else. It was really nice even though it was cool.

Since we frequent the beach almost daily the kids occasionally get cuts on the bottoms of their feet. I think from the sand maybe rubbing them raw or maybe some other pieces of debris in the sand cutting their little toes. Usually its in the cracks under their toes. Henry had complained yesterday about his foot hurting. When I asked for him to show me I couldn't see anything. Today he said it hurt again. When I looked again I saw a cut under his little toe right where it bends. It was a tiny cut and he was touchy about it so I left it alone. He's gotten cuts like that before. However, tonight as we were reading books before bed, he asked if I would put that "bubble stuff" (hydrogen peroxide) on his foot and a band-aid in the morning. So, I looked at it again and the cut was a little bigger than this morning. Poor guy! I went ahead and cleaned it and put a band-aid on his toe. It was so tiny but those are always the cuts that seem to hurt the most. He cried and barely let me touch it as I was cleaning it. There was sand inside the cut too so I know that it was very painful! That hydrogen peroxide worked wonders bubbling the sand out. Marcail was so sweet the whole time I was tending to the cut. She kept saying, "It's going to be over soon!" and "Look, Henry, you get to have a boy band-aid, see?" and "It's ok, Henry. Mama's fixing it." So sweet. She even got Henry his blanket for him. Anyway, he got some neosporin and a band-aid and was just fine. He even giggled when he got to see the peroxide bubble.
Tomorrow is Friday...I just may try to make a real loaf of bread! I actually bought wheat gluten today to see if that helps. I shall persevere!

it feels like.......fall

Today is a breezy 71 degrees with winds from the NW at 13 mph. To me, since I've acclimated to the South Florida tropical weather it feels chilly! We are donning our jackets and jeans or light-weight pants today. I opened up all the doors and windows this morning to get some nice, fresh air in and the kids complained of being cold. I thought it felt great and made the apartment smell wonderful!

Don't those clouds look wintry??? They probably hold lots of rain but it's not in the forecast so I'm thinking they're just going to blow over.

painting of the day

Title:

Louise Nursing Her Child

The paintings Mary Cassatt did of mama's nursing their babes get me everytime! If I miss anything about having a baby in the house it that! Nursing was such a joy for me. I absolutely loved it, even when I felt like a Jersey cow.

the bread...

Before:(it still needed to rise another 3 hours before baking)

After:(yeah, those are some flat loaves of bread)

What a bummer, all those 7 days of feeding this dough and that's what I get. I'm beginning to think that baking bread of any kind in South Florida is a lost cause. I sure hope the kids eat it without any complaints for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

day 7 of sourdough starter

Tomorrow is Sourdough Bread baking day! It will have been 8 days of watching my starter ferment and grow to this awesomeness! It's starting to grow so tall that I'm not sure if it will stay contained in the biggest glass bowl that I own overnight. This evening, I set the glass bowl inside my huge plastic bowl as a precaution for overflowing. Do you see the wonderful air bubbles? That's the dough fermenting and getting all yeasty. I sure hope my loaves of bread turn out ok tomorrow. I don't have any glass bread pans so I will be using miscellaneous glass casserole dished that I have. Should be interesting!

here's how it turned out

All morning I checked to see how the laundry detergent was setting up. It smelled so good and clean. Made the whole apartment smell fresh! At about 5 this afternoon, I stirred it around to break up the gelled clumps of detergent and this is the finished product! It is going to be so fun to use....maybe tomorrow?

I also used my two old detergent bottles that I've been saving to store the soap in. It made enough to fill the Gain bottle completely full as well as the Sun bottle almost completely full! That's roughly 275 fl oz!...and that's a lot of soap!