I’ve always loved making my own bread.  I used to use a bread machine, and found that easy and quick with delicious results.  However, none of the bread was good for sandwich making.

So, I decided to try making bread by hand to see if I could get good sandwich slicing bread.  This made pretty loaves but the bread was quite dense, crumbly, and didn’t taste as good or slice very nice.

I went back to my bread maker and gave up on attempting to create sandwich bread.

About a year ago, however, I was given another chance.  Donna, a lady from our church, offered us women folk a bread baking class at her home.  I was told I’d learn how to grind my own wheat, use that fresh flour to create a delicious homemade bread that was perfectly sliceable, and achieve these results in about 1 1/2 hours start to finish.

I was in. I was so in.

That day I learned so many little tips that help me in my quest to find the perfect homemade bread recipe.  And the secret to sliceable bread, I found, is the way it is rolled out. 

So, here is a video tutorial showing you how to roll your bread out without having to add more and more flour.  My results with this method have been amazing. 

And my finished loaves -

Can you smell it?

I can.  But that’s because they’re fresh from the oven, sitting on my counter in the kitchen.

Another good tip to slicing sandwich bread is to make sure you have a really good bread knife.  The knife you use can make all the difference your ability to slice good bread.  Also, it is best to wait until your bread is completely cooled before you start slicing into it. 
I have to admit that we never wait, however.  I can’t stand not having a slice of warm bread right out of the oven.  We usually taste test a couple of slices right away.

I’ll post a cinnamon roll tutorial soon, using this same method. Oh man, these things are good!

I was reading a blog the other day where a young, unmarried girl was spouting off Christian marriage wisdom to older, married women.

Not only that, the youngster had her information wrong, taking a less Biblically led approach and a more emotionally led approach.  However, whether the girl was correct or not is not the issue.

Oh how I needed this reminder!

While still an embarrassingly slow lesson, I have learned in recent years that, while I’ve grown greatly in many areas, I’m still very much the younger woman, no matter what I feel I know.  And there are reasons that I’m not instructed in the Bible to teach the olders, but only those who are younger than me.

It’s hard not to correct those elders who I estimate are doing it wrong when I’m sure there is a better, easier, more Biblical approach they should be taking.
But I’ve learned that it’s most often not my place. And even when specifically asked I must quickly discern when I’m not to give my thoughts on a matter.

The wisest people I’ve run across, the ones I find myself most wanting to emulate, are the quietest. They lead more by example than a display of puffed up knowledge.

They most definitely are not the 19 year old single ladies who are sure they have it all figured out.

My husband is fond of saying, “The empty can rattles the most”.

Oh, Lord, please hold tight to my tongue. I do not want to be that empty can!

My husband made me a clothes line a couple weeks ago. It’s just a piece of green wiry cord strung up between two trees. Even our energy star dryer uses a ton of energy to dry just one load, so I am very thankful for the sun and breeze that gets the wet out of my clothes every day.

The only problem I’ve been having is that our clothes line isn’t very long. It won’t even hold one load of clothes. It’s been a challenge to find creative ways to get everything hung up in a way that will get everything dry in a short amount of time.

So, after much trial in this area, I’ve finally figured out a way to get a large load of clothing hung neatly and efficiently on our tiny clothes line.

We have a plethora of plastic hangers – 3 or 4 times more than we actually use. So, I gathered up a bunch and took them outside to the clothes line. I hung the clothes on the hangers, using clothes pins to put a two inch distance between each hanger. I’ve found that when I don’t use clothes pins the breeze blows the hangers together and the clothes don’t dry as quickly.  The clothes pins keep this from happening.
I use hanger clips, the kind you would use to hang a skirt, to hang skirts, underwear, wash cloths and other little things.
For some reason our clothes dry in half the time when they’re hung on a hanger. I don’t know why and I don’t care – but I’m really happy about it.   They also come off the line a little softer.

Another reason why I am loving this method is because the clothes that we normally hang up are already hung on hangers when it’s time to put them away.  I just bring them inside on their drying hangers and take more old hangers outside to the line.

I’m sure there are other people who use this method, but I’ve never seen anybody do it before so I feel like some kind of genius.

And I wanted to pass on my brilliant idea to those of you who may be suffering the same clothes-line dilemma.

Jesse slipped on my shoes and snuck out the back door for a little morning stroll around the back porch.

At least he was wearing clothes this time.

Today’s Have A Frugalicious Christmas project involves chocolate.  It’s the first tasty project we’ve done in this series and it’s easy, inexpensive, and makes a unique Christmas gift.

I call these Smores-On-A-Stick or Smores Pops.  They are my own original recipe.  I think I saw something about a marshmallow on a stick in a magazine and went from there to create this delicious sweet treat.

First you will need these supplies:

• Any sweet chocolate that melts well.
• Large Marshmallows
• Graham Crackers (I prefer cinnamon)
• popsicle sticks, lollipop sticks, or short skewers
• Sandwich baggies (the kind without the zip-lock)
• Twist ties or ribbon

We purchased some chocolate pieces made for melting and candy making. They were easy to find in our grocer’s baking section near the chocolate chips.

I don’t have a double broiler – I have never needed one. I just use a larger pot on top of a smaller pot on my stove.  Mine fit well together this way, but you may not want to do this if your pots don’t sit steady. I simmer water in the bottom pot and then set a slightly bigger pot on top of it with my chocolate pieces in it. You can melt them in the microwave but the chocolate hardens so fast that I find it works better to just keep it warm on my homemade double broiler.
Be sure to stir your chocolate often as it melts.

While you wait for your chocolate to melt get your large marshmallows ready. Take popsicle sticks, short skewers, or lollipop sticks (if you can find them) and push a marshmallow onto each one. 

You’ll want to crush your graham crackers up now, too.  Put them in a baggy and smash them with the back of a spoon to create course graham cracker crumbs

When your chocolate is completely melted you’ll want to dip your marshmallow into the chocolate. Use a spoon to help cover the marshmallow completely with chocolate.

As soon as your marshmallow is covered with chocolate you will need to coat it in the graham cracker crumbs. The easiest way to do this is to have the crumbs in a bowl where you can grab some and sprinkle them over your chocolate covered marshmallow. Yes, some of the chocolate will drip into the crumbs but that is okay.

Stand your finished pop in a short and thin glass like this:

The chocolate will harden quickly but if you want it to harden super quick you can put the pops in the freezer for 2 or 3 minutes.
We use cheap sandwich baggies to cover our Smores desserts with after the chocolate hardens. Use a twist tie or ribbon to close up the baggy.

And the finished product…

These are quick.  It took me about 30 minutes to make a good sized batch with my littles helping.  I suppose it would have gone by even faster if I didn’t have small hands assisting in the creation.
However, I love that little guys can help with this project.  A 3 year old would have so much fun sprinkling crumbs onto these smores pops.

Pair these with a homemade hot chocolate powder mix, or a cocoa cone for a fantastic little gift bag.  And get your kids involved – they love creating and giving stuff like this!

I’ve been working on my closet, as I said yesterday.  I want to get rid of all my excess clothing.  Stuff I don’t ever wear seems to take up so much space in that little room.

I hate it.

But I love my stuff.

I love my retro t-shirts that are all too small for me – and haven’t fit me since they weren’t retro. 

I love all my cute jackets that I never, ever wear because I have one favorite that gets my attention every time.

I love my array of pants and skirts that look cute in my closet, but look hideous on me.

My too tight sweaters that I wouldn’t be caught dead in, but hang onto anyway.

My old letterman jacket that has jolly ranchers melted into the pocket.

Something is very wrong with this.   Or me.  Or something. 

Why am I hanging onto things that I will never, ever use?  I just got rid of two rubbermaids worth of stuff from my room and I still have way too much clutter.

What’s it gonna take to get this stuff out of my house? 

I’m gonna do it.  I’m gonna holler at it “Go! Get out of here!”
There may be a few tears.  I may have to throw a few sticks and rocks when it turns back and stares at me, pleading to stay.  But the time has come.

I must set my useless junk free. 

I may or may not post an update on this. 
You may or may not want to stay tuned.

Found this on After The Handbasket.

My husband got home from work very late last night.  He parked his motorcycle, took off his helmet and other riding gear, and grabbed his stuff out of his saddle bags.  Then he hit the button to close the garage door and came inside.  Very normal.

It was the awful, metal crunching noise that followed that routine that was not normal.  I was sure one of our vehicles was being squashed somehow.  Did he not pull his bike in all the way?  Did I park the van too close to the door?

this is going to cost a lot of money…

As it turned out, our garage door was actually eating itself, and, thankfully, not one of our vehicles.

After a bit of inspection, my husband found that a hinge had broken on one side of the door making it impossible for the garage door to close more than half way, and because of that some bolts on the top of the door stripped out and pulled the other half of the door way out of position.

Then, in confused desparation, it wouldn’t stop trying to open and close itself, just compounding the situation.

I was hollaring at it, “Stop! Stop!” while Ryan was hollaring at me, “Stop, Stop!”

I  have no creative words to describe what the scene looked like – but the noise that woke up half our city last night sounded like a giant metal monster eating a little community of smaller, screaming metal monsters.

Have I told you before that this house is quirky?

There was a possibility that we might go to visit my sister, brother, and mother in SC today and tomorrow, depending on Ryan’s work schedule.

It appears that won’t be happening now.  The garage door is half open, falling freely on one side where the hinges are broken and the rollers are no longer in the track, and it’s stuck in that position.   Ryan put something under the falling side so it wouldn’t continue to fall and possibly injure somebody or something.

We’ll call our landlord today – but, although an extremely nice lady, we already know how slow the repair will be.  When our sink fell out it took almost a week to fix it.  When the washer flooded our house it took a week before they sent somebody to clean the carpets (oh the stench!).  And they never fixed our fridge.  After 3 weeks of fighting with it to keep our food cold my husband purchased the $130 part and fixed it himself.  That was over a month ago and we still haven’t seen the refund.

What an interesting life I’m living lately.  I really should be taking more pictures.

I’m content in all this.  But I still can’t help but think, “What next?”

Quick!  Name two things you don’t think of when you imagine a nice steaming cup of hot chocolate on a cold winter afternoon…

I know!  I thought of butter and maple syrup too!  What a coincidence, right?!

I saw a few weeks ago that a lady had made hot chocolate using butter and maple flavoring in her recipe.  So, I decided to take a normal hot chocolate recipe and add those two ingredients to it to see if it was any good.  I couldn’t find maple flavoring, however.  So I opted for 100% maple syrup.

Here is what you’ll need to serve 8 people this odd concoction.

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 TBS cocoa powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup hot water
• 8 cups milk
• 1/4 cup 100% maple syrup
• 1 TBS vanilla
• 2 TBS butter
• 1 1/2 cup mini marshmallows or 10 big ones

Mix the first 4 ingredients together on medium/high until sugar is dissolved.  Then lower your heat to medium/low and add the rest of your ingredients.  Heat, stirring occasionally, until the marshmallows are completely dissolved.

Easy peasy.

Serve in mugs – extra mallows are optional.

What did we think of this strange mix?

My daughter doesn’t really enjoy maple flavor or maple syrup.  She says it tastes like nuts.  However, she said this, “I really, really like it.  It isn’t really a hot chocolate though. I think it would be the best chocolate drink ever if you added whipped cream and maybe a bit of half and half.”

Did my boys like it?

Does it have sugar in it? 

Then yes.

I caught the boys initial reactions on video.  This was a candid one-take movie so I apologize for any of their goofy-ness.  They lose all sense in front of the video camera - especially when they can see themselves.  At least nobody picked their nose.

And I don’t know why their heads look a little squished.  It didn’t look like that till after I edited it.  It’s only a slight squishing – you guys probably wouldn’t have even noticed had I not said anything.

Oh well.

As for me – I really, really liked the unusual flavor in this hot chocolaty drink.  Maybe a little less sugar is the only thing I might do differently?  Either way it was very, extremely, completely delicious.  I give it five stars.  Really.

Next week we’ll be crock potting our hot chocolate.  It’s the easiest hot chocolate you’ll ever make.

My friend told me the other day that washing dishes by hand was often therapeutic for her.  That may sound weird to some people, but I know what she’s talking about.

The last few days have proven to be quite stressful for me.   I can say that I’ve definitely not been feeling like my normal self lately. 

My husband usually knows something is up with me when I start de-cluttering. 

Like my friend and washing dishes, it’s therapy.

For some reason, going through my stuff and getting rid of junk seems to not only clean up my home and make it more comfortable, it also helps to de-clutter my mind too.  

I think more clearly, more rationally, and I have less irritation. 

I just feel better.

And it’s no wonder.  I’m doing what God created me to do – keep a home for my family.  When I’m stagnant, my brain is stagnant too.  Time seems to creep, and all I have are my thoughts to occupy me.  But when I’m busy doing what is good, taking care of my family, and creating a home for them, I am less likely to dwell on what is causing my rare form.

And sometimes a break from those thoughts is all a person needs for things to stop seeming so impossible.  

Clean closet, comfortable bedroom, settled nerves…

My head is clear.  I remember I am blessed.