Oat Bran Blueberry Muffins

My Mom sent me two different types of bran when I couldn’t find any here – wheat bran and oat bran. I’ve used most of the wheat bran up in my last blueberry muffins.

Today I think I will try this receipe for Oat Bran Blueberry Muffins. It doesn’t look nearly as good as the other ones, but then again I don’t have all those ingredients either, so we will try this one:

1 c. flour
1 c. oat bran
1/2 c. sugar
4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 egg
1 c. milk
1/2 c. salad oil
1 c. (at least) fresh or frozen blueberries

Combine dry ingredients. Stir in liquid and berries all at once, just until blended. Fill standard 2 1/2 inch cups. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes until golden brown. Makes 15 to 18 muffins.

Whole Wheat Pizza dough

INGREDIENTS

* 1 teaspoon white sugar
* 1 1/2 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
* 1 tablespoon active dry yeast
* 1 tablespoon olive oil
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 2 cups whole wheat flour
* 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

DIRECTIONS

1. In a large bowl, dissolve sugar in warm water. Sprinkle yeast over the top, and let stand for about 10 minutes, until foamy.
2. Stir the olive oil and salt into the yeast mixture, then mix in the whole wheat flour and 1 cup of the all-purpose flour until dough starts to come together. Tip dough out onto a surface floured with the remaining all-purpose flour, and knead until all of the flour has been absorbed, and the ball of dough becomes smooth, about 10 minutes. Place dough in an oiled bowl, and turn to coat the surface. Cover loosely with a towel, and let stand in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1 hour.
3. When the dough is doubled, tip the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and divide into 2 pieces for 2 thin crust, or leave whole to make one thick crust. Form into a tight ball. Let rise for about 45 minutes, until doubled.
4. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Roll a ball of dough with a rolling pin until it will not stretch any further. Then, drape it over both of your fists, and gently pull the edges outward, while rotating the crust. When the circle has reached the desired size, place on a well oiled pizza pan. Top pizza with your favorite toppings, such as sauce, cheese, meats, or vegetables.
5. Bake for 16 to 20 minutes (depending on thickness) in the preheated oven, until the crust is crisp and golden at the edges, and cheese is melted on the top.

I made this a while ago but I didn’t write about it. I split the dough in half and made two pizza’s. One was great, the other was okay. The great one was made on the top shelf in a rectangluar cookie sheet. So this time I’m going to cook them one at a time both on top to see if that really was the case. First one on top, if it’s too cruchy put it on the bottom but i’m pretty sure that the top rack is the correct one.

It was really good last time, now to test it out again. It’s not a simple recipe cause of the yeast, but it’s yummy anyway.

Three new pictures and Feb theme

I’ve added three new pictures and set up a February theme on my journal, click through to see the changes. It’s nothing drastic, just a color change.

Patterns are courtesy of Din Patterns

Preschool

I just made 5 phone calls to some local preschools. I only liked two of the schools from what I heard about them. 1 made them wear uniforms which is typical of the public school system here, but it’s not a public school, the other two were full day care centers and while I’m not opposed to being away from Kathleen that long Samantha might be. The two I liked are half days schools, one has a full day option that they told me about. Both are church affiliated (Methodist and Baptist). And they are worlds apart in cost.

First Methodist Preschool runs from 8:30 to 11:30 for $180 a month and First Baptist Church Day Care Center runs from 8 to 11:30 for $250 a month. I like the First Baptist one better from the enthusiasm the woman who answered the phone had about it.

The problem being we really can’t afford either of them. I really wish we had a public preschool. There is only so much I can work on with Kathleen. She can’t start Kindergarten this September because of her age. And she isn’t quite ready for it. Half a day school would be great for her right now. Learn and then come home and play with Sissy.

Hopefully we’ll be able to work something out. I can’t rely on my freelancing to do the job as I don’t make the same each week, and can’t guarantee I’ll make enough that we won’t struggle with the rest of the bills. So we’ll wait and see I guess.

Caffeine, colds and the potty

Well I think I’ve managed to cut most of the caffeine out of my system. I had a bit much yesterday as I was not feeling well and got fast food so I didn’t have to cook lunch while feeling like crap. So I might get a headache today but considering I’m not top of my game already it probably will be a really bad one lol. Though I have gone days with out any caffeine and gotten no headaches, so I think I’m over that particular hump, now to stay off of it. I do enjoy the carbonation, so I’m back to buying Sam’s Choice Clear American “naturally” flavored water, that is no calorie and carbonated and has flavor since I do not like plain water. It gets that carbonation fix I generally drink soda for. We typically keep Key-lime in the house since Shea will drink it too, the other fruit flavors he doesn’t like, but I did buy a couple strawberries for me. The girls call it Thirsty – not exactly sure why.

We are now all officially sick. Shea caught what we’ve had the past few days, unfortunately he’s home from work today, but when he bent over this morning and got dizzy I kinda didn’t like that so pushed a little more for him to stay home and get well instead of going to work. We need the money, but I need him more than I need the money. Dizzy and heights do not go well together and what he does is already dangerous enough with out me worrying about that. So I’m glad he’s home. I just hope he can get some overtime this weekend to make up for it, but we’ll see. Good thing is I got a maintenance contract that expired and my client is renewing so that’s some income and I had a quick project last week so in 4 weeks well start making some extra money that way too. Hopefully my next project will be as quick. I’ll try to pick one up today after the girls doctor appointment.

We aren’t completely accident free now, but Kathleen has made excellent progress in that department in the past week. I tried threatening wearing diapers for accidents since nothing else seemed to work. But all it did was allow her to go in her pants with out much care. So after the second time of diapers I changed strategies and removed diapers and pullups from her completely. No longer are we doing pullups at night. Yes it’s far more annoying to wake up and have to make a dry bed, but it’s far easier in the potty training now. We’ve had only sleep time accidents since we started this particular thing. We are also on a timer, Grandma and Grandpa bought a potty watch for the girls. It has a set 30, 60 or 90 miniute count down on it and it restarts itself, which is awesome. It plays a song and lights up. She wore it the first day but now it just sits on my desk and she goes when it says to. I do turn it off and try to get her to go on her own, it has worked okay, we’ve not had any accidents.

I think it’s also helpful that they are spending time in our room watching the Roku with it’s new cartoons – dora and thomas the train that are streaming from netflix. I think in terms of what we paid for and what we have watched since getting it the thing has paid for itself already. I think being in our room has helped her as well, the potty isn’t too far away.

We’ve also instituted a sticker regime again. She seems to like that a lot. When we first established it we crossed out a lot of stickers, but I’ve not had to do that in a while. She gets 1 sticker for her board, and 1 sticker for herself when she potties and she gets 1 sticker for her and 2 for her board when she poops. And she only gets the poop ones when she shows me lol. So I get a lot of “Mommy, do you want to see the poop?” She likes to try to fake it out when she has an accident so you have to check the panties too. But we have made decided progress, and I hope we can get her in this most of the time so we can start working with Sammi, first thing with Sammi though is getting her to wear panties at all, she just won’t wear them. And if I put them on her she just takes them off so we have to work on it.

No more

I have been working pro-bono for one site for more than 10 years. It’s how I got my start on my portfolio and in honing my design skills to begin with.

For the past year I’ve been working on the next revision of the website, not the design but all the back end work from research to making sure it covers exactly what the site needed. I had a unique perspective as I was a user of the site as well.

A month or so ago I stepped away from the site for personal reasons but I was going to finish what I started. Today I was informed on all the stuff they want to do differently that I wasn’t being a part of the discussion, so instead of wait for them to finalize this I’m going to have to walk away.

I have nothing to show in my portfolio for the past year of work I’ve done, and it’s looking like it’s going to be yet another year for things to be done with something to show clients that I did or had done. I can’t spend that much time not getting paid, not right now, not with things piling up on me.

So today I stepped away from 11 years of my life and 11 years of my design work “inspiration”. Hopefully when the site owner calls for a site re-design that is paid I might step back into that world again, but for now I must walk away, too much time already wasted.

Cold, cold go away

And I know all my family and friends in the North are going to say “what are you complaining about,” but I really am tired of this cold weather. I want my 40s back thank you.

I would like to express to all those who are gritting their teeth and turning away saying she’s a wuss or something of that nature. I have lived in three different types of climates in my life in three different types of areas – completely land locked, northern but by the water, and southern by the water.

Colorado had nice winters. Yes it snowed, there were blizzards, but the cold was just that cold, it didn’t have the added chill that comes with the humidity in the air. I hated winters in New York – hated! The cold and the snow, no, I just can’t think of that as being “warm” or better than anything else. But the cold weather in the south, it just doesn’t get out of your bones. It has been below the 20s at night, one night we were one degree away from tying the record low, and while it’s not as “cold” as -7 degree I would much rather be up north in -7 degree weather than down here with 19 degree weather.

Bubba, again …

I am a terrible tweeter lol. I need to tell a story and 140 characters isn’t cutting it.

Last night Bubba was yelping when he slept I assumed it was a dream until this morning when he started doing it when I think he’s awake. He definitely does it when he’s moving so I think the girls were a bit too rough, again.

I called the vet just to see what I could do to help. I was already on the right track with isolation. Which I had been doing since this morning but Samantha doesn’t listen so I had to resort to putting Bubba in his pen. He doesn’t like it much, but he he’s surviving, and actually a lot less noisy than I anticipated, but then the girls are sitting outside his pen watching over him. He’s whining now, but the kind that means let me out not a yelping painful kind of one.

I can tell he hurts, but he’s still a puppy. He’s eating and drinking to my knowledge and he’s going to the bathroom. I’m hoping that he’ll be fine in the morning if not I’ll call the vet and see about picking up some pain relief for him and to keep him isolated until he does feel better. I really hope that he’s okay we can’t afford any type of vet bill right now. This cold weather is kicking our financial butt. If Shea doesn’t work, Shea doesn’t get paid and that’s the short and sweet of it, nothing I can do about it.

So my tummy is in knots and its no fun. The only good thing is at 5pm or so the weekend starts and Shea is home for 3 days. Not that he wasn’t just here yesterday cause of a “cold out”. Released because they couldn’t do any hot work cause the fire mains were all frozen. Yeah, that’s the south for you. We are lucky he went to work today.

Trials and Tribulations of a new PC

Yesterday I got my new PC. It’s not paid for so hopefully it’ll last until its at least paid for. I’m thankful that I don’t have to worry about paying the bill as it will come directly out of Shea’s pay check on a weekly basis, no need to worry. I’m glad that we do our direct deposit through the credit union, it’s also how we pay off any hospital bills w eget during the year.

The PC came about 1-2pm ish. I don’t recall the exact time but I have a tweet that I posted just after it arrived. I started to the task of setting up my new computer with the constant. Mom what ya doing? and Mom are you fixing your computer? Basically the girls getting in the way. I’m thankful I didn’t drop it on them as we were moving things about.

Set up was the easy part. First task install my much needed software – Dreamweaver and Photoshop. Yeah that was fun. Dreamweaver was a cake walk, no problems what so ever, Adobe software not so much. After stressing out over for most of the day and after giving up at least twice I finally read a solution on the net. Try installing Photoshop in a different folder than the one supplied. Worked like a charm. Illustrator and InDesign aren’t so nice they installed, but they don’t run and I can’t uninstall them. I would like to install at least Illustrator so I will do research on how to do that but that is low priority.

I got the important software loaded yesterday and I got WoW installed as well. I finished up most of the software to day and I’m now in the process of trying to transfer files from the old PC to the new PC and praying the old one doesn’t crap out in the middle of the transfer. I guess it’s a good thing its so cold right now, at least it’ll take a bit longer to overheat.

Looking at the progress its being slow it’s seems to be stuck at 90% but the light on the new pc is is flickering away and so on the old, but that one always seems to flicker these days. So I’m crossing my fingers and hoping that this works as it’ll save me 40 bucks or so in trying to convert my HD to an external HD so I can do this. So I wait.

But so far I like Windows 7, and Dell provided a dock feature that is absolutely the best! Now to just figure out how to get my old norton key unlocked so I can add it to this PC and get rid of McAfee which I really don’t like even though I have 15 months on it. So far I’ve not had any real issues, but we’ll see what happens.

Two more recipies

I just did an analysis of two of my favorite soups already in my repoitoire – Taco Soup and Potato Soup. Both will do as a low cal dish.

Potato Soup

and

Taco Soup

So I’m at four definite and one possibility, only a few more to go.

As a side note I also did 30 mins of DDR today and burned 470 calories. And found another song I really like to use. I will probably start doing those favorite songs as I tend to like the faster ones, and the ones that are a bit harder even on beginner.

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