Smells good!

I made some zucchini bread that surprisingly smells really awesome. I haven't baked with allspice in a long time, so the refresher is nose-tingling. I started with a recipe from a magazine, but I tweaked a couple of things. I forgot just how watery grated zucchini is. And I was so concerned about being low on flour, wheat flour, and baking spray, that I almost forgot the sugar. Whoops! Being low on flours and baking spray is a big deal for me.

Matt and I are going on a trip for two to Corpus Christi and staying at Emerald Beach this weekend, to celebrate our 5th anniversary. This is the first trip we've been on, just the two of us, since before I got pregnant with Natalee. Loooong overdue. My mom's getting Little Miss Race Car for the weekend, so Natalee's happy, too. Hopefully we'll have some good photos.

And then the day after we get back, I'll be starting my new job at the bakery across the street. I'll be starting out mostly working the counter, but I'm looking forward to playing with industrial size baking toys. Mwahahaha! I'll be working evenings four days a week, from 4 to 8 pm, so I'll get to stay home with Natalee. We'll be saving money and grief from day care. (Natalee had a couple of weeks at school where a classmate decided she was her new chew toy and scratching post. Natalee had teeth-shaped bruises and claw marks on her face that took weeks to heal. I taught Natalee to scream "No, Amara, no! Go away!" any time the kid looked at her twice. It helped. And that's not counting all the sick days.) Plus I have weekends off, so we're free to visit family in Fort Worth area. I'm really happy about working in a bakery, doing something I love, Natalee doesn't have to go to day care, I'll be bringing in a little money, and I'll still have weekends with my family. It seems like a win-win situation right now. As for the long run, I think when Natalee starts pre-school next year, I'm going to go back to school, find a new direction. It gives us a year to save up some money for classes, and I can take them while Natalee's at school, so we won't have the additional expense of day care.

So, anyways, here's the bread recipe.


Choclanutty Zucchini Bread

1 1/2 cups AP flour
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups sugar
3 tsps cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground allspice
3 eggs
2 cups grated zucchini
1 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup buttermilk (or sour milk/milk+vinegar = 1/4 cup)
3 tsps vanilla
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup nuts (I used chopped walnuts)

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Spray and flour 2 8x4 loaf pans, or 4 2x4 mini pans and 1 8x4 pan. (I like using little pans because they bake faster and more evenly, and they're a good size for giving away.)

2. Combine the dry ingredients (the first eight). In a seperate bowl, combine the eggs, zucchini, oil, buttermilk, and vanilla, beating the eggs a little first before adding the rest.

3. Add the wet ingredients (eggs, zucchini, etc.) to your dry ingredients, using as few strokes as possible. (Muffin method, anyone?) Add the chocolate chips and nuts, and then portion into pans, filling 2/3rds full.

4. Bake 40 to 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let pans of bread cool on a wire rack for 20 to 30 minutes before cutting into the bread.

Trying to do this for Layla. Not sure if it will work, so here it goes.




Not that I'm sure this well help, since I don't know of many people who read this thing. But I hope it does!



Having problems with the html. The link won't show, but the website is: http://laylafrances.blogspot.com. Copy and paste that to your address bar for better luck.

Yay, summer

Yay, school's over. Once again, I'm jobless - my longterm susbstitute/paraprofessional inclusion aide position is done. Once again, I'm on the market for a teaching position. And I'm not going to think about it.

I'm at my in-laws huge new house, watching Phineas and Ferb with Natalee. And, God help me, I love this show. Matt is with his parents trying to finish packing up and cleaning the old house. I'm sort of at a loss of what to do. Natalee can't be there because it's dirty and there are a lot of things she shouldn't touch. So someone has to stay away with her. I'm kind of preempted for it, since Matt's parents know what they want done with everything, and I'm allergic to mouse poo.

Normally, I'd be happy to have all this free time back around our home town buuuuuuuuuut.......my grandparents are in Oregon till mid-July, my dad is up in New England visiting my brother and nephew, and Stephanie's moved. And suddenly all the wonderful things I could be doing are gone. *Sigh* So, we're watching an episode of Phineas and Ferb we've seen ten times. - "The monster of Danville - you ROCK!" - Maybe we'll go wandering around the shops less than five minutes away from here or go for a walk. It's nice knowing we don't have to get up at five am tomorrow. (Matt took two days off.) And we'll go spend tomorrow morning shopping in resale shops and checking out Jennifer's apartment-to-be with her..

Considering what I was doing just a few days ago, a lazy day without a lot to do is pretty awesome.


"Perry the Platypus, you ate all the cheese?!"

"In the mall - I've got a hankering for potaters - in the mall!"

"Curse you, Perry the Platypus!"


I miss you, Steph!

Meant to be

Have you ever dreamed of what your life might be like, if things had happened differently? Or thought about the whole reincarnation thing, and wondered if you would remember something or someone, even if you were living a new, different life?

I was taking a nap. I dreamed that I was back in college, but my life was different. I dreamed that Elizabeth had never died, that my parents were still together and satisfied. I still had a relationship with my parents like the one I had as a child, one where I could call my mom about anything, thinking she could fix any problem for me, that she would be there for me no matter what. Jennifer and Kara weren't there because Elizabeth hadn't died, but I wasn't very close to her or Brad. I was far away from all of them.

I was in college and feeling so alone and wondering, who's missing? I went through all my family members, checking them against this hole in the heart, but nobody matched up. I knew there was supposed to be someone who I turned to when I needed to talk, when I needed a hug, when I needed a shoulder to cry on, who I shared everything with. But I couldn't find them. I thought Matthew for a moment, but that didn't make sense. Had I dated my cousin? The age gap was way too big. Where was my boyfriend? I visited jail, thinking, I have an uncle who's in jail, maybe I'm missing him? I got tangled in that for a while, tangled in his schemes to help get him out that made only dream-sense, but I was still so sad and frustrated.

And I woke up and knew that I was missing Matt. Matt usually plays on my laptop right next to me in the bed at night. I fall asleep with him next to me. But he was in his little office playing on his computer, so that I could take my nap. I found him and asked for a hug, and as soon as he put his arms around me, I started crying.

I've always had strange dreams. I've dreamed that I was in a group that, like Lehi and his family, found the tree of life, and felt that I gained my own spiritual message from the dream. But I feel like, with this one, that I would miss Matt, that I wouldn't be whole, if my life had gone any other way. And somehow I'd know that it hadn't gone right, because I was missing the most vital person in my life. I am so lucky to be married to my best friend and the love of my life. And I am so happy that things have turned out the way they have.

Woohoo!

I'm sitting on Matt's parents' couch right now, typing on my new laptop I got for Christmas. Santa was very good to me this year. And Matt. And Natalee. Santa still has a present waiting for Natalee at our apartment, something that was too big to bring in the car with all of the presents we had to bring with us. And Natalee has a new mattress waiting for her from Grandma Julie that we need to purchase a bed frame and maybe a foundation for. Hopefully we'll find a good deal this coming week. I'll be off until the 5th, so I'll have time to write more hopefully, in between finally organizing the new apartment, finishing unpacking, hanging things on the walls and switching around the contents of the closets, getting ready for company on New Year's Eve and making the food for it, and being a lazy bum. Hopefully I'll have pictures then, too.

New places, snotty faces

So, we're moved into the new apartment. Hurrah! A little farther north now, so it only takes me ten to fifteen minutes to get to work, and Matt about fifteen to twenty. Mucho improv-a-mento (<- bad Spanglish) over the hour drive. Though there are days like yesterday when there's traffic and wrecks and it still takes me an hour to get home. The new place is really, really nice. It's on a keel with the first apartment Matt and I had, pre-Natalee, if not nicer than it. My uncle still loves me lots (and my cooking and baking) and hired some day laborers and a flunky or two to haul our stuff to the new place in his trailer, and then haul it up to the second floor and put it where I told them to (usually). We're starting to settle in, though the dining room has a layer of boxes in it rather than a table. I actually need to get those unpacked today for Thanksgiving tomorrow. It's seeming to become a tradition for some odd reason, that when we move into a new place, it's always within a week of Thanksgiving and we cook and invite people over for it. Despite the boxes and oddly disposed belongings and the incipient exhaustion.

There's an added hurdle this year because Natalee has been sick almost non-stop for a week now. She threw up last Thursday, she's had a fever all week, her nose is in a marathon and leaves its tracks all over her face and in her hair when she sleeps, and she's hacking and coughing now. My poor baby. They say it's a virus, but I'm taking her back to the doctor today (b/c the fever's lasted so long) and will ask if it could be allergies. She's just been sick SO much lately. I know it's to be expected, starting out at daycare, but Matt and I have already missed nearly ten days of work altogether. Plus there have been quite a few days that Mom has taken care of her. She's been sick a lot! We can't afford to keep this up, for several reasons, not even considering how wearing this is on her poor little body. If it's allergies, we need to find out and take care of it. Or figure out whatever the heck keeps making her sick and if there's anything we can do to prevent it. And the medicines we can give her for all the different symptoms are so hard on her, too. Argh. I wish I knew how to make her better. In some ways I miss the days when I could solve her problems by just putting her to my breast and feeding her.

We also have to finish cleaning up the old apartment before the first. Matt's been working his tail off trying to spackle and paint and clean over there when he gets off from work every day, but there's still a lot to do. He cares more about cleaning it all up than I do, seeing as how badly the complex has treated us over the past year, the problems that are inherent to the apartment, and the fact that after three years of living in the place, the likelihood of getting any of our deposit back is nil. Bleh, oh well. We'll be putting on our 'cleaning caps' and getting to work after Natalee and I get back from her doctor's visit.

There's still a lot to be thankful for. Like a nice, new apartment. I'll be spending tomorrow with my mother, her new husband, and my baby sis. I have a nephew we're waiting for to be born any day. A good, loving, funny family. And sharing my life with my best friend and the most wonderful little girl the world has known.




Oh!oh!oh! and turkey! And the leftovers are mine!!!! Bwahaha! *victory dance* I knew there was a good reason to be happy. Happy Thanksgiving!

Smug

Smugness is finding the $5 and under section of http://www.bn.com/ when you have a $50 gift card for your birthday. With $6 tacked on to that, I ordered nine books with free shipping. All brand-spanking-new books, sans suspicious yellow stains, odd smells, and/or mouse poop. (I found out I'm allergic to mouse poop in college from mysterious used books.) They should get here by Tuesday of next week, if not before. How frickin' awesome is that? I'm fighting not to grin like an idiot or do a pointless booty dance in my computer chair. I feel like He-Man must've felt after winning a battle. There must have been a reason for that silly looking grin of his, right? Oh, yeah....

*grin*