barbra's bread recipe

3 c lukewarm water
1.5 Tbsp yeast
1.5 Tbsp coarse kosher salt
6.5 c unsifted flour

Add yeast and salt to water. Mix in Flour.
Don't knead.
Cover loosely and let at room temp for 2 hours or so.
Refridgerate for at least 3 hours before baking any.
Cut off a hunk and shape it and flour it well.
Bake at 450 for 30 minutes. Put a pan of water on the rack under it.

Spring things

Melissa at the Inspired Room has posted 20 things she's looking forward to with the coming of spring. Although I'm quite happy now with the amazing snowstorm we had this morning, I can certainly think ahead to spring! So here's my 20 things:

1. Breezes through open windows
2. My new oh-so-soft non-flannel sheets
3. Hanging laundry on the line
4. Building a little raised-bed garden
5. Birds
6. Attempting to make the front of the house look nice
7. Taking walks at lunch time
8. Dave's birthday
9. Cute shoes
10. The feel of warm sunshine
11. Painting some rooms (since the windows can be open to air it out)
12. Leaving the door open so Haruka can watch out the screen door
13. Playing outside with Grayson
14. Spraypainting some stuff outside
15. Putting hanging baskets along the fence
16. Redesigning the deck area
17. Yard sales
18. Walking to Starbucks on Saturdays
19. Going to Nixon Park
20. Driving with the windows down and happy music playing

Pictures of...

Stuff I got recently.
Short bangs!




New living room! Well, not really new. But rearranged and with furniture moved in from other parts of the house. This is just the thing that the Nester was talking about in 10 minutes to a room you'll love. Because, man, do we love this room now!

Below are before and afters. Please ignore the messes in the befores! I'd been sick and didn't feel like cleaning, plus I just got back from the store. Also, ignore the wallpaper border. It came with the house and has mondo-uber-impenetrable glue, so we just left it up. I wish we hadn't now, but oh well.

Before:




After:






It's a lot cozier now. I liked the openness of it before, but it was hard if we had people over. It was like someone was always banished to the chair on the other side of the room. I love having the books in there now. Dave totally loves it; of course I didn't allow him to come up from the basement until I was done with everything. Um, the rug doesn't clash with the walls as much as it looks like in the pics.

It took a bit more than 10 minutes, because I had some major dust bunnies to attack and I had to take all those books off the shelves and then put them back on. But I can pretty much say...

Ganbare yo

Okay, me. 3 day weekend. That means I have one bonus day. Although I'm still hacking up a lung, I can do it. Plans for this weekend include:
1. Clean out purse
2. Trip to best buy and target
3. Rearrange living room
4. Figure out my budgeting conundrum
5. Taxes
6. Other stuff I'm too tired to remember right now.

I already redid the blog in some hideously fabulous colors.

that's what I'm talking about

Today's the kind of day I've been waiting for. Lovely weather. No plans. A get stuff done kind of day. Of course I don't feel like doing it, but I will force myself. DO NOT WASTE TODAY. There's laundry to be done. Furniture to move. Plans to be made. Goods to be baked. Meals to be planned. Houses to be aired. Vacuums to be run.

What can I get done in the next 20 minutes? (Drinking coffee doesn't count)

Let's try...Make the coffee. Start the dryer. Sort the laundry. Start a load.

Then drink the coffee while I plan meals.

Plan?

Integration

I find I'm having a hard time integrating the big picture and the little steps to get there. I'm kicking myself for not keeping a budget for last year. I might actually have to go back through the bills and input everything just because I have nothing to compare it to now.

I'm impatient. I don't want to wait for a year, or even a few months to pass, to have a baseline.

I don't know whether I should revise my ING account to reflect all my irregular expenses and move that money out of our regular account. It's nice to have it right there at the bank, you know? But then it will be really saved up if it's in the ING account.

I have all kinds of ideas for the house, but implementation is tricky. Dave won't want to do it, but he'll feel obligated to help if he's home, or he'll say something can't/shouldn't be done. I want to do it anyway. I need to get him out of the house.

First I need to make step by step plans and supply lists so I can have it all together. Yes. That's the first step.

are you connected?

I watched Noriko's Dinner Table last night, and didn't realize it was related to Suicide Club. Are you connected to yourself? What role do you play?

It got me thinking in my sick state about connection to self. Who do I want to be? What do I want to be? What do I want my home to be? Is what I want reflective of my true nature, or of what I think others think of me? Now is maybe not the time to pursue it. But I'm making an ispiration book file wahtever for sure.

This post brought to you by the drug hydrocodone.

motivation and drugs

I was driving back home today, motivated to do things with the house on my afternoon off. I was all, Yeah! This is the year of getting things done! And then I realized that most of the credit for that goes to the antidepressants. That statemente doesn't really bother me. What bothers me is how many years I wasted by not admitting that I should see a doctor about it.

ANYWAY. I painted the kitchen door. It didn't take as long as I thought it would, but it does need another coat.

I also seriously need to take a shower.

My resolution for this week is no soda. For one week. I can do that, right?

I need a nap. *yawn*

A new stab at the new start

Okay, so the first week back to work pretty much blew. I managed to keep up with about a quarter of the house stuff. Of course, the problem was compounded by starting the psych class and the dreaded dr. appointment smack in the middle of the week. But today is Saturday. It's supposed to snow (though I seriously doubt that) and we're staying in today. I've slept in, lazed around, surfed the net, got inspired by pictures, and am now ready to move to the next step.

LIST MAKING.

I do make a lot of lists, but I'm getting better at using them and making them work. A lot of credit goes to Mark Forster and his various approaches. Do it tomorrow works great for me at work, and although I haven't really investigated or tried his new one, I think it might work well as a home system.

So. Let the listmaking begin!

New year, new plans

Well, I did it. I had the house in order to my satisfaction before the start of the new year. Yes, there's a few areas that didn't get done. The upstairs bathroom is still a problem area, as is the dormer in the dressing room. I still say that if the dressing room had more light it would be a far better place. Why are there no ceiling lights in there?!

I'm sort of in a stuck place now. I have the momentum to keep going, but there's not much else that's easy to do and declutter. So it's on to the next thing. Decorating. I balk a that because I'm bad at it, and because I never finish it. It's just so overwhelming and time consuming. I was thinking of devoting a month to each room--that would give me a timeframe to finish things by. Also, when I got tired of working I could start planning for the next month but not allow myself to work on it. IDK. I have to think on it a little more. Write by hand. Stuff like that.

I just wrote and deleted "Not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow." I had been looking forward to it, but at the moment I'm not. I'm getting pretty useless here though, so a change will be good, right? I'm just going to be so dead tomorrow now that I have a two week habit of getting up at 10. It was orignially 8, but quickly jumped to 9, and over the past three days has extended to 10. But tomorrow will be 6:30.

I half want to actually get up at 6:20 or 6:30 so I can have my little time in my nook, sipping coffee or hot lemon water and checking my blogs. But the other half wants to sleep.

Ah! I also started the idea of starting a new habit each month. I have to think what those will be too. This month's is to wash my face before bed.