brrrrrr......you've got to be kidding me.

Its about -5 degrees out there right now. This is what used to be my favorite window and I want it out! Last year during a -20ish snap the ice was atleast and inch and a half thick. It reminds me of a death train I once took to Germany.  I don't want to leave the house and I have to admit I am alittle resentful of the fact that I have to bring the girls to school. This is one of those days where I want to make warm pumpkin soup. I roasted the rest of the pumpkins I had and made puree. Pure baby, pure puree.

Anyways, on days like this I want the outside world to go away and leave us alone. I want my house to have better insulation, I want the sliding glass door GONE. Those things get mold in the cracks and what a heat suck. I want someone to come over and do my dishes and laundry and dust my corners and clean the toilet so I can lay in bed all day under the big down blankets reading books to the girls and watching cartoons. But no, thats not how it goes down. I get into bed @ 3am due to work and get back up at the crack of 7am to start getting all 3 girls up and fed and dressed in all their winter gear to get girl 1 off to school in -temps. Come home only to vaccum and clean up the results of fun night with daddy while mama's at work. Now I'm typing this and seriously thinking about sherking my duty of getting girl 2 to preschool but I know I won't so at 10:17 am its time to start thinking about what to cook for lunch. but thats life. Here are some outstanding sippits from this morning I can't seem to stop complaining about.

So, shut up mama and be happy right? Right. I just don't like the weather. I love that picture of Elsie up there.

In other news, Sean and I are starting to revisit the idea of moving to Seward. We both seem to think that we'd be pretty happy there and neither of us are that picky about jobs as long as our family is taken care of and happy, warm and fed. I could work at the grocery for all I care. Also important is where the girls are brought up. Spending alot of time in Seward as we have the community seems really close and we like that alot as well. Sean will be vested in may and as sad as it would be to sell this place I would do it to move to Seward. I think both of us would. He could still go through Avtec.

Could we really be small town Alaska people though?

I guess I need to get on that lunch now, baked sweet potato wedges and sandwiches. Sorry for the completely disjointed post here people.

* Tomorrow is my dad's Birthday

happy birthday William Alfred Hayes!

* For some reason I am now drinking more tea than coffee

I'm down to sometimes less than 1 cup of coffee a day

sure sign I'm getting old

* Love the life you live, live the life you love

More horribly boring POSTS surely to follow.

king arthur flour recipe for pumpkin rolls

So, for awhile now I have been dying to make these cinnamon rolls. Today I finally just did it. I had to re realize how much I enjoy cooking and baking. I can be having the worst day and if I just take a moment or half the day and cook something my world is suddenly clearer brighter and smells a whole hell of alot better. One of my favs by far is bread. Any kind of bread will do, something about the time it takes, the way the yeast smells and all of the kneading just makes my world right. Recently I saw these rolls in an effort to find god knows what, I'll try to link it here so you can see the original recipe. My are tweaked alittle of course. I had to use my on hand stuff. Its cold out there today and while these sounded right up my alley a trip to the store was not. here's the link to the recipe

www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/2009/10/01beyond-pie-pumpkin-cinnamon-rolls/

Okay, there you can see how it should be done but I figured I'd show you how I did it. My house may be dirty, my life chaotic but damn my kitchen smell like heaven.

Lets start with the cast.


Basically you have flour, brown sugar, pumpkin, butter, salt, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, yeast and luke warm water. I used market spice tea instead of water because I like the zing of it.

The you want to dump it all in a big bowl with 2 eggs and mix the shitake out of it. I will be alittle sticky but thats fine. I had to add alittle more water to mine than it called for but what the hey. So just paddle mix that stuff like mad. Grease another bowl and....

Stick it in there and cover it for around.....they say 1 1/2 hrs but mine was more around 2 hrs. Until it gets alittle fluffy. It won't be like bread in that it doubles in size and thats when you'll start thinking....hmmm....are these going to flop? Am I spending over half my day on some no good floppy rolls? No, the answer is no, I had the thoughts and kept going anyways, There real and there fantastic. So after the couple of hours you want to....

Roll it out! Roll it out people! Fairly thin, about 15 x 9 or maybe bigger. The recipe calls for 9 rolls but I squeezed 12 outta mine. When you've rolled it out mix up some cinnamon sugar. I also put some brown sugar in mine because I believe almost everything is better with brown sugar. The next time I make these I will double the sugar! I swear it. I like rolls so messy your covered in cinnamon goodness when your done. I also added raisins, I had no craisins or candied ginger on hand but I wish I had.....next time.

So you've rolled it out now spread the good stuff on.

Now roll it up. Try to make a firm roll

Yes I did actually measure it. Silly maybe but they came out pretty good so why mess with it. Make your cut marks and then go to town slicing away........do I need to say serrated knife? Really.

Smush them in a pan and let them be sniffed at. at this point they need to rise again for about and hour til they get kinda fluffy and puffed up again. heat the oven to 375

Make some icing. butter vanilla alittle milk and about a cup of powdered sugar. I like to pour mine on hot muffins because as they say in the original recipe that way it gets in all the cracks of the rolls, doesn't just stay on top you know.

This is your end product that will disappear so quick it will leave you wondering why you ever bother to make food anyways....you'll be lucky if theres one left for you to eat. You can be like me though and sneak the first one when its still super hot before anyone even knows their out of the oven yet!

Like I said, cooking and baking can make my world disappear or not seem as crazy. I feel alot better this evening than I did this morning thats for sure. Love and hugs peeps.

11/5/09

What a week so far. We did the big Halloween thing. Sandia had a preschool Halloween party which was a blast but then we learned that Denali's school doesn't have them. Something to do with minority majority and different cultures being spooked by bones etc. Well she was pretty disappointed but we had alot of fun anyways. We carved pumpkins, made candy apples, made cookies, went to the Northway mall to pillage their candy stashes with hoards of other kids. The girls also got to dress up the night before to go to Sean's work party which they love. The girls are always a big hit there. When it came time to go trick or treating in the neighborhood some very good friends surprised us by showing up and walking around with us which made it all the more fun. It was great this year not having any ice to slip on or snow to curse thru, but oh it was still cold and it didn't take to long for Sandia and Elsie to want to go home. So we came home and had hot drinks and talked while the girls got all jacked up on candy and played games. The next day was all getting Sean ready to take off to Albuquerque that night. We did get to go out for awhile alone though which was nice and all to rare. The girls and I have since been sick and now half way through his trip I get the feeling we are going to stay sick for the whole 8 days he's gone. We miss him very much. Denali must say that 10 times a day. At least I have them going to bed earlier and no more movies at bed time. The great thing about his trips is that for me its a time of buckling down and breaking bad habits that have been collected over the year. Its easier to do when there is just one of us here, that way they don't pit us against each other or conspire against us. We are looking forward to our cousins Juniper and Asia coming over for a slumber party on Saturday. We have become quite close to them now and have sleep overs often. Asia and I were very close for awhile as kids and find that we still get along wonderfully and so do our girls and heck we're family. I feel pretty blessed to have some family around like that since the rest of mine is so far away. I miss you guys very much. okay enough.....love for you all!

hmmmm.

Elsie's fab new cut. I'll have to get a better picture than this. At least you can get the idea. I am actually very happy with it.

Denali and her gun. Most people I know are very shocked when I tell them about it, there are some people I flat out won't tell. 5 is and has been a good age to start out. My view on it is that if there are guns in the house ( which...hello, there are) I don't want our kids to be ignorant about them and wind up finding one some day and accidentally firing it. I want them to know the seriousness of it and the things that could result from using one. On the lighter side Denali is dying to shoot a duck. I don't think I was ever dying to shoot anything. She must get it from her father.

Elsie before the hair cut with one of the sunflowers we grew.

Riding bikes

Their favorite new snack jam apple sandwiches.

So hoping that most of you know me well enough that I can say some things that have been eating me up lately. This social status quo stuff. People not thinking your good enough or judging you by what you do or do not have. It has come to my attention recently that some people I know think my house is dirty and small and whatever, and not that they themselves told me, this is all behind the back gossipy fun. I have never been nor will I ever be obsessed with cleaning. There are far more important things in my world to obsess about. For some reason though this really got me down, its a hurdle I can't overcome. We don't make alot of money and don't have the nicest things in the world but you know...our kids are happy and healthy and we are honest hard working people and isn't that whats supposed to matter? I was chewing Sean's ear off about this and he asked me if I really cared what these people think. I guess I do, which sucks. How do I come to terms with it. I don't like having people in my life that make me feel this way, not good enough. I don't like people judging me and my family based on how I keep house or how much money we make. We have 3 kids, every time I turn around its another mess to clean up and if I let myself obsess about it then I miss out on the fun of having the darn kids in the first place. I do the best I can with what I have and I suppose I should just tell everyone else to bite me, but that's not very nice. grin and let it roll off my back right. right. I'm sorry I have dust in my corners and clothes on the floor, my house is small and old but my family is happy and that's what matters to me.

Anyways, its been a beautiful fall here. We have been spending as much time as possible outside and with friends enjoying it all while we can. Love and hugs to you all. Wish me patience and a level head.