To Do or Not To Do

So, I know I've already posted briefly about Mormon Mommy Blogs. My original question about it was because I thought that the whole idea was kind of silly. I mean, what was the point of all those blogs listed together? It seemed like a "look at me, look at me" kind of site. And then yesterday I went and checked it out again. And I read their purpose.

And I kind of agree with it.

This is part of their mission statement:

I originally called this site "Mormon Mommy Blogs" because I was kind of tired of hearing other Mormon bloggers derisively talking about mommy bloggers, as though we were all just a silly bunch of non-consequential fluff-meisters. (I mean, in my case, YES, TRUE, but still.)

I thought it would be fun to put together a site that showed how many of us there are, and how varied and unique we all are. The Mommy tag was more of an in-your-face thing, less of an actual label, although I wear it with pride. "I am Mommy Blogger, hear me roar."

I'm mature enough to admit when I'm wrong. But now I'm faced with the question: since I agree with what they're doing, should I show my support by adding my blog to the list? And the additional, somewhat anxiety-ridden quandary: into which category would my blog be placed?

Nephew and Uncle

Can you tell they're related?

While You Were Sleeping

I've been spending a lot of time recently holding a sleeping Cooper. Part of the reason I think that he has heartburn is that he seems to sleep better when he's upright. Anyway, I'm online more trying to keep myself awake. (I sit in my dark room so as not to wake Cooper up with the light, otherwise I'd probably read some books that have been calling my name.) I love reading blogs, but I get to a point where I don't really want to read anymore. And so, I turn to Hulu.


Oh Hulu, my good friend.

I've watched at least one full television series on Hulu. You can watch current shows or canceled shows. Bryan had never seen Some Like It Hot, so we watched it on Hulu.

Between Redbox and Hulu, our date nights are totally covered.

The Bread

I've never posted a recipe before. It feels kind of weird. Oh well. This one is worth it. This is the bread I wrote about before. So good. As far as I know this recipe came from a cookbook that my Great-Aunt Cleo wrote. My mom took it and tinkered with it a bit. I've done some additional tweaking.

Ingredients:

• 5 cups warm water
• 3 Tbsp instant yeast
• 2/3 cup powdered milk
• 2/3 cup vegetable oil
• 2/3 cup honey
• 2 Tbsp salt
• 11-14 cups flour (white, wheat, or a combination thereof)

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
   
2. Get a really, really big bowl.
   
3. Briefly mix together water, yeast, and a spoonful of the honey. Let it stand about 15 minutes, or until the yeast has puffed-up.
4. Stir in powdered milk.
5. Add the oil.
6. Add the rest of the honey. (I pour it into the same cup that I used for the oil. The honey slides right out.)
7. Add the salt. (I've forgotten this step a few times. It's not so good.)
8. Mix thoroughly.
9. Gradually begin to add the flour. I like to add about 5 cups at a time.
10. Here's where I've changed the original process a bit. Right around 12 cups of flour it gets hard to stir. So, make sure that your hands are clean and knead the dough right in the bowl to add the rest of the flour. This saves time because then you don't have to clean up a messy, flour-covered counter when you're done. Also, I've discovered that I use less flour this way, resulting in lighter bread.
11. When you're done kneading, place the bowl of dough, covered with a towel, on your warming stove. Let it rise for at least 30 minutes.
    
12. After it's risen, punch it down and form it into loaves. I get 4 or 5 loaves from each batch.
13. Baked in greased bread pans for 35 minutes at 350 degrees.
14. Eat when it's still warm with a little margarine and some jam. Or totally plain. It also makes wonderful toast. And sandwiches. And probably any other food that requires delicious bread.

Now, if you will excuse me, I'm going to go have some bread.

Sleepy Song

Cooper makes this noise whenever he's falling asleep. Peter did it too, but his version was much quieter. Cooper gets so loud that if he starts to fall asleep in church we have to take him outside. I had never heard of a baby singing himself to sleep, but apparently it's a normal thing among Bryan's siblings. I wonder if they any of them still sing the "sleepy song" as they fall asleep.



By the way, Bryan's chest is Cooper's favorite place to sleep. That's where he is in this movie.

Brain Dump

I finally have a few minutes to write something and my brain is too scattered to write a real, coherent post about one topic. So, we're going to do a brain dump. That's what Bryan called the last one of these that I did. I thought it was an appropriate name.

1. I'm listening to the playlist on the blog of someone that I went to high school with. I usually don't have headphones nearby when I'm on the computer, so this is kind of novel.
2. Are Bryan and I the only people that think rodents should not be a normal part of cooler weather? I'm sorry, let me correct that. I mean rodents living in your ceiling. All four of us spent a night in Peter's room this week after a rather tense discovery that not only was something skittering about in the air duct in our ceiling, but we have a number of unfinished areas in our apartment. Peter's room was the only one without any holes, entrances if you will, for small things to come into our living space. Bryan and I actually had a repeat of our creepy crawly adventure and spent most of the weekend deep cleaning the kitchen. Not awesome. Bryan spent a few hours yesterday covering/filling holes. I really hope he found all of them.
3. I paused in my writing of this post to hold Cooper for the last hour or so. While lying on my bed, holding him, reading blogs, I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. It was a spider. On my bed. I couldn't jump up because I was holding a sleeping baby so I did the next best thing. I grabbed the baby blanket the spider happened to be walking on and threw it across my room. I meant to squish it, but as soon as I realized I was holding a blanket with a live spider crawling on it, my natural instincts took over. So yeah, I just sent a spider sailing across my room. And now I'm afraid to walk on the carpet.
4. I think Cooper has heartburn. He hates to sleep lying down. We've known for a long time that his digestion had some issues, but I'm afraid it may be getting worse.
5. I'm really excited for my brother and sister-in-law to visit us this week. They'll be here on Saturday. Good thing we just deep cleaned the kitchen. (That, my friends, is what's called the silver lining.)
6. I've thought of other things to add to this brain dump, but I kind of want each of them to have their own post. Which means I'll probably never write about them.
7. Bryan really wants me to start using tags. I'm trying, I just have a hard time remembering. There. I just tagged this one.
8. I'm really excited for the Office season premiere tomorrow. Or would that be the The Office season premiere?
9. My apartment has cooled down to 76.6 degrees. I miss having control over the thermostat.
10. It's officially Autumn now.

Okay, that's enough for now. Goodnight!

Yarrrrrgh

Oh, and happy Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Absent

The boys have decided to adopt wildly different schedules. Peter has started waking up between 6 and 6:30 in the morning. Not cool. Cooper, on the other hand hasn't been settling down until between 11 and midnight. This makes for a very tired mommy. Oh, and no time to blog.

Hope to be back soon.

One More Week, Folks

Today multiple people at church referred to "this beautiful Autumn Sunday". Fall begins September 22. It's still summer. Not that there's anything wrong with Autumn, but I really love Summer, and I'm not going to give it up until I have to.

That is all.

Domestic Diva

I totally made this.

By "totally made this" I of course mean that a nice woman in my ward invited me over, provided the apples, grinder, canner, and expertise. I brought the jars and did whatever she told me to do.

I really did make this.

I make ridiculously good bread, did you know?