Did you miss me?

OMG, you guuuuuys.  It's been like TEN MONTHS.  I know.  I'm sorry.  And I should have been blogging this whole time because so many things happened in the last ten months.  Soooooo many.  But things have been crazy, and so blogging took the back burner.  Let me list for you the major life changes that have happened since we last talked...

1. K and I got ENGAGED!  Gah!  Can you believe it!?  OK, I basically knew we were going to get married after we had been dating for about three weeks, but it was still pretty amazing.  We got engaged in San Diego because he didn't want it to happen in Arizona, due to my...less than friendly feelings toward Arizona. It was wonderful and actually I think I'm going to need to do a separate post on it.  So, on to the next thing which is...

Sedona - one of our favorite places in AZ

2.  We MOVED...away from Arizona.  And back to Portland!!  OMG!  Nothing could make being engaged to the guy of my dreams better than moving back to the city of my dreams.  We had only been engaged a few weeks when we heard that there was a position open at K's company in Portland.  I really didn't want to get my hopes up, and it took FOREVER for it to become final, but in November we hit the road and drove back to Oregon where...

On the road home

3.  We bought ANOTHER house.  One in Portland.  There were a few things we liked about Arizona (very few), but the thing we loved the most was our first house.  It was perfect for us.  It was (is) beautiful and new, and nice and bigger than anything either of us has ever lived in.  And it was just, the ONE.  Much like we knew that the other was "the ONE" when we met, we knew that our house was the one for us the first time we saw it.

Pepper likes moving for obvious reasons

Christmas decor is always a priority

 When we found out we were for sure moving to Portland, we started looking at places to live.  I was pretty adamant about living in Portland proper rather than a suburb.  I did the suburb thing - and I learned once again that suburbs are not for me.  K and I had a bit of a showdown over this issue because it may have been more practical for us to move to the suburbs.  His office is deep, deep in the suburbs, and traffic to and from there is a nightmare.  Not to mention the fact that you can pretty much always find a place to live that is bigger, nicer and cheaper in the suburbs than you can in the city.  I don't always insist on having my way, but in this case I knew that moving to the suburbs would be a mistake.  Finally K gave me a challenge:  If I could find a job in the city before we moved, we would live in Portland.  Done and done.  I'm not sure how it happened so quickly, but it did - which leads us to number four....

The Tram

4.  I got a new job!  Well, obviously.  I did finally start working in Arizona, although it was at a job that I was grossly overqualified for and underpaid for.  Seriously.  Not only did I make 1/4 of what K made, but I'm pretty sure I was the only person in my position over 30.  It was nice to finally be working again, and bringing in some sort of a paycheck, even though it was quite tiny.  After a few months I was getting pretty bored, though, so really it was a relief to start something new when we came back to Oregon.

After we found out that we might be able to move back to Oregon, I knew I needed to start applying for jobs right away.  The first time I moved to Portland I applied for HUNDREDS of jobs and never heard a peep back on any of them.  So I expected that it would be similar this time around.  Despite not even being positive that we were moving, I pulled out my laptop and started searching.  The first night I applied for a few jobs that I thought I was qualified for and also met some of my requirements (as far as pay, position and LOCATION (reference #3).  I filled out some online applications, attached my resume and sent them into the black hole of job application land, presumably to never be heard from again.  And then to my surprise, the very next day I received an email from the owner of the business I had just applied with.  He had looked at my resume and wanted me to take a personality test!  Well, OK!  I filled it out that evening.

The next day, he sent me another email - he wanted to do a phone interview!  What!?!  So, we did a phone interview, and then a Skype interview, and then I was hired!  Keep in mind that I was still in Arizona this whole time, working at my old job and waiting every day to hear if K was really and truly going to be able to get the transfer back to Oregon.  I had to take a licencing exam to be able to start my new job in Oregon, so I started studying as soon as we found out that we would be moving.  Which also explains my ten month radio silence.  After we did finally get the notice that we would be moving, I spent pretty much all of my free time either packing or studying for my exam.  And when we did finally roll into town and get the keys to our new house, guess what day it was?  It was the day before Thanksgiving.  So then the Holidays happened.  And then...?

Portland I love you

5.  We planned a wedding.  After getting engaged, I did a few basic wedding planning things.  I started a pinterest board or 4 to pin all of the amazing and fantastic wedding ideas that are out there.  I bought a few bridal magazines.  I compiled a preliminary guest list.  I started looking at wedding venues online.  In OREGON.  Because no way in hell was I going to get married in Arizona.  And then before I really had to start worrying about the logistics of all that, we learned we maybe would be moving to Oregon..  So the details of wedding planning were put on hold until after the move was final and done.  I had emailed several wedding venues while I still was living in Arizona, and one that I was quite interested in was the McMenamins Cornelius Pass Roadhouse in Hillsboro, OR.  First of all, it is a McMenamins, which is sort of an Oregon standby.  Second of all, this location has a barn that they hold weddings in.  I blame pinterest for the fact that I suddenly needed a barn wedding.  I'm not a barn person, nor is my style rustic.  And I did not envision a rustic wedding in this barn, but still, I wanted a barn.  Which is surprisingly hard to find in the Portland area.  Not only that, but it proved to be much more cost effective than most of the other venues I was interested in, as the cost of the venue is included with a food and beverage minimum.

So, a few days after Christmas, I emailed the sales coordinator of the venue.  Just kind of throwing it out there.  K and I didn't really care what time of year the wedding was.  We knew it would need to be summer if it was outside, but other than that, neither of us cared if it was spring, summer, fall or winter.  Since this particular venue is outdoor/indoor, I preferred a spring, summer or fall date.

Not in the desert anymore

"Hi, just wondering what Saturdays you have available in the spring, summer or fall in 2014?"

Turns out, the ONLY Saturday they had available between April and October was June 21st.  And that was because of a cancellation.  I immediately forwarded the email to K and said - "what do you think?"
He wrote back "YES!"  And so there you go, six months to plan a wedding.  Not the shortest amount of time that anyone has ever had, for sure.  But still, there was no time for dilly dallying.  Which is good for me, since I am such a major procrastinator.  Knowing that I had a fast approaching deadline made me much more productive.  But it also meant that once again, blogging was not a priority.

The week after the wedding, I was sort of having withdrawals.  It had been so stressful and so wonderful - there were times that I said "I can't wait for this to be over with and just be married!"  But you and I both know that we thrive on the rush that we get from stress, and this particular kind of stress is like nothing else.  And then there was no more wedding planning!   I was explaining to K that I had put so much work and energy into it that it was sort of hard to have it all just stop.  And he said:  "You should blog about it.  You should do a series or something"  My husband, he is a clever one.  And to be honest, I had been blogging in my head the whole time.  I took pictures and I composed entries in my head.  So, I will be blogging about some of the things that have happened in the last ten months.  Some DIYs and some wedding planning things.

Oh yeah, which means that:

6.  We got MARRIED!   Obvs.

So that is it.  Here I am, ten months later.  Married and living in Portland.  Still cooking, still grilling, still DIYing ( although mostly DIYing wedding decor lately).  Still celebrating Wine Wednesday (and Wine Monday and Wine Friday).  Still trying to find the best things that my city has to offer - it's just that the best that this city has to offer is just...better.  Can't wait to tell you all about it.

Back in Bridgetown

Box of Sunshine

It seems that Oregon has had a particularly grey and rainy winter, or at least that is what my Facebook feed was telling me.  My BFF was reaching the height of winter fatigue and fighting a never ending cold, and I found myself wishing I could send her some of the plentiful Arizona sunshine.  Then I remembered seeing a cute idea on Pinterest awhile back for sending a "box of sunshine" (I'm not sure who first came up with this idea, but it might have been Happy Money Saver).  Since citrus is so plentiful here this time of year, I decided to build the box around that.  I went on a mission to find yellow and orange things to fill the box with, and made a few citrus treats.  Here is what I came up with!

In the box:

Locally grown oranges

Lemon Curd made from local lemons (maybe don't send this in the mail - it needs to be refrigerated)

Blood Orange Syrup made from locally grown blood oranges

Lemonheads

Dried mango and candied ginger tucked into cute little yellow and white treat bags

A citrus juicer

Yellow and white chevron stripe washi tape

Yellow and white chevron stripe straws

Lemon soap

Lemon body wash

Yellow note cards

Emergen-C Super Orange Drink Packets

Tazo Wild Sweet Orange Tea

A mix CD that I made (Yes, we still make each other mix CDs.  We would probably still make each other mix tapes if we had the technology)

Packaging for oranges

Lemon Curd and Blood Orange Syrup

Little Sunshine

Don't be jealous of my artwork.  Why dinosaurs, you ask?  I think the more important question is why NOT dinosaurs?

This was a really fun package to put together, although finding yellow and orange things when you are looking for them is harder than you would think!  I had tons of ideas for items to put in this package that I couldn't find.  But I did end up finding more than enough cute things that fit the theme, and in fact almost didn't have enough room for everything.  

You can tailor the contents to whoever you are sending the package too.  Rather than just going out and buying a bunch of cheap generic stuff, I wanted to pick out specific items that I thought my friend would like and want to use.  This added to the challenge and made picking out the items more fun.  You could really take this idea and adapt the theme to be any color or even a state theme.  Run with it!

DIY: TV Shelves

So, K and I have been searching for a new entertainment center for, like, forever to replace his old Ikea "birch effect" Lack TV Stand.  We searched and searched, but could never find one that we loved for under five hundred dollars.  We almost bought one at Ikea (a step up from the Lack...like one step up), but we decided to hold off since we weren't that excited about it.  When I saw THIS idea on pinterest, I knew that I had found "the one".  I am so happy with how it turned out!

This is like the before and after pictures in weight loss commercials where the person is all frumpy and not wearing any makeup before to make the after look even better.  Our before wasn't normally that bad, this was right before starting the project.

I have this problem that I think is the root of all of my time management issues.  I seem to think that everything is going to take significantly less time than it actually does.  And then when I am in the middle of a project I either run out of time or I am shocked at how long it is taking.  Obviously you aren't in danger of running out of time when building an entertainment center, so my reaction here was to be surprised at how long this project took.  Which was not actually that long - it was probably about three days of work, not including shopping for supplies.  As new homeowners and inexperienced DIYers, this probably took K and I a little longer than people who may have more experience building things.  But we are so happy with how it turned out, and I think we learned so much from this projects (plus, we acquired some new tools!).

My beloved sander

We pretty much made our shelves exactly like the inspiration photo, except I didn't want to do the chains as our style isn't quite that rustic.  To me it looked like the chains were more aesthetic than functional anyway.  We spent a LOOOONG time at the hardware store getting supplies.  We had measured our wall, figured out where the studs were and decided how long we wanted the shelves.  We finally decided on 12x1 pine boards for the shelves, then spent forever picking out boards that weren't warped.  We picked two 8 foot boards and then had the store cut the boards each into one 78 inch and one 18 inch board.  That way we had two long shelves and two short shelves, but we only had to buy 2 boards and none of the wood was wasted.

Some things that we bought - five inch brackets, small saw, screws, wall plates

We decided to paint the boards white to match the trim and blinds in the house, and so I went with Behr Premium Plus Ultra Interior Satin Enamel in Swiss Coffee.  I have been in love with Behr since I painted my closet with it, and I love that it has the primer in it already.  And I went with the color Swiss Coffee because when I asked the paint lady at Home Depot what the standard, builder grade color was for trim in most houses she said "I don't know, maybe Swiss Coffee?"  PS - Swiss Coffee is white, not brown like you might think something named coffee would be.  And she was right, it is a very close, if not exact, match.

I sanded the boards with my brand spanking new Ryobi Corner Cat Sander - we bought it both for this project and some other projects I had planned.  I love it!  It made the sanding go really quickly.  After sanding I applied two coats of paint with a brush.  A roller would have made quick work of it, but since I had left my roller sitting out after painting the closet, I had to throw it away.  Take care of your brushes and rollers, people!  But even with a brush, this was a pretty easy and quick painting project.  Just be sure to catch any drips before they dry and make your new shelves look like a three year old painted them.

Making sure the brackets are level

After they were painted, they cured for a few days while we did other stuff, and then it was finally time to start the exciting part!  We decided that when we wall mounted the TV we wanted to hide the cords, and so we read THIS tutorial on hiding the cords in the wall.  Apparently this is not "up to code", just FYI.  This was by far the most frustrating part of this project. It requires that you cut two holes in your wall, one right behind the TV, and another straight down from the first hole for the cords to exit the wall.  We ran into multiple problems with this, the first one being that there is SOMETHING in the wall blocking the cords from  dropping to the bottom.  We are not sure what it is, but it is like a hard metal plate.  No getting around that.  So, after spending what felt like hours trying to push the cords through the wall, only to discover that there is an actual blockage, we decided to cut ANOTHER set of holes in the wall.  Nothing like cutting four rough holes in the smooth, beautiful wall of your brand new house.  Also, the above tutorial suggests that you buy something called steel fish tape to feed your cords through the wall.  K and I were like "Pfffft, no way are we buying that, we can just push them through without it, or at worst make our own tool to feed them through the wall."  NO!  Don't think that you can do this.  It was after much heartache and frustration that we realized we should have just bought the damn fish tape, and so it was back to Home Depot for me the next day to pick some up.  Luckily, I had spotted one in the clearance section, and it was still there.  Because, I mean seriously, who ever buys that?  Anyway, now we are the proud owners of Steel Fish Tape that we will probably never use again.  The reason it was so hard to get the cords through the wall was because of the insulation, and the steel fish tape is just flexible but sturdy enough to push past the insulation.  I know it doesn't sound like that would be difficult, but trust me, it is.

Ahhhhhh!  The terrifying moment that you start to cut a hole in your wall.

It looks much better after you slap a wall plate on it.  Yes, that is the original failed hole on the far left.

OK, so finally we had the TV mounted, so it was time to put up the shelves.  We had agonized over brackets, and finally went with the five inch brackets because I liked the simplicity of them (I HATED the ugly, super cheap metal brackets and was not having those in my living room .  The issue here is that we needed ten brackets, and the nice ones were about ten bucks each.  So right there you are looking at a hundred dollars.  For brackets.  K wanted to get at least eight inch brackets, but that meant either get the super ugly ones or spend $100 on brackets. We ended up exchanging three of the brackets for the more expensive, larger brackets for our bottom shelf  because it is the one holding the heavy items.  Really, if you are going back and forth between brackets, just get the larger ones.  If you have a twelve inch shelf, you need an eight inch bracket.  Our brackets are offset because we wanted them to be screwed into the studs.  I was going to do what my inspiration blogger did and paint the brackets the same color as the wall, but I haven't done it yet, and at this point the metal is just fine with me.

The cheaper five inch brackets.  Not very sturdy for a twelve inch shelf.

Much sturdier and more attractive brackets.  Also more expensive.

I styled the shelf with mostly with things I already had, although I did pick up a accessories at Marshall's (my new favorite store, I had a hard time controlling myself in there!).  I also thought a long time about how to hide the cords and plugs at the bottom of the shelves.  I'm not really a basket person, and so I wanted to come up with something different.  I started thinking that I would prefer a box to a basket, and that is when I started thinking that I would like to do some vintage crates.  My parents are antique lovers, and so when I told them how I was planning on trying to find some vintage soda crates, they sent me a coca-cola crate that they had.  I picked up the other two crates at a local antique store in Gilbert, Flashback Antiques.  I just love how they look!

Vintage soda crates hiding cords

Some vintage blocks my mom gave me, plus my life philosophy.

The vase was one of my Marshall's scores.

We have had the shelves up for about a month now, and we absolutely love them.  They are a great focal point in the room, plus we get to feel all proud of ourselves every time we look at it because we made it!

What you need for this project:
Boards cut to desired size (we used 12 inch by 1 inch pine boards cut to 78 inches and 18 inches)
Paint for the boards
Brackets ( 3/4 the size of your boards - 12 inch board needs 8 inch bracket)
Wood screws (we used 3/4 inch for the boards and 1 3/4 inch for the studs)
Power Drill
Screw Driver
Level
Small Saw (if you are wall mounting TV)
TV Wall Mount Kit (if you are mounting your TV)

Again, if you are mounting the TV and want to hide the cords, I strongly suggest you read THIS tutorial over at House of Hepworths.  If is really detailed and gives you all of the info you need.

Before

After

Merry and Bright

I love decorating for Christmas, and since we are in a new house I have all kinds of new places to decorate.   We have this half wall in our entryway that is part of our staircase, and I decided that this year it is the perfect place to hang our stockings.  Above the stockings I hung a little string garland to hang Christmas cards using clothespins.  It looked a little off when I first finished it, so much so that I texted a picture of it to my BFF and my cousin to ask it if was ugly or cute.  They both assured me it was cute (as is their duty), and  my BFF suggested adding some greenery.  I had already been wanting to make a swag that I saw on pinterest, so I decided to go all out and try to make a garland as well.

Inspiration photo from Better Homes and Gardens

When we bought our Christmas tree at good old Home Depot, they had a basket full of extra tree branches free for the taking.  My mom and I gathered up a bunch of them with the intent of getting crafty, but I didn't get around to it until today.  I had also picked up some other supplies at Joann's and Michael's.  After gathering all of my supplies, and digging my hot glue gun out of a drawer, I realized that I had a hot glue gun with no glue sticks.  I have had it for years, but never actually used it.   I attempted to finish using just regular craft glue, but it was a no-go.  So, off to Joann's I went, where I acquired some glue sticks as well as some green floral rope for the garland I would make.

After that short little field trip, I returned home to finish my first project, a greenery bunch to attach to my banister.  I just arranged some clippings of the evergreen branches and bound them together using 26 gauge green floral wire (It is just what I had on hand, but I think any floral wire that is easy  to wrap around your greenery and cut should work).  I then arranged a smaller bunch and attached those sticking out in the other direction so that there would be some greens on the bottom.  I used a small bunch of bare sticks as a backbone, but I think that is optional.  I just liked the way it looked in the inspiration photo.  I clipped apart some floral sprays that I bought at Michael's so that I could arrange them on top of the greens and attached those with more floral wire.  I then tied a ribbon around it and tied it in a bow.  The bow was not cute.  I even watched a Martha Stewart Tutorial on "How to tie a bow" (for real).  That helped, but it was still not a great bow.  But luckily, I hot glued some glittered pine cones and mini Christmas balls in the center to finish it off (and hide my pathetic bow).  I ended up being really happy with how it turned out.

I wrapped the post to protect it before hanging the swag

Next, I attempted to make my first ever garland.  It was actually really hard to find a good tutorial on how to make one, but I finally found THIS one.  I pretty much followed her instructions exactly except that I did it inside and I only used one type of evergreen.  After I finished the basic green garland, I attached it to the top of the half wall with thumbtacks ( maybe not the most secure method, but I am trying to avoid leaving a bunch of holes in the wall, and it works).  I wound a string of lights through the greens and then tucked sprigs of pine cones and berries into the greens.  The strand of lights I used was a little too long, so I put the leftovers in a clear vase next to two other clear vases filled with Christmas balls and glittered pine cones.

The supplies I used for the garland and swag are:

1 bunch of branches (from Michael's - if you live somewhere with trees you can just go cut some down)
6-8 leftover Christmas tree branches
2 glittered mini-pine cone sprays (cut apart)
2 golden berry spray (cut apart)
ribbon
mini Christmas balls ( I only used 4)
3 medium pine cone sprays
26 gauge green floral wire
Green rope (mine was wired, but I don't think that is necessary)
wire cutters/garden shears
Hot glue gun
1 strand of clear Christmas lights

Everything I either had on hand or picked up at craft stores.  I'm so happy with how these projects turned out! Although making something like this can seem daunting, it actually was fairly simple and and fun. Once you have all the supplies they don't even take that long. Happy holiday crafting!

The lazy person's guide to keeping your house clean(ish)

Now that we are getting settled in, I am trying to return to the normal routine that we had established of cooking at home, planning our meals and having a cleaning schedule.  A cleaning schedule!  What are you, thirty?  Yes, I am.  Thirty-one, actually.  See, I am naturally not a tidy person.  I like things to be clean, but I hate cleaning.  When I first moved to Portland, I moved into a house with two other roommates.  They already had a chore chart, and asked if I would be OK with that.  And I found that having a chore chart really helps me to stay on top of keeping the house clean(ish).  Of course, it helps when you have roommates and so only have one major chore a week.  In that house we used a whiteboard calendar that we filled in every week.  Each roommate had their own marker color and had a different chore assigned each week.  For example, one week would be floors, one week would be kitchen and one week would be trash.

I think this is exactly the same calendar that we used

 This works well for roommate situations because it leaves little room for resentment from one person doing all the chores and another never doing any.   After living with the chore chart for awhile, I decided it was the best way to keep myself on top of housework, and I thought I would probably try to continue to have a chore chart even after moving out.  K also really liked our chore chart, so we decided to keep one after we moved in together.  We assigned chores to ourselves according to our schedules, but instead of using a white board, we use our iCloud calendars.  This is great because you can keep calendars for different people or events, and you can access it from your phone or a computer so you pretty much always have access to it.  Each of us has our own chore chart, and we also have a general calendar to schedule things that we do together like events we are going to, people visiting, etc.
 

  Since I am not working right now and have more free time, I figure I can at least attempt to keep the house clean (easier said than done).  I kept seeing these things on pinterest that were links to blogs saying "Clean your house in 15 minutes a day!".  So I based my current cleaning schedule on THIS one.  Honestly, I don't know if I am just a slow cleaner or what, but it is at least half an hour to an hour per day, who are they kidding with 15 minutes a day?  To be completely honest, I am not very good about sticking to this 100%, but having it written down reminds me that it hasn't been done in X amount of time and needs to be done.  This can also be adjusted to your own personal needs or preferences.

Monday: Dust
Tuesday: Sweep and mop tile
Wednesday:  Clean out fridge, deep clean kitchen
Thursday: Clean downstairs bathroom (half bath)
Friday:  Clean master bath

K has take out trash, vacuum carpet and clean second bathroom.  Dusting and cleaning the half bath take the least amount of time, those can probably actually be done in 15 minutes.  I added the cleaning out fridge and moved kitchen to Wednesday since we moved into this house because we now have to keep our trash cans in our garage.  I don't want to throw out stinky food and have it sitting in the garage for 5 days.  Wednesday night is when the trash goes out, so that is the best time to do it.  Keeping up with cleaning out the fridge once a week will allow us to avoid any gross situations in there and help us to avoid food waste by keeping tabs of what is in the fridge that needs to be used up.  Plus, I really love my new fridge and I want to keep it nice!  (Nothing like deep cleaning your old house when you move out to show you how gross you are!)

Fancy new fridge

The most important chore that I have started doing is in my kitchen.  Although I am lazy when it comes to cleaning, I HATE a messy kitchen.  Drives me nuts.  And I felt like I was constantly cleaning the kitchen, especially since we cook at home so often now.  I was facing a pile of dishes and messy counters everyday, and it seemed to take me about an hour to clean my kitchen daily, only to mess it up again at dinner.  So, I started a daily routine that helps me immensely IF I stick to it.  If I skip one day it messes up the whole thing and it takes me a day or two to get back on schedule.  It is fairly simple, and might be a "Duh" moment for some people who already do this, but for procrastinators it will be a life saver.  In the morning, while I am brewing my coffee, I unload the clean dishes from the dishwasher and quickly load the few stragglers from the night before and that morning.  Then the dishwasher is empty and accepting dirty dishes, so throughout the day if I dirty a dish it goes directly into the dishwasher.  After dinner, leftovers are packed into lunch sized portions for the next day,  all dishes are loaded into the dishwasher, and counters are wiped (takes less than ten minutes).  I set the dishwasher to run overnight as it has a delay button, but you could run it right away.  The point is that the dishes should be clean the next morning so that you can unload them and start over.  This takes a little discipline because doing a chore first thing in the morning before you have even had coffee is not the most fun thing in the world, but it is REALLY not hard, and it makes a huge difference in the amount of time spent cleaning up for the rest of the day.  Also, I really like walking into a clean kitchen, which happens most of the time now!

Basically, regular maintenance is your friend.  As a procrastinator, I often avoid doing something for as long as I can.  The problem with that is that often I have twice as much work when I finally get to it.  After cleaning up, it is best to KEEP it clean, instead of putting it off until you can't stand it anymore.  And yes, those type As out there already know this, but this guide is not for you.  We all know you have no problem keeping your house clean.

Who knew artisan bread was this easy?

I've never been a huge fan of the store bought loaves of bread.  You know, the kind sold in the massive bread aisle, with a hundred different kinds of sliced, plastic wrapped bread that was baked who knows when.  When I was little, my mom would often bake homemade bread.  I remember the cozy days that we would mix the water, yeast, honey and flour, knead it, let it rise, shape it into loaves, let it rise again, and finally, bake it.  There is nothing like hot bread, straight out of the oven, topped with a little butter and honey.  After I lived on my own, I made my own bread once or twice, but could rarely find the time to devote four or five hours to it.  I would sometimes buy the fresh baked bread from the bakery, but not as an everyday thing.

Fresh Baked Goodness - our first loaf

 For K, good bread is a necessary part of a balanced diet.  So, after we started living together, there was always bakery quality bread in the house.  I'm a convert to delicious, fresh baked, artisinal bread.  But honestly, we were tired of paying three to five dollars per loaf.  K had suggested an experiment in making our own bread, but I was skeptical.  Knowing the time commitment to making your own bread, I didn't think it was realistic for us to do it on a regular basis.  So when I saw a recipe on Pinterest that claimed "Artisan bread in five minutes a day!"  I was curious.

The recipe I used was from the blog Alexandra's Kitchen, and she got it from a book called "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day".  This book came out in 2007, and has been all over the food blogosphere ever since.  It is unbelievable how easy this bread is.  In fact, it is so easy that both K and I were convinced that it was going to be a failure.  We were very pleasantly surprised to find out that we were wrong, and this is some of the best bread we have ever had.  Keep in mind that the "five minutes" is active time.  There is still some resting time for the bread, but your hands-on time is just a few minutes.

Artisan Bread in Five
(Makes 3-4 loaves)

3 cups lukewarm water
1½ T. active dry yeast (About two packets)
1½ T. kosher salt (reduce by half if you are using another kind of salt)
29.25 oz. unsifted, unbleached, all-purpose white flour (6 ½ cups if you don't have a food scale)

Place water, yeast and salt in a large bowl.  Make sure your water isn't too hot so that you don't kill the yeast, it should be just slightly warmer than body temperature.   Add all of the flour, and mix to combine.  Mix just until there are no dry flour spots.  Resist the urge to knead.  I usually end up using my hands to do the mixing because it is just easier.  The dough will be very sticky, this is normal.

Mixed Dough

 Cover with a loose fitting lid or clean kitchen towel  and allow to rise at room temperature for two hours.  After the two hours put it in the fridge for 2 more hours (The two hours in the fridge will make the dough easier to work with, but you can actually bake your loaf before this step if you just can't wait).  Now you are free to bake your bread, or you can leave it in the fridge until you have time to bake a loaf.

Covered with a kitchen towel

 When you are ready to bake, remove about a quarter of the dough (use a serrated knife or just use your hands) and put the rest back in the fridge.  The original recipe says to place on a cornmeal covered pizza peel, but I don't have a pizza peel and I have never used cornmeal.  If you have it, use it, but your bread will be fine without it.  At this point you should decide what you are baking your bread in - or on.  You can use a pizza stone, a cookie sheet, a regular loaf pan, or a pyrex baking dish.  If you are using a pizza stone or cookie sheet, add some flour to the dough and quickly shape it into a ball by stretching the dough and tucking the ends under to form a ball.  This should take less than a minute - remember, you aren't kneading.  Place on the cornmeal or flour covered pizza peel OR a piece of parchment paper.  Allow to rest for 40 minutes.  Preheat your oven to 450 with the pizza stone or cookie sheet inside so that it can preheat as well.

Resting Dough Ball

  ALSO: Place another baking dish in the oven filled with water.  This is your steam tray and it is important.  I would have skipped this step, but luckily K had read about it, and so he made sure we used one.  This is what makes the crust so crusty, don't skip this step.  I just use a metal 8x8 baking dish filled with water, and I put it on the bottom rack of the oven.  As you are baking, make sure the water hasn't evaporated (this is why filling the dish about 3/4 is a good idea)

If you want to, you can use a regular loaf pan or a one quart baking dish.  If I am doing that, I just place the dough directly into the buttered pan and allow it to rest there.  After 40 minutes of rest time, slash the top of your bread with a serrated knife, or make it easier on yourself and use some kitchen scissors to cut three diagonal cuts into the bread.  This is just to let steam escape, and it keeps it looking pretty.

Bake at 450 for 30-35 minutes, depending on your pan and oven.  Just keep an eye on it by looking at it through your oven window.  When it looks nice and brown on top, give it a tap to make sure it is firm.  Remove from oven and place on a cooling rack.  If you used a pan, take it out of the pan right away to avoid sweating (that makes it mushy and not good).  Allow to cool as long as you can stand it.  Technically, you are supposed to let it cool completely, but everyone knows that warm bread fresh from the oven is like heaven in your mouth.  If you do need to eat it right away, try to let it cool at least for 10 minutes.  The one drawback of slicing your bread while it is warm is that the rest of the loaf might suffer in texture due to losing too much steam.  But if you eat the whole loaf in one sitting, that won't be a problem.

Baked in a buttered one quart pyrex dish

The beauty of this method is that you can bake fresh bread every day or every other day.  You should get three to four loaves out of each batch.  Because this is homemade and has no preservatives, the bread is best in the first few days after baking.  But the raw dough lasts for up to 14 days in the fridge (according to the creator of this method.  I have never kept it that long).  One time K and I thought it would be good to bake a huge loaf, so we put half the batch in one loaf pan.  This was fine, but the loaf lasted us a week and at the end of the week the bread, although still fine, was not as delicious as it was at the beginning of the week.  We decided it was better to bake smaller loaves more often so that we could enjoy the major benefit of this method - freshly baked bread.

The mega-loaf

The other benefit of this is cost.  According to Alexandra's Kitchen, this homemade bread costs about .60 cents per loaf, vs four or five dollars to buy a similar loaf at a bakery or market.  And the time it takes to mix up a batch is less than it would take to run to the store to pick up a loaf.  Not only that, but your bread isn't full of preservatives and chemicals.  So - easy, cheap, better for you (as bread goes).  What are you waiting for?

Fresh bread, butter and goat cheese.

How pinteresting....

OK, there are about a million people with blogs that cover Pinterest.  Two of my favorites are The Pintester and WTFPinterest?  So I'm not trying to become another "Look what I did on Pinterest!"  blog.  If you don't know what Pinterest is, I might have to ask you if you've been living in a cave for the past year.  It's a completely addictive "virtual pinboard" where you can save links to websites, pictures, or just ideas that you like.  Or pictures of Channing Tatum shirtless, apparently.  I mostly use mine to save recipes, go figure.  But there are tons of pins floating around that look like really good ideas, and after you see them 65 times you decide to pin them and maybe try them sometimes.  Like, you know, the one about getting rid of the dry skin on your feet, or make your own face mask, or spray paint your couch.

Anyway, most of my pinterest attempts have turned out good, or at worst just not worked.  I've never had a spectacular fail.  Although that is most likely because I have never attempted anything too outlandish.  I'm always interested to see the pins that people have actually tried, and how they turn out.  Here are a few that I've tried (And they aren't all food!).

Click on the name of the pin to see the original pin - I've posted a few pics of my own attempts.


No-Bake Energy Balls

I pinned this months ago, but I finally just decided to make them this week.  Since I am in class from 7:40am to 11:10, and I honestly don't usually have time for breakfast ( I KNOW, it's bad!), I get HUNGRY.  These looked like an interesting little snack to try.  But my food board was so jam packed with pins that I couldn't even find it.  So I just did a search on pinterest for them, which turned up so many different results.  I guess this has been done many times, by many blogs.  But, I stuck with my original pin.  I  find it funny that the blogger who posted this refers to these as "healthy little treats".  Yeah, I don't know if I would go so far as to call them healthy.  They are basically like little granola bars, they have oats, honey, coconut, peanut butter and CHOCOLATE.  So, they are more like a cookie than a healthy snack.  But they are tasty and portable.  I rolled them into fairly small balls - I think I got about 27 out of this batch.  One tip I read in the comments section of the original blog was to keep a small bowl of water next to you as you roll the balls, and then get your hands wet after every few balls.  it keeps your hands from getting to sticky to work with.  That was a great tip, it worked really well.  If I were to make them again, I would use slightly less honey and slightly more peanut butter - they were a bit too sweet with not enough peanutty taste for me.  I placed them on a cookie sheet and stuck the whole thing in the freezer.  I brought a few of them with me to class on Thursday, and since they were frozen solid in the morning, they were still holding their shape by the time I ate them a  few hours later.
Verdict:  Not bad!

Energy balls about to go in the freezer

Sock Bun

I first pinned a photo tutorial for this a long time ago, but the photos were not clear enough for me.  If you actually know how to do a sock bun, sure, the photos are great 9 but why would you need them?).  When i found this video tutorial, I was really excited and tried it the next day.  It was pretty easy, and I think it looked very elegant.  I can't stand to have my hair on my neck when it's 110 degrees, so I really needed to find some different updo's other than my standard messy bun.  Love it.
Verdict:  Pinterest WIN!

Tub and Shower Magic or Soap Scum Killa

I like the idea of a DIY cleaner, and so I decided to give this a try.  The only problem is that I don't have the BLUE Dawn dish soap on hand.  Ever, actually, I really hate the smell of it.  The dish soap that I had on hand was the Green Works brand.  The post seemed to indicate that you really need the BLUE dawn dish soap, but I decided to give it a try anyway.  I mixed it up according to instructions, then put it into a spray bottle and shook it up - which was ill advised.  It shot out of the spray nozzle and all over my stovetop.  Which needed to be cleaned anyway, but it was almost comical how it just shot out of the nozzle uncontrolably.  I had to unscrew it a little to releive some of the pressue before it would stop.  And then I dutifully sprayed it in my tub and letit sit for an hour or two, and then went to see if it worked.  I started scrubbing away and...nothing.  It worked in the way that really ineffective cleaner works.  Like barely at all.  So, maybe this was because I used the wrong soap, but I wouldn't try it again, even with the right soap.
Verdict:  Pinterest fail :/

I wish I took a picture of the aftermath, but I was too busy cleaning it up

Glass Stovetop Cleaner

Both our apartment in Portland and our place here have a glass stovetop.  It seems like it would be easy to clean, but it still gets weird spots on the burners that are hard to clean up.  K wanted to buy a Glass Stovetop Cleaner at the store, but I thought I would try this DIY version first.The directions say you have to soak a rag in a soapy water, sprinkle baking soda on your stovetop and then lay the soapy rag over it for 15 minutes.  I just got a rag wet and soapy instead of soaking it, because why should I have to use another bowl?  Then I followed the instructions.  The problem was that after wiping, and wiping, and WIPING, there was still baking soda residue on the stovetop.  It took multiple attempts to remove it, and then I had to finish it with a cleaning spray anyway.  Also, once I finally got the residue up, the thing wasn't totally clean.  So it didn't even work.

Verdict: meh.

One Ingredient Banana Ice Cream

This was tempting because moving to this hot climate has made me want cool treats more often than I used to.  I froze a banana in slices, blended it in my food processor, and added some peanut butter and nutella.  It turned our like a blended banana with peanut butter and nutella.  So, fine, I guess.  But I honestly don't really like banana flavored things, so I guess this really isn't for me.  If you want a no dairy treat, this might be OK.
Verdict: meh

Blended bananas, before the add ins

Pouring grease into a foil lined bowl to throw away

Wow, there is no way to shorten the name of that pin.  Basically the idea is that for easy disposal, you line a bowl with foil and then pour bacon or other grease into it, wait for it to harden, and then just ball up the foil and throw it away.  Great idea!  I never know what to do with the grease.  My mom used to use a tin can, which is a good idea, but I never have a can when I need it, and so I would pour it into a cup or something, but then you have to clean that out - gross.  So I tried this idea.  And, I think it would work great, except that my house is never cooler than 78 degrees.  Sooo... the grease never hardens.  I ended up putting it in the freezer.  That seemed to work.  Overall, a pretty good idea.
Verdict:  Not bad!

greasy

So, Pinterest fun for everyone!  I love seeing how other people's pins turned out.  Have you ever tried a pin?  What happened?