Friday, January 30, 2009

Happy Valentines day, more than 2 weeks early.

Messed Up Daddy, I've decided to call him that because it connects us and he thinks it's strange, ordered a Valentines Day present for me, it was delivered yesterday. I was surprised he ordered it, but I knew it was coming. I've wanted one of these for years!


I couldn't wait to make something with it, so I went looking for a brownie recipe that used cocoa powder instead of bakers chocolate or semi sweet chocolate chips, because I have cocoa and don't have the other stuff. I found one, and quickly put it together.



They didn't turn out very brownie like, the flavor is good, but I think I made them too thick.


They are nice though, a good chocolate cake kind of thing.


So, got any good recipes that I can use my new kitchen toy making? I'm going to make bread in a day or two. But I already have a loaf and nearly a half here.



Thursday, January 15, 2009

Photos from my new camera.

The only thing I did to these pictures was crop them a little bit. I probably need to do some adjusting with the high lights and shadows.

Rain drops on the grass.



A big smile from The Boy.

The Boy running around at the bus terminal.





Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Back to work, hopefully.

I should hear from The Daycare Mom about her new work hours. She has an interview tomorrow, with the manager at the same place she was working at before. She says that they want her to come back, and will give her a schedule tomorrow.

I'm really glad that she is going to go back to work, and so I'll have my job back. I will only get about half the hours of a normal month, but even a little bit is good. We've missed having the kids here. I hope she gets things worked out and can work full time as soon as possible.

In other news, I got a new camera. It's a Nikon D40 D-SLR, I really like it. I'm still learning about it and will be trying different things as I can. It's a bit big and bulky compared to my old point and shoot, which makes it hard to just grab it and go, but it has a quicker shutter speed so capturing the moment is easier. I ordered a tripod for it, so I can do low light/natural light shots, and fireworks shots this summer. I've always wanted a tripod, and it was a mark down on Tiger direct so it was cheap. I'm very excited to try some of the manual settings. I'll post some pictures I've taken with it soon. I already have several of The Boy and a few other things, I just have to put them in the computer and edit them, if needed.

Monday, January 12, 2009

My family grows a litte bigger.

My youngest brother, Mark, and his dear wife are adopting a boy from the foster care system. He came to live with them this week-end. I'm so excited! They have wanted a child for years, and now they have this wonderful little boy. He is 8, he will turn 9 in February. He's cute as can be and will fit in with the rest of us really well. He likes movies, reading, cars, boats and trains. This past month has be a crazy one for Mark and his new family. This time last month they didn't know they were going to get my new Nephew, and now he's all moved in and part of our family. There have been meetings, and tons of paper work. There will probably be more of those before it's all finalized, but it will be so very worth it.

Congratulations Mark and Eileen!

The Boy has BIG dreams.

I was talking to The Boy the other day, about what he wants to be when he grows up. I suggested the typical, Fireman, Doctor, and "A cook like Daddy", all of which he said no to. So I asked him what he wanted to be. You will never guess his answer ... Okay I'll tell you, he says that he wants to be "Chef Gordan Ramsey" when he grows up. Not Chef "The Boy". MY boy wants to be GORDAN RAMSEY himself LOL. Now to break the news to him that he can't take over someone's life just because he thinks they are cool. (I guess I watch too much Kitchen Nightmares and Hell's Kitchen when he's around.)

Thursday, January 01, 2009

And so the New Year starts.

Happy New Year! So far the year is starting out okay. The Boy and I are watching Loony Tunes on Cartoon Network. We had toast and hot chocolate earlier, and will probably have more after dinner. I found an instant hot cocoa mix recipe and mixed some up, it's really good and it's nice and warm when we are feeling chilled. There is some bad news however, I'm probably unemployed again. My Daycare kid's Mom has been having a hard time with her Ex. There have been problems that made her late to work and one night she didn't home from taking the kids to see him and his family until after 2AM. So she's missed work a day or two, with weather and the kids and her Ex, so they fired her. I understand why they had to do that, they need to be able to depend on someone who works for them. But until she finds another job, I will only be getting a few hours here and there while she looks for work. If it takes too long I'll have to open up those spots and find new kids.

It not all bad news though. I'll be getting a good pay check in a couple of weeks because I worked quite a few hours last month, I only get $2.20 and hour but that is per child so when I have all 5 it's actually $11 and hour. In fact I had each of the older 3 for 33 hours more than the approved amount of hours for last month. I'm going to send a letter setting out the details of what happened, with the snow days and I don't think they took into account that she worked some week-end hour, and all the week day hours were late afternoon/evening hours. (2 PM to 10 PM) So we will see if they will cover those extra hours or if she will have to.

I want Hot Chocolate, and toast. I'll have to make bread before I can have any toast. It takes about three hours to make bread. (About 30 minutes to mix and knead the dough, two one hours rises, and 30 minutes to bake.) It's worth it, we all prefer home baked bread. I need to make more apple butter, and perhaps more pumpkin butter as well. I don't know when I'll get the apples but I have plenty of frozen pumpkin.