Wondering

I am wondering when I will have the time and energy to post all the things I think about posting. Will that day come? Will it come soon?

Andrew is sleeping better during the day. Yea!! This is despite yet another ear infection, which is requiring his seventh antibiotic. Yep. You read that right. I see tubes in his future.

Aaron has hit a whining stage. I don't think he remembers any longer how to speak in a normal tone of voice. This makes me wonder what his teenage years will sound like...

Ethan fell off the top bunk two days ago. I don't think I will ever get that image out of my head. I saw it happen. ::shudders:: He swears he will never go up there again. I am giving him until next week.

Andrew is eating more and more foods! He now has eaten avocado, banana, rice cereal, plums, pears, and peaches. (In that order) He loves eating solids. He loves eating. Period.

I led a seminar at my church for a women's event today. There were three seminars to choose from, fewer than thirty women in attendance, and only three chose mine. It made me a bit sad to have so few, but mine was a crafty option and the others were practical/spiritual. I'm trying not to take it personally. :) I led the women who came through the Patchwork Card Tutorial from Craft Apple. I've made these lots before and it is so fun and easy. The women who came had fun. They went on and on when we got back together as a big group, showing off their goods. That made me feel good. Other women said, "Ooh, how cute!" "How did you do that?" and "I want to learn how to do that!" That made me feel good, too.

Have you made the Glazed Lemon Cookies from p. 142 of May's issue of Everyday Food? You really need to make these. (she says while licking her lips) I took them to the seminars today and women openly drooled over them and went for seconds and asked for the recipe. That made me feel good, too.

That's all I got, folks!

In Which Rachel Slays Me

I want to discuss Rachel's ponytails.
I mean, do ponytails get any cuter than that?

Oh my goodness, stop it Rachel. You're killing me. Ponytails this cute should be illegal.

Today Johanna Is As Old As Me

Happy birthday to Johanna.

Happy birthday to Johanna.

Happy birthday dear Johanna.

Happy birthday to Johanna.

The end. Not as good as last year, was it. Oh well, at least it's on the correct day this year. It still applies, too. So go read it again.

The Squirrel Saga

See this cute little guy. Isn't he just ssooooooo cute? Sarc off. The girls put some bird seed in one of their toy bowls and our friend Mr. Squirrel was quite appreciative. We've got some Shake Away to scare him off. Hopefull he doesn't like dried fox pee.
I don't like Mr. Squirrel. He eats my plants. Lookie my tomato plant. I can't believe it's still there and he hasn't chowed it down yet.

But lookie my bean plants. I think we've got maybe 1 or 2 dozen grean beans even though Mr. Squirrel has eaten all of the leaves and most of the green beans. Well, gee thanks Mr. Squirrel. You are so kind and generous to leave us some of your loot.

Leu Gardens, Go There...If You Can

We ditched school today and took a field trip to the Harry P. Leu Botanical Gardens in Orlando. It's a little more than an hour from here but they are the best botanical gardens I've ever been to and it's free to get in on Monday mornings. The girls got tired of it after about an hour of looking at lots of flowers and plants but I could spend all day long there and not get tired. The weather is just perfect, too. Here are some of the cool flowers I photographed today.
I have no idea what this flower is and it wasn't labeled. Too bad, I'd love to know what it was.
The same for this one, although I think it must be related to the Orchid if it's not actually an Orchid.
This rose was called "Lemon Zest." I want one. They are so beautiful. I bet the squirrels would love to eat this rose...but that another post.
This hibiscus had huge flowers in case my hand being in there for perspective was confusing you.
They have lots of fantastic bamboo and really neat palms. One of my favorite was the Fishtail palm. Really neat.

And this is a Blanket Flower. The butterflies loved this one.

Cars Speak To Me

Driving around today I saw two things that made me laugh.

The first was a bumper sticker:

"Why am I the only one on Earth that knows how to drive?"

HA! That's a good one.

The second was advertisement on a vehicle: Exercising Paws: Exercising your dog, so you don't have to.

You've got to be kidding me. Why have a pet if you don't have time to take it out to pee. I mean really. They even have a picture of a poodle on a TREADMILL on their website. I mean REALLY PEOPLE. They will even come to your house and clean up your dog poo for a measly $8 for the first visit and $2 per pooper-scooper visit after that. I mean...REALLY PEOPLE.

But good for them. I can hardly believe you'd be successful in a business venture like that, but I may very well underestimate the amount of money that people will spend on their dogs and cats.

As for me, that's what I've got kids for: pooper scooping and dog walking. Except we don't have a dog. Because there's enough poop and hair to clean up in this house as it is.

The Other Post

When I posted about making yogurt, I mentioned that I had tried using 1/2 cup plain yogurt as my starter with not-so-great results, but that it was a topic for another post. Well, this is that post! When I used yogurt as my starter, my end result looked like this:

Looks yummy, no? I have several theories as to what went wrong. First, I didn't have fresh milk. I mean, it wasn't past date, but it was getting close. Also, my yogurt that I used for the starter was about two weeks old. Again, not bad, but not fresh. The biggest mistakes were these: I didn't cool the milk completely down to 110. I was in a hurry, and I realized later that it was 120. Also, I read that it is best to mix a bit of the warm milk into the yogurt and then add it all back to the milk. I didn't do that. As you can see, it is all nice and solid at the bottom of my container and liquid at the top. I think all my starter stayed at the bottom.

Anyway, I guess I was feeling brave the day I made this mess and just put it in the fridge to see what would happen. The next day when it was nice and chilled, I took it out to see if anything could be done with it. I smelled it, and it smelled fine. I tasted it, and it tasted great. But the texture was way wrong. Lots and lots of whey, and a dry and somewhat grainy yogurt. I did some research and found out that you can make cream cheese at home! I actually found this out by looking up how to make whey. I use whey to soak grains to make them easier to digest. I was having a hard time skimming enough off of yogurt for this and found that you can extract the whey out of yogurt, and what you are left with is cream cheese! Who knew?

So I got a bowl and set a strainer lined with a towel in it and dumped in my not-so-perfect yogurt into the strainer and let it sit out on the counter.

I let it sit like this for several hours on the counter until it wasn't really dripping out any whey anymore. At that point, I carefully pulled up the corners of the towel and tied it around the handle of a wooden spoon and hung it over a pitcher so it could drip while hanging and get every last drop of whey out of it.

It kept dripping overnight and a few hours into the next day. When the dripping stopped, it was done! This is what was left in the towel - the most beautiful, yummy cream cheese!

I was a bit skeptical that it would actually taste good, and the knowledge that it had sat out all night creeped me out a little bit, but it was really nice. And what was really strange was that it was even a bit cool to the touch even after sitting out. And I was left with a jar full of whey (about 1 1/2 cups) and a little over a cup of cream cheese. This cream cheese is a little bit different from commercial cream cheese - not so much in taste, but in texture. It is a little bit more dry.

I am working on a recipe using the cream cheese right now, and I'll have to let you know how it turns out.