January 2022

 

My first sugar of 2022 was the same as my last sugar of 2020. Thank you Costco for a lovely Tiramisu. Good gracious it was so sweet!

Opa came over and taught us how to make his delicious apple (and pear) sauce.

This stuff is so smooth and lovely. It is healthy and great for pancakes and on its own. Megan will eat it by the gallon. 

I decided to use some deer antler, given to me by one of the Haven guys, for the strap button at the bottom of the Fish Lyre.

I cut it at an angle and put a screw through it then added it to the bottom of the lyre.

I think it looks good. Its a very muted warm color and texture and even though I am going to try to dremel some shape into it, it is at least now, functional.

I decided to try a New Years resolution of making one bread a week for the year. Some of this is going to be bread machine and some will be old fashioned hand kneading, rising, and baking.

We got some January snow and some really cold weather.

It was in the teens or twenties most of the time and it was beautiful.

We took down the Christmas decorations.

We tossed the tree and wreath back into the woods.

I made some molasses bread. It was not bad. David loved it.

We tried out the KFC beyond. It was pretty good.

The kids liked it quite a bit.

I started working on my ability to use Kiernan's switch. To that end I printed out some support parts and bought some games I wanted to try and spent some time.

I am hoping that once the giant omicron spike goes away (we were at a 30+ positivity rate in mid January) that i can take Kiernan to some of the Haven video games nights. I know that he wishes he had people to play with and that is the group I know that plays this type of game. So I bought some games that they play as well to sort of train on.

Megan and I did a spa day.

We didn't go anywhere because Covid but we did facemasks and hair masks and out nails and listened to soothing spa music.

We drank tea and we relaxed.

I made a very soft oatmeal bread.

It was quite good for sandwiches.

I have this project coming up this year. I am not sure if I have talked about it here yet. I have been inspired by this channel that I really like on YouTube called how to make everything;

My hope is that through gardening and the CSA we are doing and some exploration I will be able to make a sandwich from scratch this year.

I think I am going to do a sub-blog on the project and I will set a link up on the side if I do that.

I am going to try to make a sandwich that I usually eat. 

This sandwich should have the following: bread, cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, sprouts, dressing mand or hummus.

I have begun with the dressing step because that is going to take the longest.

I present apple scrap vinegar.

This is an exciting project part. I love vinegar and I have lots of time some its low pressure and fun.

I am trying for wild yeast so there is no additive. Its just apples and water to start out with. I had to stir it every day once or twice with a sterilized spoon as the battle between the fungus (yeast and mold) and the many bacteria took place. From the smell at the end of the week I got a good fermentation with nothing spoiled seeming.

Kiernan made perogies from scratch. This was a massive project. It was something his cooking teacher told him about (before he had to leave that class). I was happy to see all his skills and his hard work. This was a 4 or 5 hour project and he worked his butt off.

I am so glad that the bullying and class withdraw have not ruined his willingness to keep on cooking.

Megan and I and sometime s Kiernan and David have been drawing in the evening. We have a theme and then do what we can.

Its lots of fun and great for the prebedtime no screens wind down.

In exciting news Megan got her hard cast off.

Her arm is still broken but its healing well and they gave her a velcro cast that she can take on and off.

There was a little atrophy and she was so nervous the day after the big cast came off.

Her skin was dry and irritated and scaly but the ability to soak it and lotion it and scratch the itches was so wonderful!

Krishna had her wedding on Kiernan's birthday.

We were very back and forth about whether or not to go because of the Covid numbers.

She started sending out her prep pictures and I decided that we would go. It was a combination of loving her and wanting to be at her wedding and of knowing that the kids would hardly ever get this opportunity for cross cultural exposure and fun.

I made some more bread. This one is an apple bread. The apples completely disappeared and the sweetness made the yeast go crazy so that it rose right out of the beadmaker.

It smelled like cider and it tasted very mildly like apple. It was more aromatic than anything but it toasted really well.

I took it to bardic with Haven. The theme was wassail and that is a time for apple cider and desserts but because we were at a winery they wouldn't let us bring/serve our own food. We sang in the cold and shook out heads at the choice of the establishment to put wood on the firepits without clearing the snow and ice first.

Some Haven members did the heroic job of building up a fire on ice on water but gracious that was a chore.

I waws asked to open up the bardic by singing the first song.

I did this one.

The Covid spike started to go down.

I keep talking about this but I think the visual is better at explaining it.

 I put on my beautiful wedding outfit.

Also I put on my rocking peacock combat boots that David got me.

Megan was able to get her arm into hers with the cast gone.

My guys looked dashing and more than ready to eat some Indian food

Mom was super happy to get out into the world and be fancy and social.

We saw our friends.

We saw a beautiful fun wedding and ate like kings.

For the rest of Kiernan's birthday we played video games and ate cake and had a quiet family time.

He got his booster the next day.

I filtered the apple bits out of the apple scrap cider. It was very cloudy and smelled like beer with apple flovor.

Megan drew some crazy amazing animals.

Here is her cat.

Here is my cat.

I made a super vegetarian Irish stew because I was sick of being cold and wanted a hot filling meal.

I was particularly happy because the kids liked it and its chock full of vegetables.

I will make this one again for sure

Megan and I went on a freezing Haven explore.

We drove up to Pennsylvania to the old abandoned Pennsylvania Turnpike and one of its tunnels.

We were heavily layered but it was 14 degrees.

The tunnel is almost a mile long and full of graffiti and looks post apocalyptic. 14 of us poked around.

Megan's coat was nearly camouflage for all the bright colors.

She loved the spooky feel and the wild abandoned environment.

She put sweet yellow hearts on the walls and played with a dog and got cold.

We headed home after 3 hours and it had gotten up to 24 degrees. We used Davids car and its heated seats and spent the entire rest of the day trying to rest and warm up.

It was a cool adventure!