Progress!

Well, I have made no progress on keeping the house organized yet. I've been trying really hard to keep up on cooking each night, boxing leftovers, and baking bread (we go through bread FAST.) So it's a start. I did manage to dirty just about every dish, plate, bowl, utensil, and measuring cup a few days ago, leaving me with three loads of dishes to do. I've been working away on those; my energy level is pretty laggy because of this pregnancy.

Tonight I made homemade pizza for the first time. I made the dough, the sauce, and did not make the cheese, haha. I'm not really that ambitious. I used mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses, and topped one pizza with bacon and left one cheese. The sauce/cheese ratio on the cheese was a little better; I think it'll take me a few tries to get them just right. Also, my lack of pizza stone or pizza screen left the bottom a little less crunchy than I would've liked, but it was still delicious. Next try, I will take the pizza off the pre-heated cookie sheet halfway through the bake to crisp up the bottom. I don't want to spend the money or space on a pizza screen right now.  My kitchen is already so full of cooking things that I don't have places for all of them; I can think of things I could use a lot more frequently than a pizza screen, too. Brian liked the pizza so much he said he had to force himself to stop eating it and Gage ate most of three pieces. I liked it a lot, too!

I also baked bread today, and tweaked my recipe a little to allow for using honey in place of sugar. Since I use a good bit of wheat flour instead of straight white like the original recipe, I'm looking forward to trying honey wheat. I've FINALLY gotten the hang of the loaf! I figured out the last part of the puzzle was the loaf shape. Not just shaping it, but actually using a technique that would allow the bread to rise into the perfect domed loaf. The last two batches of bread I've made have come out PERFECT and I'm so proud of having finally mastered bread baking, especially at altitude. It brings me great joy to feed my family this beautiful, preservative-free bread that I've baked myself. And the ingredients for ... oh, I don't know, approximately ten or twelve loaves of bread cost roughly what two loaves of bread laden with high fructose corn syrup, preservatives, and lots of stuff I can't pronounce. That makes me happy.

We ate homemade food every night this last week, and hopefully will continue into the weekend. We've got loads of leftovers; red beans and rice, chicken stuff I made, pizza. I've got eggs for breakfast and pancake makings. So we should be able to easily continue our ban on going out through the weekend, which is always our hardest time for eating at home. It's just so easy to run out and pick something up when we're feeling lazy.

What a nice evening, with home-cooked food and good company. Brian got home, the second pizza was almost done, and it was almost 80 degrees in our apartment. Between being on the second floor on a warm day and having a 500 degree oven running for close to 30 minutes, it was warm. We opened up the back door, and let the cool evening air in. Gage was in a fantastic mood after eating so much pizza, and we cranked up the Railbenders on the stereo. Good times.

Pregnancy update... the baby is sitting so much higher than Gage did. She's already up in my ribs and it's pretty uncomfortable if I sit after eating in certain positions, because I feel like a gastric bypass patient with a stomach that can't contain the amount of food I just swallowed. And it doesn't take overeating to hit that point, just sitting in the right position. I have a feeling I'm going to be feeling pretty crowded by April! Also, I think I may experience the belly button pop this time around. Gage was so low, my belly button never even came close to popping out, but this time, I'm already stretching out in that area. Fortunately, I have no swelling like I did with Gage, and I haven't gained anywhere near as much weight, so that's all good news. I'm sure looking forward to not being pregnant anymore... in April.