Yep, Stephen’s going to be working third shift. I’m a bit dissapointed, to be honest. Life will definitely be interesting trying to get used to Stephen being a day sleeper – and trying to keep Sam quiet enough so that Stephen can sleep.

There are some nice benefits to third shift, though. He will get paid more (YAY!). He won’t have to miss church like he might have to with second shift. And my personal favorite: I’ll be able to use the van whenever I need to, since he will be home during “regular business hours.” I won’t have to worry about driving him to work just so I can go to appointments (and putting an extra 60 miles a day on the van doing so).

It will take some getting used to, that’s for sure. I’m still very thankful that Stephen has a job at all. It’s a huge relief!

Sourdough Bread

To Make Starter:
3/4 cup sugar
3 Tbs. instant potato flakes
1 cup warm water
1 envelope (or 1 Tbs.) yeast

Mix all ingredients and let stand 8-10 hours or until mixture is frothy on top. In between feedings, the starter should be stored in the refrigerator.

Feed Starter:
3/4 cup sugar
3 Tbs. instant potato flakes
1 cup warm water

After feeding starter, let stand out of frig, all day (8-10 hrs.). Will be very bubbly. Take one cup for bread and return rest to frig. You should feed every 3 to 5 days. Always take one cup out after it is fed and sits all day.

Make Bread:
Make stiff batter of:
1 cup starter
1 Tbs. Salt
1/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups warm water
1/2 cup corn oil
6 cups Pillsbury bread flour

Mix all of the above together. Grease a large bowl, put dough in and turn over to grease the top. Loosely cover and let rise overnight or all day.

After rising, punch down and divide into 3 parts. *

Knead each part 8 to 10 times. Put into 3 greased loaf pans. Let stand 4 to 6 hrs or until risen. All day is fine.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 mins. Remove from oven and brush with melted butter.

* May add cinnamon or whatever when kneading the 3 parts before putting into pans.

Stephen went to orientation at his work today. It feels SO good to be able to say that he’s a working man again! I know it bothered him to be unemployed, but I know that he couldn’t help it either. Still, it is a relief to know he’s got a full-time job now.

He told me today that tomorrow he will have to take some sort of placement test. Apparently the plant is hiring for a couple more advanced positions that pay more. From what Stephen told me, he should be able to do well on the test. We’ll see, but I sure can hope, right?

So now I pray. Stephen’s pay isn’t bad, but if he can get better pay, well, I’m all for it!

My biggest dillema is how to turn in the paperwork that’s sitting on the dining room table. We applied for health insurance for little man the other day, but when we got to the interview, we discovered that we needed a few more pieces of information that we didn’t think to bring. It really isn’t a big deal to turn it all back in. My decision is whether or not to take Stephen to work tomorrow so I can have the van. He doesn’t know what time he’s supposed to be done at work; otherwise I’d just take him and not think more about it. Hmm. I suppose I could walk…but I’m not convinced that’s the best idea either…it’s a bit far…

I think I’ll probably end up taking Stephen to work in the morning, and then waiting for him to call at the end of the day to say, “Come get me.”

We sure had a nasty experience here yesterday. Don’t bother reading any further if you have a weak stomach, ok?

First, little man has been sick for almost a week now. I don’t mean throw up sick, I mean explode-in-the-diaper-then-it-goes-up-the-back kind of sick. The kind of sick where every diaper change means a change of clothes as well and sometimes a bath too.

The first smart thing I did was start putting cloth diapers on him. We’d been using disposable because they were so much nicer with the mess, but they really weren’t containing the mess well at all. Somehow even the not-so-full diapers managed to leak everywhere.

So last night, we sat down to watch a video that we checked out from the library (this library has an INCREDIBLE selection of videos! I love it!). Our dog was in the house, so when he went upstairs I didn’t think too much about it. I asked Stephen if the doors were closed to the bedrooms, thinking that the dog just wanted to lay on the carpeted landing. Little man had been torturing him, and since the rest of the house has hardwood floors…

We called him downstairs and put him outside. I promptly forgot all about the dog. Bug fell asleep in my lap, so I took him upstairs to change the diaper and put him in bed.

As soon as I walked in the room, I saw this nasty brown and white mess on the floor next to the trash can.

The dog had gotten a (nasty) diaper from the trash can and had ripped it open all over the carpet.

I hollared downstairs to Stephen to bring up a garbage bag, and I started to change the diaper I originally went upstairs to change.

My sweet husband cleaned up the mess for me, bagged it, and sprayed and vacuumed the carpet for me too. I’m so thankful he did that! I’m not sure I could have done it without gagging.

We left the dog outdoors last night. I didn’t know if he’d actually eaten any of the diaper stuff, and I didn’t want to find out the hard way if it would make him sick or not.

Lesson learned. Keep an eye on the dog at ALL times!

Ewwwwwww…

Here’s a couple of pictures of what got accomplished yesterday:

Finished making some thank you notes. I have a whole box of them somewhere around here, but I can’t find it. I’m sure it’s around here somewhere, I just can’t figure out where. :O)

Fed my sourdough starter. We needed bread in the house, and the starter needed to be fed. This is one of Stephen’s favorites. The recipe makes 3 loaves, and two of the loaves are already spoken for. I guess we’ll just have to make more sourdough bread next week.

Made some curtains for the study. I had originally bought the fabric to make myself a dress, but I never ended up making it. I bought two different fabrics from that particular line of material, and the first one I made from the fabric bled so badly I couldn’t bring myself to make another dress from it. The jumper was really nice, but it kept rubbing color onto the shirts I wore underneath. I didn’t want to deal with that from this fabric also, so I decided to make it into curtains. There was enough material left over to still make a skirt (I think), so I might go ahead and do that. A skirt shouldn’t rub color off as badly, but we’ll see. I thought about taking the rest and making curtains for Sam’s room with it. It amazes me how much of a difference a couple of curtains make, but it’s nice. The room doesn’t feel quite so barren now, but it still needs something on the walls. Gotta go find that box of pictures again…

Made and enjoyed some brownies. The look on Stephen’s face when I told him I was making brownies for dessert was priceless. We have a wonderful recipe – and he just loves them. And no, don’t even bother asking for the recipe. I’ve been ordered that the recipe for Melody’s Marvelous Brownies is to stay a York family secret. Sorry. Stephen’s orders. :O)

This isn’t from yesterday, but I just had to share. Stephen joked the other day about how this house wouldn’t seem like home until we got the chicken calendar (thanks Mom and Dad!) hung up. Well, the calendar is up, in a place of honor on the living room wall. I guess this place really is home now.

We were in the basement hunting for boxes (big grin here) this morning when the phone rang. My first thought was “Who in the world would call here this early?” (It was 8:30 – not that I think it’s early – I’m just not used to people calling much before 9)

It was our property manager. She has a tenant in the works for us! YAY! She was calling to get our final approval about the family. I am thrilled. There are a couple more things that we need to have done at the house, but other than that, it is ready to be occupied.

Now we just wait for them to put down the security deposit. Supposedly they’re planning on moving in before the first of April. :O)

As I was reading my Bible yesterday, I noticed that I had gotten into the habit of grabbing a throw pillow to put on my lap while I read my Bible. I’m not sure what it is – when I read, I prefer whatever my reading material is to be closer to my face than just lying flat on my lap. Since my rocking chair where I have my quiet time isn’t next to the couch any more (it’s in Stephen’s study now), I found myself without a pillow.

I’ve been wanting to start a new quilt lately, so I went online and looked up quilt block patterns. Wow – are there ever a lot! I found one I liked, and decided to make two blocks to sew into a lap pillow. For the fabric, I used the blocks that I had left over from my first Trip Around the World quilt.

The block is called Starflower. I was suprised at how easy it was to piece. I had so much fun, that I decided to take the remaining blocks, and make them into a lap quilt to match the pillow. I don’t have enough of the blues to make an entire quilt (I think I have enough for 3 more blocks exactly like the one on the pillow), so I think I’m going to make a few different colors and make them into a more colorful quilt. I haven’t found a fabric store yet (that’s probably a good thing, lol), so it’d be nice if I can just use the fabric I already have on hand. And since these blocks are already cut out – hey – you don’t get much better than that!

We woke up this morning to a world of white. It is so pretty. Stephen and I had a good laugh that the first snow we saw of the season was in March…on the first day of spring, no less. Happy Spring, Y’all! Sounds like a good excuse for a HUGE mug of coffee and a good book.

We’re slowly getting things arranged around here. When we moved in, the previous renters had left some of their things in one of the bedrooms (it was very full, lol, but I forgot to take a picture). Well, they came Sunday afternoon to come get their stuff. Yay! We now have another room to use! I’m not 100% sure, but we’re guessing this house has somewhere between 1700 and 2000 square feet – it’s HUGE! And now we have ANOTHER bedroom to use. We decided to make it Stephen’s study instead of a studio for me because the piano won’t fit around the corner into the room. They left a desk here for us to use (that was nice – we certainly have use for it!). We moved our biggest bookshelf into the room, and set up a table there for my sewing machine…I was estatic! I’ve never had a place to keep my sewing machine out all the time, but I do now! I’ve been dreaming up all the sewing projects I can do now that I have a “sewing room.” Ok…more like a sewing half-room…or sewing corner…I don’t care! I have a place that’s designated as my sewing place, and that makes me happy.

I’ve been thinking about starting another quilt, but I figured I’d start with a throw pillow first. I figure I can try the new block out without committing to a whole quilt and then discovering it’s too hard.

Little man is starting to adjust here as well. He just loves all the room to run! We let Buddy become an indoor dog (well, mostly, he slept outside last night because he whined so badly about being “cooped up” inside), and Little man has found himself quite the friend in that dog. I think his favorite thing to say is, “Buddy, no!” They are quite the pair. We kept Little man’s snowsuit out when we packed, so I imagine that we’ll take him outside later today. Another thing we really like about this house – it has a HUGE back yard – completely fenced in. It’s very nice.

I’ve also had two inquiries about piano lessons already. Wow – we’ve barely been here a week! I’ll take it though. I got the impression that the one person I spoke with was quite serious, so we’ll see. I have learned that just because someone inquires about lessons, that doesn’t always mean that they’ll end up a student of mine. But I’ve also learned to be able to better tell from the conversation how serious the person really is. We’ll see. It really would be nice to get some students here right away. I miss teaching more than I anticipated.

When we were offered this house to live in, we were offered it with the agreement that we would do some repairs in exchange for lower rent. I took a few before pictures, but need to edit them to put them here to show you. My parents came for several days to help us get unpacked and settled in, and my dad did a lot of things around here. The kitchen had new cabinets installed, but the doors were never hung. Dad did all of the doors while he was here. Well, almost all – a couple of the doors didn’t fit or were missing, so he hung the ones that were here. I believe the other doors have been ordered and Stephen will hang them when they arrive. When I take the after pictures (I’m waiting to take those until the rest of the cabinet doors are up) I’ll post them here. We’ll be painting the kitchen soon too – it’s navy right now. I like the color itself, but not on walls. The owners don’t like the blue either, so I told them to just get us a color they wanted so they wouldn’t have to paint over my color. I’m not picky. They used to have it painted Antique White, so we’re just going to paint it that color and save them a step. I think that’s going to make the room look HUGE! It’s already twice the size of my old kitchen.

Well, I’ll close for now. I don’t have a separate line for internet here, so I try to limit my computer time. I can’t get as much done in one sitting now, but I think it’s good. I was wanting to get more disciplined about my computer time, and I think this kind of “forced discipline” will really help.

Stephen got a job today! What a HUGE praise!

He left for town first thing this morning to go look. He came home right at dinnertime to tell me he had just been hired through an employment agency. It’s at a manufacturing plant. At this point, we don’t care (well, within reason, that is); we’re just thankful that he has a job right away.

They’re still running background checks, so we’re not sure exactly which day he’ll start. But this time the job really is legitimate, so we’re happy.

What a blessing!

Just wanted to update really quickly…

We’re here and moved in. Not unpacked yet, lol, but at least we’re here.

The phone was turned on this morning, so I just got a chance to hop online to pay a bill or two. And by the way – the phone number we have is not the number we handed out – so email me if I forgot to give you our address or if you have our wrong number.

I’ll be back online more later – Mom and Dad just got here.