My husband loves this bread. Correction, loved it. The last time I made it (3 days ago), it was gone in less than 1 day. I got half a slice. Believing it to be a rousing success, I made an even larger loaf yesterday. Unfortunately, my husband watched me make it this time which, inevitably, caused WWIII a little distress seeing as how, you know, it used sugar. Cue horror music now.

There were snotty rants discussions of how sugar is needed for bread, sending him bounding to the fridge to look at our other bread’s wrapper (because “bread does NOT NEED SUGAR!”), and him swearing off the bread only to cut another 1/4 slice (which he took directly from the loaf, leaving it oddly disfigured) 20 seconds later. To which I may or may not have responded, with all the grace of a cranky 12 year old, “DON’T YOU DARE EAT MY BREAD! THAT’S MY BREAD! It’ll just make you SICK anyway.” Because arguing about how I, apparently, cook bread entirely incorrectly and how said bread is going to kill my family thanks to the completely normal inordinate amount of sugar in the recipe, may have ticked me off perturbed me, just a tad.

The Boy and I liked it, anyway.

So, if you’re up for making over-sugared, death causing whole wheat bread for your family, the following is the recipe I used. It’s for an Oster 5811, 1 1/2 lb loaf bread machine. This is for the full 1 1/5 lb size.

1 1/4 cups water
2 Tbsp butter, softened
3 cups whole wheat flower
1/4 cup packed brown sugar (or “poison in sweetened crystal form”)
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 3/4 tsp bread machine yeast, quick-acting active dry yeast, or regular active dry yeast

This poor woman went through so many facial expressions, it was ridiculous. The beginning face was very…well…stank.

As a friend put it, “Husband said something asinine” face

Then she managed to morph into a robot with no emotion, whatsoever

I think I finally got her to the point where she may not be perfect (smug, my mother says), but she’s as close as she’s going to get. At least she doesn’t look like she’s moments away from knocking her husband out for suggesting they name the new baby “Chaka Khan”.*

* Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
While my mom did nearly kill my dad after he made that same suggestion the day I was born, I think it’d be pretty awesome to be named Chaka. I’d wear giant fabric crowns everywhere.

That’s right. There it is. In all it’s wiry, white, “look at me ruining your youth” glory. The first sign that I am well on my way to old lady-dom. Look at it. The smug bastard.

Last night while having dinner with my grandpa, aunts and cousins, my aunt said, “I didn’t want to say this, but I saw a white hair on you earlier.”
“NO! It must’ve been my cousin’s! She was pulling hers out. It must’ve landed on me.” I wish I was kidding. I wish I’d sounded less, I don’t know, neurotic and denial-ridden.
“Yeah…maybe that was it. Let me look.” No more than 10-15 seconds later did I hear, “HERE IT IS!” and that thing up there was thrust in my face.

I think I spent the following 7 minutes acting like spoiled, vain brat, hollering something along the lines of, “NO! NO! I’m only 27! This isn’t possible!” I’m pretty sure I whacked my husband a couple of times between trips back and forth to the hall mirror, while proclaiming that it was all his fault.

And then my aunt said, “Well, I didn’t want to freak you out…but there are two.”
To which I screeched incomprehensibly responded, “OH, SHUT UP!”

Tumbling ass-out, head over heels into aging gracefully.

At the sheer threat of visiting my in-laws on Wednesday, I had a panic attack. Since then, I’ve been in a state of complete disarray. I’ve been crying uncontrollably. I’ve been tired. I’ve been terrified. Long story short, I’ve been a raging mess.

I did the unthinkable this morning, called my boss and puked my issues all over her while asking for a month off. I love my job with a passion (I do breastfeeding peer counseling for WIC), but I’ve begun letting it go more and more. It’s not fair for the clients and it’s not fair for the job. I promised I would return but, in this current state, I can’t see much past my nose, nevertheless a month from now.

My dad called a couple of hours ago, my grandma’s cancer has spread to her kidneys. She can no longer walk. The hospice care folks are coming by today to get her settled. They don’t expect she has very long.

I’m not scared for my grandma. She’s lived a very religious life that always had “the here-after” as the ultimate goal. I am, however, scared for the family after she passes. She’s has been the glue that holds things together for so long, I’m sure everything will fall apart.

We’re to go visit her today. The thought of doing so is really, really frightening. Verge of another panic attack frightening. I have no choice but to go. I can’t miss seeing my grandma just because of my crap, I’m just praying my crap won’t make me more harmful than helpful.

Painting for my kitchen

I haven’t painted since well before Ben was born. The moment I found out I was pregnant, I stopped painting. I didn’t want to deal with the fumes. After that, I just didn’t have any time or energy.

After my computer opted to go explode on me again, I decided to sit down and paint something for our kitchen, since it has nothing hanging in it but a calendar. The husband’s calendar that he calls mine so that he can have an excuse for having n+1 calendars flying around the house. So, during the boy’s occasional moments of “Hey, I guess I can live without nursing for the next 10 minutes”, I sat down and painted.

This picture does not do the painting any justice. At all. I took it with my blackberry then spent countless frustrating minutes on Eric’s computer trying to make it look somewhat non-6 year old got into mommy’s paints-ish. It didn’t work. Hopefully, I can get a better shot uploaded soon. A shot with my amazing garlic. The rest of the painting is eh, but my garlic? Best freaking 1/8th inch garlic ever painted. Ever. I dare you to prove me wrong.

I’m proud of myself for finishing this and, now that I’m back into it, I’ve caught the bug again. I may not be very good at it, but I enjoy it and it makes me feel a little more like me. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with being the boy’s mama. That’s the best title I could ever have. Still, once in a while, I’d like something to just be Jess. Is it strange that saying that out loud makes me feel like a selfish hag?