Baby Helps

When we brought Claire home, my crazy horomonal mind starting thinking about all the things we couldn't do, or would have to change, now that we had a baby in the house. While, many of these things were trivial or simply overblown by my post-pregnancy mind, some seemed pretty legitimate. For example, Jeff and I do a lot of projects around this place to fix it up. How was I going to help when I had a baby on my hip? Sure I could grab a tool for him or hold something for a minute, but I couldn't be out working on a project for hours at a time with Baby alone in the house.

Well its taken me three months or so, but I've learned how to do some of these things with Baby. It has helped that it's warmed up now so I can have Baby out in her swing near me when I'm doing an outdoor project like gardening or building a dog pen for Prince. Here are a few pictures of my adventures in learning to get stuff done with Baby.

Scrapbooking with Baby

Browning meat for dinner with Baby



In general, hobbies and housework stuff is pretty doable while wearing Baby. I tried scrapbooking with Baby in her swing first, but she didn't find it very entertaining to watch me scrapbook and would get fussy pretty quick. The only thing that is hard to do while wearing Baby is bending over. She doesn't like it and will start to wiggle and squirm. I've definitly gotten a lot better at squatting instead of bending, or doing the task with one hand while I hold her firmly against me.

This next set of pictures shows the things I've been able to do since baby has started really paying attention to my movements and finding them entertaining.

Baby loves to watch my hands as I fold laundry

building Prince's pen

Gardening in the front yard

Caulking Papa's new office



The biggest consideration when working with baby is making sure I have everything set up safetly before I bring her in. For example, no tools or building materials that are close enough to fall on her, proper ventilation, etc. When we're outside I make sure to put her in the shade and that she isn't in a spot where Prince might come crashing into her. I also make sure I have all my supplies  laid out before I bring her into to the front yard so I'm not leaving her alone to go grab something. In general though, I've found that if she's comfortable and can see me then I have a good hour worth of work time that she is more than happy to sit and watch. Yay for feeling productive again! 



Creamed Whiskey

A Little Ramble Before We Begin

I have found that writing a blog often puts one in the situation of asking why. For example, why did I decide to bake a cake at 10 pm when I am supposed to be on a diet, or why am I making twice as much work for myself by having to constantly wash my hands so that I can take pictures? The answer to these types of questions is generally something along the lines of because I love to do domestic things and I love to write, and to do the latter I must do the former and to do the former I must force myself to find the time.

Then however, there are these other types of questions. For example, why did I decide to pull out the crystal champagne coupes for this picture, why did I decide to take it on a bookshelf and best of all why did I wait until 9:00 am as I was getting ready for work to do my taste test of the different creamed whiskey's I'd made? Well, I don't really have a good answer to any other those, especially the last one, but I can assure you that somehow it all works out and I'm most appreciative that you all seem to just go along with it. Especially my husband who caught me in the kitchen this morning drinking booze. Thanks for understanding.

And Now, The Whiskey

Note: You don't need a great whiskey for this. Put the cork back in the 12 year McCallan and pull out the Bushmills.

Last year I made the mistake of not trying out any of my St. Patricks' Day stuff ahead of time. Not that this was a problem for the party, but it did result in my posting about all the wonderful Irish goodness after the event was no longer relevant. So this year I decided to start trying out a few things ahead of time to share with all of you. The first thing I have decided to try is to make my own creamed whiskey (think Baileys).

A simple internet search can pull up many recipes for homemade versions of Baileys, but most of them are pretty similar. The biggest difference seems to be whether people added eggs or not. I decided to not bother with the recipes that had eggs in them because it would drastically shorten the shelf life of my beverage, and despite what you might have been told, I can't drink a whole jug of Baileys in a week. I did decide to try two different batches, one sweetened with honey and one with condensed milk, to see if one yielded noticeably better results. I got the idea after reading that Carolans (my personal favorite) uses honey in the production of their creamed whiskey. I thought that a rich dark honey could add an earthy flavor to the mix.

I also changed my recipe from the norm by omitting or substituting a couple ingredients in both batches. First, most recipes call for instant coffee powder to be added. This kind of grossed me out. I said thanks but no thanks. While I don't doubt the addition of coffee flavoring would be good, I just have a mental block against using instant coffee. If you have an espresso machine though, a shot added to the batch could be quite good. Second, all the recipes call for chocolate syrup. I don't own any chocolate syrup, so I melted the equivalent amount of bar chocolate and added that. It mixes in just fine and doesn't separate back out once the mixture is chilled. Third, while both batches I made have almond extract in them, I would leave it out next time, or just add the  tiniest splash. It has an overwhelming scent and the taste leaves the kind of burn in the mouth feel that bad whiskey does. Now granted, I was also using bad whiskey, but when I sampled the batch before adding the almond extract, the taste was far less pronounced.

Alright, now that I have taken you on the journey of exploration that is creamed whiskey making, here's the recipe I worked out.

Creamed Whiskey

Ingredients

1 cup of heavy cream

1 14 oz. can condensed milk

1 3/4 Cups Irish Whiskey

2 Tsp. vanilla extract

2 Tbsp. melted chocolate/chocolate syrup

Optional Additions

1 shot of espresso

1/2 Tsp. almond extract

Directions

Mix all ingredients in a blender for 30-60 seconds until well combined. Pour into a tight sealing, preferably cute, jar and place in the fridge to chill.

Now you may remember I said I tried two batches but only gave one recipe. What's up with that?! Well, I found the honey version to not be noticeably different taste wise. If you wish to make that version, substitute the condensed milk for 2/3 cup of honey. This will however, be more expensive than using the condensed milk. I wouldn't have tried it if I didn't have an over abundance of honey at the moment. In addition to not changing the flavor, I found the honey version to be a little less pleasing in terms of mouth feel. The version with condensed milk feels creamier and fuller, while the honey version feels a little weak and thin. Finally, the honey version also separates out and doesn't look as nice as the condensed milk version in the fridge. Of course a good shake can take care of that. So experiment, it's up to you!

Dogs and Desks

On design sponge there was a post today showing how designer and photographer Jamie Kovach combined a desk and a dog crate. Once her dogs out grew their puppy crate, she noticed they still seemed to want a small space to curl up in. Now she has place to work, and her dogs have a dark cozy place to snuggle up in and feel secure. I think its both a stylish and adorable idea. I only wish she'd included a how to!

Finished Raised Beds

As of last night Jeffry and I have three completed raised beds filled up with dirt and connected to irrigation. We ordered the dirt on Sunday with a planned delivery of Monday afternoon. In our excitement to fill in our beds and get to planting, we didn't think about the fact that the weather forecast was calling for rain on Monday evening, Tuesday and Wednesday. Once we got home and realized our foolishness, we decided we'd just have to set straight to work the second we got home Monday to get the dirt into the beds before the rain. Even though the wheel barrow had a flat tire, Jeff managed to get the largest raised bed filled up during his lunch break. When I got home I grabbed a couple of five gallon buckets and shuttled dirt from the driveway to the beds while Jeff fixed the tire. It sprinkled on us a bit, and for a while I felt like Dorothy as the wind picked up speed. Luckily it only took us about an hour working together to get all the beds in the front yard and the wine barrels on the side of the house filled up. It made our pile small enough that we could cover it with a tarp and then we headed inside for some hot showers and a warm meal.

Getting dirt delivered in bulk is definitely the way to go. It cost us a little under a dollar for a cubic foot instead of $1.95 for 3/4 of a cubic foot at Wal-mart, and the place we ordered from was just up the street so there was no delivery cost. That cost difference is a big deal when you're ordering 100 cubic feet of dirt! We will be ordering some bark from the same place in the next couple of weeks to fill in around the raised beds.

Some good things to know before you go shopping for dirt: know exactly how much you need and take a calculator. I had calculated how much we needed in cubic feet, but they sold it by the cubic yard. Jeff and I felt quite silly when we were trying to figure out the math and originally thought that there were only nine cubic feet in one cubic yard and left because we thought the landscaping company was a rip off. Oh did I feel ridiculous in the car on the way home when I realized how wrong we had been. In case you are wondering, there are 27 cubic feet in a cubic yard, not nine. Math is not my strong suit alright, but at least we got it all straightened out in the end. I felt extra silly though when we had to return to the place five minutes after we just drove off.

Wine Bottle Torch

This is a cute little do-it-yourself project that I found a few weeks back on the blog Design*Sponge. If you're like me and often find yourself surrounded by empty wine bottles and have the ability to use basic tools (though not right after the wine bottle becomes empty) then this project should be relatively easy for you. I think these would be great filled with citronella oil for outdoor entertaining.

Be warned though, I have a love/hate relationship with Design*Sponge. I find a lot of their stuff very interesting, especially their DIY section, which is definitely worth a gander if you have some free time. A perfect place to get inspired but, the rest of their page can be a bit overwhelming and sometimes gives me a headache if I'm on it too long. It's heavy on both graphics and links so stray from the DIY section at your own risk!