More Shameless Plugz for my Boyz

Can't help it, it's what Moms do!

Michael's "50 Amazing Movie Facts" article written for Hollywire has received so many responses (150,000+ page views and growing) that it is now the NUMBER ONE feature article on the website. Go to the website and you'll see it right at the top of the page, "above the fold," as it's called in newspaper jargon, meaning the most important articles which are always placed on the front page, above the fold of the paper.

I may not have fulfilled my dream (yet) of becoming a famous writer, but it looks like Michael will! Oh, and he does this while living and working as a teacher in mainland, communist CHINA!

And Rodrigo? Well, that boy (ok, young MAN) just LOVES being married, and it absolutely warms my heart. Dianna is an angel. Rodrigo (and I!!!) waited a long time for Dianna to come along, and I'm so pleased she is now part of our family. When I talk to Rodrigo on the phone he sounds truly happy, and can you imagine how happy that makes his Mom?

I know I promised to post more photos from Dianna and Rodrigo's wedding -- the really good, professional ones, of Rodrigo and Dianna's wedding -- taken by Jeff Fassett. There are just sooooo many awesome photos! So here is the link: Dianna and Rodrigo. If you've got lots of time you may be able to get through them all! Jeff and his assistant took tons of photos. The best part? If you are planning a wedding in southern Cali I would highly recommend Jeff and his staff. He is fantastic; he listened to everyone and took all the photos that each one of us (and there were a lot of us) thought were most important. And now, long after the wedding is over, he's still answering all my emails, you can't beat that!

I'm tickled that Dianna and Rodrigo have asked me to create their wedding album. I can't wait to work with Jeff's exquisite photos. If all I did was put each photo on a blank page, the album would be gorgeous! In the meantime.....here's a photo of the sweet little house Dianna and Rodrigo have moved into:

Yeah, Life is good when the Kids are doing well.

Baking Day Got a Bit Out of Hand

Mike likes fresh-baked bread and since he has been working so hard on painting the house I thought I would treat him with a couple loaves of home-made whole wheat bread. I located an old recipe, one that I used to bake quite often when the boys were little, and got started.

Everything went great during the mixing, kneading, and first rise. Above is the dough just after I turned it out of the bowl, following the first rise. Looks great! I then cut it in half and rolled it up into two balls:

These got to rest for 10 minutes, then I used the rolling pin to roll the dough out and get rid of any bubbles, formed two nice loaves and put them in the bread pans:

A little while later is when I first noticed that one loaf seemed to be rising faster and bigger than the other. Hmmm. Well, I didn't worry too much, though, my loaves are never exactly even. I figured the smaller loaf would catch up during their time in the oven. Well, you can imagine my shock when I opened the oven door halfway through the baking time to find this:

That loaf in the back is MUCH taller than the other! And even the "smaller" loaf is huge! I just started laughing because these loaves are nothing short of monstrous!

Here's the bigger of the two loaves (above) just out of the pan. Look how much taller it is than the pan, ha ha ha! Below is the smaller loaf, sliced up in readiness for the freezer. We had expected to find huge holes (bubbles) in the bread, which would explain why the loaves were so big, but just one loaf had only a small bubble at the top.

In the back of the photo is what's left of the larger loaf. We've eaten the rest of it already! It's delicious -- the same yummy wheat flavor I remembered and had a hankering for (very much like my Mom's bread).

Granted, it was difficult to fit into the toaster, but wouldn't it make great (if ginormous) tomato sammies or french toast??

House-Lift in Progress

Well, our house has been due for a paint job for a couple of years now and since our sailing adventure is off, Mike decided he'd get on it. I chose the colors and Mike's doing the work, heh heh. Well, he wanted to! I wanted to pay someone to do it! I did tell him I'd help with the trim, though, so once he's done with all the walls, I'll have no more excuses, dang it.

Anyway, for the last week or so this is what he's been doing:

He's got a nice little paint sprayer so the actual painting goes quickly. The prep work, however, is a different story! He's had cracks to mend (those darn earthquakes!), windows to mask, bushes and vines to cut away where they hid the walls, and I don't know what all else because I mainly hide in the house for fear he'll put me to work hauling and carrying! And in many places he will probably need to put on a second coat.

Well, I do venture out to take photos occasionally to check his progress, and to make sure he hasn't fallen off the ladder. The photo above shows the wall that's in the cat garden. The window where Mike is painting is the kitchen window (with the bird feeders), the one closer to the camera is our office, and the smallest one, up high, is the guest bathroom. Almost all the windows in our house have plastic sheeting over them right now, which makes being inside kinda weird. Even though the sun is shining the plastic gives the feel of fog. Kinda cool, especially with Halloween coming!

This is the garage; Mike is also going to paint the door to match the house. You can see there's not a huge difference in color. Our house has been a light tannish color, and the trim a strange sort of gold which I call "baby diarrhea." I've never liked it. So now the house will be almost-white, or "Cotton Ball," as it says on the paint chip.

This photo shows the wall on the side of the house, opposite the cat garden. This wall is completely painted. Doesn't it look fresh and new? I love the color. I know it's not very "different," but I've always like white on houses; they look so clean and classic.

The trim is a color called "Ten Gallon Hat." It's a medium brown but more on the grey-y side. Hard to describe. Here's a photo of a small bit of trim where Mike slapped on the paint just so I could be sure I like it. I do. I don't know how true the color will be to your eye - everyone's computer monitor displays colors differently. You'll have a better idea when I can get a photo of an entire wall with the trim done.

It's going to look fabulous!