We’ve been on a little creative spree over here! From sourdough to soap to painting… it has been a lot of fun!

On Friday night, I got a mystery package from our neighbor and friend, Bernadette. It was a new mixer!! I was bowled over and so thankful! She recently started to get into baking sourdough and my sister passed her starter on to her. Bernadette decided we needed the coolest mixer (it’s a NutriMill) and whoa is it revolutionary!

It’s totally different from a classic Kitchen aid stand mixer. It’s lower and mixes dough really well. I also love the lid on it because you can add flour while it’s mixing, but it doesn’t fly up in your face. It has been a game changer. Thank you, Bernadette, for the wonderful mixer! You inspire me to be more generous 🤍

How cute is my sister with her sourdough starter?! If you’ve been reading my blog since 2019, you may remember Lyle, my sourdough starter (yes, I named it!). I was pretty ~into~ sourdough for a bit but then Lyle died (I think Malcolm knocked him off of our fridge?) and I fell out of the sourdough habit.

Bernadette passed some of Hannah’s starter on to me… so I dipped my toes back in the sourdough world and made banana muffins with my new mixer!

I’ve also had some Etsy orders… granola and baby boy chocolate covered oreos, so I’ve been doing lots of creating in the kitchen.

Sadie went to a coding trial lesson and created a scene using computer code! Look at the smile. She said she loved the trial class and would love to take lessons. Never in a million years did I think I’d have a kid who would rather take computer coding classes than say, dance lessons, but here we are. She is one cool chick!

On Saturday, Sadie and I went to a painting class at the library. There was a story about snow and then we got to paint our own snowy scene. Sadie made a painting, I made one, and then we created one together.

Once we got back from the library, we got to work making Jimmy mad using glitter! I ordered a soap making kit and we made glittery berry scented whipped soap and got glitter everywhere. Jimmy was not excited haha. The soap is awesome, though!

Sadie has been creating scenes all over our house by taping pipe cleaners to walls. I kinda like it so I haven’t taken them down 😂

I found Niva laying like this in the kitchen. Looks… comfy?

How cute are my dad and Mordecai? Speaking of my dad, his birthday falls just a few days before baby’s due date so he is hoping I have her on his birthday so he can have a birthday buddy! Never mind the fact that my other two kids both came days past my due date. We can all dream, right?!

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Let’s talk about how I annoyed myself:

Jimmy gave me a really high quality set of knives for Christmas. I absolutely love them. They’re so sharp and cut through things like sweet potatoes and salmon skin like butter. I knew it was only a matter of time before I cut myself, though.

I was chopping carrots for a salad and *slice* I took a little fillet out of my middle finger. I think the worst part of getting cut is the moment before you look at it to see how bad it is, you know? It’s like okay, I know I cut myself… what’s the damage here haha. Anyways, I looked and the cut was more like a chunk (as opposed to a slice.. sorry, this is getting gross, huh?) but it was so annoying!

First of all, I lost one of my blood sugar pricking fingers with that incident because I had a bandaid there for a few days. Also, having a bandaid on my finger is frustrating because I wash my hands about 100x a day and it gets wet and then I need a new bandaid because it gets soggy from washing my hands. My finger is all healed up, but I always forget how much I use my hands until something like that happens!

Have you ever done something to yourself that is annoying? I am thinking of a similar incident with a knife, bruising a bone in my hand while mowing our lawn, and tearing something in my shoulder while holding Niva’s leash. Oh, and every time I’ve overextended myself by saying “yes” to something when I should have said “no” and then getting stressed out 😉

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Other notes:

• My sister and I are both trying out continuous spray bottles (like these) to make our own cooking spray. I’ll report back on how it goes!
• I love using roasted red pepper flakes in my cooking. I roasted asparagus and tomatoes the other day and added red pepper flakes without thinking twice. Jimmy was like THIS IS SO HOT haha. I can’t get enough heat and spice. I love it! Give me all the red pepper flakes, cherry peppers, jalapeños, banana peppers, etc.!
• It’s 33 degrees outside as I type up this post, this feels downright balmy after -12!
• I just put away Mordecai’s booster seat because he doesn’t use it anymore. He just sits at the table like a big kid! It’s so weird in parenting how you just go through these little milestones (losing a tooth, not napping anymore, walking, potty training, etc.) after being in a phase of life for a bit, you know?
• My sister and I were just talking about our kids occasionally “hitting a wall” in a homeschool curriculum and Sadie has kind of been at the spot with math. I think the level she’s at might be getting hard for her age, so we are going to do some “game schooling” with this math game to make it fun again!
• I know we’re still deep in winter, but I’m noticing that we get a teeny tiny bit more light each day and I love it!

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Have you ever annoyed yourself?

How do you feel about heat/spice?

When was the last time someone was generous to you?