a couple weeks ago, we were all excited about the sacrament bread because it was a good white homemade bread. so we thought. until it hit our tongues. it might have been sourdough, but it certainly was more dough than bread. it was almost hilarious to see the facial reactions of everyone around us as they tried to swallow it down. it would have made a good mastercard commercial...1 loaf of undercooked sourdough: $2.00, the look on a 5 year-old's face: priceless.
anyway, we got the notice not too long after that day that it was taylor's turn. she was excited, and determined to not make such a faux pas. we decided to use the opportunity to teach her some baking skills. so last saturday, becky walked her through making a batch of bread. then sunday morning, taylor got a spiral notebook, an the cookbook. in the notebook she wrote: taylor's bread recipe; then copied mom's recipe out of the book. she made a loaf of bread completely on her own, except she asked for some help in forming the loaf. i didn't even know she was doing it, until it was time to stick it in the oven.
the loaf was still steaming when we got to church, and taylor handed it to the teachers. since we were sitting right behind the deacons, we were some of the first to get some bread. taylor's face beamed when she tasted it, and then she spent the next few minutes looking around the chapel at all the other people as they ate her bread. i could tell she was very proud of herself. i'm sure she told her primary teacher that she had done it, but i don't know how many others knew.
the cool part is that since she felt such an integral part of the meeting, almost the center of it (i would bet) in her eyes; she paid attention to the whole meeting.
so for you're viewing pleasure, here is taylor with her bread. oh yeah, this is not the loaf from church. she decided to wake up this morning and make another loaf on her own.
while i was taking this picture, our own local spiderman had to be part of the crowd, so here's one or two of him as well.
cameron had his 7th birthday a couple of weeks ago. while becky and i were at the store, discussing what we could possible do for him that would just make his day, i had a stroke of genius inspiration. those only come every once in a blue moon, and you gotta be careful 'cause the stroke part may be the only part that stays around when its done with you. anyway, i was thinking that cam is such the entrepreneur. nothing makes him smile quite like the sight of money. so, i scanned a dollar bill into the computer, took out george's doppelganger, and put in cameron's noggin. then i changed all the ones to sevens, the best MS Paint would let me. we took the graphic into walmart on an sd card, and had it printed on a sheet of sugar paper. when becky made the cake, she stuck cam's 7-dollar bill on it. he was thrilled! here's how it turned out.
not to bore you much longer, but you should know that i just started a new job, and lucky me, i get to work from home! the only time i've really even left is to go to office depot to get large format prints of floorplans. i just don't think the company would spring for buying me a plotter for my home office. since most of my time is spent pouring (or is it pooring?) over floorplans, i had to get some sort of drafing desk. i could not find a single one anywhere tha would fit a full-size set of prints, with the exception of one that was in the $300 range. so, i went to lowes and got me some materials, and made myself one. its kind of a permanent fixture in my office, but it works for me, and should i ever decide to get rid of it, i only left 6 or so screw holes in the wall. here is my most recent pride and joy. behold: the drafting table!
