A Love-Hate Relationship

Yesterday I had a baking adventure.  At least that's how I'm trying to look at it.  You see, baking and I have a love-hate relationship.

I love eating baked goods, I hate the mess it creates.

I love smelling the yummy things baking, I hate when dough sticks to everything.

I love a slice of fresh baked bread, I hate letting things rise, I'm too impatient.

I love cooking! Mixing different herbs and spices, experimenting with different dishes (much to my husband's dismay sometimes), and I really like a good piece of steak or anything covered in gravy...brown gravy, cream gravy, chicken gravy.  Yumm! Can you tell I'm pregnant? 

Ok, I digress.....Don't get me wrong, I can bake...cookies, sweet bread, etc.  I usually steer clear if the recipe involves a rolling pin, you know what I'm talking about, that round piece of wood stuck in the bottom drawer of my kitchen.  I mostly reserve the rolling pin for pounding meat since I don't have a meat mallet or crushing crackers for a topping.  My husband knows that I'm baking if he hears me yelling at the dough or sometimes a bad word might escape my lips. I know this is bad, but I'm just being honest and admitting this so you understand the kind of relationship I have with baking.

In the last year or so, I have become more adventurous with baking.  I've made homemade bread, biscuits, dinner rolls, Pioneer Woman Cinnamon Rolls (baking frustration is totally worth these babies! I included a link for the recipe), and pound cake to name a few. Most of these things have turned out, I had a loaf of bread that was still doughy in the middle and something was wrong with the pound cake, I don't know what it was, but I served it to my in-laws and they were more than gracious in eating it and consoling me that its hard to get a pound cake right.

So, yesterday, I attempted making Cinnamon Cherry Bagels and Wheat-Thin Style Crackers.  Now that I'm approaching my 19th week of pregnancy I'm realizing that my stamina is not quite what it was pre-pregnancy.  So I definitely should not have done both of these in one morning (which turned into a baking afternoon as well).  Anyways, it was a success! Both items turned out very yummy and what makes me even more excited is that I could control the ingredients and I knew exactly what was in them!  So whole grains, honey (no refined sugar), and dried fruits. The bagels were interesting, I've never boiled dough before, the the recipe I used (linked above) recommends broiling the bagels in the oven and then boiling them in water, and then baking them.  So as you can see this is a process. The recipe only made 10, so next time I'll make a double recipe and freeze them. See I'm making progress, I said next time. The crackers were super easy and I'll do those again for sure.  I'm glad to say the Lord has given me grace and I was able to keep my cool the whole time in the kitchen!  However I did almost cry when I surveyed my tiny dishwasher-less kitchen.  Let's just say I took a well deserved nap after all that baking and washing.

My next battle to overcome in the kitchen needs to be baking a layered cake and icing it.  I would like to make a cake once in my lifetime that the layers don't crack on me and the icing isn't full of cake crumbs.  We will see.... until then Happy Baking!

Pregnancy Brain

We first began to notice the slip in my mental capacity to remember things when I heard this from my husband, "So are we letting it mellow around here?" Referring to the fact that I had once again forgotten to flush the toilet.  Oops!  My response, "I've heard that when your pregnant you start to forget things."  Which resulted in a friendly argument, err...I mean, discussion about whether that was true or I was just blaming something else on the pregnancy. Well as the weeks have progressed so has my forgetfulness and fortunately my back-up to prove that pregnancy brain is real.  Just a few instances that have occurred.

1. While telling Brendan a story, I forgot the name of the person in my story.  Halfway through
he says: "Oh, so and so (actually said her name) said that?"
me: "Oh yeah, that's her name..."
him: "Sara, you said her name when you were telling me the story."
me: "Are you sure, I don't think I did."
him: "YES! You said her name."
me: "I'm losing it."

2.  Drive all the way to my weekly women's bible study, only to find an empty parking lot and remember they had canceled for that week.

3. Put my lunch in the oven to heat up and set the timer.  Timer goes off, I check my food to discover that I had not turned the oven on.

4. I was filling up the sink and ran outside to tell Brendan something.  Forgot that I was filling up the sink and almost overflowed the sink.

I'm pretty sure I could go on (and so could my husband).  But after talking to several other moms and dads.  We have found that I am not the only one to suffer from momnesia.  It took a lot of convincing, but I think he will finally admit that its the pregnancy that has induced my forgetfulness.

Any of you mom's have any good stories about your pregnancy brain?