Monthly Archives: March 2012

50 for 50 #14 – Pizza

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my pizza dough

Today I made pizza from scratch for lunch. I’ve made pizza before but this particular time was to remind me of the two times I got to go to Italy when I was in my 20’s. I found a new pizza crust recipe to try using the sourdough starter I revived recently. I got the starter because I want to learn to make good whole wheat sourdough bread this year. I’m not ready to tackle that yet but I thought pizza dough would be much more forgiving. I was right and it all worked out very good and Bill really liked it.

my pizza ready to bake

finished pizza

I’m sure I’ll use this sourdough pizza crust recipe again. It seems like a good way to sue the starter. There was one big failure with this project. I tried to make cheese bread with the extra dough but forgot about it in the 450 degree oven. I burned it way past being edible and I was afraid I might have ruined the pan. Thankfully the cookie sheet survived but the cheese bread went straight into the garbage can.

brunt cheese bread

Have you ever burned anything this bad before? Do you have a favorite pizza recipe?

 

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Yakira’s Toy Trick

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Yakira and her toy trick

Yakira has a small tug toy that she really loves. We bought it a couple of months ago at our local IFA. Yakira and I went there just as an outing and discovered that they had some toys that were right for a puppy in training. They had the tug toy in several sizes and I decided to try the smaller one this time. I’ve had a bigger version of it in that past that all the pups have enjoyed. It is a great size to drop in a bag and take on long outings. She is a gentle enough chewer that it works good as a supervised chew toy too. Well today she was picking it up and enticing me to play tug with her and then dropping it again. Then she picked it up in the middle and the two ends folded in and the toy became like a spring in her mouth. It was so cute and had to get a picture. That was the hard part. She kept dropping the toy when I’d snap the photo. But I finally got a decent shot of her doing her toy trick.

Yakira and her purple tug toy

50 for 50 #13 – Jigsaw Puzzle

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our puzzle after Friday nights marathon

I always enjoyed jigsaw puzzles growing up and even as an adult but it has been at least 10 years since I took the time to put a puzzle together. So I thought it would be a good activity for my 50th year celebration. I picked up a 1,00 piece puzzle while I was out running errands this week and we started on it on Friday evening. The puzzle I picked was an image by folk artist Charles Wysocki. His painting remind me of my days working at Coni’s Art Warehouse in Lindon.

We got all the edge pieces done and then went about our other evening activities. As we were getting ready for bed, I found Bill back at the puzzle and I made the mistake of sitting down at the coffee table too just to put in a couple of pieces. Well, one piece lead to another and next thing we knew it was 3 in the morning. Thank goodness we didn’t have any commitments on Saturday until 11: 30 a.m. It was so tempting to start back on the puzzle the next morning but we still had a bit of prep before we went to teach a Dog Care Merit Badge class. So we used all our strength to resist the call of the puzzle.

Yakira watching from the other side of the x-pen

We didn’t get back to the puzzle until Saturday evening and we were able to finish it up. Yakira got into the mix Saturday morning when she picked up three pieces off the coffee table and munched on one of them pretty good. We stopped this by using the x-pen and blocking off her access to the puzzle. We sure had a lot of fun and I think we should make puzzles a part of our lives. Bill’s family is coming over for Easter. Maybe we should get out a puzzle then.

Have you done any puzzles lately? How do you keep from staying up all night once you get started?

50 for 50 #12 – Sound of Music

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The Sound of Music (film)

The Sound of Music (film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I got the chance to visit Austria the summer of 1983 with the BYU women’s volleyball team. So for this week’s 50 for 50 to celebrate my 50th birthday, I checked out The Sound of Music from our local library. The library has an amazing collection of videos that we enjoy. It has been many, many years since I watched The Sound of Music.

I enjoyed the scenery and the story but most of all I love the music. I couldn’t help but sing along with most of the songs. I remember songs better than most things and I love to sing. Growing up the records I remember most were from musicals. I would play them over and over and sing along.  It was kind of late Sunday night when we started the movie so we had to stop at the intermission and finish it tonight.

I found out at Christmas that The Sound of Music of music is my mom’s favorite movie, so I’ll keep this so she can watch it when they come over for a visit this week.

Yakira – Seven Months Old

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Yakira and her pillow

Our sweet Yakira turned seven months old today. When ever I think about the challenge she was and three months and even four months old, I am so grateful for the wonderful puppy she is becoming. Yakira got to wear the birthday bandana today. We had a quiet day at home with no outings other than a 45 minute walk. Of all the puppies we have raised so far Yakira is the first to really lay her head on a pillow like a human. Some of the other pups have enjoyed pillows but more for their shoulders but she lays her head on the patchwork pillow almost every night.

50 for 50 #11 – Finding a Windmill

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Bill and the wind generators near the Jordan River Narrows

Today after church I packed up a lunch and we drove to the Jordan River Narrows to see how close we could get to the wind generators there. I wanted to visit a windmill in honor of the time I spent in Holland with the National Volleyball Team back in 1985 on a tour of Europe. We discovered that the road that got close we couldn’t access but the Jordan River Trail went just down the slope from two of them right next to what remains of a third wind generator. It was cool being so close and I could feel the amazing powder of those huge blades. These wind generators are not much like the windmill in Holland. But it was a lovely walk with sunshine and about 60 degrees with a brisk south wind that kept the blades turning at a steady rate.

wind generators near the Jordan River Narrows