Well Pearl killed another one...so now to clean up! Off to Petsmart in Rockaway for dog grooming!

This is how we all felt last night!!!

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Starbucks for the last leg to rochester!

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storm trying to blow us away!

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pearl having Dairy Queen in Indiana.

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yummmm cheese curds!

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Pearl napping.

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South Bend Indiana...toll road...stuningly beautiful today!

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Princeton illinois...finally a great rest...home stye!

Motel 6 coffee...yup good thing we bought some and had it in our cooler! Ok we are up and moving. Egg sandwich on the go and get past chicago.

Council Bluffs...Golden coral buffet!!!

I guess i need to be told to "WALK AWAY"

COFFFEEEEEEEE

My sister Nancy glued "Hank" the rooster to the dash with glue!!! (I love it)

SUE!!!

NEBRASKA,.....wind not too bad...pearl zonked...Sue driving for a bit.

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Breakfast of champions...NEBRASKA STYLE...fruit loops and gravyyy! Leaving Sydney in a few min...Davenport Iowa the goal!

Pearl likes the Days Inn in Sidney Neb. tired and fought the wind and snow all day. Cabelas and Smoked Buffalo sandwich then shower and bed! 4:30 wake up call!

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Well we are on our way! We are in Fernley Nev. ready for a good nights sleep!

My new baby is 3 months old!

Pearl eating her bed

She was trying to use up her 15 min of energy before bed......and then did that teeth chomping at the end I call her "Parana"! hahahahha

is this cute or what!!! happy 4th!

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Update on Pearl

Well here she is almost 3 weeks old. Man the time is flying. Although I still CANT WAIT for her to be in my arms.

p.hawkins

Pearls baby pictures

Well here she is. About 20 hours old.
She is the only girl out of a litter of 4. And she was the first born!!!

I was in tears.

My first sour dough starter adventures...hahah

I have been taking cooking classes at the Co-op the past few months. A few weekends ago I took a class on how to make Artisan breads at home.

Here is how it went...

My cooking classes have been going on for the past few months. Only a few of them were actual hands on classes, the rest were more like something from the food network. I get to watch an accomplished Chef at work, just inches away from them, smell all the wonderful smells as they cook stuff, then eat what they make. So I guess they are observational eating classes??? Hahaha

Well what ever you want to label them, I am learning a ton. I have enjoyed them so much.

I won’t go into all the cooking ADVENTURES I have had as a result of them, but will share my latest.

My last class was on how to make artisan breads at home. The instructor was sweet, bubbly and knowledgeable.(see pic below) Well to be honest it sounded more like algebra then bread baking to me, but I persevered as best as my little brain could.

Now I fancy myself a pretty good cook at times. No not on a consistent basis, but that’s my own opinion. I thought I would not have a problem understanding breads since I have made lots of quick breads before, but this one really was a stretch for me.

We began with a sour dough starter. Yup, here begins the confusion. I dare say I had the hardest time grasping the whole concept. (thank goodness I was not the only one)

How much do you keep? How do you get it? You feed it when? With what? So that was the beginning. To be honest it’s as if every other word of hers was registering, but the full string of information was missing some notes. Hahah (sounds like a bad song)

Then we get into the kneading, of which she does not do. I was happy of that. And her use of baking vessels was remarkable and I was right on top of that. Yesiree. My new cool Le Cruset dutch oven was ready to be used! (although she had a very ingenious way to use a terra cotta clay pot as a cooking vessel....I loved that)

The process is intense. The teacher even let us come up and play with a big ball of dough ourselves to learn how to SLAP IT, roll the back, tuck it in and all that. Was pretty cool too. Then you got to keep that ball of dough you just abused and take it home. THEN you got to keep a little 1 oz container of her sour dough starter. It was a new pet to now keep alive and feed every day. (visions of the TV shows of teenagers in home economics class with a plastic doll baby with a timer inside, having to keep it alive as a class project, and how a few of them KILLED the baby are running through my mind now)

The teacher, after being pummeled with my un-ending questions of I DON’T GET IT YET, gave me two containers of sour dough starter in case I killed one. (the other students only got one) Hahahahahahahaah

So home I go with a baggie of her dough ready to be baked (yes the one I played with in class), and two little plastic containers of starter with 5 pages of instructions.

As of today, I have not killed it. However after the first day, my starter developed a tanish clear liquid on top. (again see photo below) I freaked and thought it was dough bleeding - or dough dying. I went straight to the internet and typed in “sour dough starter help”. Then proceeded to read that if you do not feed your starter sufficient amounts of flour and water on a regular basis, its stops growing and creates this liquid that has a slight alcohol smell. I also find out they call it, affectionately, HOOCH. Yup you read it right, Hooch.

So I run furiously to now FEED AND WATER my starter and now it’s happy. My house is warm so it likes to be fed often. It bubbles and gurgles and is very happy. No I have not named it yet.

Now out of the fear of killing it, I created several clones of my starter. I have two of them on my counter and two in the frig and one in the freezer. I mean if it dies your SOL! However I did find out I can mail order it from San Fransisco. How did the pioneer woman do this stuff back then????

Oh and yes I made some bread! THAT TOOK TWO DAYS….and the first loaf was pretty burnt. (more like a hard hockey puck) The second loaf was kinda flat, sour and dense. The third loaf was not too bad actually! In fact it was rather remarkable in the scheme of bread baking, for me anyways!

Some day, we will be able to take pictures and add a “scratch-n-sniff” feature as easily as can be…I want to be around when that technology is available. I mean just think of the stinky possibilities! ~ p.hawkins

I have to say I had a BLAST! The teacher, who was extremely knowledgable about cooking and bread in general was fantastic! Here she is with HER bread that we were going to eat while she continued to teach.

My sour dough starter with the hooch on it. (yes that scared me)

Here is the bread I did finally make myself. They look pretty good huh?

My first loaf. well this was the teachers loaf. I didnt know I was supposed to tuck the parchment paper inside the dutch oven!

This was the first loaf. My oven runs hotter than usual I found out and the bottom burnt. But that was my first hard hockey puck. It does get better, I promise.

Here is my first loaf that I made all the dough myself and baked myself. A little dence but oh so good!

I still have my starter going strong.....so hopefully I shall make more bread soon! Maybe this weekend. Will see.

p. hawkins

Over-achievement gone wrong

(click to enlarge)

When we create something, we always create it first in a thought form. If we are basically positive in attitude, expecting and envisioning pleasure, satisfaction and happiness, we will attract and create people, situations, and events which conform to our positive expectations. ~ Shakti Gawain


You know, I am the first to admit I am an over-achiever. I want it all. I want to know it all, I want to do it all, and I want to do it well.
Now and then, that quest will simply bite me in the butt!

Case in point, I am trying to avoid using paper clips or having my little photo log, that stays by my desk, split up into more than one pile. So today, after I printed them and cut them all pretty, I wanted to find a solution.

So think, Pam, think. There must be a way! Then I remembered I had my assistant plug in my handy dandy electric stapler the other day. It works great! Its fast, it staples hard and it can staple a lot of papers at one time. Just stick the paper in the slot and shazam....stapled! (or at least I remembered it that way?)

So I take my WHOLE stack in there and SHOVE it in. Its a very tight squeeze but I persevere and keep shoving it. Then I wait. Nothing happens. Now, normally it starts to sense the paper and staple it super fast, but this time -- nope.

Soooooooo I hold the stapler case with my right hand and SHOVE a little harder with my left hand holding the mega stack tight in my fist, trying to keep the papers straight.

WOW IT STAPLED
...AND STAPLED
...AND STAPLED
...AND STAPLED!!!!!

I tried to pull it out and it wouldn’t come out! It just kept stapling! I pulled and tugged and no way it was comin outa there!
So I tried to hit the button to release the staple cage and IT KEPT STAPLING but didnt open.

THEN it started stapling on its own! Holy Crap!

So I hurry and get on my knees, crawl under the table to find the cord and unplug it. Mind you its still stapling away. I get the plug out and it stopped.

Now to fix things...hahahhah.

Well the paper did NOT want to come out of there. (Now here is a visual for you. Remember the movie Jumping Jack flash? It had Whoopi Goldberg in it. She is dressed in this long blue sequined dress and up in a room where she is not supposed to be and the paper shredder comes on….her dress gets sucked in and she is frantically trying to pull it out…while wearing it…well that was me with the paper-eating-stapler)

I finally dislodged it from its staple-captor. What a fight!

Not only did it leave a pile of staples in the paper, it DID hold it all together, but it also left a mangled up mess of twisted staples at the end of the stapler cage. Poor thing is sitting there now with its stapler tongue hanging out looking defeated. ~ p.hawkins

I guess I better find a better way to hold my photo logs together next time!!!

Puppy fencing ideas in progress

Well, I know the puppy Mama "Maggie", has been with the puppy Daddy "Ace", but have no idea if there is a Poodle bump or not. I am still waiting to hear. (sounds like a biker couple don't they!) hahahah

Oh and the Mommie "Maggie", she is a white, toy poodle. Dad "Ace" is the same. ( have a cell phone pic of Maggie someplace......I will find it and post it)

But in the meantime, puppy fencing and gates are now being created in my mind and I took some pics, as you see here, and have been drawing out where the need is to have an "inescapable" back yard for my baby.

I am also right next to a main street. To the right of those big green bushes, its a regular street. Yikolas.

I am sooooooo ready for a baby!

OH and a puppy shower will happen in Milwaukee at the B&B show. How fun is that I tell ya.

p.hawkins

Now this is the thing...if you dont have much MOJO then put it on your license plate and hope for osmosis? Sounds good to me! p.hawkins

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Macro Monday - True Love

I think we all need a little "scratch and sniff" Monday! This is one of my newest roses, and it smells of rose and vanilla and sweet grass.
Lean in.....take a nose full!
See more Macro Monday shots here!

Absolute proof ...

Yes this is absolute PROOF I have been traveling way too much!!!! (poor birdies!)

So bought a new feeder and have cleaned this one out. however I am not sure the new feeder is working well, and with all the rain its soaked to pieces. I need a dryer space for the birds!

p.hawkins

Well CHA is rockin! California is beautiful and friends are plenty!

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Macro Monday - Sun Lit Morning glories

These are straight out of the camera this past summer, the late afternoon as the tail end of the sun lit up the flesh of the flower.

p.hawkins

To see more Macro Monday shots click HERE

Machro Monday - Jan 11, 2010 - RUST

RUST one of those things that fascinate me. I love how it looks!

p. hawkins


for more Machro Monday shots click HERE!