A day spent indoors.

I woke up early this morning and spent some time on the computer before the kids woke up.

Neil got up and started his day and headed outside to work on a number of projects he has going on. He got the crushed rock all spread under the deck (it looks great BTW), he mowed more of the pasture for a while, pulled out the fence posts closest to our trailer neighbors where our future fruit orchard will be and just did some more needed cleaning up.

My plan for dinner is Beef Stew. I figured I would throw it all in the crock-pot and let it stew all day. That took me about 30 minutes to put together since I floured and browned the meat and then sautéed the onions before adding them to the pot along with potatoes, carrots, spices, broth and some red wine.

After I cleaned up the kitchen I realized I was still in my jammies and was quite comfortable. I looked around the house at all the boxes still piled up... most of them in the room across from the dining area that we intend to be the kids play room. I made the decision that I was going stay inside and do some much needed organizing and rearranging. It took most of the day but I managed to reduce the boxes in the playroom to be stacked in just one corner. I cleaned what remained of the room and then began moving to kids toys from their bedroom into the playroom. I also unpacked some of the kid’s toys/books that I previously had no room for. Both the playroom and the kid’s bedroom look so much better now. The kids love the playroom, especially McKayla as it is much brighter then their bedroom and so close to the kitchen where I spend most of my time. Both of them played most of the evening in there. Made me feel really good for taking the time to set it up for them.

The other thing that I squeezed into my afternoon was to put the ingredients into the bread machine for a sourdough wheat bread to go along with the beef stew for dinner. It will be the first time I use the sourdough starter I started last week when we were up here at the farm long enough to stir and feed it everyday like you need to when first starting out. I kept it in the fridge while we were back in SC but yesterday I took it out to warm up knowing I wanted to use it today.

Dinner Results: Beef Stew was wonderful! Sourdough wheat bread was heavy and dense but very tasty and went great with the stew. Will try to get a higher loft next time. Neil commented that it didn't have much "sour" taste to it. I told him it takes time to develop in the starter and it should get better with age and use.