Organize Your Scrub Brush

Keep one scrub brush in the sink to scrub dishes and one in the dishwasher. Swap them every time you run a load of dishes and you will always have a clean scrub brush!

Redbox

Have you started renting DVD's from Redbox yet? Someone has finally come up with the perfect movie rental system. I love it when businesses get organized! It's perfect for us because:

1. DVD's are $1 a night. We only watch one movie a week so that is cheap entertainment.
2. There is one outside almost every McDonalds so we can pick up a DVD on our way home from anywhere.
3. I don't have to drag all the kids into a store.
4. I can return the DVD at any other Redbox.

If you want a free DVD use our promotional code: GALLAG. This will only work if you are a new customer.

French Bread or Chewy Pizza Crust

I spent years trying to make good French Bread until I finally stumbled upon the secret. It's all in the sponge. It makes the recipe sound more complicated but it's very easy. Your family and friends will love you if you make them fresh home made bread with this recipe!

2 cups water
2 cups flour
1 heaping tablespoon instant yeast
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon salt
6 cups flour
1 cup warm water

Sponge: Mix 2 cups flour and 2 cups water together in your mixer (see "Simplify Your Cooking" below), to make a sponge in the evening. Cover and let sit covered at room temperature over night. (or make the sponge in the morning for dinner bread. You can let the sponge sit out for up to a day and a half. 6 Hour minimum is best.) If I set out the sponge and then find I don't use it the next day I just put it in the fridge until I want to use it.

French Bread: In the morning add yeast, sugar, 6 cups flour, salt and 1 cup water. Mix and knead. Let rise until double in size. Divide into two pieces for large loaves or four pieces for smaller loaves to give away. Roll each piece into a rectangle with a rolling pin. Starting at the long edge roll dough up pinching seam and ends. Spray with water and cut a slit down the dough lengthwise. Let all the loaves rise until double on a single jelly roll pan (cookie sheet) lightly coated with shortening and then corn meal. Bake in oven on the lowest rack at 400 degrees until brown and hard when tapped. About 20 minutes. Spray bread and oven with water several time throughout baking (about every five minutes) to get a hard crust.

Pizza Crust: Follow directions above, letting the dough rise once. (If you don’t have time to let it rise at all just roll it out “as is” and it will still make a good crust.) Roll a portion of it into a pizza crust and top with your favorite toppings. Bake on a pizza stone dusted with corn meal (or a greased and dusted cookie sheet) at 425 on the bottom rack of your oven. Makes about 2 crusts.

*If you don't use all the dough you can leave it covered in the fridge and roll it out for pizza again the next night. You can also store it in the freezer in a bag sprayed with cooking spray.

*This recipe makes great dinner rolls, hamburger buns, bread sticks or anything else you can think of.

Simplify Your Cooking

The night before I want to bake some homemade French Bread, I mix 2 cups of water with 2 cups of flour in a small mixing bowl. This is the sponge and it sits out over night. The sponge is what gives the bread such a heavenly aroma. The next morning I pour the sponge into my Bosch mixer, add the rest of the ingredients and proceed with making the bread. Does anyone see anything wrong with this picture? It sounds reasonable doesn’t it? But maybe you have already figured out what it has taken me two years of baking French bread, to figure out.

Last night when I got the flour out to make a sponge I thought, “I wonder why I don’t just mix this sponge right in my Bosch? Then I won’t have to wash an extra mixing bowl.” Yes, I am a clever girl, even if it takes me two years to figure out the most logical way to make a sponge. Sooner or later I will figure it out! I could regret the last two years of washing that extra bowl but instead I’ll be happy that I won’t be washing it for the next 60.

Organize Your Toothpaste

Here's my organizing tip for the day: If your children have a problem keeping track of their toothpaste cap like mine do, start buying the paste with the flip top cap. I guess screwing the cap back on is just too much work for a busy 5 year old so we might as well make it easier for them and ourselves!

I can't believe how many computer problems we've been having lately! We're back to using our slow computer until we can get our new one fixed again.

I can't include photos but we have our basement walls and floors poured and the garage floor. I guess we're on hold for a few weeks. Two weeks before the roof is scheduled for delivery we'll start framing the outside walls. In the mean time we're trying to get everything picked out, appliances, paint, brick, etc.

I have had a very stressful week. Something I work to avoid but this week it was unavoidable. While we've been having computer problems which makes house planning difficult, we've had family reunions and Saturday we had a booth for our local country fair. It was so fun. The kids sold balloons and I sold my Organizing Bags. People loved the bags so I'm looking for another fair to go to as soon as I can.

Basement

Here’s the progress on our house so far. We dug the basement on July 20 and poured the footings on the 29th. This week we’ll be pouring the walls.

We’ve made so many changes to our house plans. I almost wish we could have started over with them but it’s too late now!