Friday things, 3/13

1. I've had horrible allergies in my eyes for the last two weeks. I finally got it under control with steady zyrtec but I couldn't even look at a computer screen for days there. I went to urgent care and got the standard "welcome to Kanas" speech concerning springtime allergies and I always say "it's not my first time and also I've lived in Missouri for the last 4 years..." and that always throws them off a little because they act like everyone complaining of allergies is fresh off the plane from a perfect climate zone like San Diego or a subarctic place like Fairbanks. Either way, the visit was free but I wasn't a fan. 

2. So coming off of not being able to sleep for a week, constantly dealing with switching back and forth between contacts and glasses, and now taking zyrtec every night, I made an eye appointment and turns out I can't actually go to an eye appointment even for an actual concern because of my insurance. I went less than a year ago for a contacts fitting. I would need to go to my PCM and then get a referral to an ophthalmologist, which...the last time I got a referral to someone, it took 11 months. Here I thought just a regular optometrist that I've seen before would be able to check my eyes more closely than the disgruntled PA working on a Saturday at urgent care. 

Either way, military healthcare, as always, is a true you-get-what-you-pay-for-situation.

3. I am in a media rut. I stand by everything I recommended a few weeks ago. I have however found myself back at one of my ultimate favorites, a true comfort-watch:

If you've never watched Homeland, it holds up! It started in 2011, ended in 2020. It's always weird to think that 2011 was so long ago (again, I'm convinced that 2013ish was the last good year lol), but this show does not disappoint if you're thinking about if it will be cringy or awkward today. 

Claire Danes is always cringy anyway. 

Cannot recommend enough. 

4. Because of the allergy issues, I went an entire week without attempting to wear eye makeup and then threw away my cheap e.l.f. mascara because I didn't like it anyway. Because I'd used so many eyedrops, my lashes were starting to break. I did have a moment of panic there. I splurged on Honest mascara because it comes with a primer. I've bought this mascara before and I cannot recommend it enough. It hurts to pay $20 for it, but it's the best out there. 

5. In other news, Wells was really sick for exactly one day two weeks ago and now he still has a cough, Sutton is slightly fever-ish to kick off our spring break, and Scott is pretty sick. It's definitely spring when everyone gets sick! ...I've gotten away with just allergies. But that's basically where I've been: juggling all the things while not really feeling good at all. I do have a lot to write about so let's hope the zyrtec keeps working. 

6. Some of these have been on my desktop for a few weeks so apologies if they're untimely: 

(not me, but Scott)

I was taking so much allergy medication last weekend that I had no idea what was happening. 

Another show ^ (Mad Men) I cannot recommend enough, from beginning to end. 

Linking up with Friday Favorites!

Currently in {March}

Linking up with Amy!

Saving my life right now: Dark showers. This is the only way to take a shower, I promise. I just have a nightlight in there.  Fun fact: in this rental, we all started out with our own bathrooms (there's 3) and now we basically all use the same one for showers/baths at different times of day because it's the one that's set up the best. 

Cleaning/Purging: I added a ton to my Poshmark on Monday! If you're interested in the random assortment of, I think, higher quality items I'm trying to find new homes for, check it out. I love the way Poshmark has to disclose that the seller, in fact, is not for sale.

Planning (trip): I'm not personally planning a trip but my parents are coming to visit us for Sutton's birthday so I am planning what we can do while they're here. It'll be spring break. The only thing I have on the schedule is a well-check doctor's appointment for Sutton so I really know how to plan for a fun trip, I guess.

Taking a break from: I actually deactivated my Twitter/X account in December because I was sick of the homeschool/tradwife/SAHM/bread-baking/thrifting/tallow-using algorithmic loop I couldn't escape. I recently set up another account where I'm only following news/politics, which was my reason for using Twitter for 13 years before the last several months. I remember setting it up during the election cycle in 2012. So ...taking a break from the cesspool of reddit and slowing wading into the, hopefully better curated, cesspool of X. 

Loving: I am legitimately eating crow on this but I spent the last 2 school years drowning in professional development concerning phonics instruction and I loathed most of it. Now, I'm using that material daily again (post on that is incoming) and I want to say that LETRS training and Secret Stories and all that is the most valuable PD I've ever had. If you have a child who is learning to read or if you teach children to read, this is what you need to buy into....I don't make the rules, but it's a system that works. 

The value of these things also cannot be understated. If you have a laminator and need a project, make some. 

My Sourdough Method

I had a sourdough starter in 2024 and made it pretty regularly for a year and a half. I had okay luck for not knowing what I was doing. Then I stopped and started up again this past fall with a new starter. It immediately got moldy, which seemed kind of crazy because that's never happened to me before. I began again in November 2025 with a new starter I made myself and I've had luck so far! I actually use a mash-up of a couple of different recipes so I'm going to type out what I DO. I legitimately feel, 2 years in, that it's about what works for you and you have to be willing to experiment a little. It's more about feeling and how basic science works, not so much following an exact series of steps in a recipe or having the right equipment. I used to get really hung up on the equipment aspect. I'm linking the products I used but none are very expensive. The most "expensive" part of sourdough making is the time you invest. 

The only special equipment you need is a food scale and a way to warm your sourdough starter. 

I do prefer to bake in a regular loaf pan, and you probably already have one! I did buy the fancy Dutch oven to start two years ago but realized I preferred a loaf method better. 

1. Pull your starter out of the fridge and let it warm to room temperature for about 12 hours. I'll pull it out first thing in the morning or before bed. 

2. Discard half your starter --I keep a jar of discard in the fridge, or you can just throw it out. You can make just about anything with sourdough discard. Google it. 

3. Add 3 tablespoons of flour and 1 tablespoon of water. Stir really well and place on a sourdough warmer. This is CRITICAL. You must keep it warm. I am lazy and also a little cheap so I made my own warmer. I'm not telling you to do this but it works amazingly well. 

I also never understand how people are putting open jars or jars without a lid or jars with a lid or whatever as a way to let their starter rise. Every website talks about ventilation and air but also covered but also loosely covered. It's all very contradictory. 

I use press-and-seal with a rubber band around it. The first person to give me a starter two years ago handed me a mason jar with press-and-seal on it so that's my method now. I do the same for my discard jar in the fridge because I lost the lids to my mason jars I bought specifically for this purpose. 

Just fed and starting to warm

...and a few hours later:

4. You want the starter to get bubbly and double in size. This can take 4 hours, it can take 10 hours. I used to think it was a hard and fast 12 hours from feeding the starter to mixing the dough, because that's what the tutorials give for their time ranges. It's not. It just depends on what the starter is doing. This key is: Has it doubled in size? Is it bubbly?

5. Then you're ready to make dough. 

After I measure out the starter, I also feed the starter again and put it back on the warmer. This is why it doesn't get moldy; as long as it is being fed or refrigerated between feedings, starters last forever. I try to discard and feed twice a day if I'm actively making a few loaves of bread a week. 

You will need a scale. There's no way around it. I've been using it for a couple of years. 

Put a big bowl on the scale and then "tare" it so it goes to 0 grams (you are measuring in grams).

Add 100 grams of your starter. 

Add 360 grams of room temp/slightly warm water. I usually take a big mug of water and microwave it for 20 seconds. Comes out to about 80 degrees. A thermometer is great for checking this--I also use a thermometer to check how warm my starter is when it's in the jar. 

Stir.

Add 500 grams of all-purpose flour. 

I used to use separate bowls but I realized I was just aiming for 960 grams on the scale when I was done and it saves some time and dishes. 

Stir into a dough.

6. Cover and let sit in a warm spot (I just put it on top of the stove but sometimes I check the air temp there with my thermometer) for about 30 minutes. This is a very important step because it lets the flour absorb the water. 

Add 10 grams of sea salt. I used Redmond's, and can only find it on Amazon. Do not use table salt. It's a different consistency for the measurement and your bread will be too salty.

Either mix in the salt with your hand or a wooden spoon. Form the dough into a loose ball but keep it in the bowl.

7. Cover and let sit for 30 minutes.

Put some flour on a cutting board and scrape the dough onto the board. Do some stretch and folds, just for about 15 seconds, maybe 4 or 5 of them. Don't over-handle the dough.

There are a ton of quick tutorials out there on how to stretch and fold. It's not complicated at all but just watching someone explain how to do it is helpful. It's not a long task or process. 

Cover and let sit for 30 minutes.

Stretch and fold again.

Cover and let sit for 30 minutes.

Stretch and fold again.

Cover and let sit for 30 minutes.

Stretch and fold again.

Four times is usually the magic number for stretching and folding. You can do more but you don't want to over-handle the dough. 

8. Then you have the bulk rise. If you make up your dough in the morning, it's going to rise all day. If you make up your dough at night, it will rise overnight. Again, I used to think that it needed to rise for like 12 hours. It doesn't. The key is to just let it double in size, just like with the starter after you feed it. I used to get over-fermented dough because I let it go too long. For me, I normally mix up the dough around 8-10pm and then will bake it around 9am (because I'm lazy and get up late...you can do it earlier). Or I'll mix it up in the morning and bake it late afternoon or evening. Again, just let it double in size. 

9. Flour a cutting board, scrape out the dough, shape it into a loose rectangle and gently fold it up into a loaf shape. I tri-fold it and then tuck in the ends. 

10. Put it into a loaf pan. I use a regular metal one. Cover with press-and-seal and place in that warm spot again for about 30 minutes. Then I preheat the oven for the next 15 minutes or so. In all, it sits in the pan for about 45 minutes. 

11. I bake at 392 degrees F. The very first recipe I used gave that as the time so that's what I stuck with and it works. I've seen loaf pan recipes say to bake at 375 degrees or 400 degrees. I'm sure the difference between 392 and 400 is negligible at best, but I like what I like. 

Score the top. Nothing fancy here and I just use a paring knife. You just need a place for steam to escape. 

I usually bake for 40 minutes. I set the timer and check on it at that point. I do usually put a knife into the center but if the outside is golden brown and it's puffed-up, it's done. 

That's it. No fancy equipment. Just a few links to products I already use. No videos. No ads that slow your scrolling. This is my tried and true method. 

Let me know if you try it and I'd love for you to share your own recipe for sourdough!

Friday things, 2/27

This week, I posted recent content again. Cannot recommend Paradise enough if you need a show to binge this weekend! 

Linking up with Friday Favorites!

1. I have big, big thoughts about this:

Grown adults who are not or were not teachers have no idea how this works. My first year in the classroom, I was sick most of the year. Started with student-teaching. Literally the sickest I'd ever been to that point and still couldn't miss without a doctor's note. I had a cold or a cough, literally, for the next 5 years on and off. I had strep throat for the first time ever as a 25 year old. Scott would catch what it was from me and get it twice as bad. It never failed. His years in Afghanistan were probably a respite from the constant respiratory viruses, to be honest. 

My point is, you have these people who haven't been around small children since they were a small child. They go to work in an office or something and then when they have kids post-25/30/35, they're all shocked and put out that they're getting sick again. Like, nope. My immune system did the work pre-30. So this does not apply to all of us. It's actually just showing a level of ignorance. 

This is a result from a society being one where children are not considered to be a huge part of many peoples' lives. Birth rate is down, people think kids are too much work, no one wants to go into child-centered fields anymore, adults just want a dog or a cat and kids are too much of a hassle, etc.

At this point in my life, my kids get colds and coughs and low fevers occasionally, Scott will get sick for a day or two (not as much as he used to), and I'm usually fine. The one exception was when my immune system was definitely compromised during pregnancy exactly 4 years ago and I had a sinus infection for 4 weeks. 

**Bonus comment regarding kids: You know how people are like "stop being lazy get up before your kids this is your own fault that you never get anything accomplished"? 

Well, blogging in real time, I got up at 5:05am this morning to "get stuff done" and guess who was up by 5:20? My kids. 

I wish all of those people nights of restless sleep and I hope their nannies quit because let's face it: the only way moms are "getting it all done at 5am" is if they have hired help. Change my mind.

2. I tracked grocery spending for February and the good news is that I came in at $699. I'm going to guess that a few expenditures would put that over $700 but that includes things like paper towels, toilet paper, hand soap...anything I would buy at Aldi. I made a few small Walmart runs because I will only buy name-brand in certain products (soda, sour cream, etc) but cutting out those $150-200 Walmart pick-ups made a difference. 

3. Scott brought home a Dubai chocolate bar. I had no idea these were so stupidly expensive. But I really liked it. The irony of talking about it right after I mention I saved money on food this month is not lost on me. However, what Scott spends at gas stations is none of my business, you know? I was just tracking food and such. But anyway: I think a lot of people think Dubai chocolate is too sweet but I think it's just about perfect.

4. Does anyone know an actual method for keeping an orchard alive and blooming? I've read a lot about it. I have finally switched to water. 

5.