Saturday Meanderings

Happy Saturday from the White Mountains of Arizona! It’s been a few months since we have visited our cabin and no surprise to find cobwebs, lots of yard debris and a tankless water heater that is providing cold water only. Home ownership~a blessing and a curse. This is Finn’s first trip here and he is wanting to chase every squirrel and loves chewing on lost golf balls. Thank you for joining me today for Saturday Meanderings where we chat about all good things this week.

Bread Baking Class

My daughter and her two roommates came by last Saturday as they expressed an interest in making bread. Since it is impossible to teach sourdough bread from start to finish in a few hours, I did a tutorial on sourdough starter. Using risen honey lavender dough that I made the previous night, together, we prepare the dough for baking in a Dutch oven.

Next we make the same honey lavender bread, but using commercial active dry yeast. The girls are able to measure the ingredients, mix the dough and then knead it. We try different cuts to allow for dough expansion while baking.

In addition to making bread, I also show them how to make sourdough discard crackers. I love this recipe and you can see a more detailed post on it here. Using a pasta maker (either a manual one or the Kitchen Aid mixer attachment), you can get the crackers as thin as you’d like.

The girls flavor the cracker dough with black truffle oil, black truffle seasoning, grated Parmesan cheese and Maldon smoked sea salt. A quick 10-12 minute bake in an oven, and you have delicious crackers.

They happily went home with 4 loaves of bread and large crackers. It was a fun dry run for me as I am considering teaching a bread class for others.

If you are looking for a Dutch oven, Sur La Table has one on sale now until Monday. My friend, Rick sent me this as he, too is a bread baker. It is now $79.00, marked down from $199.95. It comes in 3 colors and you can find the sale here….only until Monday.

Peel ‘n Stick Wallpaper Problem

Last fall, I spent a small fortune on this pretty peel and stick wallpaper from Spoonflower. While I was hanging it in our water closet in the bedroom, I dismissed a brief premonition of it falling off the wall. However, after a cold winter here (we leave the thermostat at 50 degrees), sticking failure is exactly what happened.

I cannot blame the wallpaper, but one of the main reasons I want to cover these walls, is the ugly orange peel texture of the drywall. What person ever thought this texture is attractive? Ideally, I should have skim coated it and made it smooth, but no, I did not. Interestingly, 3 of the 4 walls still have the wallpaper up, but for some reason, the largest section failed.

This weekend I need to clean the walls again and then try using a bead of clear silicone caulking on the edges. If that doesn’t work, there is a product on Amazon that is for this very purpose. However, instead of getting overnight deliveries like we do in Phoenix, it takes a lot longer to receive packages up here. Wish me luck. Sigh.

Week of Running Around

Do you ever have a week where all you are doing is driving around getting chores done? This is the week I had. Remember my outdoor cushions that had the strange sections of fabric missing?

Of course, each chair has 3 cushions (bottom, back and ottoman), and whatever animal did this (some say a rat. Eeeew.), they ruined 3 out of the 6 cushions. As a result, I have to have all 6 reupholstered. To make matters worse, Sunbrella has discontinued this kiwi stripe fabric.

Fortunately these chairs sit separately from the rest of the outdoor furniture (yes, covered in the same fabric), and I am able to find an outdoor fabric in stripe and in a close enough green shade.

It takes a total of almost 3 hours of driving to pick up the fabric and then head in the complete opposite direction to get the cushions and new fabric to the upholsterer.

In trying to maximize chore time, I also take in the seat cushions from our family room sofa. Eighteen months ago I had this Mitchell Gold sofa completely rebuilt and reupholstered with new slip covers. I love how the sofa turned out, however, over time the seat cushions have collapsed a bit. So this same upholsterer is re-doing the cushions on the sofa.

Fun in the Garden

Tomatoes are starting to ripen. There is something rewarding about picking the first ripe tomato of the season.

I pull what I thought were weeds, only to find fresh garlic at the ends. No recollection of planting garlic, but what a wonderful surprise.

It’s peach week here too. However, my beautiful peach tree did not produce nearly as many fruit. Between losing both apricot trees and my apple tree this past year, I’m afraid my glorious peach tree may be th next to go. Let’s just hope it’s an off year.

From the Internet

Wait until you see these gorgeous napkin rings! My friend, CoCo, from The Crowned Goat made them~yes, she made them and states they are “quick and easy”. Who knew that you could find such sweet flower buttons? Wouldn’t these be so pretty for a bridal shower or engagement or wedding celebration? Everything you need to know is in CoCo’s blog post here.

Artist Cecilia Rosslee paints the most cheerful scenes. Doesn’t this colorful painting just make you happy?

She has a store on Etsy and I find her paintings so affordable. A few years ago I even tried to replicate one of her paintings of wildflowers and roses.

You can find her shop on Etsy here. If nothing else, it is fun to look through her paintings.

Mary’s Must Haves

Amazon is having its Memorial Day sale with an additional 20% on certain items. If you’ve been holding off buying Bissell’s Little Green, it is now under $100 at $98.59, for a limited time. I almost want to buy a second one that we can leave at the cabin, instead of schlepping ours back and forth. This offer is a steal as I know I paid over $120.00 for ours.

I don’t believe I have ever found the perfect pair of underwear. With these on sale and with over 85,000 reviews and a 4.6 rating, I am going to order them. Has anyone bought these? I will report back on what I think after I receive them. But I’m tired of other styles that ride up or twist or are just flat out uncomfortable.

A 4-pack with a 28% discount at $14.44 is a bargain. They also come in various colors. See it here. Will keep you posted.

I’m looking for an affordable summer dress, maybe mid-length, however, I’m a bit wary of ordering on online from a company I do not know. Being scammed once makes me a bit hesitant so if anyone has a great resource for an easy summer dress, please let me know.

Have a wonderful weekend. Though we will be doing cabin chores, it’s nice to be up in this weather where I need a sweater in the morning and a t-shirt in the afternoons.

Stay safe out there.