Odds and Ends.

Ever wondered what dishwashing liquid looks like when it freezes? Yeah, me neither, but I recently found out. It's kind of cool, actually.




And no, I didn't freeze it myself. It's been so cold recently that it arrived at my house in my most recent order from alice.com just like that. Alice.com, by the way -- best website I've discovered recently (I hesitate to say "best website ever"...that covers a lot of ground, really).

What else? Well, brace yourself, buster -- I've been baking! Bread, of all things. I'd been wanting to play with the Kitchenaid (woo, that thing is a beast!), and I finally went out and got a couple of loaf pans yesterday. It was a quick-rise recipe that I got right of the book that came with the mixer. For my first attempt, I was pretty pleased! It was a little denser than I'd like, but had a good flavor. I think if I just let it rise more next time, it'll be lighter.



One of the loaves was shaped a little wonky, but that was my fault for rushing through when I was making them.



It made the house smell GREAT too. Jon and I both had a piece right of of the oven with butter. Yum.

And to show you that I really can get excited about the little things in life -- we got a new mailbox yesterday, and I am just ticked to death about it. Since we moved to this house, the mailbox had been just hanging on by a thread -- no latch, rusted out, big dent in the side. Finally, it got to the point a few weeks ago where the door wouldn't shut anymore, and so if it rained, our mail would get soaked. So yesterday, we got a new one! It's white and shiny and not rusted and has a DOOR with a LATCH that SHUTS. Yeah!