Today. . .

. . .it's been a year.

Double Trouble

Meet Calvin and William.

Calvin and William made their debut into the world this weekend after my sister's marathon 80+ hour labor at almost 39 weeks! Whew! Those two did NOT want to come out.

I got to be one of the first to hold them, which was one of the perks of sleeping in a lumpy pull-out chair and eating hospital food for five days! There wasn't a lot of sleep to be had over all that time, so it was a good thing they were so cute. I'm so glad I could be there, though, and my kids were good sports about getting shuffled around from house to house while I was gone.

The babies, of course, love me. And since they live pretty close, we'll get to see them grow up!

The Little Princess

This is Ruth. She's my new niece, courtesy of my sister-in-law Tirza and my brother James.

She's just too pretty, and with all her new boy cousins, I'm sure she'll be the little princess. And, lucky Ruth, she gets the little girl sweater I've been working so hard on. It's still not done, but I'm making it in a 6-9 month size so it will still fit by the time it's done. I'm a slow knitter and it uses a small needle.

Someday I'll get to meet Ruth (she lives back east), but until then I'll keep stalking the internet waiting for more pictures!

The New Man in My Life

This is Edmund. He's my new nephew and he's wonderful and adorable and I love him. I can't wait to meet him and give him big kisses on those fabulous chubby cheeks!

Welcome to the world little Edmund!

Ms. Teacher Lady

It's been two months since I posted last. Whew. Where did the time go?

I've started working as a substitute teacher in a local school district. Not the one we live in. The one we live in uses the county sub database and they haven't hired new subs in over a year. And I've been waiting for over a year for them. Then the district two towns away was hiring so I went for it.

So, when I'm not working, I'm spending waaaay too much time on the SubFinder website looking for available jobs. They go fast. And when I'm working, well, I'm working.

Blogging and baking seem to be on the back burner right now. I think eventually I'll get my act together and be able to be organized and have things go smoothly. Maybe.

For now, I'm trying to work out the whole "who's going to pick up the kids after school" thing, which I thought I had worked out with a neighbor, but their schedule after school is not as available as they led me to believe and I'm constantly having to make alternate plans.

My plan for tomorrow is trading cars with a friend so she'll have a big enough car to transport all the kids to her house.

What I need is someone who is always home after school and can handle taking my kids with little notice. Not so easy. I could put them in the after school program, but I don't work every day, and if they were in the after school program, they'd have to go every day anyway.

Aside from the childcare problem, it's going pretty well. So far all the jobs I've done have been in junior high or high school. I'd like to try some middle grades, in the 3-5th grade range. Kids that age are a little less snotty and don't try to pull as much. For some reason the high school kids thought I was stupid enough to believe that their teacher ALWAYS lets them use their ipods in class. Right. As If.

So, that's the story. My life is in a big period of change right now and I'm just trying to keep afloat some days.

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Bizzy's Baking Adventure

I know it's been a long time since my last post, but really, there hasn't been much of note to write about. But I've now decided to embark on a baking adventure. And I shall blog about it. I don't know how long it will last, or how often it will happen, but bake I will.

Today I started off with something simple. I made little strawberry tarts. I used my grandma's fresh fruit pie recipe, which is a big favorite in the family and always a hit at church socials. I thought I'd try something different and make little tiny tarts in my mini-muffin pan. So, first I'll post the pie recipe and then I'll share what I did.

Gram's Fresh Fruit Pie

1 1/2 quarts fresh ripe fruit, peeled and sliced if needed (peaches, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, etc.)

3/4 cup sugar

3 Tbsp. cornstarch

1 baked pie shell

fresh whipped cream (don't even think of using that canned stuff or cool-whip on this pie, you might as well just go buy a frozen pie at the store, I'm serious, don't you dare)

Mash up enough fruit to make 1 1/2 cups puree, then arrange the remaining fruit in a pleasing manner in the pie shell. Make it look pretty. This is the time to let your artistic, or OCD side show through.

Thoroughly mix the cornstarch and sugar in a bowl. Bring the puree to a boil in a pan. When the puree is boiling, add the sugar mixture, cook the puree for 7 minutes or until the puree is nice and glossy and thick.

Put the pan in ice water to keep it from cooking too much and to cool it down quickly. Then carefully pour the glaze into the pie, making sure not to ruin your beautifully arranged fruit. Poke around to help the glaze get down into the fruit.

Refrigerate for a couple of hours and serve with the fresh whipped cream (it's very easy, just pour the cream into a bowl, beat it until it gets fluffy, add some sugar and a bit of vanilla and you're good to go.)

That's how you make the whole pie. Here's what I did:

First, I enlisted a helper. Ruby helped me cut out the pieces from the pie crust dough (I used a pre-made crust from Trader Joe's because I had one on hand, I'm not sure it was the best choice, it puffed up quite a bit).

Then we put the circles into the mini-muffin tin.

And baked and cooled them (see how puffy they are? Not a lot of room for strawberries). I had some extra dough at the end and made a couple in a regular-sized muffin tin, too.

Then I cut up the strawberries and put them into the shells.

And poured in the glaze. Note: If you ever try to make these on the small scale, because they're so small, it's really hard to get the glaze to go down into the berries. When I tapped the pan on the counter, the glaze in the bigger tarts did go in fairly nicely, but the little ones just stayed on top. I think it would have been a better idea to mix the glaze into the strawberries and then put them in the shells. Next time.

After their trip to the refrigerator, they each got a dollop of cream.

They were soooo good. I've always had a hard time eating a full piece of this pie, because it's very sweet and filling. But I ate a big tart and a little tart, washed it down with a glass of milk and it just hit the spot.

All in all, a definite success. I think the mini-muffin pan might be too small, though, to do it right. The regular-sized ones were a nice dessert size. With apple season upon us, I might try some apple tarts next. Or mini apple crisps. Stay tuned and you'll see!