Simple Home and Happiness

I have a pizza dough recipe that NEVER fails. I mean Never. Never, ever, ever. Unless you forget an ingredient, like olive oil, like my sister did. Apparently then it doesn't work. But if you put all the ingredients in, it will work. Every time. I have been using it for five years, and I've never had it fail. I use it all the time, because pizza is one of my favorite things. I also use it for bread sticks, and calzones and recently I've been making dessert pizza with it too. So here's what I made yesterday. You're going to call me crazy. I know you are, it's ok. This recipe sounds nuts, but believe me, it's so crazy good that you'll feel guilty after you eat it and you'll say, "Ok, yes I called you crazy, but that was awesome." Yes, it really is that good. I love pizza. I love French dip sandwiches. I combined them. Oh yes I did. Amazing. The pizza crust acts as the hoagie bun, the gravy sauce tastes like auju...

Somedays things just don't work out. Somedays I don't think ahead and still have no idea what I am going to make an hour before supper. Somedays our family eats in shifts and I go to bed with a sink full of dishes. Yesterday was one of those days. It was five pm and the girls always get restless about that time. The hubs was out working cattle. And I was pretty sure he was going to be late coming in for supper. I had just finished up my phone conference . I wanted something simple to make. If the hubs isn't in the house to help around supper time, it is a given I will be cooking with a baby on one hip. I remembered the Pioneer Woman had made biscuits and gravy the other day. It wasn't necessarily 'simple', but I had sausage on hand. This is rare for me. I don't have sausage in the house very often, because I if I do, I will inhale it. The same goes for pop, swiss rolls , and cream cheese frosting, but I digress. I have had many bad e...

I was entered into a position that I was entirely unprepared for when I married the hubs. I became the chief secretary, executive financial analyst, accountant, payroller, organizational guru, marketing specialist and the business partner of a large farm/ranch operation. Simply put I became the keeper of all things paperwork. I very naively offered to take this on myself. In fact, I think I even smiled and said it was something I would 'like' to do. Oh, silly, naive, young me... I had zero first hand knowledge of how to run the financial side of an operation of this size. Although I grew up on a farm, I was more experienced with driving a tractor and fixing fence than I was with any of the financial aspects. My Mom taught me how to balance a check book, and that was the extent of my financial training. I currently handle all the day to day bills, as well as managing the paperwork for our large feedlot and custom silage cutting business. My business partner is, of ...

Contractor number one called and gave me an estimate on the two story house of fabulousness... it was so far past my budget I am still buzzing. It hurt, it stung, but it will not deter me. We talked on the phone for awhile and he and I tossed around a lot of different ideas. One of the biggest expenses came from concrete. It turns out, that where we live, concrete is at a premium. So with that being a key element to building, it drives up the cost of the whole house. We talked options and landed on looking at a new floor plan. My heart has been set on a two story house all along. It's just what I've always dreamed of. It's what I imagine my home looking and feeling like. Since our budget is very tight, the contractor and I needed a compromise. He felt like he could come a lot closer on budget with a one story house, and so I went back to the drawing board. I scoured the web and I found a plan that I like quite a bit. It's a cottage style house. It is only ...

I cracked my morning egg the other morning and saw this. Two yolks to one egg. Rumor has it, this is a rare thing. Then it happen a couple days later from the same egg carton. My Mom says this is more common with first time layers. Have you ever had this happen? Have a Happy Tuesday or whichever day you read this!   Posted with Blogsy

My children are messy. They are sticky, snotty, purple marker wielding balls of energy that destroy furniture. Back when the hubs and I got married, five years this summer, we purchased a living room set that included a couch, loveseat, and an overstuffed chair with a matching automan. It was on sale, in beige. I wanted it. I was concerned about the color though. I asked the trusty salesman, what about when we have children? (When my husband and I have children, not the salesman and I.) The trusty salesman replies, "Oh don't worry about that. We have this great stain resistant spray you can purchase at an additional cost. It works great, nothing will stain. It's amazing!" I believed him. We bought the whole matching set. The trusty salesman lied. Everything single spill, mark, dot shows on the furniture. Even water stains it. Its ridiculous! I purchased slip covers for the couch and the loveseat awhile ago from potterybarn. They are good enough...

Want to know one of my guilty pleasures? Cream cheese frosting, from a can. Some people are chocolate people, I do cream cheese frosting from a can. Scoop it up on a spoon, sit down and lick it off. I am telling you this, because I'm eating it right now and it's what I'm thinking about. I also want to tell you this, so you know a little more about me, because I'm going to be needing you to hold my hand, and boost me up and walk me through this crazy world while I try to build my house. I need you to give advice, and listen and scream at me, "Don't use a sponge to cover the bathroom in red paint, you will have to use two gallons of paint to cover it later!" (Thanks Mom for letting me use the sponge to spatter my bathroom walls when I was a teenager, I do regret it now.) There will be mistakes along the way, designs that I will love, that will fade into outdated trends. I know these things. Those things are easy changes. Things that I just have ...

One of the things that the hubs and I are lucky enough to choose, is the location where we will build our new house. We have some special considerations to make though, due to the nature of our lifestyle. Currently we live in the middle of the feedlot. Literally, we are surrounded by cattle pens on three side of our house. It lends a less than aromatic lifestyle 364 days out of the year, except for the one day of the year when the wind blows from the south where there are no cattle pens! My other major complaint is with two little kids around, it is very nerve racking having large equipment and trucks and pickups and generally a lot of machinery going by less than ten feet from the house, dozens of times every day. It doesn't exactly lend to a child friendly environment It's the country equivalent of living on a busy highway. For these reasons, I want to get out of the middle of all the action when we build the new house. My husband on the other hand loves the wher...

Have I ever mentioned my incredible disdain for basements? Basements and I have a notoriously bad reputation of getting along. They are the Hatfields to my McCoy. The bane of my existence. The reason for every bad thing that's ever happened to me. Okay, that may be slightly exaggerated, but I want you to understand how. Serious. I. Am. I have never had a basement that hasn't at one point or another inadvertently become an indoor pool. The first house I lived in while growing up, flooded at least once that I remember. The second house, flooded on multiple occasions, usually in my basement bedroom, which required being able to quickly and efficiently remove all my possessions to higher ground. Recently in the middle of the night I awoke to the sound of rushing water. I immediately ran downstairs and found water pouring from the basement ceiling. I turned off the main water valve, while swearing several a few curse words. A water pipe had burst due to the freezing temp...