And To Think...I Owe It All To An Oil Rig

This week has been a whirlwind of creative activity for me. When Jared leaves I go into creative mode. I think it is my way of coping while he is gone. No, strike that. After this week I KNOW it is my way of coping. So far this week I have ALMOST finished our bathroom redo (a real love hate relationship if there ever was one), planted a magnolia tree, made a skirt for MYSELF, worked on a 4th of July wreath, sewed 3 tote bags for Kate's teachers,and my personal yummy favorite made my own bread. And it was braided bread by the way. And it was good (if I do say so myself). But the best part of the whole bread making ordeal was that I got to use my Kitchen AID mixer and solve a long standing mystery.

Several Christmases ago my in laws gave me the wonderful Kitchen Aid stand mixer. I have absolutely loved it and made cakes, cookies, cream cheese pound cake (yum) and anything else that is mixable because it is SO much easier than a hand mixer.


But one thing had always puzzled me. When I opened up the box there were 2 attachments. Well the aptly named paddle attachment was easy enough to figure out, but what the heck does this thing do????

I conjured up images of a horror movie or Captain Hook and quickly put it in a drawer for what I thought would be forever. And then this week I found out what it is for. Um yeah.......it kneads dough so that you don't have to do it by hand. Pretty cool eh? I followed THIS recipe and made this:

Let me just say that this bread is awesome for 3 reasons 1)it's very easy to make 2)it is really tasty and 3) it makes your house smell wonderful as it is baking.

At approximately 1 PM tomorrow my creativity will shift into neutral and I will take my place by Jared and just relax and be with him, because as much fun as this creative craftiness is I would rather just be with him and do nothing at all.