When Lin got home, he brought in the mail. In the mailbox he found our new voter registration cards. He also found the voter registration cards for about ten of our neighbors. Not kidding. He’s off delivery them to their proper owners now, but I wish he would have given me a nanosecond to take a photo to send to the county clerk and post master. Now I’ll email them about it, and the mailman just has to say I am on crack. Always get proof.

I could understand one card stuck to another and not being noticed, but this was a stack of cards with differing addresses and weren’t at all stuck together. A stack … of voter registration cards … flying around in our mailbox.

Now I am beginning to wonder what things I was supposed to get in the mail and didn’t because the moron in the mail truck can’t be bothered to properly deliver something important like a government document to the right address.

Really, really wish Lin hadn’t run off so quickly with them. I would have taken them right back to the main post office and bitched about it … and made the stupid mailman try again to get them to the right houses, hopefully after getting chewed out by his boss. Now, I have no proof at all of his stupidity. I guess I’ll just have to write some really tasty emails to complain, but it isn’t nearly as fun as doing it in person or at least having photographic proof of the STACK of cards he tossed into one mailbox.

Good thing we are responsible citizens and not the kind to, you know, use them for nefarious purposes isn’t it?

And, of course, we got Herminia’s card as well, because as far as the universe knows, she and her family are STILL living at this address, because they keep telling government offices that they do, and there isn’t anything more I can do about it. I have written, complained, sent stuff back with explanatory notes. No one cares, so I guess I shouldn’t either. Let’s hope they never miss any of that important mail, because I stopped sending back to the post office two years ago. Now it goes straight into the trash, unless it looks interesting. Sure, maybe that’s against the law, but the crap is addressed to my home, now isn’t it? Why, yes … yes it is.

I was crabby before Lin pointed out the ignorance and sloth of the mailman. Now I am really, really grumpy.

Never, ever, ever run outside for “just a minute” in your tiny little pajamas and a sweater when the temperature is near freezing. That is the wisdom I would like to pass on to you today. Holy cow! I wasn’t entirely awake before, but I certainly am now. Awake and shivering!

Now I have to find an excuse to use the oven so I can hover nearby and absorb the warmth. Cookies sound like a plan.

I only have two repeats of the pattern to go before I get to the toe of that annoying sock. I will finish my first official pair of socks sometime today and will be wearing them tonight. I am determined to get it done. I need socks. My feet are cold!

And while I have been saying pretty much non-stop that I never want to knit anymore socks on size 2 needles, I believe I have been lying. I am already feeling the urge to buy more self-striping sock yarn. Hopefully the second pair won’t take me nearly a year to finish.

First, some food porn. Tonight’s dinner ended up being what I am calling Pizza Quiche. Three eggs, about 3/4 cup milk, mushrooms, black olives, artichoke hearts, mozzarella and Swiss cheeses, and pepperoni. Very, very tasty.

And then, just ’cause … some kitty porn. Had the whole couch to sleep on, but where does Myu want to curl up for a nap? On my notebook, of course!

Time for bed. I’m so sleepy, and that’s a good thing.

The sun came out, which I was so thankful for, and that got me motivated to do the housework and bake the bread. I have even decided to make quiche for dinner. Well, I have one lonely store-bought pie shell in the freezer, and I want to use it so I never have to see it again. Next time, I try making my own crust. It really can’t turn out much worse.

It’s amazing to me how just some sunlight can totally lift my mood. After several days of cold and gloominess, I woke up today feeling rotten mentally. The sun came out, and like magic, I was my usual bouncy self. Maybe I should consider building myself one of those light boxes, but for me, it really seems to be about more than just the light level in my environment. Seeing sunlight outside and getting out in it truly brings up my mood instantaneously … no 30 minutes of light therapy required. Instant. Just like that. I go outside, the sunlight hits my skin, and I am a happier person. Here’s hoping we get a few days of sun now. I really need it.

Other than having spent the day in the kitchen knitting and baking, I read up on alternatives to Time Warner. That gut feeling of being screwed by them keeps growing, and my gut is so very rarely wrong on these things. Not going to make any major changes to something as important as TV and internet during the holidays, but as soon as that insanity is over, whichever company offers me the best deal on the things I want gets my business. I’m sick of paying so much and having so many problems with my service.

I still need to look over the cell phone choices. Lin is chomping at the bit to get a new cell phone, and therefore, I need to decide quickly which one I want for myself and my mom. I’m sort of excited about getting a phone with a camera and a data plan. I’ll be a photo and text messaging fool! My friends will all grow sick of me!

Time to go pull the bread out of the oven and check to make sure our Monday night shows are still set to record. The cable box had an issue earlier, and sometimes when I have to reboot it, the damn thing forgets what it’s supposed to record. Yet one more reason to hate Time Warner.

Mmmm … the bread smells SO good!

Finally, the final recipe for my Perfect White Bread.

5 1/2 cups high protein or high gluten flour
2 packages dry yeast (not Rapid Rise)
1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon salt

1 cup water
1 cup milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil (I use extra-virgin olive oil)

2 beaten eggs

Mix 2 1/2 cups flour, yeast, sugar, and salt in large bowl.

Heat water, milk, and oil on stove until 120-130 degrees (Fahrenheit).

Add eggs and heated liquids to dry ingredients and mix until moistened.

Beat, by hand or machine, for about three minutes, until it resembles a smooth batter.

Add 3 to 3 1/2 cups flour in small increments (1/2 cup at a time) and continue mixing until it pulls together to form a sticky ball. I do this by hand, literally, with my hand. If you have a fancy mixer with great bread hooks, you could use that too, but I haven’t had as much success (or as much messy fun) that way.

Dust your work surface and hands with flour.

Plop sticky dough ball onto floured surface and knead, adding flour as necessary to keep from sticking (not too much though), until the dough feels smooth and silky. Shouldn’t take longer than five minutes.

Coat the inside of another large bowl with vegetable oil (olive oil works best, really).

Gather the dough into a ball, plop it into the bowl to coat the top surface, and then turn it over.

Cover with a damp cotton towel (smooth, not terry — paper towels can work too), and place in a warm spot to rise until doubled (about 45 minutes). I turn my oven on for a few minutes at 200 degrees, put the bowl in there and leave the oven door cracked a bit for ventilation. My house is rarely warm enough for bread rising, particularly during the winter.

Punch the dough down (literally, put your flour covered fist into it over and over to burst the bubbles in it).

Divide into two parts, need slightly and add a little more flour if it feels sticky.

Roll into loaf shapes and place into two bread pans.

Cover with damp towel again and let rise in warm location for 30 minutes. I set my oven to preheat (375 degrees Fahrenheit) at this point and put the bread to rise on top of the stove.

Bake at 375 degrees (Fahrenheit) for 35-45 minutes. During the first few minutes of baking, you will want to spray water on the sides and door of the oven a few times to increase the humidity. You can also place a cookie sheet into the oven during preheating (to get it hot), and put a small amount of cold water in it when you put the bread in to bake. I have not had much success with that method, so I spray, spray, spray.

Remove from oven, place on a cooling rack and cover with cotton towels until completely cooled before cutting (or it starts to dry out too fast). You can, if you like, butter the top of the bread as soon as it comes out of the oven, but it shouldn’t be necessary for a soft crust, and I find it makes the bread mold more quickly.

You can also make rolls or free-form loaves with this recipe. Rolls will only take 10-20 minutes to bake, so you’ll have to watch them more carefully.

I have not had this recipe fail once (yet). Even the time my oven failed while the bread was baking, it still managed to turn out two wonderful loaves of totally edible bread. Provided you don’t add too much flour and make the dough too dry (I tend to leave it quite moist), I think it’s a no-fail recipe. Of course, your mileage may vary.

I am sure I have mentioned more than once recently how very tired I am of dealing with Time Warner Austin. I continue to be tired of it. After sitting down and looking over the cable bill carefully today before paying it, I am even more tired of it. I can’t shake the feeling that we are somehow getting screwed.

We have had cable for ages … at least 14 years … and in all that time, they have come up with new packages and new ways to put together channels and pay for them. Up until recently, we just stupidly assumed they would give us the current package price for what we were getting, but the last few years, I have determined Time Warner is both stupid and evil, so I don’t trust them to do anything by themselves. It just seems to be that $172.37 a month for digital cable, the HD tier, one additional movie channel, DVR service, and internet seems, well, a bit more than pricey. It seems particularly pricey when I start looking at the offerings from Dish Network and realize I could be getting much more in the way of HD channels and such for significantly less money.

They make it confusing on purpose, and their web site explains exactly nothing about pricing and packages. In fact, the only way to see how much the packages cost is to pretend you want to sign up for services on line, and when I do that, I find I could get the highest cable package with ALL the movie channels, plus internet, plus the HD stuff for exactly what we are paying now.

Needless to say, emails have been sent off to Time Warner. I’d call, but the chances of getting someone on the phone that has a brain cell or two to answer questions is no higher than by emailing them, and at least with email, I don’t have to actively listen to the stupidity.

And if it turns out we are paying $20 a month to have Cinemax and Cinemax HD, that is getting dropped ASAP. I suspect this is true, and I think that’s exactly where they have been screwing us … for years.

I woke up on the grumpy side of the bed this morning, mostly because I knew I had to deal with the cable company today. I freaking hate Time Warner.

There is a point along the cold and wet spectrum at which I simply shut down and my body refuses to do anything I ask of it, should I ask it to do more than curl up on the couch or bed under a large quantity of blankets. That point was reached this weekend, and it is on going. Brrrr. Yuck. Too cold and too wet. All I want to to is hide under the comforter … or knit. I did a lot of both of those this weekend, and all new levels of laziness were successfully achieved. I am also almost finished with that damnable pair of socks that have been tormenting me since February.

It’s just a fact: I don’t do well when it the world outside is too cold and wet and lacking sunshine.

The laziness ends today. I have to bake bread today and make some cookies. That will actually be a nice thing. At least one room of the house will be cold and humidity free for a few hours. I will probably be camping out in the kitchen most of the day enjoying the warmth of the oven and knitting on that cursed sock.

Though I do have to spend some time reading reviews of cell phones. Lin has decided that’s what we are buying for the family this holiday season: new cell phones for him, myself, and Mom, who we are adding to our plan to end all her cell phone woes. I think I have picked out the phone I want, but I want to be certain. We only get new phones when we have to do so, which equates to once every three or four years, so I better make sure it is one I am going to love. What’s not to love about a cell phone with a 1.3 megapixel camera, an SD memory card slot, an FM radio, and an unlimited data plan?!

At some point today, I am going to post the newest bread recipe (for my perfect white bread) and explain how I put together the turkey enchiladas from Thanksgiving. Other than that, you may not hear much from me until the world thaws a little more. Just imagine me huddled by my oven knitting furiously.

Considering I had no idea what I was doing, no recipe to go by, and I put these together before sunrise while I was still mostly asleep, the turkey and cranberry enchiladas were a grand success. Two days later, and everyone is still talking about them.

We had a great day on Thursday. Plenty of eating and laying around the living room with family members. Watched DVD movies on the big TV, which everyone just loved. Shrek the Third is hilarious, and I am going to have to get my own copy of Ratatouille. Eragon was also a great movie, but then with my family, you can’t go wrong with swords, sorcery and dragons.

Friday, Mom and I went to Hobby Lobby and looked at everything. Both of us were amazed when we left without buying something, because there were a lot of things we wanted … like one of everything.

The house was cleared out by 2 pm Friday, and after everyone made it safely back to their own homes, I laid down on the bed and passed out. The last call came at 4:30 pm. I didn’t wake up until 11 am today. Wow. I guess I really, really needed some sleep! It felt so good just to lay in bed and sleep. I just couldn’t get up. Even if I could have, I wouldn’t have. The bed was warm and toasty, and it’s so cold, dark and nasty.

Lin is currently partaking in one of his favorite weekend activities: watching entire seasons of America’s Top Model. Ugh. I think I’ll go do the dishes that have stacked up since yesterday, and then, maybe, another nap. I probably don’t need any more sleep, but there are few things better than curling up under the comforter with the cats on a cold and rainy day … except maybe knitting, which the cold weather is making me want to do too.

Knitting sounds like too much work. A nap sounds so much more inviting.