Homecoming

I'm not exactly sure how it happened so fast.

I'm home.

1 month and 1 day ago my little family moved into an amazing house in my home town. Although it wasn't a drastic change, only outside the City by 11 miles or so, the overwhelming feeling that we are in a new location is enthralling to me.

I love how everything is so comfortingly familiar, yet very much changed in the 11 years since I left this place. My brother still lives in our house with his family, its right down the street. Yet the trees are taller, the area has expanded by  miles and once new millennial developments look a little shabby and underused.

If you would have asked us 6 months ago, my husband and I would have said that we were staying in our little city house forever. After all the city is booming now and our ramshackle little neighborhood was quickly turning around with hipsters and jogging strollers now mixed in with the cholos and wayward teens.

Our son  is going to be going to school soon we realized, and dealing with the public school system in Denver seemed overwhelming. My husband has been working from home for a year now, and we started to feel cramped in our little Ranch. Prices in town have skyrocketed and the hundreds of thousands of dollars we would have to sped to get a larger property in the city was daunting. We started talking suburbs.

I loved growing up in this sleepy little suburb, a little dated, a little tacky, a lot of pride, a lot of good kind people. I loved my community high school, where, thanks to Facebook, I am still connected to lots of amazing people I grew up with. The selling point was the school district, well organized and developed with LOTS of options and less competition. And so, my life long city dwelling husband was swayed.

We were just going to look, but Oy Vay! This market is crazy and after seeing a few acceptable homes with 10+ offers on them it was easy to get swept up when we found the perfect house, right size, right neighborhood and only a slightly elevated price(which these days, is a bargain).

So in 6 weeks we looked, offered, listed, purchased and sold. 6 weeks and a house we worked on for 5 years belonged to some one else and a home that was very much a reflection of its previous owner was now ours. My poor husband and son were thrown completely off kilter while I was trying to balance my excitement and guilt, relief and worry over actually getting them here. Home. A quiet old fashioned place.

I saw a band mom at Costco, I remembered to call her "Mrs". I know where my high school crush works and have so far successfully avoided my nemesis (I know she's here somewhere, I can feel it).
But truthfully,  I haven't seen many people I know over all. I no longer go cruising and hanging out on the driveway has lots its appeal. The 4 wheeling hills have houses built on them, and even if they didn't, my friend with whom I used to 4 wheel with died 5 years ago.

But we are here. My boy and I walk to the playground, and the farmers market on Sunday. Our friends and family have been by. The kids all love the huge 1/4 acre yard complete with pumpkin patch. We found a dive-y Mexican restaurant with great Margs that we can walk to. We are finding our groove after living in the city for 10 years.

My town and I have grown, first apart, and now together.

First ootd of 2013!!

Went out tonight with my awesome mom and some of her friends to celebrate her last day at her job before she goes back to work at Children's hospital. I have not been posting to many outfits because I feel like I wear the same thing all winter. Cardigan, Camisole, Leggings or slacks, and boots. Done and done. Here is a little shoot of moi with the new gorillapod that Alex got for our camera, I spent most of today cleaning and laundry and what not. I had a 4 day weekend and of course left it all to the end!

Andrew showed up at the end with a tooth brush and tooth paste which was hilarious.

Head to toe:
Cardigan: target
Camisole:Target
Belt:Thrifted
Pants:Steinmart
Boots:Gifted from mom.


Lord they make the Margs strong at Hacienda!-MB

Parlez voux french bread?

As I mentioned in my last post, this past Sunday I devoted my day to staying home and baking an Authentic loaf of french bread Ala Julia Child. Following Julia's advice I read the recipe from start to finish, as well as all of her instructions and guidelines totally 17 pages of bread making.

Andrew got me out of bed at 7:30 so I had a decently early start to the morning and project. I made him some oatmeal and a Latte for myself and began my preparations. First I had to get my self ready, Hair out of face. Check. Chicken apron with dish towel. Check. I re read the recipe and pulled out all of the ingredients and accoutrements needed.

Here is my bread making gear!

I like to lay everything I will need for a complicated recipe out before I begin, just to make sure I haven't missed anything. This is especially helpful for MTAFC recipes as they are long and there isn't usually a master list of thing you need.

" my precious...."

If you  like to cook and have a small kitchen like a do, consider getting one of these book stands. Very helpful. See Alex's Macguyver-ing on the coffee grinder in the background. When our friend Kooj watched our house she noticed lots of little rigs like this.

So I was super prepared and optimist! The majority of the recipe seemed really easy, just a lot of kneading and waiting. took a few shots of the begining, but then I needed both my hands to work and rangle Andrew.

I let it set for the recommended 3 hours, and then 2 more, and then 1 more. 

Nothing happened. I enlisted the help of Alex, who worked for a number of years as a baker in a deli in Boulder. He informed me that I had not kept my bread at 70 degrees and had stifled my yeast.

Alex used a trick of the trade and made a "Proof Box" out of our oven, we continued to try and raise the dough this way.

 

Basically he tried to keep the oven at a humid warm temp.  Alas this still did not work. We decided to see the bread through and finish the recipe even though the dough didn't rise. The bread turned out dense and gummy. No Bon. I tried to make garlic bread out of one of the larger rolls it was pretty gross. I didn't get any pictures because it was like 11:00 at night by the time we were done and I was over it. 

I am going to try again this weekend, I have my awesome once monthly 4 day weekend, so my plan is potty training and bread making. What an exciting life! Actually even though I get a spot of cabin fever after a lot of time at home, I love this time of year when there isn't much going on besides football and its perfectly acceptable to spend an entire weekend in Jammies in the house. 

Julia said in her master recipe that you really have to keep trying in order to get the bread recipe right, you may have to make adjustment and tweaks.  I think that my problem was that I used high altitude flour out of habit and didn't adjust the amount of yeast.

Here's to hoping my next batch is somewhat edible. -MB

Goal 1

This weekend I am going to attempt to start one of my New Years goals. I am going to devote Sunday attempting to bake a loaf of authentic french bread Ala Julia Child. It may seem silly that I am planning an entire day to make bread, but this particular recipe is roughly 17 pages long and requires a trip to the hardware store. I figure my first day will mostly be acquainting myself with the recipe. I hope that by the end of the year I can turn out batches of exceptional french bread to serve and bring to dinner parties. I used to do really cute cupcakes but everyone does them now.

I know there are probably bread makers out there who would shake their heads at me, because I do know there are much easier ways to make bread than this authentic artisan practice, but I happen to love Julia Child. My husband gave me Mastering the Art of French Cooking Vol 2 for Christmas and I haven't made anything out of it yet. Mostly I am going to do this for Julia. I really am a big fan of hers, It started when my MIL gave me the Art of French Cooking Vol 1 about 5 years ago, then I saw "Julie and Julia", and then I read her Autobiography, "My Life in France". In the book Julia explains how she considered the French bread recipe her Opus, in fact it took her months of work and research to perfect it, however it seemed that no Americans wanted to make french bread, and the recipe seemed completely overlooked. that alone is a reason for me to tackle the process and give it a try. I'll take some pictures and show my progress with you next week.

 

I am a person who enjoys cooking, not necessarily the day to day demands of healthy dinners and toddler breakfasts, but I like a challenge and feel creative, when time and motivation allows me to do something new. If you are the same type of kitchenista (or kitchenisto) I would highly suggest Vol 1, and also Irma S. Rombauers the Joy of Cooking. Simply because they will both make you better cooks. These cooking bibles were also written, pre crisco, fake butter, splenda and other chemicals you see today.If I read another recipe calling for Cream of something soup, W/O the recipe For the actual soup....

Anywho, please wish me luck on my domestic mission this weekend-MB

Happy New Year!

Hey there birdfriends, I know its been a while since I have updated my blog.

I got bogged down with the holidays, a bout of pneumonia and a little writers block. Ok A lot of writers block. Alas, one of my goals this year is to update this blog more than once a month! I hope to do some new things with it as well. So please stay tuned and bear with me as I try to figure out where to take the Motherbird in 2013.

I hope everyone had a happy and safe new year!
-MB

double ootd!

I had a double shift of looking fabulous today! I worked at Allure during the day and then went out for Housewarming and birthday parties. Here is my work ootd.

Head to Toe: Jacket INC macy's
Dress: Ross
Tights: target
Shoes: Naturlizers: Steinmart
Dog tail: Rylee

 

I love these little booties from Naturlizer. They are pretty comfortable to wear for the whole day and they don't make my ankles look two boney. These were a gift from my awesome mom. Most of this post was either purchased by, given by or loaned from my mom. Also she watched my kid for me last night. I'm pretty lucky on the mom front! Thanks mommy!


After work I dropped my boy off, we saw the Lightrail on the way and Andrew was so excited! He also said my Christmas music was too Dowd (loud).



We went to our awesome friends The Pelc's house, Mrs Seabron Pelc is the original Baby Bird! and followed up to dinner with Alex's side for his 2 bestest friends who share a day of birth. We were originally going to go for a show after so I had to dress cute but comfortably. I am getting to tired of having sore feet at the end of the night so for one of the first times EVER I wore a pair of flat boots out instead of heels. here is my party/dinner/show outfit.

Head to Toe: Jacket: on loan form mom, purchased in Montana
Dress: Target
Clutch:Vintage
Tights:Target
Boots:Gifted from mom

We stopped by The pelcs;s house first and had some quick bird hangs. Seabron and Cory's new house is beautiful.

Alex and Seabs hang out in the new kitchen!

How cute is this heart in her yard!

We didn't end up going to a show after all, but we had a great dinner at Deluxe, then we checked out a super hipster bowling alley which had just opened. Punch Bowl Social was crazy crowed but looked like a fun place for hangs. We eventually ventured to The Hornet for a night cap. All in all great night!

Happy Birthday Buddies! And thanks again to my mom for Babysitting!

If I don't post before have a great Thanksgiving! -MB

A horse of a different color

So as I said in my last post, I have changed my hair over the years. Usually some shade of blond or strawberry blond. Every once in a while you need to shake it up. Here is a photo dump of some of my photos over the years. One of these photos include a really bad set of extensions, wore them once. bad idea.

Yes, that last one is of the extensions. looked even worst from the back! Just an FYI we were on a tram in Vegas. very serious stuff.

Some different hairstyle for Kathy and Christen as well!  I say its just hair, if you want to try something new, try it! Just have a talented professional do it so you don't fry your hair.

-MB