Doing it all ????

We have neighbors that have the most beautiful well-manicured lawn I have ever seen,  They spend lots of time mowing it just a certain way and redoing the flower beds.  They do most of the work themselves but they also have professionals come to trim the trees and  do the feeding-weeding-and bug-killing spraying.

Our lawn turned brown this past summer from the heat and drought but our neighbors have a had a beautiful golf course quality lawn year round.

They are very nice people, busy with work, their son, golf, redoing a classic car and lots of yardwork.   

So what do my busy neighbors have to do with this cute picture of my granddaughter in a 1999-ish diaper?

Elizabeth in a retro diaper from neighbor Marcus

Well,  Mrs. Neighbor stopped me last month when I was out walking with my grandchildren.  She  had a package of diapers for us,  she sheepishly explained that their only son, who is 6 feet tall and 14 years old,  found the diapers in his bathroom cabinet.  They were his diapers but obviously he has has not needed them in at least 11 years. The diapers have been stashed away in a cabinet all this time.
I am glad she shared the diapers with us,  even if she was a little embarrassed about still having them.

I  have organized cabinets and a brown yard, while my neighbor may spend less time on her cabinets and has a green yard.    I don't think either of us is right or wrong,  we are just doing what works for us.

The moral of this little story- other people/bloggers may look like they have everything just perfect but really,  nobody can do everything.  Don't put other people who seem to be perfect on pedestals and don't look down on others or yourself when things are less than perfect.

Do what you can,  let other people do what they can and lets just enjoy others and ourselves as we all do the best we can -and not stressing about stuff that does not matter.

3rd & 4th batches of no-knead dough

3rd batch of no-knead 14 day dough
made into 6 buns

On the dough's 13th day,  I shaped half of what was left into 6 sandwich buns.  We had sloppy joes for supper that night,  It was very nice to already have the dough made on a busy day.
They rose up almost as good as fresh dough.
However,  we were not crazy about this batch either.  They are certainly edible but the crust, especially the part that bakes on the stoneware, is just not good.  It is chewy in an unpleasant way.

Since we were not thrilled with any of the first 3 baking attempts,  I threw out the 4th batch.

In the future,  I will try this no-knead method again.  I plan to use a different recipe though, maybe one that includes at least a little sweetener and fat.

Have any of you had any more success with this method than I did?