Weizenbeir

There is a lot riding on this beer. No, really there is. You see, the past two creations from S & S Brewing Co. have been total disasters. Like the bottles exploded before we had a chance to properly enjoy them kind of disasters. The most recent one, a Belgian Triple added insult to injury and tasted pretty bad, at least the little we could get from what was left of it. So even if we wanted to risk losing an eye the taste wouldn't be worth it. Ah well.

Well we are more focused and driven to creating a brew that we wouldn't be afraid to bring to a friends house now. We want this one, we need this one to be a success. We need our brewing mojo back. We're paying super close attention to sanitizing everything and crossing our lower case f's and dotting the lower case j's. The brew process is almost half way done and there hasn't been any, "that's not right..." so far so good.

The brew itself is a weizenbeir a nice crisp light refreshing  brew  perfect for summer. We should know in a few short weeks if our bubbling golden creation is a winner. Stay tuned. Happy 4th of July!

One foot in front of the other

It's a piece of advice I've heard when someone is talking about doing some grueling activity like running a marathon or hiking the Appalachian Trail. 'Don't think about the distance you have left or not knowing what's around the next corner, just keep putting one foot in front of the other.' It sounds a bit trite when you think about it, (Really? I thought if I stopped and stood around the answer to all my questions would leap out of that rabbit hole) but it's true. It's easy to get bogged down in the minutia of the hunt, the great migration, and you need to remind yourself to stop thinking about it and just do it.

The temp agency sent out a cattle call email last week about a position that would suit our family extremely well. There were 2 slots available for an initial skills test, the 2 slots filled on a first come first serve basis. I thought it was unusual that a job requiring a skills test be sent out as a cattle call and slots filled on a first come first serve basis. I put my questions aside and pounded out the phone number and landed the first slot. I was told the test would cover basic office environment skills like navigating the Internets, setting up appointments, composing word docs and transferring calls, all things I'm more than capable of doing. I felt confident about my chances and pleased with myself for being johnny on the spot, I was the first in line. I had an easy time with the test and met briefly with the person that would be doing the hiring and felt good about our brief exchange, further bolstering my soaring hopes. Today, I called the temp agency to follow up on everything. The great news is that I did extremely well on my test (not surprised) and that I was a pleasure to meet with. Also, nice to hear. Well, they promoted someone from within to fill the position. Not nice to here. Sure that's great for the person that has the job, I'm sure they're very happy with their new surroundings and change in daily routine. They're probably telling their friends and family about their new job, their new boss, maybe even talking about their new desk. Their co-workers are probably making those lame office jokes 'You're leaving us behind??' or 'You're leaving us?! Don't you like us? Hahahaha!' Everyone is a damn comedian.

This is the second promising job and interview I've been on in 2 weeks. Both of them are jobs I'm capable of performing and excelling at. Both would work well for our family, for different reasons. Both meant work. Both meant a chance to get out of house and see what the hell John Q. Public is up to these days. Both said, "Thanks for your interest but we're moving forward with someone else."

It's been almost a year since I last left the house daily for a pay check. Since then I've stayed quite busy, planning our wedding, helping break in our adopted dog, remodeling our bathroom. I've also done some substitute teaching gigs and temporary office work for the temp agency. In between I'm a Stay-at-Home Dad sans the chillins. I take care of our dog, do the laundry, the dishes, run errands, go grocery shopping and do whatever else I can to help keep the house running smoothly. I enjoy doing all of those things and keeping the house running smoothly, everyone is happy when the house runs smoothly. However we have things we'd like to do with our lives and fortunately or unfortunately money is involved with them. It's basic math more money coming in the door means the quicker we can achieve our goals. While I'm not having a lot of luck on the 'pay me for my efforts' front I'm at least getting to the interview stage, I'm getting very good at telling strangers that I'm awesome. I'm still sending out the resume and hoping someone wants to hear me tell them how awesome I am, and then offer me a job because they are so enamored by my awesomeness. I'm also taking the opportunity to give back to the world, to enrich the lives of others and satiate my appetite for being productive in a new way. I'm exploring a couple volunteer opportunities, one is with a local children's museum, and the other is with a local non-profit group that maintains a series of nature trails and walking paths in and around our fair city. Sure they wouldn't pay me for efforts, but I could get out of the house and do something different. It also helps when someone asks 'What have you done with yourself in the past year? Well, I've done all these things in my personal life and I've also been volunteering at such and such a place doing this that and the other thing.' I have no idea when I'll join the ranks of those that get paid for their daily struggles, I hope it's soon. Until then I'm just going to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

And with these hands

We will spur the dawning of a new age, a novel way of life where happiness bathes the masses and peace is for sale (and lots of people are buying)...or...something. So the Tremendous Wife and I are passionate about living a simple lifestyle. We have a rain barrel to collect rain water so we can water robust vegetable garden and not drive up the water bill. We recycle everything that is recyclable and we have a compost bin that that is routinely fed all appropriate food scraps, lawn clippings and the such. This black gold then ends up in our garden to help our veggies thrive, and the scraps from them end up in the compost bin and, you get the picture. If we can use what's already available and around us to create the things we want in our lives, we're going to do it. We've started making our own beer and have made some fine brews and some forgettable ones too. Our next brew looks like it'll be an Imperial Blonde Ale, a well rounded crisp beer perfect for the summer. We've made our own mayo and our own bread, both of which were pretty tasty. We've laid off making our these for the time being. We consume a lot of each and producing both by hand would likely be more costly than to buy it from the store, hence defeating part of the purpose.

Our newest endeavor is one perfectly timed for summer, ice cream. We received a Kitchen Aid stand mixer for one of our wedding gifts and also received an ice cream maker attachment. This past weekend we kicked some of the space killing clutter out of our kitchen so we could give the KA our permanent home. Our first creation was a pumpkin ice cream that tasted like pumpkin pie sorbet, good but not great. The Amazing and Splendid Wife did a lot of researching and found a recipe for...wait for it...chocolate and peanut butter ice cream. We whipped it up and had to forcibly restrain ourselves from eating the entire batch all at once. It lasted 2 days. We're already planning on making another a batch today or tomorrow, hopefully a double batch. It has little dollops of chilled peanut butter mixed in at the end, ooooohhh my. With this stuff on hand it's not worth it to leave the house, for anything. Just be a shut in, unhinge your jaw and start shoveling. Then happiness and peace will befall the masses.