Sunday, November 14, 2010

Fallingwater Gingerbread House







Model Statistics:
•It took over 12 hours to design
•It took Brenton and I around 40 hours to build and decorate
•There are around 164 different pieces of gingerbread
•It took roughly 12 square feet of gingerbread dough (that’s four large batches) to make all the walls, floors and roof
•Over 8 bags of powdered sugar were used to make all the frosting
•It took over 40 sleeves of large Smarties which are used to simulate dry stack stone on the building exterior
•The river and water fall are made up of three batches of hard candy

Best gingerbread house cookie:
2 C light corn syrup
1 1/2 C packed brown sugar
1 1/4 C margarine
1 tsp salt
9 C flower

Melt together the corn syrup, brown sugar, and margarine. Mix till smooth then add in flour and salt.
Bake for 15 to 20 min at 350
*If the pieces get warped throw them in the microwave for 15 seconds and they will flatten out.


Here's a little more on our gingerbread house!
Check out what became of our Falling Water Gingerbread House!
Click HERE to see last years entry...#12 Grimmaulds Place

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Podcasts

So as many of you know I have one of the most boring jobs on the planet. I am a horticulture technician. In less glamorous words I water peoples' house plants. I drive around in my car all day and when I'm not in my car I'm wandering around businesses with my awesome tool belt and watering cans. Despite what "Music and Lyrics" portrays about plant waterers, I have never met anyone famous or helped write a hit song. In fact i dont really talk to anyone and no one really talks to me. You would think that day after day alone in my car or alone in an office full of people I would start going crazy or be really sad about my life....BUT not so!!! I have PODCASTS.
Josh and Chuck from "Stuff You Should Know" and Jad and Robert from "RadioLab" are always with me. They keep me company at all times. They entertain me for hours on end. They fill my head with random facts ranging from zombie attacks to sleep walking to love to organ donation. I always find myself saying," I was listening to a podcast about that just the other day..."
Up to this point I have listened to 57 RadioLab episodes totaling 1.6 days and 266 Stuff You Should Know episodes totaling 4.4 days. I have enjoyed every minute of it. It turned my hopelessly boring job into an outlet for me to listen to podcasts!

Friday, November 5, 2010