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After about 2 hours of moving in, I'm using it right now and I love it.
I don't know what's going on with all the electronics around me but my Xbox 360 quit working today. Maybe I have some kind of electrostatic field emminating from my body that zaps electronics.
Kelly is getting over being sick. She's had a sinus infection, runny nose, sore throat, coughing, etc. She's had trouble sleeping and it pretty much sucks. She's getting over it now but this last week hasn't been fun. There's almost nothing you can do about it when you're pregnant. She's been taking a lot of vitamin C, eating a lot of soup, drinking a lot of water, using a humidifier, and Vick's Vapo-Rub. All of this seemed to help and she's almost well.
The picture from the ultrasound isn't very good and doesn't show anything but the head which is 45mm (1 3/4") from ear to ear. But when the ultrasound was moving around we were able to see the head, arms, legs, spine, and heart. The doctor said everything was fine and we also got to hear the heartbeat really well this time. It sounds like a little hummingbird.
By the time I bottled my first batch of beer I wanted to have the ingredients to make a second. The kit only came with one recipe. I looked online and the normal brew packs that come in all different flavors and make 2 gallons run about $13. I remembered seeing a variety 3 pack at Bed Bath & Beyond so after dinner a few nights ago, Kelly and I stopped by the BBB by our house to check.
After you drain the bottles, you put a measured amount of sugar in each bottle. This is what will make the beer sweeter and cause it to carbonate.
Then you fill each bottle almost all the way full using the tap from the fermenter.
Then you screw on the caps (provided) and turn it over a few times to make sure all the sugar dissolves.
Now I have to condition the bottles. Now I just have to set them somewhere out of the sunlight at room0temperature for a week. I chose the bottom of the pantry. In a week they will be carbonated, and I'll put them in the fridge to cool.
Then you let it sit for a few minutes, drain a little of the water onto a plate and take all the utensils out and put them on a plate and empty the fermenter.
Then you put 3 cups of water in a pot and start adding the booster. The booster is the sugar that the yeast is going to turn into alcohol and CO2.
This part was a little hard too, because the booster kept clumping up. It was hard to get it to dissolve in room-temperature water, but that's what the instructions said to do. It said to wait until it was dissolved before heating it to a boil.
Then open the can of malted hops which is thick, brown and syrupy and smells remarkable like a brewery.
Then you pour the wort into the fermenter and spill some all over the counter, the fermenter, down the kitchen cabinets and on the floor (optional).
I guess I need a big funnel or a pot that's easier to pour out of. After I got that all cleaned up, it was time to add the yeast. I think the owner of St. Arnold's put it best when he said, "basically the way yeast works is it eats sugar, pisses alcohol, and farts CO2."
Dump them in the fermenter and mix it up.
Then screw the lid on, set it aside and wait a week or two.
It begins to bubble and you can see the CO2 being made. Tomorrow it will have been in there a week, so over the next few days I'm going to get some bottles together and proceed to the next step of conditioning.
For New Years we went over to our friend's Jennifer & Roman's house. We hung out with friends and they had tons of food. We drank* and shot fireworks and then played Catch Phrase until the wee hours. That was lots and lots of fun.I was going to take Kelly to the doctor’s office to do some blood work on December 29th, but we slept right through it. We rescheduled it to this morning. Kelly went and they took a vile of blood. I don't know what it was for.
We go back January 13th for the anatomical ultrasound. That might be when we get to find out what the sex is.
