Disclaimer – this is NOT a religious post.

My husband and I sometimes look through the real estate magazines when we are happily munching away on our vegan grinders at the local sub shop.  Recently, I saw not just one, but two churches for sale for a reasonable amount of money in a nearby town.  Immediately my mind went into overdrive with all the creative possibilities that could be derived from such buildings.

One of the churches was advertised as having a large fellowship hall with a large kitchen on the first floor and seven bedrooms on the second floor.  In addition, it had three half-baths.  Although I’m not a good church-going person, I do however, appreciate the architecture of a church building, specifically for all the non-churchy things I could do with it.

Seriously, think of all the cool things you could do with all that space!  I told my husband we could figure on at least two of the half-baths being back to back, most likely a Men’s room and a Women’s room, which we could join as one huge bathroom and install a jacuzzi tub or a hot tub if it was big enough.  With the huge kitchen in the fellowship hall, we could have all the family over for family reunions with big pot luck meals.  Everyone could stay over with all the bedrooms we would have upstairs.  The parking lot would be big enough for a basketball court/tennis court not to mention all the parking that would be available for functions.

Our two cats would love all this new indoor room to play in.  We could build two story high scratching posts for them, with little platforms going around the upper part of the larger rooms.  I’m sure they would appreciate the bell tower too with all the bird watching they could do up there.  I know they would do their part to keep out any church mice.

For the actual church building, I had some really cool plans.  I would take out most of the pews and install an indoor track along the outside of the whole larger part of the room.  This would be for rollerblading or running so there would be no bad weather excuse for not exercising!  I think the stained glass windows would already add some atmosphere so all I’d have to do is add a little disco ball or some strobe lights and we would have the “party” room.  Might have to replace any old pipe organs with a more recent stereo system though.  No problem.

I’m sure that since it is no longer a church that the proper officials have been called in to “un-holify” the place in a separate ceremony so that you wouldn’t have to worry about curtsying everytime you rollerbladed by the front part of the church.  All the kids in the family could use the pulpit to put on little plays.  I would put the font (the thing that holds water for baptisms) in the back lawn as a bird bath.    I could put most of the pews outside for outdoor projector movies or slideshows.  Seriously, how much more fun could we have with this place?

To sum it up, I figured we would live for the most part in the fellowship hall area and use the church building more as the fun party room that we could close off when not in use.  Hubby has other ideas though.  He had totally different ideas for the uses of the buildings.   He would of course want a large screen television in the church area, for example, and thought the total opposite from me as far as the living arrangements and fun areas.

And since we have not yet come to any agreements on how best to use our new home, we have not purchased it.

**sigh**

But it IS fun to think about.  What would you do with your own church?  

The post My Own Church appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

For those of us old school video game children getting used to the newest and greatest video game systems is hard stuff. On Christmas night after N got off work we sat down and started playing the new Wii for the first time. Actually, N got to play Wii at a holiday party earlier this month so he had some more experience than me.

The bowling game was easy to pick up on for me but the pool game was hard stuff! Literally it took me 20 minutes to figure out how to hit the cue ball! N was laughing his butt off the whole time and I was getting super frustrated.

The Wii is tons of fun! We haven’t busted out the Wii Fit yet, we’ll have tons to keep us occupied this weekend! Oh, N was nice enough to make a video of me struggling with the Wii for your viewing pleasure, enjoy!

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[youtube I90WJeO9RDg Fun with family- video]

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The added bonus is that you can make several more chicken meals with the remains of your chicken after you try out this recipe. Here is the salt crusted/ salt cocoon recipe:

Moist Roasted Chicken Recipe – Salt Cocoon Style

Now don’t be alarmed with the amount of salt the recipe calls for, trust me it’s delicious and not overly salty. The salt just literally forms a cocoon around the chicken, locking in taste and moisture. The abundance of salt doesn’t penetrate much more than the salted skin of the chicken and the skin is yummy too! 

You will need the following:

• 4 cups kosher salt (I used rock salt, the bigger the granules the better!)
• 1 3lb whole chicken
• 1 teaspoon of dried thyme
• 1 lemon, ends trimmed and pierced with a fork
• 1/2 -1 cup of water
• Roasting pan & foil

Preheat the oven to 450 and line your roasting pan with foil. Remove giblets and rinse the whole chicken. Pat chicken dry inside and out. Sprinkle the inside of the chicken with the teaspoon of thyme and stuff the whole lemon inside.

Sprinkle a thick layer of salt on the foil, place the chicken breast side down on to the layer of salt. Now cover the entire exposed side of the chicken with the salt, cover all the chicken with salt- pack it on baby! I used a spray bottle to moisten the salt or you can sprinkle water on to the salt to seal the salt cocoon, the water helps to keep the salt in place on the chicken’s surface.

Place the roasting pan in the oven, bake uncovered for about an hour. Don’t worry if the salt becomes charred or dark. After the hour is up remove the chicken from the oven and let it sit for about 10 minutes.

This is the fun part! After the 10 minutes is up take the roasting pan and gently slam it down on the counter- this is to crack the salt cocoon/ crust. It’s the best part of the cooking process! Now you simply remove the salt crust pieces, you can wipe the chicken with a paper towel if you want. Now the chicken is ready to be consumed and boy is it yummy!

The salt locks in the moisture of the chicken, the lemon and thyme will infuse the chicken with flavor and the salt will keep the chicken from drying out. Plus throwing the roasting pan on to the table/ counter is a great moment if you are entertaining for dinner!

Try it you will like it, it’s my new favorite recipe!

[yumprint-recipe id=’8′]

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