You all make me feel so good!!! Rosey, I am so sorry for your loss. I had my father pass over thanksgiving a few years ago, it was the most different dinner we had even had. Kind of like a get to gether to see if we could some how make it a traditional turkry dinner. Well, guess who was in charge,,, hhmmm, me! I just handled it like my father would have liked eat have fun and leave,!!! Honestly.. he told me on his dying bed that he did want to be cremared and that he didnt want to be a burdrn on us all,, i asked him then what would we do with his remains he looked at me as told ne to tell the crematorium to keep them..AHHHH I was with him at one of his radiation appt and i just looked at my father, smiled and said " dad, i have your power of attorney and what i say goes..right? he agreed... "So i continued to tell him that if he didnt care about his remains himself, then he should think of his kids and how they will feel." I told him that i was going to take his ashes up to NovaScotia to be buried in our family burial plot next to his grandmother,, he says that he didnt want me to go through all of the trouble.. i then turned and faced him eye to eye and said "Dad, if you don't let me do this for you as well as for me and the rest of the family, then i will not cremate you and i will have you dressed as a clown in a coffin for all to see and display you for a long time.." He laughed so hard when i said that and he finally agreed to let me take his ashes up to Truro, NS. I know he was glad that i put my foot down, they just dont want to be a burden.. but when i offered to do some other things.. he changed his mine.. i was glad. We had a nice reunion and it gave us some closure.. kind of... It is hard to loss a family member over the holidays.. so i feel for you Rosey!! Bless you!! Laura

Rosey, my life has been long, complicated, and I've lost track of how many times I've moved, and some of the things I've done and learned along the way... I've had wealth, and I've lived in poverty... I helped raise 3 stepchildren, which I consider to be my own, with my 2nd husband... we now have 3 fabulous grandchildren... and though we've had a wonderful time together, we've had the worst of luck. We've been in two serious accidents, not counting the industrial accident that my husband had which took away his main livelihood. He's a college educated industrial engineer, by trade... but lost physical ability when he was hit by a huge factory truck bay door on the neck and back. It took him about a year to walk again. And then, I was diagnosed with lupus, and have permanent injuries from an auto accident. Oh, and did I mention, we lost everything in a house fire, somewhere in there? It's the short version... but along the way, my husband managed to breed and raise a specific type of American Bulldog, and is considered to be one of the most known names in the breed. Without his input, I can't write the book. He's the one with the oldest memories of how it all began, from a breed that no one knew, and had no genetic definition or registry worthy stud books... to a breed that is already slipping into genetic ruin at the hands of backyard breeders and mills out for a buck. When he's ready to begin talking, I'm ready to begin writing. Until then, I'm stuck with an outline. I do have some other ideas floating about... and I'm slowly working on them. Some days I feel creative, and others... I can barely function. I can't complain, though... it's been an interesting an exciting life with a lot of varying scenery, and I've met some cool people and made a close group of the best friends along the way. Knitting and crocheting is something I never learned, though believe it or not, my husband does all that. He cooks, sews, quilts, knits, and does a lot more. His grandmother taught him as a child. We live on a very small income right now, so I can't still keep collecting craft supplies, but I have enough to keep busy in the boxes I have collected so far. At the moment, we help caretake a farmette/estate owned by a good friend who is older and unable to manage alone. But our hope is to move north to be near family again. If I can get the husband to begin spilling this book, we could get there... possibly. It would depend upon the readership, of course. I say keep painting, Rosey! You never know what you might come up with! Have you thought of decoupage for those gift boxes? That might be a quicker option?

Enjoy your family recipe! How much dough depends on how large or small (or somewhere in between) you want the buns. I weigh my dough balls on a scale so I have equal-sized buns. Using this method your buns will bake to the same size in the same amount of time. For small luncheon rolls - between 1-1/2 or 2-ounces. Just go up from there in 1/2 to 1-ounce increments until you get the size you want. Probably around 2-1/2 to 3-ounces will work well for most burgers. After you've formed the dough into a round ball (making sure any air bubbles are worked out), pat it into a nice round about 1/2-inch thick. I use my muffin top pans (6 to a pan - the holes are about 1/2-inch deep) to bake my large hamburger buns, and I have another pan (12-holes on the pan) for small buns. You can place them onto greased cookie sheets, or cover with parchment paper. The shallow pans I use give them a nice structure and they remain nice and round. Cover with plastic wrap for the last rise. Your recipe makes a LOT of dough and you may find you need to retard a portion of the dough (covered), or the formed buns on cookie sheets (and covered with plastic wrap), in the refrigerator in order to prevent the dough from over-proofing waiting for room in the oven. You'll have several cookie sheets and you'll want to bake them one sheet at a time, unless you have a convection oven. You could use the recipe for making more than one thing - burger buns, hot dog buns, and cinnamon rolls - all from the one recipe. Take your leftover burger buns, slice them, and wrap in a sheet of foil (I get pop-up sheets of foil at Sam's Club that work perfectly for this). I also like to add deli-sliced ham to the buns and freeze them. Pop the foil-wrapped Ham Buns in the toaster oven for 15-20-minutes for a quick lunch. Handle the dough with oiled hands, instead of flour. If you have a Silpat (or other silicon mat) place your dough on it for forming (loaf, buns, cinnamon rolls, etc.) and you won't require any bench flour if you handle the dough with oiled hands. You can also spray your counter with PAM for forming dough without using any bench flour (remember to oil your hands). Another way to figure "how much", a serving of bread is 1-ounce and a hamburger bun is supposed to equal 2-servings. There is some loss of weight from moisture drying during baking, so around 2-1/4 to 2-1/2-ounces will probably end up around 2-ounces when baked. Yet one more way... You can take the total weight of the dough and divide it by 3 and you'll probably be good-to-go. Four cups of flour in a recipe should equal approx. 2-pounds of dough or 32-ounces. Divided by 3-ounces per roll is 10.6 rolls. Divide by 2.5 and you'll get about a dozen. If you make the dough into cinnamon rolls or sticky buns, 1.5 pounds of dough will equal 12 rolls. Roll the dough 12-inches wide by however thin you want your dough (about 1/2-inch thick usually suggested to maintain the structure). Add your cinnamon-sugar - but don't add any fat - there is more than enough fat from your hands when you patted the dough out, and roll the dough into a log. Using a 12-inch ruler as a guide, manipulate your dough log to approx. 12-inches wide. Take a sharp knife and nick your dough log every 1-inch using the ruler as a guideline. Take a length of dental floss and use it to cut your dough on the 1-inch marks. Slide the floss under the end of the dough, bring the ends up to the top and crisscross the ends, pull the floss to cut through the dough log. If you want to make quick sticky-pecan rolls, grease/spray your muffin pans, add about 1-T. honey or agave nectar (just barely enough to cover the bottom of the muffin cup) and top with chopped pecans. Add one cinnamon roll on top, cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise to double. Don't be too generous with the honey in the muffin cups or you will find it spilling over the pans into your oven. Back to the topic... This is the general rule-of-thumb for most yeast breads when you want to figure what size it will be... The dough is approximately 1/3 of the finished size. You allow it to double in size before you place it in the oven, so that accounts for 2/3 of the finished size. The remaining 1/3 is from oven-spring, the amount the dough continues to rise in the oven. Now you can "eyeball" the finished size of any amount of dough you want to use for loaves, rolls, hot dog buns, etc... For hot dog buns, roll the dough to the size (or just a bit larger) and shape of the hot dog you are going to be using. -Grainlady

its pretty incredible how much complete strangers can not only help with insight and validation - but simply with encouragement. The other night when things were over the top i posted the initial plea in a few different forums and this one has really paid off! I would just like to thank everyone who has shared their thoughts - each one has added to my ability to see this as clearly as possible given the circumstances. It is true, my sister has directed the temper and direction this family was going to take and my father has allowed it and enabled it at every point. Mostly out of fear of what she would either do to herself or her kids,as she has threatened some pretty heavy things about how, where and with whom she would turn to if not granted her demands; one by one over the years she has taken more and more privilege and exacted more abuse with every generation. They all were the result of, what i believe to be her supplementing both income and human relationships via children and child support. She never wanted the man and actually went to great attempts to keep them all at a distance(beyond the incoming checks) All in all it is dysfunction junction at its best. While i initially had great relationship with the boys- kind of diffusing all the craziness - and just being good ole Uncle Mike - it has taken a slow turn for the worse every time i had to be the disciplinarian in the absence of any other willing authority - then their puberty and independence really ignited a whole new powder keg - given the evolution of circumstances and their total and absolute disregard for any authority let alone male authority. Now, im really just trying to hang in there for my mom because everyone else seems to pick at her the most, my dad gets it too but he sides with them more than not out of the aforementioned fear and a strange opposition to dealing with them or taking a stand on what is right...He is definitely the enabler even though he resents it as much as anyone. He too can be a very abusive man(emotionally) but not to them. they have witnessed him emotionally abuse my mom just as i have - He really never messed with my sister but i have always gotten both barrels. I left when i was 19 and only just returned recently to witness the entire family peck at her like wolves. Being that my dad is older and sickly he has lightened up a bit and now its all backfiring on him as well as the rest of us thru her and her childrens rage. Its pretty obvious after knowing what i know and reading the follow up posts that this is the work of many years of pain in this house. Strange but in all of the craziness there is still a hint of love - but its a desperate sort with little patience and a lot of animosity for the truth. I am public enemy number one because i not only try to enforce a little decency but i also speak truths that threaten every ones daily routine regarding the disrespect and unnecessary rudeness. I have kept myself away and have grown up with a very happy and stable life until i lost the love of my life to a PHD at CALTECH (her not me)I was all that was left of a truly perfect and beautiful 10 year relationship that lost out to science and the pursuit of excellence in genetics - there was no room for me when it came to juggling intense labwork at a highly competitive national institution. So i came home to regroup and help out only to find a very messed up group of people all screaming at each other. It is out of control and I am very close to throwing in the towel. Even though i am not one to give up easily...i am slowly wearing thin. No one wants to listen or talk except my mom and i really do speak from the heart with love and insight and knowledge. I keep threatening to write a book about this as payback if not a simple exercising of my own demons. I am slowly being absorbed by all of this but thanks to being away for so long i have managed to avoid most of the scars that everyone else seems to have grown. Its catching up though. Unfortunately. I wish i could say that i believe that i can help but im afraid that they are all stuck in a routine that will never change. If i could just get my father to stand up to all of it i believe the others would fall in line - but he would rather fail than take any advice from me. he truly resents me even though he needs me. Sometimes its so obvious that the more he needs me the more he resents me. Along with that, I am a threat to all because i do see what is taking place and why and no one wants to hear it at all. I thought i had the skills to rationalize my way thru this and in any other environment i believe they are sufficient - save for this one painful example. This is all the family i have and at the very least - i am not going to leave my mom to the wolves. Anyway, sorry for the ramble - but for those of you who have shared in this thread - i guess im just spelling it all out in the form of a reply - because of the willingness to share feedback...and because there is always more to a story than whats just on the surface. i felt compelled to paint a clearer picture of what is really going on. And i want to thank you all for caring enough to help out a complete stranger. thanks again UncleMike