strawberries

It's hard to post when I don't have a computer. I apologize to my legions of fans :)

We went strawberry picking with Ilya and Mercedes on Saturday! It was a perfect day, sunny and warm, and when we finally found the place (it was a bit off the beaten track) we had a lot of fun. Well, at first we were a little confused, it was just a whole bunch of land with no one around, but we finally found someone and figured it out. The set up was cool, this is the entire field of crops that they grow to sell:


Right now it's mostly strawberries. It doesn't look like much, but we were able to pick almost 30 pounds total! We also tried some of the lettuce and other veggies that she had growing. Here's a close up of the planting system. The white boxes are just styrofoam, I think, and they're all stacked so you can fit a whole bunch of plants in a much smaller space than if they were planted in the ground. Plus it's easier to pick the strawberries this way. And, it's all organic!

After we picked the plants clean, the lady (I think her name was Betty Jean, rather fitting I thought) took us over to see the animals. They had chickens, pigs, donkeys, goats, cows, all sorts of stuff. They also grow a big corn maze every year that's open to the public.

Once we got home, we washed, cut, and froze most of the berries. How luscious do they look??


We're going to make jam with them once we get all of the supplies. Alfred bought pectin online so we're waiting for that to get shipped. In the meantime, I made a pie! It looked much prettier before it was baked and juice leaked out in a few places. It was super delicious though.


Yesterday we just hung out at home. It was cloudy and dreary all day. Saturday was so busy that I needed a day to be kind of lazy, so since the weather wasn't as nice I figured we had a good excuse to sit around. And eat pie, of course!

let's go to the beach!

So I had part of an easter cookie and split a piece of cake with Katie last night, and this morning I had lost 1 1/2 pounds! I can work with that.

We dropped Katie off at the airport this morning, she's going home for a long weekend. Apparently it snowed there last night and is only supposed to get into the 40s the whole time she's there. The whole time we were in the car they were doing weather reports like every 5 minutes, saying how it's going to be a gorgeous weekend, 80s every day, clear skies. Man, were they rubbing it in! By the way, for all you cold weather people, this is the beach by our house. Doesn't it look nice and warm? If you came to visit, you could go here. Katie is going to be back home for the summer, so if you come then, we have a great place you can stay!

I meant to mention this yesterday, when we were driving to work (with our windows open since it was so nice out, of course) we kept smelling this very particular smokey smell on and off. We suspected the car in front of us had something to do with it, but when we passed them at one point we didn't see anything. Then they got in front of us again and we smelled it some more. Finally we passed them again, and the driver was holding a rather distinctive little cigarette. I didn't know people actually did things like that, at 10am no less. I don't understand the appeal of driving, wouldn't you rather be at home on your couch, all comfy? Not that I would know personally, of course. I'm far too pure and innocent.

a lesson for the day

There once was a man who started his own business. He was an ambitious man, and times were good for his particular business. He was very successful, made lots of money, and attracted a national company who ended up buying his company for lots of money. He personally made about $15 million on the sale. He was only in his mid thirties, I believe. Now this man was still ambitious, and times were still looking good for his industry, so he started a new business. Since he had plenty of money, he was very aggressive in pursuing deals and making purchases to further his business. Unfortunately, the good times ended. Sales dried up, and his large workforce and inventory kept his overhead very high. Sadly, this man has now had to lay off the majority of his employees, is on the brink of closing his business and declaring bankruptcy, and may end up in jail for certain business practices employed recently as he struggled to stay afloat. How much does that suck? If he had only taken the money and run a couple of years ago, he could be sitting on a beach sipping margaritas right about now. Moral: quit while you're ahead!
(and no, this is not anyone I'm related to, or even know very well; I've met him once and just happen to know the story)

When I make my millions, I am totally retiring and living a life of complete laziness. You know how you're supposed to imagine what you would do with your life if you won the lottery, and that's what career you're supposed to go into? I'd do nothing. I have no ambition. Sit on my ass, watch tv, read, drink. I wonder what kind of job I can get like that.

bad luck

I had all sorts of unfortunate things happen yesterday. First, I went to buy plane tickets to go to MN and the prices had gone up by freaking $80 apiece! From the day before! So waiting 24 hours would cost us $160. Sucks. So now I'm not sure when we're going or what's happening, which sucks because we had just finally managed to nail down a date and pick exact flights. Back to the drawing board. So frustrating!

Second, my computer will no longer turn on. It worked fine Monday night, Tuesday evening it won't respond at all. I'm hoping it's coincidence, and not that Alfred is systematically destroying or getting rid of my things when I do something to piss him off. First we sell my car, then my computer breaks. Whatever it was, I'm sorry! :)

Third, (this was technically this morning, but it can still count) I was at my lowest weight in about a year Saturday morning. I've gained 3 pounds since. Not that much, but considering it took almost a month to lose those 3 pounds, it's kind of discouraging.

But luckily I had this last night to cheer me up:


Seriously, the most delicious cake ever. (no wonder I gained 3 pounds, right?) It's a really dense fudgey cake, not a normal fluffy frosting type cake, very rich and chocolatey. You don't need a very big piece. Coming from me, that says a lot. I made some ganache to pour on top, which was really good, and some whipped cream, which was not really necessary but still ok. The recipe for the cake is here if you're interested. I highly recommend it.

happy birthday Katie!

Katie's 19 years old today. We were just talking last night about how I used to change her diapers. Man, she makes me feel old. I bet she loves this picture. Ha! Happy birthday!

We're having a super yummy birthday dinner tonight, steak with this really good avocado and onion dressing and mashed sweet potatoes. And the best part - this super delicious sounding, gooey chocolate cake. I made it last night because it's supposed to be refrigerated overnight, and man, did it smell good coming out of the oven. I'll report back with a review tomorrow, of course. Unfortunately Katie's been sick for the last few days, she couldn't smell the chocolatey goodness, but she'll eat it tonight if it kills her. :) How could something with this much chocolate not be good?? That's 18 ounces, baby. Yeah.


So it's been really cold the past couple of days. Cold for the end of March in Florida, anyway. It's only been getting to the low 60s during the day, and into the 30s at night. When we woke up this morning it was 46! I used to hate these mornings at the museum. The 8:00 tour would show up, all the kids would be wearing shorts with blankets and towels wrapped around themselves, complaining about it being so cold. All the parents would be saying how it wasn't this cold back in south Florida! Well, morons, you're not in south Florida anymore! Who doesn't check the weather so they can send their kid off on a 3 day field trip with appropriate clothing? Idiots from south Florida, that's who. At least the kids would start having fun and forget about being cold; the parents would bitch the whole time and leave to go get hot chocolate and coffee, then bring it back in and distract everyone while their kid got something warm to drink and all the other kids had to watch. Then they'd leave the cups and lids all over the place. Or throw them into the ash tray on the front porch. Cause there weren't garbage cans every 5 feet or anything. I've gotta say, there's not much I miss about working there. (sorry Lindsay!)

Easter

Not bad, huh? Unfortunately the color from the m&ms bled onto the frosting a little, so it looked like his ears and nose were bleeding. But he looked ok. Tasted ok too, for carrot cake. We spent the day at my in laws house, eating ourselves silly. It was fun. We ended up coming home with a huge bag of chocolate, so that's exciting.

Saturday we went for an 11 mile walk, I'm almost not sore from it today. I also made a loaf of white bread, it turned out really well, it looks and cuts just like sandwich bread!


We played a whole bunch of Legend of Zelda this weekend too. We got past the 4th labyrinth. Alfred's pretty good at it, I tend to get panic or just run into bad guys and get killed but once in awhile I do well. It's weird, I used to watch Mike play all the time so sometimes I can find stuff even though I don't really remember what it is. I'm kind of a dork.

I have an azalea!

Robyn has a whole bunch of azaleas in her yard, and they look so pretty all in bloom right now. I mentioned how much I liked them, and we got one for Easter! So as soon as we got home I planted it in the back of the house. It looks a little lonely right now, but let's not get too crazy yet. We'll see how long I can keep it alive. I have the least green thumb ever. We had an aloe plant kill itself once. The leaves got too heavy or something and it literally weighed itself down and pulled itself apart. I guess it just couldn't handle living with us any longer. I've also killed a little pot of sunflowers I got for my birthday. The seeds sprouted fine, but I guess I should have transplanted them into a bigger pot because all 3 little plants have died. I have however managed to keep the plant that I got for my birthday alive. I keep it on the kitchen windowsill so I see it and remember to water it every day. It must be very, very resilient.

I wish we had a nice yard with a nice lawn and pretty plants around, but it's just so much work. We're lucky if we clean up all the branches and mow the lawn twice a year. The last time we mowed it, there were weeds taller than I am. Which is why 1 plant is going to be an achievement!

I love Fridays

I'm so glad it's Friday. I feel like it's been a long time since last weekend. I have lots of big plans to clean the house and sit on my ass. And make a carrot cake. Now how about a peep show?


Transition... I hate the show The Hills. Never seen it, but still hate it. Mainly because those bitches are everywhere! Why are they famous?? I get Us Weekly (don't judge me) and every single week while the show is on, and maybe every other week when it's not, there's an article in there about one of the girls from the show. Most of the time it's mentioned on the cover. I went to the website once and there were ads for the show all over the place, so I'm guessing it's some good advertising deal, the show pays for ads on the website and the magazine put "stories" about it in their magazine to get more people to watch the show. I hate it! Drives me crazy!

Another transition... I would now like to mention the sentence Alfred uttered this morning on the way to work: "I wish we could have a baby now." Those may not have been his exact words, but to be honest I'm still in shock he said it at all, so my memory may be slightly hazy. He also said (as he has before) that if Tony and Cathy lived down here with the kids we'd have one (or at least be trying) by now. So I blame you guys that it hasn't happened yet. :) We only have 1 couple we're friends with locally with a kid, and luckily she's super cute so whenever we hang out with them I think Alfred considers it more. If we had more cute kids around I think I could break his spirit, I mean make him realize he's ready for us to have one now. I know, we should be more prepared financially first, but... it's hard to be patient!

cookies are done!

Finally. Our massive Easter cookie and chocolate project is finished. We finished decorating the last cookies, made the last chocolates, and packed them all up last night, then dropped them off to Robyn this morning. We made 22 bags total, each bag has 5 cookies, 3 chocolate covered caramel eggs, and 3 chocolate covered peanut butter eggs. All hand made by me and Katie. It was a large undertaking, but they came out well, and it was fun (mostly). Tonight though I'm looking forward to going to bed at a more normal hour. Which for us means before 11. Cause we're old. I also plan on sitting down for awhile. Should be exciting! Although, what will I write about here tomorrow??

I didn't take any pictures of the chocolates, because really they were just foil wrapped egg shapes, and I took one the other day of the first set we did, but here's one of all the different cookies together.

Aren't they cute? I decorated the eggs, Katie did all the other ones. I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. I'm going to attempt a bunny shaped carrot cake for Easter, so we'll see how that goes.

why you should move to florida

Because the high today is 83. In March. That's awesome. Never mind that the high tomorrow is only 66. Actually, that's pretty good too, compared to New York or Minnesota. Weather.com says it's only 74 right now though so we'll see. Moving to Florida would also mean living near me, which means you'd get to see things like this more often. I'm awesome. You know you all miss me.

The only problem with it being warm out is that when our building's AC kicks on, it kicks on hard. Yesterday it was in the low 70's outside, and inside it was 72. Today it's going into the 80's, and right now our office is 69. I'm wearing a short sleeve shirt but I'm cold. (Maybe if I got off my ass once in awhile I'd be warm, but who can be bothered to move around.) Really, this is a problem most of the year. If you dress for the weather when it's 90 and humid, you're wearing shorts and a tank top, but any building you go into has the AC set to like 60. I end up carrying a sweatshirt with me everywhere I go. I'm like a little old lady.

The other problem with warmer weather is the damn mosquitoes. I'm not looking forward to them returning. They love my sweet northern blood.

At lunch today I ordered the Stromboli for Two (I had no choice, there was no Stromboli for One.) The waitress gave me a funny look. I told her I really like leftovers. About 2/3 of it is currently in the fridge at the office. It's big and long (that's what she said!)

P.S. Need a movie? These people can help!

3 funny things

First funny thing: I got a mass email from Cornell asking for volunteers to contact prospective students to convince them to go there. (It's actually from a scholarship program I was in there, so if you went to Cornell and didn't get contacted, don't get offended.) Since then 2 people have hit "reply all" and emailed everyone all of their contact info. There's a few hundred email addresses on that email, at least. I feel like I should prank call them or sign them up for some porn sites or something to teach them a lesson.

Second funny thing: on our way to work today, we almost ran over a black hammer in the road. I've heard of a fork in the road, but a black hammer? I've never even seen a black hammer before. Silver hammer, yes. But not black. Very strange.

Third funny thing: this video from Mercedes!

busy weekend, part 2

I managed to duck just as Alfred took this picture, because I looked like ass and was not about to have it recorded for all eternity. This is where I spent all day yesterday. This was the mess by 2, and we weren't finished until about 10. It was a disaster area. But I made a lot of stuff. Almost 70 peanut butter filled chocolate eggs, key lime bars for dessert tonight (although I forgot about the green whipped cream I was going to put on top, oops), soda bread for tonight, pizza dough for dinner last night, some frosting, oh, and cookies. Lots and lots of cookies. You know, it doesn't sound like as much as it was.

I baked 10 dozen cookies last night. Robyn is giving out approximately 20 Easter baskets to friends and work associates, so I am making cookies and candy to give out in those baskets. Which means that Katie gets to decorate 10 dozen cookies, and Alfred gets to deal with the insanity. Once we got going last night though it did go quickly, we got all of them baked in exactly an hour. We had quite the assembly line: I'd roll and cut out cookies and put them in the oven, when they came out either I or Alfred would put them on the cooling rack, then Alfred would transfer the slightly cooled cookies into a container to make room for the new ones coming out of the oven. Each batch was only in the oven for 6 minutes, so we were working fast.

Meanwhile, Katie was decorating, practicing the designs she's going to do on each type of cookie. She's going to work on them some today, them I'll help her tomorrow (hopefully we'll get home kind of early), and finish them up Wednesday. I also have to make chocolate covered caramel eggs. I made a new batch of caramel yesterday because my first batch was overcooked and hard as a rock. Let's hope this batch works.

I sustained a kitchen injury yesterday too, I cut my finger with the food processor blade. While I was washing it, not while it was running. It's on my middle finger, which is handy.

And, last but not least, look what we got! I've had the music stuck in my head all day.

busy weekend

Man, I get all these new readers and then skip a day posting. I'm a terrible person.

Yesterday was kind of crazy. We spent Friday night in Jacksonville at Ilya and Mercedes' house so we could drink and play Uno. Yesterday morning I left to go to a funeral for a guy I used to work with (he was only 60, very sad), and Alfred stayed and worked on some website stuff with Ilya. On my way back I stopped at a couple stores to buy lots of candy and decorating stuff, then we hung out at their house for awhile before we left. We had to stop at Walmart and Sears on our way home, so I was crammed into my seat with a billion things around me, then we took our 8 mile walk when we got home. By the time we were done with that it was 8, so we had dinner and got to work making things. We practiced making molding chocolate (we tried painting the first batch with some colored white chocolate but it took way too long), I guess I should have broken off the extra chocolate from the sides for the picture. Oh well. We also made some new cookie cutout dough to try, and caramel for the chocolates. I've got way more stuff to make today. My mixer's going to be busy!

So. Have you ever wanted a new delicious type of grilled cheese to try? No? Too bad! We found this recipe from Emeril I believe, it's super yummy. Mix equal parts of cream cheese and marscapone cheese and use that as the cheese filling, then grill the sandwich like normal. It gets all gooey and delicious. I buy 8 ounce tubs of each cheese and use about a quarter of it for 2 sandwiches. We had them for breakfast this morning. Yes those are with 2 different types of bread.

rock stars and other random information

We go to the gym twice a week now. It's the gym Alfred started going to for physical therapy for his back, and it was cheaper for both of us to get a membership than for him to pay for each therapy session, so now we both go. Usually it's pretty empty in the morning, maybe 3-5 people other than us and the staff, and it's usually older people who aren't in very good shape. It's all people there for therapy, after all. So we feel pretty good when we're able to lift weights and do squats and stuff because we're the youngest and most fit people there. Well, this morning there was a police officer in there, and he put us to shame. He was there when we got there, and still there when we left an hour and 15 minutes later. He was just lifting weights like crazy, doing machines, making us all look ridiculous. He spent the entire time we warmed up on one leg machine, using all the weight. I was kind of in awe. When he walked past me into the weight room, he smiled and said hi - I felt like I had just met a rock star! Alfred said I should have flashed him. I should have asked him to sign my ass or something. The one girl who works there kept flirting with him. As exciting as it was to have such a celebrity in our midst, I prefer when we're alone with the old folks. If I wanted to see people in great shape, I'd go to a regular gym.

In other news, I'm all alone in the office today. Everyone else is out of town or out looking at lots. So I'm listening to music and blogging. And, since Alfred complained about the lack of pictures yesterday, using my camera! So, here's what I look at all day:

Notice the important looking spreadsheet on my computer. Yes, I put that up on purpose just for the picture. And that's my family calendar in the wall, the one where my name is misspelled for our anniversary. Now for a view of my office from the door:

Kind of boring, huh? At least my flowers still look nice! I want to get a plant but I'd probably just kill it. There's also 2 chairs next to the door that I couldn't get into the picture. I need them for all the important meetings I have.

This is my old desk, before I moved up in the world:

It used to be covered with a bunch of my crap. I didn't have any drawers or anything so all my stuff was all over the table. Now I'm marginally more organized. But lonely. Alfred and I used to share an office, we used to make paper airplanes and throw them over the divider at each other. Good times. But in my current office my computer screen doesn't face the door, so if someone comes in I have time to hide whatever I've been doing and make it look like I'm working. So it's not all bad in here. Anyway, here's what Alfred's desk looks like on the other side of that divider:

Now he's got a lot of crap. He's also got a gift basket that we got for Christmas in there. We already ate all the good stuff out of it (and drank the wine).

I also just ran out to the car to get the protein bar I brought for my post workout breakfast. It's kind of cold and rainy out. Weather.com says it's 61. Yes, when you live in Florida 61 is kind of cold.

P.S. The song that just came up on pandora is called "gigolos get lonely too." Who knew?

I HATE accounting

Ever since our accountant switched back to her old office, I've been the lucky one given the task of bookkeeping/accounting. At first this consisted of writing checks every week, balancing the checkbooks, and checking the bank statements (for maybe 12 companies). No problem. Then I learned I got to do sales tax every month for 2 of the companies. Ok, I can handle that. Then I'm told we're ordering accounting software and I'm responsible for entering all of the transactions and reconciling all the bank accounts every month. This is where it got ugly. Partly because the previous accountant had a habit of making small entry errors - putting in a 2 instead of a 4, for example - and while it was easy enough for me to correct in a checkbook where I could just write in the correct number, trying to fix it in a program that I don't understand is a HUGE pain. I messed up one company and ended up having to re-enter 2 months worth of stuff because of a small error like that. (The other company I totally messed up was completely my fault, unfortunately). Then I just found out today that a problem I was having with December's statement for one company was because she had never reconciled November. If she had done her job before she left, it wouldn't have become a problem for me. Then she acts like I'm an idiot because I'm trying to fix December when the problem is in November. Like I know that!

Even more annoying was when she was trying to teach me the program in the first place. Now, I have absolutely no accounting experience. So she tells me to enter a transaction, I ask her a question about what to enter first, and she tells me to just do whichever I prefer. I had to keep myself from bitch slapping her as I said "I don't understand how to enter it at all, I need you to tell me what to do here." Sometimes she just assumes that I know what I'm doing, and I really don't. I'm sure it's frustrating for her to work with an idiot like me when she's obviously proficient with this software, but it's pretty frustrating for me too. Especially since some of this is completely counter-intuitive. Accountants must be messed up in the head for this to make sense to them.

My favorite, though, is when she treats me like an idiot with something simple, assuming that since I don't know accounting I don't know anything. A month ago I had to save some files on a disk for her. She explained to me in great detail over the phone exactly how to delete the existing files from the disk so that I could save the new ones without getting confused. This coming from a woman who can't figure out how to double click to open a file. I swear, she makes no sense. One minute she assumes I can read her mind, the next I'm a complete moron.

At least she's not in our office anymore. She can talk like no one's business. Alfred and I used to dread going into her office because we knew we'd be stuck listening to her for half an hour. Mostly about her kids and how great they are. I wonder if my mom talks about me that much. I hope not, cause it's annoying. And her kids range from 18-25 years old.

Hmm, I guess she annoys me a little. :) Ranting over! Back to my wonderful accounting program...

another food post

Dinner last night was so good. We ate the meatloaf and bread that we made the other day, as well as some coleslaw (a different recipe than the other day). Seriously, the most delicious meal ever. The picture doesn't do it justice.

Then Katie and I made a huge mess in the kitchen and decorated our cookies from the other night. We only had green, blue, and yellow food coloring, so we were limited a bit, but I think they came out cute. Just assume that all the cookies that actually look good were decorated by her; the ones that look like a little kid was helping, were mine. Katie used to work in a bakery so she's semi-professional. She tried to teach me some tricks but I kept getting impatient. We did have a rose making workshop after the cookies were done, and I made one that slightly resembled a rose, but that's it. I'll just stick to the baking for now. As for the cookies themselves... the chocolate ones were too hard, and the butter ones were a little too floury and not flavorful enough. I'll have to work on that.

Also, I need to come up with a name for a baked goods/candy company. Any ideas from the 5 of you that read this? :)

stupid sun

I think I have a sunburn on my scalp. We went for a quick 8 mile walk on Sunday (quick compared to the 11 mile walk we took last weekend) and I had my hair in 2 braids. I think I got a sunburn where my hair was parted. Even worse, my brush has metal bristles and some of the little plastic ends have come off, so every time I brush my hair little metal needles are digging into my head. It hurts.

I was in a funky mood last night. I had my book club meeting and it didn't go like I was hoping. For one thing, I was sitting all the way at one end, so I couldn't hear a lot of the conversation. I was also surrounded by moms and kids, which was fine because they were all super cute, but lots of mom talk. It's tough to join in when you're not a mom. Then on the other side of me was a girl who brought a friend from work, so they spent a lot of the night talking to each other, which meant I couldn't hear or really participate in the conversation on the other side of them. I was just kind of frustrated from not really having a good time, plus I was kind of tired and sore from our long walk, and we were spending the night at my in laws house, (which is nice, we have our own space, but it's not quite as nice as sleeping in my own bed), and I just got a little cranky. Poor Alfred. He might say I was more than a little cranky.

But then two of my friends and my sister told me they read my blog, so that made me happier :)

"thank god she's gone" says my standing mixer

Busy weekend for my new mixer. We can now add:


White wheat bread. This was super delicious. A couple of friends stopped by our house on their way home to Tampa and brought some homemade strawberry jam, which we of course promptly put on the bread. So good.


Dinner last night: freshly ground hamburgers and spicy cole slaw with freshly chopped cabbage, both prepared with the mixer, of course. The cole slaw was a little spicy for me, since I'm a wuss, but the burgers were awesome.

I also made blueberry cobbler, which I forgot to take a picture of before we devoured it for breakfast yesterday; meatloaf, which I will take a picture of once we bake it; and 2 kinds of cutout cookies, which are far too ugly to take pictures of. I wanted to experiment with Easter cookies, so I made a batch of chocolate cookies and regular butter cookies. I didn't have an actual cutout to use so I just cut out egg shapes with a knife. Didn't work so well, but Alfred and Katie were highly entertained. Katie and I are going to decorate them tomorrow night using the piping set she got me for Christmas. I'll probably post a picture of them then, when the gorgeous frosting job makes up for the hideous cutout job.

In other news, I went out with a couple of friends on Saturday night and had a really fun time. We went to Claude's for some chocolate, then to a little Mexican place for some fish tacos, then three - count 'em, THREE - bars! Party animals! Don't worry, we left by 11, and I only had 2 drinks. Then I came home to 2 drunken fools playing Mario Kart. But I had a great time with Lindsay and Allison. They're some fun gals.

I'm a baking fool

We stopped at Costco on our way home from work yesterday and bought a 25 lb bag of flour. Since then I've done my best to put a dent in it. So far, I've made:

Rice pudding. I used leftover white rice from Alfred's mom's Chinese New Year party. I actually made 2 batches, one with raisins and one without. With is much better.

Irish soda bread. We ate it warm with some butter for breakfast. Pretty good.

Blueberry cream cheese muffins. We had these for breakfast too. Good, but I couldn't really taste the cream cheese in them. Maybe add more next time.

More soda bread. We haven't tried this yet, but I like the look of it better. It's a more traditional recipe than the other loaf.

And my crowning achievement: cake crumb cookies. We had about 1/3 of the cake left from dinner the other night, so I wanted to make something creative with it. It was chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting. I found this recipe and adapted it a bit. I put the cake in the food processor to chop it all up. I ended up with about 2 cups of cake crumb/frosting mixture. I added about 1/2 c flour, 1/4 c sugar, 2 egg yolks, 3 tbsp water, and 1/4 tsp baking powder, and let my standing mixer go to town. Then I stirred in some chocolate chips and baked the cookies at 350 for 12 minutes. Voila! They're actually really good. They taste like chocolate chip cream cheese cookies. I'm giving a bunch of them away so we don't eat ourselves into a cookie coma tonight.

I think I'm done baking for the day. I'm going out to dinner with some friends from my old job, Lindsay and Allison, tonight. I also need to stop and buy a couple of loaf pans for tomorrow's endeavors. Our fridge is going to be so full!

last night

We had our second anniversary dinner last night with Alfred's parents. They made a huge delicious Mexican feast, with a yummy chocolate cake that I was in charge of cutting. The pieces were a little uneven, I ended up with a slab that probably weighed about half a pound. Totally on accident, I swear. Our first anniversary dinner was at a restaurant that happened to have an all-you-can-eat crab leg special that night, so we both had that. Also delicious.

I called Ella last night to wish her a happy birthday, but she was far too busy opening presents to talk on the phone. So I talked to my brother for awhile, and my nephew (who's 3 1/2) for a few minutes. I asked Mason if he had a yummy dinner and he didn't answer right away, then I hear my brother in the background, "she can't see you nod your head buddy." He's too damn cute.

The most important development of last night was our gift from Max and Robyn - a Kitchen Aid standing mixer! I am so pumped. All I've wanted to do today is go home and bake some bread. I found a recipe for white wheat bread, which is Alfred's favorite, so I think I'm going to make that this weekend. I've also decided that I want to start my own business now, but that's a story for another day I think.

Happy Birthday Ella!

Today is my niece's 5th birthday! She's getting old, halfway to double digits already. From there it's only a few years till she's a teenager, then she's in her twenties, before you know it she'll be my age. Ha ha, that makes me feel old. I wish we lived closer to my brother and his family, but they have to be bums and live in frigid Minnesota. We're campaigning for them to move down here, but I don't think we're having much luck. We'll have to call Ella tonight and wish her a happy birthday over the phone.

One of the gifts we bought her is a personalized birthday song on a CD. It says her name a bunch of times in the song, my sister and I both had one when we were little and it was so cool to hear your own name in a song. Well, correction, Katie had a cassette tape, and I had a record. Yeah, I had a little toy record player and a bunch of records I used to play when I was little. Now that makes me feel old!

3 years

So that's our wedding. Unfortunately the minister is blocking Alfred, but I'm pretty sure he was there. This was probably taken pretty soon after the minister called me the wrong name. He called me Alfred's sister's name instead. No, it's not funny yet.

All day I've had a song from a Will and Grace episode in my head. It's Will's parents' anniversary, and Jack and Karen carry the anniversary cake up all these flights of stairs because Karen's afraid of elevators, and when they get to the restaurant they light the candles and Jack and Karen both sing "happy anniversary, happy anniversary, happy anniversary, haaaaaappy anniversary!" They're both clapping and jumping around and Jack's kind of whipping his head back and forth. I tried finding a clip of it on youtube but alas, youtube failed me. But it's funny, and every time I think of the word anniversary that little song comes to mind.

Anyway, today's our third anniversary. We're going out to dinner. Not sure where yet. And Alfred bought me flowers. They're on my desk right now. Aren't they pretty? I didn't buy him anything, but we spent about an hour in Costco yesterday, so I figure we're even.

so, I have a blog

Interesting. I've been reading blogs for awhile and felt like I needed my own. Because I have so many fascinating things going on, of course. Most blogs I read have some sort of "theme," like their kids, or cooking, or their job. I'm just going to write about whatever I feel like. Yeah, that's right. Enjoy!

Edit: About a minute after I posted this, I got the blue screen of death and my computer shut down. So we're off to a good start!