June 29, 2009 @ 21:10

I learned alot on our road trip.  Puppy was amazingly good.  Bear was a treasure.  My friends are fantastic.  And we saw elk.  I cannot describe how beautiful the place is.  You just have to go.  Just go. My only real disappointment was not getting to share it all with Bear.  Puppy and I had to separate from the larger part of the group for his safety.  I was not prepared for the shocking edges of the canyon, right there where you can walk right off of them.  And the immediately vertigo inducing size of the place was profound.  So Puppy and I teamed up with a few of our group and did more controlled site seeing while Bear hiked to his hearts content with the others. 

We saw charm and sadness along Route 66.  A hail storm.  And a billion stars.  I learned that Puppy and I make a good team.  And I trust my instincts as his mother much more than I did before.  I learned where some of my boundaries lie.  And where I’d like to stretch a few.  And also that you can find a good laugh almost anywhere.  Like the signs on the shuttle busses . . . 

Which I’ve now decided to add to the classic, resulting in:  rock, paper, scissors, lizard, Spock, hand gun, chipmunk.  The rest of the pictures are here . . . 

June 29, 2009 @ 20:58

Cookies and cream filling, chocolate cake, for Harry, who is now four. 

June 16, 2009 @ 21:17

Tomorrow morning, with Trixie and the boys and a handful of our good friends, we set off on the road trip that Trixie and I have been planning every summer for the last oh . . .  ten years?  But we’ve never quite made it out of the gate.  Life always got in the way.  But this year, we won.  The Grand Canyon awaits.  Yee haw, my friends.  Only one sad note, not going to get a chance to meet up with The Red Fork Hippie Chick, as she’s on the road as well.  Ah, well, next time. 

Pictures and stories to follow, but until then, have a great two weeks without us . . . 

Love to all . . . 

And hey, Janet?  Looks like we may get our purses wet, rain forecast for the canyon.  Only us, eh?  :) 

June 05, 2009 @ 06:28

For Hattie, who is now One.  Vanilla cake with fresh strawberry filling.  A ten inch round for the grown ups and a six inch round for the birthday girl. 

The big cake. 

The baby cake. 

The plates for the party that we matched. 

June 03, 2009 @ 06:30

Ubercake, which is of course chocolate cake, drizzled with chocolate syrup, covered in peanutbuttercream and then chocolate ganache, with ivy and a monogram. 

June 01, 2009 @ 19:46

My friend Tiff bought a house.  She needed drapes sewn.  I can sew.  Her boyfriend has power tools.  Now Tiff has new drapes.  And I have my nifty new pot rack hanging from my kitchen ceiling.  Awesome. 

June 01, 2009 @ 06:25

If you are going to hang out in the pool all day with Trixie and a floating gallon jug of maitais, either remove your sunglasses every now and then or sun block the end of your nose.  ‘Cause the whole Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer thing just ain’t a great look for June . . . 

May 30, 2009 @ 09:23

I love marshmallow anything.  It’s hereditary.  My mother swears that Fluff is the cause of her being diabetic today.  We all have our weaknesses, right?  So S’mores are just one of the world’s best things ever.  Like right up there with panties that don’t ride up or unicorns, except better because s’mores are real.  Not like panties that don’t ride up. 

I’ve tried making s’mores versions of probably everything, but marshmallow doesn’t like to be cooked really.  It disappears completely in brownie batter.  It gets gummy in bad ways in cookies, and not consistently . . .  so it’s very hard to count on.  But!  I think we got a winner this time.  I decided to try using the quirkiness of how marshmallows swell up and then collapse and holy crapoli it worked. 

First I filled my cupcakes cups about 1/4 full with chocolate cake batter, then I sat a large marshmallow on top of the batter.  Then I covered the marshmallow with more cake batter until it was completely covered, but wasn’t more than about 2/3 of the paper cup full.  The marshmallow was still very visible popping up in the batter.  Then I baked them.  Now they did exactly what I expected, which was the marshmallow swelled in the heat and created this crater in the center of each cupcake.  I then filled that crater loosely with graham cracker crumbs, butter and sugar, exactly like you would mix up to make a graham cracker crust.  I then topped than with five or six mini marshmallows and put them in the broiler for just a few seconds to toast the marshmallows.  You can’t walk away from this.  I really mean a few seconds . . .  They looked like this. 

And honestly, I really could have been done right there.  The boys didn’t believe me at first when I said they weren’t done.  But I topped them with chocolate buttercream, a drizzle of chocolate ganache, and a sprinkle of more of the graham cracker crumbies.  Teeth achinly good. 

May 22, 2009 @ 16:02

 . . . that it was a miracle I lived past the tween years.  Did you think I was gonna say “there’d be days like these”?  The medication problem with Puppy has had to be pushed back.  I took him to school on Wednesday morning, un-medicated, and dropped him off.  As I walked away, he was perched in his little chair like a bird, hovering over his little feet, ready to fly.  By eleven that morning the teacher had exhausted all efforts.  He was spinning out of control.  I went home and picked up his medicine and went to school.  When I got there he was sitting at a table by himself in the cafeteria, away from his class, eating his lunch alone.  He was rocking from side to side and eating nothing but his popsicle.  I sat with him and made him eat his string cheese and the entire container of yogurt I had brought for the medicine.  Then walked him back to class a few minutes behind the rest of his classmates.  We are now going to wait until school lets out for the summer before taking him completely off and getting him back to baseline.  I don’t have enough vacation time for a mid-day pick up for the rest of the school year. 

Also, today, Bear got in major trouble at school.  He ratted on some girls who were smoking in the bathroom on a fieldtrip.  Those girls in turn riled up their friends until it degenerated into threats, some of ass kickings, some of death.  This is not funny.  This is never funny.  Instead of walking away, Bear mouthed off back at them.  He is now grounded until the end of time. One, because he was way out of line for saying what he said, and two, because you never know when some mouthy kid is actually not just mouthy, but unparented and crazy. 

And, we are not going canoeing for the holiday weekend.  Mother Nature is a hag and has given us a entire week of perfect, blissful, amazing weather, but Friday afternoon arrives and so do the clouds.  The rest of the weekend and all of next week, more thunderstorms.  Seriously?  enough is enough.  And not just for the fun of canoeing.  This weather is crazy.  And a little bit scary. 

And that’s all the whining I’ve got for now.  I have to go give Bear his next punishment chore.  Thinking maybe toothbrush cleaning the showers tile grout . . . 

May 20, 2009 @ 05:40

Well, they did worse than change Puppy’s meds.  They stopped them.  For two weeks to get him back to baseline.  When I left his class this morning he was already perched on his chair like a little bird, eyes darting around the room and ready to fly.  I’m hoping that if the rest of just this week is as dramatic as I suspect it will be, that they’ll go ahead and make a change Friday.  Otherwise  . . .  well, otherwise, I just don’t know . . .  Saints preserve us.