eric drove to school today

...in my car. Guess what that means. You got it. I'll drive the MG today. It's a good thing the top is on, otherwise some gravitational force would probably pull me (and my camera) away from the house. For now though, I plan to go to the store this morning but hope to be home before it gets too hot.

Here's a song I always like to turn up and usually puts me in a good mood.

i can officially say

i have had enough cake.  Mark this date and time because those words rarely come from this mouth.  In the last three days I have baked five cakes and mixed six pounds of powdered sugar, three cups of shortening, 3 sticks of butter and half a bottle of almond flavoring (among a few other things).  Between all the cakes and batches of frosting I've had to taste and retaste, I am all caked out.

I did this to make a baby shower cake for a friend.  Although I do bake cakes, I do not decorate cakes.  I probably could with practice and it does actually look like a lot of fun and I did have fun practicing but I am totally unskilled.  I practiced writing the baby's name with colored frosting and it looked fine... on the practice cake.  I was so nervous about getting it right today, my handwriting was horrible and shaky.  So, I did the next best thing, I decorated it with ribbons and butterflies and no colored frosting.  Here are a few pics.

So there's the cake in all its pride and glory.  How's the bow?  That's one of the things I learned while working in the Brazoria County Clerk's office.  (See, it had its ups.)

Maybe once I recover from my cake overdose I'll look into a cake decorating class.  I don't know, it's just a thought.

we met the teachers

last night.  The first day of pre-calculus is obviously going over class rules, introductions, course requirements and goals.  On the calendar for the second day is:
Plot points in the Cartesian plane, apply the distance and midpoint formulas

I honestly have no idea what that means.  I'm picking up on keywords and assuming this has something to do with graphing but omg.  I'm clueless.  I would post a video but I can't think of anything after reading the second day agenda.  My brain is worn out.

uh oh, watch out

here's another video because I like this one too and it's my blog and I want to post it

i'm getting back into a

routine and I love it.  It's 7:00 and I've already mopped and done several loads of laundry.  I love getting up early and getting started.  I hate sleeping in and feeling like half the day has gone by.  Okay, I realize that by waking up at 8:00 the day is far from being half over but I like to wake up before the sun comes up.  I feel like I'm getting the most of my day.  Now I'm sitting here cooling off with a drink with so much already marked off my to do list and I like it.

Now for a hokey video reference but I like this song and it's fitting.  (Warning: I'm really getting into video references.)

in the last twelve

hours I've baked three cakes.  These are all practice for the cake I need to have finished on Thursday for a baby shower.  At this point I'm really doubting my skills.  Number one was fine until I trimmed some off the top to make it "flat".  Number two immediately split with three major cracks running through it.  Number three just came out of the oven and is cooling on a rack.  I might make one more just in case a third layer is needed. 

I have to get Eric to the college today so he can register.  After the college is a stop at Hobby Lobby to find something for the top of the cake.  And later on the agenda?  An attempt to decorate my practice cake.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed.  The last thing I need is a caketastrophe.

i heard a song on the

radio yesterday and I remembered liking it when I was a kid.  Of course I had to come home and search it and I found it:


While on the search for songs I haven't heard in a long time, I had to find this one too




You're welcome.

i made a quick trip

to see Brittany in San Marcos yesterday and while I was gone, Eric had PALS practice and picked up his new schedule.

Spanish 3 Honors
Health Science
Physics Honors
US History 1301/1302  (Dual credit through the local college)
Pre-Calculus Honors
English 3 AP
Peer Assistance 1  (PALS)

Except for Spanish, and that's a big maybe, I can no longer even pretend I have a clue to what is going on in Eric's classes.  I would say that US History is a possibility but my transcript will prove otherwise.

thanks to dad

and his list of secret codes, I can now type that I paid 25¢ for a pint of milk instead of $0.25.  Shortcuts are great and that's my 2¢.

Oh, I can also type

¿Como se llama?

Perhaps I should change my middle name from Rene to René.

I'm having a problem with the lower case but if I'm really excited or angry, I can make references to MAÑANA.  So, maybe I'll save that for a day I want to talk about something spectacular happening the following day. 

Now that I'm finished with my post, go check out my photography at LensCaptured.com.  You may order prints if you like but they cannot be printed out... you know, with © and all.

don't think of

it as being cheap but more like not wanting anything to go to waste.  I buy 2% milk, you know, one grade up from water with a white tint to it.  When a recipe I was making called for less than a cup of whole milk, I wasn't about to buy a big thing of whole milk when I already had two gallons of 2% in the refrigerator.  I went to grab a pint and I had a choice.  I could spend $1.00 or $0.25.  Hmm.  Okay, I am a tightwad but that's not it.  Well, it might be part of it.

Seriously though, I needed the milk right then and the 25 cent pint wasn't due to expire for another three days.  What was the point in spending an extra 75 cents for an additional five days on the milk?  It's simple, there was no point.  So I did it.  I bought the cheap milk with the big sticker on it.

I'm fine with it.  I used less than a cup in my recipe and drank the rest of that pint.  (Man, it's been a while since I've had whole milk.  That stuff was good.)  I might be cheap BUT... the $0.25 milk that would have been thrown out because of the big orange sticker didn't go to waste.

This post has made me realize two things: first, I hate not having the cent symbol and having to use "$0." and second, I think I might start buying whole milk.  Oh wait, make that three things.  When listing things out like that in a sentence, and as much as I think a colon should go there, I think I remember from one of Eric's assignments that I should be using a semicolon.  I don't remember so I'm sticking with the colon, right or wrong.  (Hey, don't judge.  I never claimed to be an expert at punctuation... or grammar or spelling for that matter.)

i don't get it

but most of my posts lately are about food.  Here's another but I spared you the pictures.  (You're welcome.)  Remember those Reese's baking pieces I posted about?  Well, I haven't been able to find those.  Instead of taking that as a sign to not make the peanut butter cookies, I picked up a bag of Heath baking bits and I'll make cookies with those later today.

Heard enough?  Too bad.  A few weeks back I had an urge to make tortillas so I bought a tub of lard (you know, that really doesn't sound very appetizing).  Okay, so I bought the tub and it's been sitting in the pantry.  Today I decided to make tacos so I figured homemade flour tortillas would be grand.  I haven't made them in so long but once I started mixing, it all worked out and they turned out pretty darn good.  Ultra thin, just like I want.  I did realize one thing though.  A regular ground beef taco isn't quite worthy of a nearly transparent tortilla.  I think some outside skirt is more deserving.  Next time I'll know.  Guess what.  All this talk about my tortillas have made me want to show you how they turned out.


See how thin they are?  I like them like that.  I don't like thick bready tortillas.  I understand that a thick one might be better for durability but it's still not my thing.

Those arrows are pointing to my fingers that can almost be seen through the tortilla.  I think that's due to my rolling as well as the lard.

I know it's empty and plain but yum.

We have plenty left over so I predict breakfast tacos tomorrow morning.  I don't eat it but there's also plenty of cilantro and onion that Cosme likes to have on his tacos.  I guess he can put that on his eggs in the morning, I guess...

when i saw the recipe

for a blueberry crumb cake, I knew I had to make it.  So I did.  As I was mixing it up, the batter looked so tasty.  When isn't a batter good?  Then I added blueberries to it.  Yum.

I guess what happened next is obvious.

I poured the batter in the pan and covered it with a crumb topping and 45 minutes later... voila, blueberry crumb cake.

The lady that posted the recipe said to top it with sugar and butter.  No thanks, I thought ice cream was better.  It was good but you know what was better?  The next time I had some I used butter instead.  Yum.

quick,

what is this?

Is it poison?  I'm paranoid now.  I see a lot of this and I want to know before I get any closer.

i did not take this

picture but I saw it on another blog.  I have to share it because these Reese's baking pieces are so cute.  They look like actual peanut butter cups.  It's like peanut butter cups for Barbie.

Seriously, could they be any cuter?  One more question though, who could actually bake with these?  I'm pretty sure I would have eaten half the bag before I get to that last step in the recipe in which these things are added.  Oh my gosh.  I really need some peanut butter cookies now.  Let's see, I already have butter getting soft for a blueberry thing I'm making today so I guess I'll add these chips to my grocery list and make some cookies next.  I'll let you know how much of the bag ends up in the cookies.

oh my gosh. seriously,

how long does a poison ivy rash last?  I'm starting to think it's forever.  I did get to the doctor yesterday for something a little more potent than calamine lotion and Benadryl.  So far I really dig the magic cream and itch-be-gone pills.  They're wonderful.

oops. i

haven't been posting.  I'll try harder this week.

Now I'm off to take some Benadryl.  I hate poison ivy, oak and sumac.  I've been wearing long sleeves to hide the rash on my arms.  Do you know how refreshing it is to wear long sleeves in SE Texas during the month of July?  I'll clue you in, not very.

beware the

three leaved beast.

Cosme and I have been miserable for the last few days.  We were all up in the bushes trying to trim them back and hauling it to the street.  I later went around pointing out the poison ivy in certain flower beds telling him that I was not going near any of that.  Yeah, if only I'd thought to look in the bushes...

We've been living on Benadryl and calamine lotion and it sucks.

a little random

something from Saturday.

No, I wasn't playing golf, I was waiting for Dodo to wake up.  The funny thing is I talked to Dad a few hours later and he was out playing golf.

breakfast is

served.

I started the dough last night and finished my cinnamon rolls this morning.

I drizzled this icing all over them. 

One goes a long way so I figure this will fill Eric and his friends up.  I hope they're hungry because four more pans are about to come out of the oven.

This whole post is making me need a glass of milk.

guess where we went

late yesterday evening.  Yeah, we left around 8:00 and went for a ride in the MG.  Yes, 8:00 in the evening is SO much better than 11:00 in the morning... if you're wanting a breeze and not so much a sunburn.

Here are a few images I have from our drive.  I know the first three are very similar but I'm posting them anyway.

 The Brazos River

and of course, the sky

we went to the beach

 yesterday and it made me think.  The media is all over the tar ball situation.  Yes, I understand that tar balls are not good and they're showing up at all the beaches now.  (Forget the fact that from my earliest beach memories, one of the most dreaded things about going was coming home with tar somewhere on me.  It wasn't occasionally either, it was EVERY FREAKING TIME.  There was tar.  It was what happened when there was a trip to the beach.)  Anyway, like I was saying... The trip to the beach yesterday made me think.  I saw a lot of things on the beach.

There was a bunch of garbage.  Oh, there was this jelly fish too but there was tons of garbage.

Guess what.  There were no tar balls.  Alert the media.  Who cares about the garbage?  As long as there weren't any tar balls, I guess it's all good.

the mg is

finished and street legal!

as soon as the rain lets up

I plan on doing a couple of things at Grandma and Papaw's house.  One of which is trimming back some of the brush growing in front of the shed.  Here are a couple of before pics.

After that I think I'll check on the fig tree and see if anything is ready to come off.  If so, I'll try my hand at fig preserves.

i'm just not feeling

this new design stuff Blogger has going on.  I'm trying to find something that's "me" and it just isn't happening.

i've received a few

texts from Lauren showing the weird things her cats are doing.  This has made me stop and think about my normal, lazy cats that don't like to sit on the refrigerator or watch the water in the toilet.  Today's spotlight is on Lucille.  She's predictable.  If you sit, she heads for your lap.  If she sees your hand, she rubs against it.  She is sweet.  Some days she likes to sit at the front door and just watch.  We joke that she's waiting for a package.

Other than that, she lounges

and takes breaks to rub against things to find that perfect scratch

and lounges

and rubs against things to get scratched

and lounges

That's Lucille for you.

now that was a rough

week.  Strep throat is one of the worst.  I hate it.  I've always been the type to catch a sore throat when at all possible and I've always dreaded it but topping it off with fever just plain sucks.  It's not so much the lying in bed with aches and chills, tylenol and a few blankets can put a temporary hold on that.  Now the throat pain is always severe and I do hate it.  One thing that doesn't make any of it better is knowing that as soon as I'm good enough to get around, I have to strip and wash all the bedding (as well as any other laundry I've missed the three days stuck in bed).  Oh, and the kitchen...  Even though I haven't been cooking, there's a guaranteed mess.  The morning I went to the doctor I came out of the bedroom to find take-out bags and cups littered across the island with dishes in the sink and 5-10 empty 2-liter Coke bottles.  ugh.  I turned around and ignored it all.

Later that day after I'd been diagnosed, medicated and sleeping off another round of fever, I heard Eric in the kitchen.  I heard a new garbage sack going into the can... and then filled.  I heard water running and dishes knocking around.  Eventually my door opened and Eric asked how to start the dishwasher!  This was a first.  I was as excited as one could be while lying in bed feeling miserable.  I explained to him the simple steps of putting the soap in the two compartments and then selecting the NORM WASH cycle.  Ahh, I went back to sleep.

As expected, the following day I was a little better.  I got up and made a few rounds through the house.  I walked into a now clean kitchen and smiled as I knew I had one less task to be done.  Saturday came around and I began to tackle everything I knew had to be done.  I started with the bedding and loaded it up on the sanitary cycle.  I made my way to the kitchen and decided I would unload the dishes Eric was so kind to wash the other day.  Once opening the dishwasher, I noticed a couple of the glasses had a film over them.  No big deal, I'd rinse them off and send them back through the washer.  I noticed some blue spots on some of the plates.  Fine, I just ran everything through again.  But why were there blue spots?  My Cascade is white.  This was clearly a blue gel on the dishes.  At that moment I realized I didn't clarify which soap is used in the dishwasher.

Oh well, there was no harm done and I cleared everything up with Eric on the difference in dish soaps but mainly I'm still just so happy he attempted to help without being asked.

day three

of lying in bed, day two of antibiotics, first day without fever.  I think I'm starting to see a light at the end of this tunnel.

i lied. give me

a break.  I don't feel well.  I have a sore throat and it's making me feel miserable.

omg, can we say

NEGLECT?  I will get out of the house this week and I will have something to talk about.  Today I'm cleaning.

wait a minute

hurricane season just started and there's already this thing out there, busting through the gates. 

I hope the next four months aren't going to be this active but something tells me hurricane season is sitting there like Al Pacino saying, "I'm just getting warmed up!" - hopefully it's not throwing in an "Oorah!"

i think a habit

is forming.  Don't expect a post today either.  I'm leaving this morning and will be helping Cindy today.  I might take my camera and might have something to say later... but don't hold your breath.

ugh.

It's going to be one of those days.  Just took a Zyrtec D.  Maybe I'll have something to post later.

the way the guy in the

striped shirt casually walks past the man in the gray shirt as if they don't know each other, one would never know they made a little exchange outside the liquor store five minutes earlier.

I'm just saying...

yesterday i ran to

Houston with Cindy.  We were in a fabric store and I was sitting at one of their tables.  All of a sudden, there was a head resting on my arm and the side of my face was being licked.  Meet Toro the Argentine Dogo.

He was huge.

Seriously huge.  Look how big his paw was compared to my hand.

It was the same size.  Toro liked to sit in this chair.  At times he would curl up like a lap dog but he would also sit up like a person and look out the window.

Look at his butt in the chair.  His head is at the same height as a person.  Here's Cindy sitting next to Toro.

Toro liked Cindy.  Cindy liked Toro.  He was a really sweet dog.

She got up to talk to the saleslady and Toro wanted her back.  He sat straight up in the chair, held out his paw and waved it, motioning for Cindy to come back and scratch him a little more.

So she did.  I think she wanted to haul something else home in Earl's new truck besides fixtures for the shop.