Before I get to the weekend, just to let everyone know, I’m aware of some issues with the blog. I’m trying to address, but my life is a little complicated and my web designer is in Germany. I will try to get it sorted soon-ish, and I’m truly sorry if it’s frustrating anyone. It seems to target the comment section the most.

Okay so the weekend. I know something happened Friday, but I can’t remember what it was Saturday morning, we had the last part of the rain gutters installed. It’s a long and dumb story about why we didn’t have that section done when the rest were installed, but it’s all done now.

I pulled out some cake layers from my freezer and played with that this weekend. I had a plan and headed to the cake stores, but I couldn’t get what I wanted and had to change the design on the fly. Most of it went fine. However, the one thing that made me crazy was trying to make the chocolate drip, which is just a chocolate ganache. This is not hard, but each time I tried, the chocolate seized or turned grainy. I was getting water in it somewhere or heating the heavy cream too high. I finally threw up my hands and used chocolate melts which is why the drip looks chunky instead of flowy. By then I didn’t care. Drips is one of the things I’m usually decent at, so I know I was just tired. I also was using what I had in the freezer, so I couldn’t build the cake tall enough, but again, it was just for fun. Here’s a pic:

My original concept was sugar flowers in the colors of sunset (oranges, reds and yellows) cascading down a tall cake. This isn’t even close! No matter, I’m happy to get the practice. Most important was doing something creative to take my mind off other stuff. This week if I have time, I may try making some flowers out of gum paste. I have a lot to learn with that, though.

Tomorrow Wizard is having an eye procedure done. I hope to post on Wednesday, but the sheer logistics of the day is complicated and I may be late posting. We are boarding Maggie so we don’t have to worry about her, plus she’ll get a much needed bath.

That’s my weekend, how was yours?

TGIF! Time to share five random things about our week. Here’s mine:

1. This morning, I finished my antibiotics. I’ve tolerated them pretty well, but my stomach is definitely ready to be done. I clearly had some infection that this took care of which is good. For the record, I’d rather not take antibiotics but they are amazing when we actually need them.
2. This week I batched cooked a lot, including sourdough bread. Mostly just so I can feed myself, LOL. Limiting the amount of process food, gluten and dairy I eat keeps me busy in the kitchen. On the upside, I have the time since I’m not on constant deadlines. There really isn’t a downside beyond laziness. And while we’re talking about cooking, I don’t think my cilantro herb plant is going to survive the summer heat. I knew it probably wouldn’t but was hoping for a little cilantro magic since I use it a lot. But it turned really hot this week and cilantro doesn’t look good. I did a little first aid today, but my hopes are not high. On the other hand, I’ve used him in many dishes so he’s been a good provider up till now
3. One of our stresses this week was we had to find new homeowners insurance, and that’s become very difficult in “fire prone” areas. Several insurers have pulled out in fire and flood areas in CA. Wizard took the lead on this, and I think we have it solved. But wow, it was a little scary there for a bit. We did have a last resort solution because we saw this coming before we bought this house, but it was definitely not our first choice. Anyhow, just wanted to mention that Wizard tackled this one and got it solved (unless something changes at the last minute), which has taken some really worry off us. The neighbors are all going through this too and we are all sharing info which also helps.
4. So, don’t laugh, but I finally called my brother I don’t talk to him and his wife as often as I’d like because I’m terrible at making calls. I feel like I accomplished something big this week to stop what I was doing and make the call! I think about people all the time, but my mental telephone, text and email system is seriously unreliable. So that’s my big accomplishment this week, LOL. He’s only slightly better at making calls than me — it’s genetic flaw, I think.
5. I’ve had lunch plans with a friend that we’ve had to reschedule for two weekends now. Sometimes life just does not want to cooperate. So this weekend is a mystery and anything can happen!

That’s my five, now I’d love to hear yours! I hope everyone has a great weekend!

I just finished reading on my Kindle a mystery TO DIE FOR by Lisa Gray (release date is August 1st 2023). I liked it a lot. The only thing that I struggled with a bit — and this is totally my fault and not the authors — is keeping the fairly large cast characters and suspects straight. But that’s typical for me as I sometimes don’t retain the names of characters but I remember traits so I usually sort it out. I didn’t love the ending as much as I’d hoped, but I still enjoyed reading the book and guessing who the killer was. I thought the author did a good job.

In audio books, I’m loving a young adult dystopian set in Southern CA about the water taps going suddenly dry. This hits close to home for me, so that may be part of the love. The title is DRY by Neal Shusterman and Jarod Shusterman.  One of the things that draws me in is seeing is human nature playing out as they face a developing tragedy through the eyes of these young adults — who themselves are being forced to choose who they will become in the moment of crises.

So that’s what I’m reading and listening to, what about you?

Overall a good weekend. But Friday I had more nose bleeding and did the math — Friday was the 6th day so maybe I should see a medical type? I tried super hard to ignore that thought I had a ton to do since we were having the kids for dinner the next night. But I finally gave into common sense and went to Urgent Care, which isn’t ideal but my only choice since my doctor was out until the next week and I couldn’t get an appointment to see him until the following week (I made the appointment, just in case). I saw an over-worked P.A. (Physicians Assistant) probably got the diagnosis right in the 43 second visit. And what was the diagnosis? The left side of my nose is a mess and I’m definitely going on antibiotics. He never looked in the right side of my nose or anywhere else because the medical care system does not have time for that kind of nonsense. Um, did that sound sarcastic? Anyhow, he said more than that, but that was the gist of it. The thing that really surprised me is he wanted me to use Afrin for three days to stop the bleeding. That actually helped, although I’m cutting the time shorter than three days. The good news is that I don’t appear sick with a virus. One of the reasons I made myself go is that I don’t want to get anyone sick if I have a virus.

The rest of Friday was a blur of errands and prep. Saturday with the kids was really nice. The six of us had a good time and Maggie soaked up all the attention. One thing we’ve been trying to do is agree on a family vacation — it’s worse than wrangling feral cats. It turns out that we raised boys with opinions, who married girls with opinions and Wizard and I have opinions. All we need to do is get everyone to have the same opinion at the same time. So…that’s up in the air At one point my daughter-in-law asked me if I’d go parasailing despite having some fear of heights. Would I? It’s a good question. I have never thought of trying it so that question caught me by surprise.

Sunday Wizard went racing, and Maggie and I did normal stuff, nothing really exciting.

That was my weekend, how was yours?

TGIF! Time to share five random things about our week. Here’s mine:

1. Having a holiday (July 4th) on Tuesday has really thrown us off this week!
2. I have the weirdest allergy thing, or possibly mild cold) going on that I’ve experienced. It started on Sunday. The most annoying thing is a little bleeding from one side of my nose. I suspect it’ll clear up soon. Something probably just got extremely irritated from allergies and will clear up. At this point, I don’t feel ill, don’t have a fever, nor am I concerned. But it makes me self-conscious and worried that when I’m that I’m out in public, the left side of my nose will chose that moment to leave a trail resembling a crime scene I think it’s slowly improving.
3. This is Maggie’s expression when I mentioned Youngest’s son’s name After that, she got up and looked out the window to see if he was in the driveway. I wasn’t trying to tease her, he’d been by the day before and I was chatting with her about him stopping by. Notice how her ears went up?  (Also she LOVES that ratty quilt that is older than she is. I don’t dare get rid of it.)
4. Speaking of Maggie, she has had a couple accidents while sleeping and another really tiny, hard lump on her side. The accidents upset her more than us. It’s always on one of her blankets and all I have to do is toss them in the wash. But we don’t like the way she gets agitated about it, and so I’m probably going to have her vet take a look, and maybe do an ultrasound to make she nothing’s amiss with her bladder. While she’s in there, her doc can look at the pea-sized lump too. Animals are expensive, but I’d rather find things now than let her suffer.
5. The plan is to have Youngest and his wife out for ribs on Saturday, and Middle and his wife might come too (they will confirm soon). I meant to tell eldest, but he just bought a new truck a day or two ago, and both Wizard and I were so excited about that, I forgot to mention Saturday. That’s the kind of week it’s been, LOL.

That’s my five, now I’d love to hear yours! I hope you all have a great weekend!

I hope all who celebrated the Fourth of July had a safe and fun time!

Okay now let’s talk about binge-watching. Wizard and I don’t binge watch a lot together.  I’m not really sure why, but if I had to guess, it’s just habit that we usually opt for a movie or documentary or something like that rather than an ongoing series that will suck us in. But a few days ago, we stumbled onto a series on Peacock called “Based On A True Story” and watched all 8 episodes of Season 1 over 2 or 3 nights (I lost track of time ). Then we found out that Season 2 hasn’t been renewed yet. Bummer.

This series is not great, but dang, it was so addictive and fun! Kind of a dark comedy soap opera thing. The concept is a struggling married couple come up with a killer idea for a podcast, strong arm someone else into being the subject of the podcast, and very soon lose control of the whole situation. Watching these two getting in deeper and deeper was so entertaining.

What Wizard and I learned is that we need to find more mindless, ridiculous and addictive shows to binge-watch, LOL!

How about you? Any shows you binge watch?

A pretty good weekend, aside from one annoying thing. So for Turbo’s cupcakes I decided to make Italian Meringue Icing, which requires a precise method of heating sugar syrup to the soft ball stage using a thermometer and whipping egg whites at the same time. It’s both harder and more time consuming than American Buttercream but I wanted to do it to keep my skill up. So I did all the prep, got to work and half way through heating my sugar syrup my  thermometer died.  It was such a waste, but I pivoted and made a chocolate American Buttercream and Turbo was very happy with his cupcake (so were the others who ate them!).  Once we got to Turbo’s I had a great time playing with him. Wizard played with him too, but one of our other sons was there, and Wizard spent some quality time chatting with him while I hogged, uh, I mean played with Turbo.

Sunday Wizard went racing so I did a ridiculous amount of exercise, batch-cooking and cleaning because I had both the will and energy even though I knew I was going to pay for it today with a bit more pain. But there’s always a tradeoff in life. All the additional exercise, plus the way I’m eating, has upped my energy, but increasing the daily repetitive exercise is taking a toll on my joints and neck issues that spread down my right shoulder and back. I’ll have to adjust after I get done whining about it. It’s really not a big deal, I’ll add in some rest days and that will likely solve it. Maggie would benefit from rest days too.

That’s about it, my weekend doesn’t sound too exciting, but I enjoyed it. How was your weekend?

I hope everyone celebrating in the U.S. has a very Happy 4th of July!! Please stay safe and watch out for our pets during the fireworks.