The weekend was a blur. Saturday we went to the memorial service for Wizard’s friend, which was a lovely tribute to man loved by his family and friends. It was both sad and uplifting.

We came home to discover a fire in at the base of the Cleveland National Forest (the same forest that’s a block away from us) about 10 miles away, but it looks like we’ll be ok. However that fire burned hot and fast, and I’m not even sure if any homes were lost or not. News like the hurricane pounding Louisiana is happening so fast and I’m running around so much, I can’t quite catch my breath. I’ll catch up today.

Sunday, I met Biker Witch for lunch at the mall, then we shopped. I tried on a ridiculous amount of clothes, and only bought one nice shirt and one everyday shirt. But it’s a start. What happened is that on Saturday, I couldn’t wear a dress like I normally would because my legs are really a mess from the endless mosquito bites. I don’t have much in the way of nice pants or even shoes–these days, I pretty much have jeans, shorts, t-shirts, running shoes and flip flops. I really need to up my game so I’m working on getting few dressier outfits, a new dress or two because mine are really old, and a couple pairs of shoes. It might be a dream, but a girl can try

So that was my weekend, how was yours?

TGIF! Well this week totally got away from me. I don’t know how I leapfrogged from Monday to Friday Okay. let’s jump into sharing five random things about our week.

1. A little while ago, Wizard got some mosquito bites and I teased him about being a baby. I had two and they were annoying, but not whine-worthy. You all know where this is going right? I must have stepped in a nest of the blood sucking vipers. I’ve have ugly welts, and a few are on my heel so wearing shoes to walk Maggie is agony. One turned into what looks like a blood blister from walking her. It’s insane, and keeping me awake. Honestly, Wizard’s not fairing much better. I’m guessing it’s the unusual humidity we had this year? I dunno, but they’ve turned me into a whiner! I’m really sorry for teasing Wizard now. Really. Really. Sorry.
2. Maggie is once again all legal! I got her dog license done for three more years. Oddly, Maggie didn’t seem particularly excited about it.
3. I went to Walmart just to three ring binder. They didn’t have the three ring binder and yet, I came home $52.00 dollars poorer. HOW????
4. This week vanished into thin air, but today I’m going to try to write. I have taken a giant step back to give my creative side some space to, well, get creative and excited.
5. Tomorrow Wizard and I are going to a memorial service for a friend of his. Sunday I’m seeing Biker Witch. No cakes this weekend unless plans change.

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

I know, I know, according to a lot of romance novels I’ve read, I should really be into shoes. I’m not. When I see a pair of designer shoes, I think of pain–both to my wallet and my feet When heroines obsess about shoes, I’m skim reading.

But introduce a dog and I’m there for it! I want to get to know the pup. I love it if they’re quirky, serious, bad tempered…I don’t care, I’ll read it. Dogs often steal the scenes for me.

And dogs help me decide if the man character are really heroes and heroines, or a DNF (Do Not Finish). I won’t read a book featuring a hero or heroine who doesn’t take care of animals (excluding rom coms where one character starts the book ignorant and swiftly learns–those amuse me).

I like cats, horses and other animals too.

What about you?

This weekend was good! Maggie’s test to check for crystals that form bladder stones came back all clear. I was relieved and happy about that. She got her rabies shot, and while she was sore and slept a lot, she didn’t throw up. I call that a win.

I made an Oreo Drip Cake–all non dairy. I was happy with the results:

I played with fondant, this is my first attempt at cutting out the flowers and experimenting with some various painting techniques (food safe). I have so much to learn, but it’s all fun.

We had a great time at Youngest’s yesterday. My test victims, uh, I mean family seemed to enjoy the cake. And way more impressive, Youngest Son built Turbo (my grandson) a really cool, bright orange wagon. Youngest had it in the garage under blankets, took Turbo out to uncover it. Turbo was surprised and thrilled! It was so cute to see Turbo’s joy as if he understood that this was a special handmade gift, and Youngest son was beaming too.

So that was my weekend, how was yours?

TGIF. Let’s jump right into sharing 5 random things about our week:

1. Today Maggie is going to the vet for a urinalysis to check for crystals that form bladder stones and her rabies shot. Unfortunately, the rabies shot make her sick, but getting rabies is a lot worse than not feeling well for a day. She’s due for two more boosters, but we’ll do those in a couple months.
2. I made a non-dairy chocolate cake from scratch that was good! My only note so far is that I should have used parchment paper on the bottom of the cake pans instead of just relying on my baking spray (that’s me being lazy, LOL). One of my 8 inch pans lost a couple chunks when I released them. On the upside–that gave Wizard and I some tasting pieces to confirm the cake is good. AFTER Wizard tasted it, I told him it was vegan. His shocked expression was priceless as his experience with vegan baked goods in the past hasn’t been great. (By the way, I wasn’t looking for vegan, just dairy-free but this recipe looked well designed to me, so I had to try it.) This was a large recipe that yielded two 8-inch layers and two 6-inch layers, so now I have two full cakes ready to pull out of the freezer and decorate when I wish to do it.
3. We are going to Youngest’s on Sunday. Oldest, his wife and Turbo will be there too. Middle and his wife are helping another family member.
4. I might break out one of my freezer cakes to try an Oreo cake with chocolate drips–all non dairy. It all depends if Youngest on what they want me to bring–if anything.
5. It’s been a quiet week–the highlight was buying Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla for my cakes and cookies. I was seriously excited when that came and made Wizard smell it, then I made him tell me it was amazing or I wouldn’t bake anymore Yep, that’s right, I got excited about a fancy version of vanilla extract, LOL

So that’s my five, I bet your five things are more exciting than mine I hope everyone has a safe, happy and healthy weekend!

So I don’t have a good recent picture of Maggie. She’s getting really gray, but that’s not why. Nope, the reason is that she’s too smart of us. She hides when she sees a camera.

It’s pretty funny.

But that’s not the end of her talent. So at night, she can only get on the couch when I put her blanket up there. I usually do this around 8pm, as that’s our routine. That’s the rule, and she never breaks it. But she does try to get us to put the blanket up sooner.

So usually she hangs out upstairs for a little while in the evening. She has a bed up there, and sometimes, she likes being in the dark room. She’ll go up there sometimes in the day too. That’s all fine.

But at night, every fifteen minutes or so, she’ll come downstairs and “check” if it’s time to get on the couch.

We say no.

First she skulks back up the stairs.

Fifteen minutes later, she runs back down and “asks” again. She does this with her big brown eyes. Trust me, you know what she wants.

We say no again (we’re not mean, it’s just fun, LOL).

This time Maggie does a Dramatic Exit. She walks a few feet, stops and looks back over her shoulder. Then she goes slowly half way up the stairs, and pauses on the first landing, and looks back to see if we’ve noticed. Eventually she goes the rest of the way.

You can set your alarm for another fifteen minutes. She trots down and asks again.

Nope.

This time, I kid you not. SHE LIMPS UP THE STAIRS ONE STEP AT A TIME. One paw goes up, then a big limp to get the next paw up. We can’t get this performance on video, but oh man, do I wish we could! It’s hilarious. Of course, the first time I fell for it and checked her over, worried she was hurt. She was fine and probably amused that I fell for her ruse.

By the way, she had a comfy downstairs bed right by the couch that she likes just fine when she wants to lay there. Sometimes, we do let her up early, it just depends. But honestly, watching her perform is just too much fun

Happy Wednesday!

Two words: Cake Fail!

Every now and again, people will say, “I’ve never seen you mess up at baking.”

Well sure, because I throw away my fails, LOL. I’ve failed COUNTLESS times. I just usually don’t serve my failures if I can help it If you hang around my kitchen enough, you will definitely see me fail and probably get a good laugh in the process.

This fail was based on a bag of Butterfinger pieces I saw at Walmart. They were with the chocolate chips and meant for baking. I though…ohhh, I should make a Butterfinger Cake by adding a bag of Butterfinger baking pieces a vanilla cake batter and in the filling layers. Except do you think I bought the bag when I saw it?

Of course not, I’m cheap. Then I couldn’t find it when I wanted it (cheap and foolish!) But I had a solution, I’d just chop up the candy bars into pieces and dump some in the batter. Two problems: I don’t think the chopped candy had the same texture as the processed bag of Butterfinger chips and I way overestimated how much to put in.

Um…it was a tad overwhelming. A little too crunchy, sweet and it threw off the texture of the otherwise good vanilla cake. The cake was not bad but not great.  Not a gross fail but as Wizard put it, “Not my best effort” And not what I’d feel comfortable serving to anyone else.

So a half fail on the cake.

But then I tried making a chocolate Italian Meringue Icing. That’s a level up from the Swiss Meringue Icing I’ve been making. Essentially you boil hot syrup and then carefully pour it into whipping egg whites (points for not burning myself!). Once that is whipped and cooled to room temperature, you add butter that must also be at room temperature. It’s chemistry and important to get all the elements and temperatures right.

I clearly did NOT do that. The first slice of butter caused the icing “break” which means it deflated into something resembling cottage cheese soup. I knew that second I was in trouble, but do you think I stopped so I could save the rest of the not-cheap butter?

If you want a serious answer, there’s a reason my brother and sister call me a bulldog. I am stubborn to a fault and beyond. I made that danged icing and yeah, I saved it to the point of being usable and it tasted good…but it was not pretty. Or even passable in my opinion.

Total Fail.

Then guess what I did? Walk away and read? Walk my dog? Go in the pool?

Any of those would have been an excellent choice. But I wanted to save the day and do some chocolate work thinking that I might be able to make the cake look better with some pretty chocolate pieces distracting from sadness of the broken icing.

WHY DID I THINK THAT WAS GOING TO GO WELL?

It didn’t. The chocolate was dirt cheap candy melts I’d bought from the big box hobby store and they don’t harden to the firmness I needed. As soon as I picked them up, they were so soft, they broke.

At that point, it was all pretty funny. I really should have taken pictures but I couldn’t bring myself to document the disaster. Instead Wizard and I opened a bottle of wine, grilled a New York steak for dinner and laughed.  Wizard was pretty awesome throughout the day, patiently trying to keep my spirits up while I kept stubbornly trying to save the cake…and each step getting progressively worse. I swear, I don’t know how he held off laughing as long as he did

So that was my weekend how was yours?