Catching Up
I haven't been very timely about blogging about things I've been taking pictures of. I think I'm gonna take a few minutes and catch up.
Before I do that, I have to follow up my blog from Friday and admit I have not gone to the gym this weekend. I have, however, done some house work, run some errands and I washed my car today. It took me over and hour, I think. We're trying to save money so I didn't take it to the car wash. After having washed it, I'd say I'm gonna have to find some other place to cut spending because the car wash can have my $20 every other month. It takes them about 20 minutes and they vacuum and wipe down the inside, too! It took forever, there was this damned tar from the road or something everywhere and I had to get on a step stool to wash the roof -- and even then stand on my toes. Step stool, soapy water, tippy toes -- I could get hurt! I still haven't wiped down the inside. It's always clean, as in there's no junk in my car, but I need to wipe down the dash & clean the insides of the windows. Boring.
Anyway, it's clean on the outside now. Unfortunately, in washing it myself I got a close up look at all the little flaws -- someone scratched my driver's side door recently (I can't catch a break with that thing lately!). Luckily the scratches aren't deep and a body shop dude I know offered to buff the scratches out for me, so that should be okay. But there are some chips in the paint in the front bumper from rocks or whatever, which is mighy annoying. I need to get some touch-up paint! Then when I was washing the wheels I realized one of the chrome valve stem caps was missing. Grrrr. We went looking for a replacement today and I didn't like what the auto shop had but we stopped at some tire shop on the way home to find out if they sold any and they just gave us one. Score! Better yet, it was an exact match to the other 3. Double score! Mission accomplished.
So other than that, I've changed the sheets on the bed and picked up around the house. The husband and I stopped off at Safeway for a Pepsi and he wanted one of these deep-fried burritos they have there. They look like the burritos we used to get for lunch in elementary school and high school. Like little brownish hunks of God-knows-what. And you know what? They were pretty good! I don't even want to know what was in 'em.
Oh, I've also been on a bit of a baking kick lately, so that's probably not helping my gym mission but at least I am going to the gym regularly. A few weeks ago I made a blueberry pound cake from scratch using a recipe I came across in a magazine. We found that a slice of that warmed up and slathered with some butter was fabulous. Yum! Here's a picture of my blueberry creation. This thing lasted a week, it's so dense. Ready-made breakfast & snacks every day:
That's 4 cups of fresh blueberries, kids. Mmmmmmmmmm.
Last week I made some chocolate chip cookies. Some of that batch was just okay, and some of it was really good. One of my cookie sheets was acting up and they were sticking -- and now I can't remember which one it was so it's gonna happen again before I get rid of it or otherwise label it so I don't use it for cookies!
Yesterday I made these cupcakes that we just LOVE. They are called "Dalmatian Cupcakes," and I found them once on the back of a box of cake mix. They are AWESOME. I am not kidding. If you want to see the recipe, go here:
Dalmatian Cupcakes
One thing: I realized after the first time I made these that I had not followed the directions to the letter. The recipe calls for two 3 oz. packages of cream cheese. I used two packages, but they were actually the regular-sized cream cheese packages, EIGHT ounces apiece! That's right -- cream cheese bombs coming out of my kitchen. Later I tried doing them the way the recipe calls for -- and went back to my way. They are so good. And they are good with the chocolate cake mix, but get this -- yesterday I made them with WHITE cake. So, white cake, two 8 oz. packages of cream cheese, whipped vanilla frosting -- lord have mercy, they are so good. I would post a picture, but they are all gone. I gave a few to a friend to take home to his girlfriend whose birthday was yesterday, and took a plate of them next door for the neighbor's stepson who was having a birthday party last night, and the husband and one of his friends destroyed the rest last night. I had one last night and one this afternoon. All gone! Trust me -- you will bring these things to events and people will say "oh, cupcakes, how nice." Then someone will try one and find the cream cheese and chocolate chips baked inside and they will fucking die. Oh yes, they are that good. No one will turn their nose up at your cupcakes ever again.
In other news, the husband is still working on the bathroom. Did I mention that he installed a Jacuzzi tub? I believe I did. Well, it's in. He's rocked the walls, so now they just need mud & tile and the floor needs to be tiled and the toilet reinstalled. Not much work according to the husband. He's already taken 2 baths in it just as it stands right now. He's that excited about it. I want to wait 'til it's done -- but I might have to sneak in there once before that happens, since it's gonna be about a month! I do have pictures of our completely gutted bathroom and the progress:
We have yet to pick out the tile we want. I can't wait to see it all done. The husband is getting really good with tile. At some point we'd like to re-tile the other areas of our house that are tiled -- the tile that's in now wasn't done that well. It's good enough that we aren't in a hurry to change it, but with him knowing how to do that stuff it's a relatively inexpensive way to radically change the look of the house -- and upgrade what's there. It's a little further down on the list. We'd like to replace the carpeted areas (aside from the bedrooms) with some kind of wood flooring eventually. We need to have the carpets steam cleaned or something. It's looking a little worse for wear at this point.
Other than that, things are pretty low key around here. We really need to find a way to stretch our paychecks, and I've done everything I can to reduce our bills without cancelling things like cell phones and satellite TV -- so I don't know what the answer is yet but I'm gonna figure it out, dammit! I think the price of gas, especially with the husband's commute, is just killing us right now. And that isn't likely to change any time soon, so we have to find other ways to save money. At least with the work the husband is doing on the bathrooms we are building equity in the house and it comes only at the cost of materials, which is HUGE. The labor on something like that would easily make it a five-figure project, and we are not anywhere near that.
Alright then, this is getting rather long. Time to wrap up. I guess I didn't have as much photo posting to make up for as I thought.
Oh, wait, there's something else. If you work in an office, you probably have a community refrigerator. We have them on each floor and work refrigerators are always, in my experience, gross. I have to use them because the husband and I both try to bring our lunch at least 4 days a week (one of the aforementioned attempts to save money). The other day I took it upon myself to toss a half-wrapped leftover burrito someone left in there long enough to grow mold. Right out in the open. Some people leave fruit in there to rot. Others have 10 kinds of coffee creamer because they apparently can't get through the day without a selection comparable to what they would have at home -- or at Starbuck's. I finally brought it up the other day to the person at work who oversees facility stuff and told her I'd be glad to toss everything myself but you know offices -- someone's gonna complain that some damned thing they had in there (or allegedly had in there) got tossed, blah blah blah. So finally someone put up a notice and tossed every last thing that wasn't labeled and dated. Hallelujah! When I saw the sign I was so relieved because I don't like keeping my lunch in there with a bunch of science projects. I tossed my last insulated lunch bag because it smelled foul like the fridge. Of course, I had to add my own $.02 to the sign:
But really, when there's this much crap packed into a fridge, you KNOW people are not bringing their lunch every day -- they're just putting shit in there and forgetting about it! The people who put their lunch leftovers in there are the worst -- those styrofoam containers DO NOT contain the smell of your nasty-ass lunch.
Why is it that the person who has fish or crab or a fucking head of garlic for lunch is always the one who has leftovers in a cheap-ass container? Why never someone with a ham sandwich wrapped in cellophane?
Okay, now I'm all caught up. Sorry if this post was a little boring and a lot all over the place. The one immediately preceding this one was a little more interesting.
Oh, here's one item of interest: I stopped taking my BC pills 'cuz I was tired of taking them and worrying about the long-term effects, seeing as I am going to be 34 in December. And, of course, we've been talking about taking the plunge and having a baby. So we're playing a little Russian Roulette right now -- not entirely unprotected, but not completely protected either. Tempting fate, if you will. I'll leave it at that. But if I start blogging about being violently ill in the mornings (assuming that would happen to me), you'll know what's up.
Before I do that, I have to follow up my blog from Friday and admit I have not gone to the gym this weekend. I have, however, done some house work, run some errands and I washed my car today. It took me over and hour, I think. We're trying to save money so I didn't take it to the car wash. After having washed it, I'd say I'm gonna have to find some other place to cut spending because the car wash can have my $20 every other month. It takes them about 20 minutes and they vacuum and wipe down the inside, too! It took forever, there was this damned tar from the road or something everywhere and I had to get on a step stool to wash the roof -- and even then stand on my toes. Step stool, soapy water, tippy toes -- I could get hurt! I still haven't wiped down the inside. It's always clean, as in there's no junk in my car, but I need to wipe down the dash & clean the insides of the windows. Boring.
Anyway, it's clean on the outside now. Unfortunately, in washing it myself I got a close up look at all the little flaws -- someone scratched my driver's side door recently (I can't catch a break with that thing lately!). Luckily the scratches aren't deep and a body shop dude I know offered to buff the scratches out for me, so that should be okay. But there are some chips in the paint in the front bumper from rocks or whatever, which is mighy annoying. I need to get some touch-up paint! Then when I was washing the wheels I realized one of the chrome valve stem caps was missing. Grrrr. We went looking for a replacement today and I didn't like what the auto shop had but we stopped at some tire shop on the way home to find out if they sold any and they just gave us one. Score! Better yet, it was an exact match to the other 3. Double score! Mission accomplished.
So other than that, I've changed the sheets on the bed and picked up around the house. The husband and I stopped off at Safeway for a Pepsi and he wanted one of these deep-fried burritos they have there. They look like the burritos we used to get for lunch in elementary school and high school. Like little brownish hunks of God-knows-what. And you know what? They were pretty good! I don't even want to know what was in 'em.
Oh, I've also been on a bit of a baking kick lately, so that's probably not helping my gym mission but at least I am going to the gym regularly. A few weeks ago I made a blueberry pound cake from scratch using a recipe I came across in a magazine. We found that a slice of that warmed up and slathered with some butter was fabulous. Yum! Here's a picture of my blueberry creation. This thing lasted a week, it's so dense. Ready-made breakfast & snacks every day:
That's 4 cups of fresh blueberries, kids. Mmmmmmmmmm.
Last week I made some chocolate chip cookies. Some of that batch was just okay, and some of it was really good. One of my cookie sheets was acting up and they were sticking -- and now I can't remember which one it was so it's gonna happen again before I get rid of it or otherwise label it so I don't use it for cookies!
Yesterday I made these cupcakes that we just LOVE. They are called "Dalmatian Cupcakes," and I found them once on the back of a box of cake mix. They are AWESOME. I am not kidding. If you want to see the recipe, go here:
Dalmatian Cupcakes
One thing: I realized after the first time I made these that I had not followed the directions to the letter. The recipe calls for two 3 oz. packages of cream cheese. I used two packages, but they were actually the regular-sized cream cheese packages, EIGHT ounces apiece! That's right -- cream cheese bombs coming out of my kitchen. Later I tried doing them the way the recipe calls for -- and went back to my way. They are so good. And they are good with the chocolate cake mix, but get this -- yesterday I made them with WHITE cake. So, white cake, two 8 oz. packages of cream cheese, whipped vanilla frosting -- lord have mercy, they are so good. I would post a picture, but they are all gone. I gave a few to a friend to take home to his girlfriend whose birthday was yesterday, and took a plate of them next door for the neighbor's stepson who was having a birthday party last night, and the husband and one of his friends destroyed the rest last night. I had one last night and one this afternoon. All gone! Trust me -- you will bring these things to events and people will say "oh, cupcakes, how nice." Then someone will try one and find the cream cheese and chocolate chips baked inside and they will fucking die. Oh yes, they are that good. No one will turn their nose up at your cupcakes ever again.
In other news, the husband is still working on the bathroom. Did I mention that he installed a Jacuzzi tub? I believe I did. Well, it's in. He's rocked the walls, so now they just need mud & tile and the floor needs to be tiled and the toilet reinstalled. Not much work according to the husband. He's already taken 2 baths in it just as it stands right now. He's that excited about it. I want to wait 'til it's done -- but I might have to sneak in there once before that happens, since it's gonna be about a month! I do have pictures of our completely gutted bathroom and the progress:
We have yet to pick out the tile we want. I can't wait to see it all done. The husband is getting really good with tile. At some point we'd like to re-tile the other areas of our house that are tiled -- the tile that's in now wasn't done that well. It's good enough that we aren't in a hurry to change it, but with him knowing how to do that stuff it's a relatively inexpensive way to radically change the look of the house -- and upgrade what's there. It's a little further down on the list. We'd like to replace the carpeted areas (aside from the bedrooms) with some kind of wood flooring eventually. We need to have the carpets steam cleaned or something. It's looking a little worse for wear at this point.
Other than that, things are pretty low key around here. We really need to find a way to stretch our paychecks, and I've done everything I can to reduce our bills without cancelling things like cell phones and satellite TV -- so I don't know what the answer is yet but I'm gonna figure it out, dammit! I think the price of gas, especially with the husband's commute, is just killing us right now. And that isn't likely to change any time soon, so we have to find other ways to save money. At least with the work the husband is doing on the bathrooms we are building equity in the house and it comes only at the cost of materials, which is HUGE. The labor on something like that would easily make it a five-figure project, and we are not anywhere near that.
Alright then, this is getting rather long. Time to wrap up. I guess I didn't have as much photo posting to make up for as I thought.
Oh, wait, there's something else. If you work in an office, you probably have a community refrigerator. We have them on each floor and work refrigerators are always, in my experience, gross. I have to use them because the husband and I both try to bring our lunch at least 4 days a week (one of the aforementioned attempts to save money). The other day I took it upon myself to toss a half-wrapped leftover burrito someone left in there long enough to grow mold. Right out in the open. Some people leave fruit in there to rot. Others have 10 kinds of coffee creamer because they apparently can't get through the day without a selection comparable to what they would have at home -- or at Starbuck's. I finally brought it up the other day to the person at work who oversees facility stuff and told her I'd be glad to toss everything myself but you know offices -- someone's gonna complain that some damned thing they had in there (or allegedly had in there) got tossed, blah blah blah. So finally someone put up a notice and tossed every last thing that wasn't labeled and dated. Hallelujah! When I saw the sign I was so relieved because I don't like keeping my lunch in there with a bunch of science projects. I tossed my last insulated lunch bag because it smelled foul like the fridge. Of course, I had to add my own $.02 to the sign:
But really, when there's this much crap packed into a fridge, you KNOW people are not bringing their lunch every day -- they're just putting shit in there and forgetting about it! The people who put their lunch leftovers in there are the worst -- those styrofoam containers DO NOT contain the smell of your nasty-ass lunch.
Why is it that the person who has fish or crab or a fucking head of garlic for lunch is always the one who has leftovers in a cheap-ass container? Why never someone with a ham sandwich wrapped in cellophane?
Okay, now I'm all caught up. Sorry if this post was a little boring and a lot all over the place. The one immediately preceding this one was a little more interesting.
Oh, here's one item of interest: I stopped taking my BC pills 'cuz I was tired of taking them and worrying about the long-term effects, seeing as I am going to be 34 in December. And, of course, we've been talking about taking the plunge and having a baby. So we're playing a little Russian Roulette right now -- not entirely unprotected, but not completely protected either. Tempting fate, if you will. I'll leave it at that. But if I start blogging about being violently ill in the mornings (assuming that would happen to me), you'll know what's up.
posted by PlatinumGirl at 5:41 PM
5 Comments:
Ooh--good luck with the baby making! Also, just to let you know, jacuzzi pics make GREAT HNT pics. At least, that's the popular opinion....!
that tub looks so nice. i'm jealous. :)
i'm glad i don't know how to bake. i'd make myself treats all the time. that pound cake looks divine.
re: phone service, it might be your phone or it might be something else. my old place had a bunch of trees around it, and no one could get cell service inside. didn't matter what company it was, the reception inside was crappy. in my new place, i use tmobile and it works fine.
Oh my gosh, that's a lot of ground to cover in a post.
Love the new tub. It looks great. Dumb question, is the bathroom you put it in upstairs (do you have an upstairs)?
I have my own itty bitty fridge, which totally rocks because I'm selfish like that. :)
And, wow, no BC pills. Wow.
Osb: I dunno, me & a camera and water sounds like an accident waiting to happen . . .
LE: I can't wait! I do love to bake, too. The husband loves that I love to bake. Deadly combo. Still pondering phones.
J: I know, mishmash. We live in a single story house -- but I don't think there would be anything stopping you from putting one in a two-story. I think it holds 68 gallons of water. There is one that's a size smaller, too, if you're worried about that.
I might need me one of those fridges!
Re: the BC pills . . . I know, SCARY.
whoa. that post was all over the place! hehe. but at least i know what's going on in your life!
and... wow on the no BC... good luck with that :) :)
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