Sunday, December 8, 2013

First snow

Yes, the blog has been dormant.

We got our first snow of the winter today.  Just a dusting, but oh boy is it cold.  And, with perfect timing, one of the garage door openers gave up the ghost on Friday afternoon.  Too cold to park outside, so we're shuffling around opening the door manually - complicated by the fact that the only handle is on the inside. 

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Michelangelo's cupcakes

You know, you get lucky twice with homemade costumes, and suddenly the 6-year-old thinks you can do the Sistine Chapel on top of a cupcake (or 20 cupcakes). 

Yep, it's birthday time again.  And a real genius would sell half-boxes of cake mix to make a dozen cupcakes.  I need 12 today and 18 next week - so, 2 batches of cake mix, 48 cupcakes, and about 18 extras that will be hanging around waiting to be eaten.  I plan to try freezing some, because we're knee deep in cake, with 3 birthday parties (family, school, after-school program).  El B's grandma made his cake for the family birthday dinner, and she still makes family-size cakes with 3 boxes of mix.  With three other desserts in the mix, we came home with about 2 cakes-worth of cake. 

This year, it's Disney themed (so much for the clearanced Angry Birds stuff I bought).  He thinks I can do Mickey and Minnie faces on each cake.  One idea he floated was to cut the faces out of soda bread (?why? - after he determined that there's no actual soda in it), black icing for ears, etc.  Or purple icing, with white icing for the face, black for the ears, and something about banana slices for the mouth.  Oy. 

What he's getting is white icing with - hopefully - a Mickey outline in black or purple, and a picture of Mickey, Minnie, Allie or Swampy printed out and stuck to a toothpick.  I'm not Michelangelo, and there's only so much room on a cupcake top.

Monday, January 14, 2013

2013 Reading List

I will try to keep this updated better than last year's list.  Not sure what happened to last year.

  1. The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose, by Susan Wittig Albert (1-11-13)
  2. Threadbare, by Monica Ferris (1-26-13)
  3. Diary of a Player, by Brad Paisley (1-28-13)
  4. And Then You Dye, by Monica Ferris (1-29-13)
  5. lots and lots of magazines (stack to donate is 2 feet high and growing)
  6. The Chosen One, by Carol Lynch Williams (1-x-13) - YA novel about a girl in an LDS-like cult
  7. Thin Wood Walls, by David Patneaude (1-x-13 or sometime 12-12) - YA novel about the Japanese internment during World War II
  8. Are You In the House Alone? by Richard Peck (2-20-13)
  9. Chestnut Hill: The New Class, by Lauren Brooke (2-22-13)
  10. Kevin Sorbo bio
  11. Babylon Confidential
  12.  A Horse in New York, by Cam Parker (3/5/13)
  13. Conversations with J. K. Rowling (3/5/13)
  14. Best (worst) School Year Ever
  15. Survivors: True Stories of Children in the Holocaust (3/5/13)
  16. A Group of One, by Rachna Gilmore (3/6/13)
  17. Defiance
  18. Someone Named Eva
  19.  Wringer
  20. Final Journey (holocaust)

  21. The Surgeon
  22. The Apprentice
  23. The Sinnner
  24. Body Double (4/23/13)
  25. Vanish
  26. The Mephisto Club
  27. The Keepsake
  28. Ice Coldd
  29. The Silent Girl
  30. Brio Girls x2
  31. Amelia
  32.  
  33. A Feral Darkness
  34. Counterfeit Son, by Elaine Marie Alphin
  35.  Last to Die (5/15/13)
  36. Rich Mitch, by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat (5/16/13)
  37.  Father of the Orphans
  38. Counterfeit Son
  39. k. d. lang biography
  40. Bruce Springsteen biography (6/7/13)
  41. The Compassion of Father Dowling (6/10/13)
  42. Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse (6/10/13)
  43. Mr. Monk Goes to Hawaii
  44. Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu
  45.  
  46. Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants
  47.  
  48. Shipwrecked book 1
  49. Shipwrecked book 2
  50. Shipwrecked book 3
  51. Uprising - Margaret Peterson Haddix
  52. Unbroken - Jessie Haas
  53.  Mr. Monk in Outer Space

  54.  Mr. Monk Goes to Germany
  55. The Most Beautiful Walk in the World
  56. Exit Wounds, by J.A. Jance
  57. Dead Wrong, 
  58. Mr. Monk is Miserable
  59. Damage Control,
  60.  Fire & Ice,
  61. Judgment Call, 
  62.  No More Dead Dogs
  63. Secrets from a Dead Girl


  64.  
  65. Mr Monk and the Dirty Cop
  66. Mr. Monk in Trouble (7/3/13)
  67. the rest of the Monks
  68. 13 Reasons Why
  69. Touch, by Francine Prose
  70. The Best Horse - Elizabeth Van Steenwyk (Girl sells spoons for barrel race entry fee, realizes her horse isn't a racer, uses the horse they're boarding instead)
  71. Wildwood Stables: Daring to Dream - Suzanne Weyn (typical girl wants horse, gets free horse, has no way to keep it, miracles occur)
  72. Scott Westerfeld Midnighters 1 & 2
  73. Calvin Coconut: Trouble Magnet
  74. Calvin Coconut: movie
  75. Calvin Coconut: Dog Heaven
  76. The Ruins of Us, by Keija Parsinnen
  77.  The Watsons Go to Birmingham (9/29/13)
  78. Canterwood Crest
  79. Silver Creek Riders
  80. Sandy Lane Stables: a Horse for the Summer
  81. Brio Girls: Good-bye to All That

  82. Before I Fall, by Lauren Oliver (9/30/13)
  83. Revenge Wears Prada (10/5/13)
  84. The Dark Horse (Longmire) by Craig Johnson.  (11/14/13)
  85. The Woman Who Is Always Tan and Has a Flat Stomach
  86. Life as we Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer
  87. This World We Live In (skimmed) by Susan Beth Pfeffer - Two books of a semi-related trilogy.  Fulfilled my quota of post-apocalyptic gloom-and-doom for a while, and I'm still of the opinion that the moon-meteor collision suffers from iffy science.
  88. Wedding Night by Sophie Kinsella (11/x/ 13)  Not as good as the Shopaholics, but still fun.
  89. Changes (Collegium Chronicles)
  90. Redoubt (Collegium Chronicles)
  91. Bastion (Collegium Chronicles #5) by Mercedes Lackey (11/30/13).  Glad she's still writing Velgarth/Valdemar books, but these are geared it seems more to the YA market.  
  92. Turn and Burn
  93. Kissin' Tell
  94. Chasin' Eight
  95. Family Italian by Gennaro Contaldo (12/7/13)
  96.  The Litter of the Law, by Rita Mae Brown (12/8/13)  Finished in one afternoon, which is why I sadly stopped buying these in hardback.  I get the library's copy, saves money and space.