Me

Thoughts

Earlier this week when I jumped on Facebook, I saw some live feed about how the Greek’s were celebrating the Orthodox Passover or bringing it in or something. I equate it to Ash Wednesday but I could be wrong there… I don’t know. Truthfully, I have Greek blood in me and wish to know more, but at this point in time I just don’t.

So in the live feed they had dyed flour, blues, pinks, reds, greens. I’m not sure if that is signifcant, remember, I just stated I don’t know much about their traditions. And they were marching through the streets throwing flour. Personally, I thought, wow, that’s cool I want to know more.

I truthfully love learning about other cultures. I remember in my junior high school History class, we actually spent a couple months looking at all the different world religions. Now, when people hear religion and school they throw a fit, but he wasn’t pushing religion on us, he was informing us about all religions. Now not all, because hello we didn’t have that much time, but there were quite a few. I specifically remember, Judaism, Christianity, Islam/Muslim, Atheists, Catholicism, and I think there were a couple more, but remember that was back in Spring 2000.

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Mother Nature is Off Her Meds

I swear! So you know there’s also a Meme going around facebook that says something to the affect, Mother Nature is having a fight, storms out of the room, and then storms back in “And One More Thing.” Yeah, I believe that meme is true on so many levels.

The stupid ground hog (I know, don’t pick on the ground hog) predicted an early spring. It’s a known fact though that he’s only right 40% of the time when he predicts that… just saying.

The night that I went up to paint my bathroom, I hopped out of the truck, not like I was jumping out on dry pavement or anything… I actually hopped out slowly because it was icy out and bam, my butt hit the ground, my right arm slammed into the door, and my left arm caught me with the help of my running board on my truck.

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Triple Chocolate Cake

We’ve been working on our house, it feels like non-stop. Some days walking in there is so… almost depressing, but some days it feels like nothing is happening. It is… but it’s happening up in the attic where you just don’t see results other than more lights are popping up as well as electrical plugins. Oh… and an HVAC system. Heat… let there be heat!!

And I swear, our friends are the absolute BEST. We’ve had so much help from our dear, darling, beloved friends. There truly are NO WORDS to describe them! So, when I found out Shelby’s 21st birthday was yesterday, I knew I had to make her a cake!! (She’s newer to this bunch, this is why it was a new find of her birthday!)

Triple Chocolate Cake with Swiss Meringue Buttercream, Homemade Strawberry Jam, and Chocolate Covered Strawberries with Chocolate Ganache

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Oreo Cheesecake Cake

Another birthday cake! Yey, I love birthday’s!! Although… the story about this cake…

  1. The person who I made this cake for apparently doesn’t celebrate birthdays anymore…
  2. I didn’t get to try any.
  3. I was told it was yummy.
  4. Life took over and I was afraid I wouldn’t get it to them on their birthday

I’ve been so consumed by the house remodel, I swear, that I was afraid that I wasn’t going to be able to deliver Dan’s birthday on time. I told him this the day before. That way he knew it was coming and I didn’t forget.

In the end, I got it there on Betty White’s 97th Birthday, aka Dan’s birthday. I did tell him it was a birthday cake to celebrate Betty White’s birthday since he apparently doesn’t celebrate birthday’s anymore….

Betty White’s 97th Birthday Cake (aka Dan’s Birthday cake)

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Chocolate Birthday Cake

What is the deal with everyone wanting Chocolate Birthday Cake? Seriously… haha. Okay, let’s back up and I’ll explain. Tbug’s birthday is the 2nd of January. Then my father-in-law’s birthday is the 9th of January. Bam, 2 in a row.

When I asked her what she wanted, it was a yellow cake with chocolate icing. Very plain and simple. Sometimes though, those are the best. Then I asked my father-in-law what he wanted. He said, oh, I guess chocolate maybe.

Chocolate, okay, we could go many different ways with that, right? But… then he mentioned, not German Chocolate or was it not Devil’s food chocolate. Gosh, I can’t even remember now. Either way… that did help narrow it down a little.

I had run across The Stay at Home Chef‘s The Most Amazing Chocolate Cake. I’ve made the cake before, which ended in me almost having a meltdown and crying. Ugh! But I’ve learned quite a few tricks since then… So… I decided to make it word for word recipe-wise.

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Remodeling Journal: The Vanity

So… here’s a little back information for you about me and Vanities because I’m sure you wondered… My whole life I’ve never had a vanity with drawers. There, I said it.

Growing up at my parent’s house and now back there again, my bathroom sink doesn’t have drawers. I do remember when my parents were building the house I asked for vanity sink drawers, but it didn’t happen.

Moving on to the dorms at school… The sink was sort of free-standing in a way. It just hooked to the wall. It wasn’t completely down. Plus the one in our room I had to share with a roommate. It was the kitchen sink as well as the bathroom sink. It also had… you guessed… NO drawers.

We had community bathrooms in the dorm I lived in. They didn’t have drawers either. I was like vanity drawer deprived.

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Remodeling Journal: Demo Part 2

It just so happened there was an auction for home remodeling the Saturday after we bought our house. How convenient. It also happened to be one of the coldest days of the year thus far, other than when we had snow back in November.

The girls went with us. Poor them! We finally sent them out to the truck with the keys and my phone (Tbug had hers) for entertainment. It wasn’t going fast and boy was it cold. I think Cold is an understatement at this point. Holy cow!

They had cabinets, flooring, wood, paneling, sinks, fans, you name it… We walked away with the tile for the backsplash of my kitchen, which apparently at this point I can’t find a picture of. I didn’t have my phone (read above paragraph) and hubby never sent me the pictures I took :).

We called it quits long before the auction was over. It started at either 9 or 10. We left at 1. It was cold and boring, and the things we wanted still hadn’t sold. I talked to a couple who went to these often and they said that one of the previous auctions lasted until after 7pm the last time.

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Oh Socks…

Here we are, the last day of 2018. I’ve tried typing 2019 a few times and my fingers always slip up and I wind up typing 2018. Oy! I’ll wish you luck with that new task just as you should wish me luck!!

So being the last day of the year, I’ll leave you with a weird/funny story. I really should recap Christmas but I haven’t edited all the photos yet. I guess that’s what happens when you get busy remodeling a house…

Once upon a time, I think I told you the socks story but… My grandma used to always give me socks for Christmas. Then she passed away in 2007. Hubby and I didn’t start dating until 2009, but I swear I didn’t make this comment until I was dating him, but I questioned who would get me socks for Christmas now. So silly and stupid I know… But I did say that.  (more…)

Holiday Home Tour… Wait, What??

Everyone is all talking about Christmas and Holiday Home Tours and I’m over here like wait, WHAT?!?! I want to do that. Oh, wait… I can’t. Why? Well, look above. Do you know what you’re looking at? If not, I’ll tell you… It’s my open concept bathroom/Kitchen. Why put a wall between when you can make them one and take a shower while stirring something on the stove, right?

I’m kidding… sort of… I’ll explain. Right here on the left side of the wall (look for the shovel leaning up against the wall on the right side…) you really are looking into the kitchen and bathroom. And there really is no wall separating the two. They always say be prepared if you plan on doing something like this because you don’t know what you’re going to find. Well, what we found was there was a leak for what appeared to be YEARS in the bathroom where the bathtub/shower combo was and the floor was rotted. In fact, the wall behind where the window is was rotted all the way through and you can actually see the back side of the siding through the house. That’s not normal. Nope, not normal at all. (more…)

Walking in a Winter Wonderland (in November…)

I woke up on November 12, 2018, wondering if I still lived in Southwest Missouri. Why do you ask? Because we got snow. Snow in November. That doesn’t typically happen in Southwest Missouri until late December or January if any at all. And it wasn’t just a light dusting… oh no… it was flat out snow. I think we got a few inches.

And of course, school was canceled. So we went out and played in the snow. (more…)