A Week In Pictures

Because I have no deep thoughts for the week (surprise, surprise):

1)  I decided, since Mr. C's birthday is during the summer break, that it was imperative to celebrate his half-birthday so that I could make he could have cupcakes with his classmates.  Because I think every child deserves the fun of that.

So, since I like them, I thought I'd make ice cream cone cupcakes.  Now, keep in mind: the only reason I like them is because they're so ironic and cute.  I don't think they actually taste good: usually the cone gets a little soft in the baking process.  But that is the joy of baking for Kindergartners: they really don't care/understand if it comes out like crap.

Did you know you can actually purchase special ice cream cupcake-making pans?  They are made so you can keep the cones upright during baking without having to resort to the time-honored and often-unsuccessful method of crumpling tinfoil around the cones that you place in muffin tins.  Since I was not about to spend money on a pan I'd never use again (and I wasn't wild about the tinfoil method), I got inventive:

cupcakes in rice

Alas, the cupcakes really didn't bake evenly (and took an amazingly long time to bake, considering how little was actually in each cone).  Oh, plus there was the slight bummer of their resulting shape:

Not to mention the detail that they had rice baked into them:

 

Since I didn't trust transporting the frosted cupcakes in rice, I had to resort to using our drill-press to drill holes in a Ritz cracker box for Cupcake Transportation.

 

And, after all that, the kids were ambivalent.

Oh, FYI: As we discovered after tonight's final steaming, Twice-Baked Rice has a delightfully nutty, occasionally undercooked, flavor.

2)  We decided to do a slight remodel on our kitchen:

before

after

Please note that we had to remove the tall pantry in order to do this.  This means I must now obsess over The Drama of Replacing the Countertop: once a new, lower cabinet is put in to replace the pantry, we must extend the existing counter to cover it.  And. This. Is. A. Major. Drama. (for me):

Our current countertops, as you can see, are a delightfully-outdated and difficult-to-color-scheme-around light blue in color.  Shockingly-enough, counters are no longer made in this lovely shade.  So we'll need to get a completely new-colored counter,  Which, since I HATE those counters, would ordinarily cause me to click my heels in joy, were it not for the fact that the OTHER side of the kitchen employs TWELVE FEET of that very-same, light blue countertop.  And, morally and financially, I just can't bring myself to spend money on new counters for the whole kitchen when the old counters are in remarkably (damn them!) good shape.

I really wanted to paint them with one of the specialty countertop paints out there, but the more I researched them, the more I found out that these paints are really just temporary, unsatisfactory fixes.

So the last week has been gloriously filled with me obsessively-fretting over the appropriate counter to add to the area where the pantry had once been: a counter that would either blend in seamlessly with the existing 12-foot counter OR look purposefully different but not out-of-place.  And then I must obsessively fret about paint: what is the proper paint-scheme for a kitchen that contains blue countertops, some other-form of countertops, and pure-white cabinets immediately above grey-white floor tiles surrounded by black grout?  I'm thinking of painting the cabinets a light grey to blend everything, but I'm worried it'll all be too monochromatic.  

Or too dark.  

Or too boring.

Or too busy.

Anyway, I must complain repeatedly about every single aspect to you, because Bee is ready to go absolutely frickin' crazy with my inability to discuss ANYTHING BUT THIS IMMEDIATE CRISIS.  (As anyone who knows me well/ has read this blog can testify, I have the ever-so-slight problem of not being able to let go of an issue until it is done.)  (In some form.)  (And: usually I'm so tired by the end of it that I just get it done in ANY form.)  (And that tends to be a crappy form.)

In my attempts to picture color schemes, I have taken to draping our kitchen counters and cabinets in odd fabrics to get a sense of how they'd look in that color.

Oddly-enough, this brilliant method doesn't seem to be helping my mental visualizations.

3)  Redoing the kitchen led to some major spring-cleaning.  Bee and I have gone through and gotten rid of several tchotchkes we've had sitting around forever.  This included my brave act of finally burning a beloved pig candle I've had since childhood . . .

 . . . which turned out to be as scarring an act as I feared.

I also dismantled the classy shadow box my mom had made me, comprised of a box of Kraft's Macaroni and Cheese (my favorite dinner!) sunk in a treasure-trove of elbow noodles.  Although I threw out the 10-year-old noodles (after first seriously-considering eating them DON'T JUDGE ME), I kept the box to add to my scrapbook.

I must say, although I hated destroying this lovely piece of art, it allowed me to finally see the back of the box, which had been printed with fill-in-the-blanks for one's favorite color, food, number, etc.  My mother had lovingly filled out each blank for 23-year-old me.  And she was 100% accurate.

Now that just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

The other thing I finally agreed to consider getting rid of was the one sweatshirt from my childhood that I'd kept all these years.  This was a sweatshirt I loved so much that I refused to hand it down to my sister, who had the nerve to be born just 18 months after me and therefore was constantly receiving all the clothes I loved and had outgrown.  I decided I needed my beloved sweatshirt for my teddy bear, rather than allow it to go to some spoiled brat who didn't even have the decency to throw a major tantrum -- as would have I -- and insist our mother buy her only new clothing.

So, I kept the sweatshirt for nearly 30 years, and now Mr. C is finally big-enough to fit it.

However, it is rather stretched-out, and it is rather stained, so -- at Bee's pained pronouncement that our child was looking a little "urchiny", I finally retired the sweatshirt to the rag bin.

Which is why I was a little surprised to find Mr. C wearing it the other morning.

"What are you doing in that?" I asked (not without a little pleasure).

"I'm dressed for school," he explained.

"But," I stammered, thinking of Bee's reaction, "how did you get it?"

"I found it with the rags, and I brought it up to my room," was the calm reply.

"OK, but . . . why?"

"Because it's my favoritest," he squeeked passionately.  "Because it was yours when you were a little kid just like me and it makes me feel allllll your loveness."

Well played, kid.  Well played.

4) And, finally: I decided to try getting to the gym an extra day each week to lift weights.  This has not been going well.  However, I woke this morning with a deep determination to do it . . . until I got out of bed.  I just didn't feel like making the long, arduous, 2-minute drive down the block to our gym.

No problemo, I thought: I am resourceful and motivated, and shall just work out at home.  I didn't have heavy-enough hand-weights, but I didn't let that get in my way.

Bee was very supportive as I did bench presses, helpfully motivating me with his snickers and picture-taking, dubbing my method "The Idaho Workout":

Oh, I felt the burn.