What It Is, Man

I promised that this Thursday’s Giggles & Bits post would reveal the mystery of  “What Can It Be?”

CheeseCake

Sorry dear readers, but it is not a tortilla. Quite a few of you guessed that one and if I didn’t know better I would have guessed that too. One reader thought it was foam on an Orange Julius – a fabulous guess, but alas, you are wrong.

A backed away from the pan view, reveals my latest culinary disaster: WartyCake

This is supposed to be a white birthday cake.  Every ingredient is edible. I followed the recipe to the letter. My kids may not believe it, but I did everything the recipe called for, without any substitutions. It was a very picky recipe that took using four mixing bowls so you did not mix ingredients until it said so.  No recipe ever told me to grind (in a food processor) granulated sugar before, but I did it. I did everything correctly.
And this is the thanks I get…
I had just cleaned my oven last week so the window on the oven door was sparkly. Meaning I had a perfect view into the oven where I watched in horror while lumps and bumps began rising out of the once smooth batter. I bet that this was not the expected behavior. My not-so-lovely cake had warts and craters. At some angles it looked like the surface of the moon.

As I agonized and whined, hubby laughed. By the time it finished baking I had giggled a few times myself, while vowing to never be caught without a Betty Crocker cake mix in my pantry. Making cakes from scratch is overrated and (apparently) impossible for me.

On a positive note, there is more than one way to fix a cake.

StrawberryWartyCake

Just because something is ugly does not mean it tastes bad!
(and visa-versa)
♥  TTFN  ♥

It’s Going to be OK

SWDaughters  In a family of strong-willed girls, I am the weenie.

I do not know how this happened.  My daughter certainly did not get a strong will from my side of the family. In fact she even got breasts from her father’s side, since they did not run in my family either.

What you get on my side of the family are bad teeth, mental health issues and Type 1 Diabetes. I could not escape it, being on my side of the family and all.

Anyway… It took every molecule of my energy to parent a strong-willed child. She was tough on me. To stand my ground was like being tested by a hurricane. Once she thought of something she wanted to do, there was no reasoning or explanation she would listen to. Somehow, she figured she could manipulate things to get her way.

Manipulation is subtle, I always thought. Not anymore. Strong willed kids are everything but subtle. As smart as she was, she came up with very creative reasons why she should get her way. It was exhausting.

I am glad, for her sake, that she is strong-willed. Because she has not one, but TWO strong-willed daughters to raise. I have every confidence she will be a better parent than I was. She is no weenie. She will do just fine.

Pay back really is a Bitch, isn’t it darling?

♥  TTFN  ♥

 

Finishing Christmas

Finally!! This weekend I was able to remove our youngest son’s gifts from under our bed. We last saw him at Thanksgiving. My daughter’s family also came for a visit & we exchanged gifts. It snowed a blizzard up here too. Sort of spooky having a white Christmas in March.

!LIGHTS_

If you think that March is too late to celebrate Christmas, then you would have hated last year’s Christmas – we finished it in August. Ridiculous, I know. This year, my plan is to mail gifts to the kids houses. If they can’t make the big celebration. It is my turn to host the event. I vow we will finish Christmas before the new year starts!

I can vow and declare this and that, but the truth is our kids are in their late thirty’s, and most have kids of their own. [They always had minds of their own …]  All I can do is invite them. They have to work it out with their significant others, in-laws, and whoever else is pressuring them to come to their celebration. Sigh…

Families – the reason most people drink on holidays.