November 27, 2009

We celebrated "American Thanksgiving" at our house yesterday early evening with ham, turkey, yam fries, mashed potatoes, green beans, etc etc etc. Linda and Jim brought an apple and a pumpkin pie and I made filled cupcakes to celebrate our friend Jon's birthday. There were 15 friends/family here, and dinner was followed by another showing of our house later. This means the mess was totally cleared out of the kitchen by 8:30pm when we had to vacate for the showing. I had intended to get photos, but I neglected to do so.

I checked on the 3 younger kid's report cards today and they are doing quite well in the new school. All three of them have A or B averages, and two of them are essentially on track with finishing either early or on time. . . .yay!!!

Tonight I volunteered with St. John at the Blazers hockey game and Ron came along as my guest. We watched them snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. They were up 4-0 in the 2nd period, but managed to lose the game 6-5 in a shoot out. I actually thought I was going to witness the Blazers pull off a win for the first half of the game, oh well!!!

Adam's 18th

It was time for the annual black forest cake at our house. Adam requests one every birthday. I put chocolate ganash between the layers of this one and made an extra dark chocolate cake. I am going to have to can more cherries this summer, if possible, because this was our last jar.

I read a really good book the other day; Recovering Charles by Jason Wright. It was a very fast read, but it took a very interesting look at human relationships. I cried through much of the last chapter or so.

We had a pretty low key day around here today, it matched the gray skies.The one semi-exciting thing was the for sale sign being posted in our front yard. We have another walk through scheduled for tomorrow afternoon.

Nov 18, 2009-- It's Official!!!!

Our house went on the market today. Time will tell what happens now, but we are hopeful for a quick sale and a move to the island. (Prayers for a smooth transition are welcome!)

I have been down for the last few days with a low-grade fever, body aches, and fatigue. I had promised a cake for the Young Women's program last night. I have had the shoes made for it for the last several weeks, so all I had to do was bake the shoe box part of the cake. I made a red velvet cake with a cream cheese frosting and covered it with marshmallow fondant. I had planned on spending two days doing the cake, but with the "sickness", I only spent about 2 hours on it instead. The cake wasn't as nice as I wanted, but I guess it came out OK. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the program and taste the cake or see how it was received.

November 15, 2009

I finished the Medical First Responder course today. The instructor was awesome, but I always stress out for the exams and scenarios. I baked/decorated a cake last night for the class today, and it was received well. One person commented favorably on the "edibility factor" of the fondant (I used marshmallow again). He said it was the first time he ever had fondant that actually tasted good!

Kaili is finally showing a few signs of life today, so hopefully she will be able to function this week.

It has warmed up again, and was in the mid 40's when I left for class at 7:30 this morning, though there is a light dusting of snow visible on the hills across from our place.

Nov 10, 2009

Kaili is still under the weather and Ron & I are still a bit on the lethargic side, but largely unaffected. The rest of the household seems to be healthy so far too.

Today was another lay-about day with a minimum of activity. I did do a digital scrapbook page, a load of laundry, harvest the last of the chard from our yard, and make a stir-fry (containing the aforementioned chard) for dinner. There were also many games of Scrabble on FB too.

It was another unseasonably pleasant day today. . .

Nov 1, 2009

I have been goofing around with several different projects (as usual!). This is the first pair of gum paste shoes for the cake I am making for the Young Women's presentation on the 17th. I did these on Friday, then I also got a second pair of shoes made yesterday.

On Friday evening I met with some ladies to work on scrapbooking projects. I haven't touched any of my scrapbooks in quite a while. I took a photo album from 10 years ago and actually managed to get a few more photos placed into it. The other women all do digital scrap-booking. After seeing Kasandra's projects and talking to her about it, she convinced me to give it a try.

I did this page with a free program I downloaded last night. . . I just may have to do more of this type of "scrapping". All of my photos are digital anyway. It is really no muss, no fuss, and also fairly inexpensive; besides being quick and easy.

We had 4 neighbor kids drop by for trick-or-treat last night, we then split candy the leftovers amongst our family. . .that was the extent of the celebrations here. We had planned to take the girls up to the mall for trick-or-treat, but one of them has been more than a little reluctant to get her schoolwork up to date; then there was some VERY bad attitude displayed. After multiple "second" chances, we finally pulled the plug on the festivities. (I guess I got to be an ogre for Halloween this year.) Fortunately, the individual involved is acting more civil this morning.