belladonnis

Has matthew been here? I smell chocolate chips!

Robindcr8l

Well, things have been quite busy at Robin's Nest this week. First, I posted my very first item on Craigslist on sunday and sold it for full price on Tuesday! HOORAY. Now i have money for Vegas, and am going through my stuff seeing what else I can sell. LOL

I have had about 5 goose-free days now, so am quite pleased about that. They are still congregating in great numbers in the empty lot behind my house, but that doesn't leave turds all over my property, so I will refrain from complaining about all the loud honking in the mornings!

Last night was my first cake decorating class. She taught us tips for baking a cake without creating a dome on it, then showed us some quick frosting and decorating techniques. She frosted that cake in about 5 minutes and made some pretty sugar roses for it in about a minute. I'm thinking it won't be that quick for me. So tonight I am baking a cake and tomorrow will do a practice run with icing it. Next week for our second class, we have to bring a cake and a bunch of colors of icing and she will teach us how to make a rainbow cake. I think it will look something like this: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Ucz5O_zCG2U/R1KwQV0HsnI/AAAAAAAAAf8/oJOAjLYPyXI/s1600-R/student%2Bca ke1%2B11%2B07.jpg

Tomorrow night I am having friends over for dinner, so thought I could offer a poorly decorated layer cake for dessert! LOL

I haven't been brave enough yet to ask about techniques for making body part cakes, but maybe by the last class...

On Monday I cleaned my son's entire bedroom, including drawers and closet, and under dressers. All I can say is ewwwww! But we've got lots of clothes to donate to charity, and lots of trash on the curb. And now he has his grown up bed in there!

So last week was lazy week on vacation, but this week I've been productive. Friday it's back to work. UGH.

Baldur

Rude cakes are the best, but what will the neighbors say when you invite them in for coffee?

Robindcr8l

well, whatever they say, I probably won't understand it. One is Russian, one is Bosnian, one is somalian. HAHAHA...what will they think of us americans??!

Robindcr8l

Well, now, this video made me think of ThinkDraw. Very similar technique to his art.

http://www.tvsquad.com/2010/02/02/conan-obrien-immortalized-in-cheetos/?icid=main|htmlws-m ain|dl7|link6|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tvsquad.com%2F2010%2F02%2F02%2Fconan-obrien-immortalized-in-chee tos%2F

Arw65

Robin, I would love to take a cake decorating class- it sounds so fun and i love baking, I tried to make a monkey last year for my daughters 2nd birthday...
http://photos-e.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs020.snc1/3043_1140858523209_1279825981_384167_8 08397_n.jpg It was alot of fun even though it didn't turn out the best!!

Arw65

apparently that link doesn't work... oh well

Robindcr8l

Arw65, I am taking the class through JoAnn Fabric and Craft store. They also offer them at Michaels. The class itself was only like $20 for four sessions, each 2 hours long. But the supply list they gave me was about $60 worth of stuff. I used 40 and 50% off coupons for all of it, so it was probably closer to $35 for me. But then, at the first class, they tell you all these other things that you don't HAVE to have, but would make the job so much easier. Feels like it keeps adding up to me. I'm kind of sticking with the bare minimum til I decided whether I'll be making enough cakes to justify any more expense. But money aside, the class is very fun. I am making a practice cake today, so that when I bring one to class on Tues. I already have a little experience. Plus, my son really enjoys the practice!

Hazer

Here's a little tip from when I took cake decorating classes....You can use cheese whiz for practice instead of icing. Pipe it onto the bottom of your overturned cake pan, scrape it off and reuse as often as you wish.

The next tip they've probably mentioned already...Freeze the cake before you ice it. Makes it easy to brush away any loose crumbs. Also give it a light coat of a glaze or a thin layer butter cream icing to give yourself a nice crumb free base to decorate on.

Hazer

P.S. Hope you are able to take me seriously with Chester staring at you in his party garb!

Robindcr8l

Who better to give advice than a bulldog in a party hat?!! I have to report I am trying right now to practice decorating a cake I baked last night. LOL! It is REALLY ugly! I am serving it for dessert to my friends who are coming for dinner. Hopefully they'll look past the aesthetics and admire the yummy taste! HEHEHEHE

Baldur

'All Baldur, All the Time'

I am not happy. There is a dinner meeting of a group I belonged to called the Primetimers this Sunday evening.
Who would schedule a dinner meeting on Superbowl Sunday?
Our regular second Sunday of the month schedule would have placed the meeting on Valentine's Day. The function room was not available that particular day having been booked for a wedding some months ago.
At first I thought we would be home in plenty of time for the Superbowl, but it became apparent the game started at 6:30 PM .
There is no chance that we will be home before halftime.
GRRRRRRRR
The game itself is not the issue here,it's the appetizers.
I look forward all year to making piles of unhealthy food to serve in front of the television.
Instead I will be having a large dinner, missing half the game, and then will spend the evening too full to even think about breaded mozzarella sticks.
This is just totally unfair.
Baldur did write the President of the group to lodge a complaint, but alas it's too late.
Robert is the treasurer so there is no way we can avoid going; he needs to pay for it all.
I suspect it will be a lightly attended event, and a complete waste of time.
Sigh.

Baldur

No doubt we will return home in the 3rd quarter of the game and I will be so PISSED (excuse the language please) that I won't even bother watching the end of the game.
Maybe I can feign having the flu and stay home.

Baldur

belonged - ed = belong

Dragon

Perhaps Robert can wrap it up quickly also by saying he really must get back to nurse you through your unfortunate illness as you're so sick you can't even conceivably be expected to eat all the super bowl appies by yourself!
(Or you could invite the meeting to your place then 'accidently' have the game on when everyone arrives)

marius

Baldur, fluu-feigning sounds like an AuntieB prescription! However, marius will add her two cents: in my experience flu-feigning is a requirement for certain "ailments" of life. ; )

marius

Altho - I like Dragon's idea that you invite all to your home and accidentally have the game on.

marius

Btw, Robin, your class sounds like lots of fun, hope your cake turned out well. And, that was something to see Conan in cheese decor!

marius

Baldur, I don't blame you a bit for being upset. Have never figured out why people do things like schedule something opposite a big event. It makes no sense ... but then, a lot of life doesn't!

marius had a rather stressful day. My friend Brenda treated me to lunch for my birthday (which was last month). Bren has respiratory problems as in, her lungs are shutting down and there is no cure. Bren has been clinically dead twice in the past five years, but she's a fighter and keeps staying around to beat the odds. So we're eating lunch and she tells me her doctor had recently increased a dosage for one of her many medications but she was wondering if she'd taken the wrong one that morning or increased the dose for the wrong one. Then, she seemed to be having trouble tracking the conversation and would start talking about things unrelated to anything. Marius was feeling alarmed.

On the way home we had to stop by the pharmacy for her to fill a prescription. While in the checkout line Bren kind of fell into the shopping cart, at least, the top half of her was pretty well in there. If I'd been smart I'd have called an ambulance right then, but I'm not that smart. Got her to my car and she wanted me to find her inhaler. Well, her purse weighs about 30 pounds and she had everything in there but her cat and her bed. Finally I just ripped everything out, tossing it wherever it went until the inhaler was found. It seemed to help.

Got her home but she could barely maneuver the two steps into the house. Got her in a chair and put the oxygen on her during which time she dialed her husband and handed me the phone. I told him what had happened and he said, "I'm coming." Then he got there and was getting things ready to take her to the hospital but her portable oxygen thing was out of oomph, and to my horror, I noticed HE was wobbling as if he was going to fall over.

I asked him if he was okay and he said, "Well, it's my blood sugar. Maybe I took too much insulin." So had to make him go eat and Bren kept talking about things that didn't make sense. I've heard she gets very cantankerous every time she has to go to the hospital, and it's true. She got upset about something and said she was going to beat my butt. I said, "You can't even get out of the chair so I think you'll just sit there and do what we tell you to do." She looked really mad, then sort of smiled.

Turns out, the problem is severely low blood count PLUS low oxygen and no word yet on the meds. Guess she's doing okay now, but it was not a fun time. marius was not made to handle emergency situations and my hat is off to all medical people! Came home and meditated and thanked the universe for health. Mine is pretty good so far.

marius

And, since I'm talking to myself tonight, another Missouri Moment.

Our Maine coon cat, like all of his breed, likes to drink water all the time. He likes to lick the water that forms on the outside of your glass, drink the water in your glass, try to knock over your water bottle to drink that water and does this even though there are four water bowls sitting around the house.

His big thrill is preparing to drink water from your glass. He pulls his front feet back, rather like the bulls you see in a movie ... how they pull their front legs back getting ready to charge. But, dear Puck is a klutz. After prepping the ground, he invariably 'charges' the water glass and knocks it over. We have learned how to work around this and do not like him drinking from our glasses, but ... sigh, at least our other cat never does it ... or so we thought.

Tonight we were watching a bit of TV and I had my water glass sitting on the TV tray. (Yes, we are real Americans who eat dinner in front of the TV now and then.) The next thing I knew the calico jumped up on the TV tray and stuck her head in my water glass. I was so shocked I just sat and watched and so did spouse.

When the furry critter raised her head and licked her chops spouse said, "When did she start doing this horrid thing?" I said, "Apparently right now." We both laughed, she thought she was cute and now we live with TWO monsters. ; )