2. I wanted to make myself something special for my birthday, so last weekend I tried making a black forest layer cake. It was delicious, if I do say so myself!
3. Today I was feeling all smug with myself as I pulled into the Target parking lot, then called my parents so I could talk to them via bluetooth from the comfort of my car. (Smug because I wasn't talking while driving, and also because I wasn't wasting gas by keeping the car idling.) After we talked for about 30 min, I did all our grocery shopping and was ready to head home. But my car wouldn't start!!! Thank heavens for my free 3 year/36000mi roadside assistance. The guy was able to come jump my car after about 40 min. Sigh. Not feeling so smug anymore now that I realized what I did just totally drained my battery! Ugh.
4. Rose got to go to a birthday party last weekend at Pump It Up, her absolute favorite place in the whole wide world. We are now prepared for numerous months of her begging for her next birthday party to be there, just as she has done after every other party she's been to at that place. It is like crack for kids, I swear.
5. I read this article in the WSJ a couple weeks ago about "bullet journaling" and now I'm totally addicted. Love the new BuJo I've created! I'm sure Mike has bets in his head about when I'll give this up as yet another organizational fad, but so far I'm loving it.
6. After much internal debate (for four whole days) I decided to spend the bulk of my "birthday money" on new baking supplies. I've made more trips to the Nordic Ware factory store (conveniently located down the street from us) in the past month than I have in the first 13 years that we lived here! I now have some beautiful - and very high quality - 9" cake pans, two bakers half sheets, a sheet cake pan, small and large offset spatulas, silicone mats for the half sheets, and parchment rounds. (Prices are MUCH cheaper at the factory store than on line, particularly if one chooses to purchase the "not quite perfect" versions.) I quickly realized that aluminum scratches VERY easily, but they also bake things evenly, quickly and consistently, so it's a small price to pay. (Note: don't cook acidic or spicy food, or cook at high temperatures, in/with aluminum.)
7. With all my new supplies, we had cake again for dessert tonight! I don't mean to brag or anything, but it was pretty darn good -- lemon cake, raspberry filling (with fresh raspberries from our garden), vanilla buttercream frosting, and candied ginger decoration. YUM.
8. The wall is here! They are making progress on the construction that has been going on outside our house for the past year and a half. I've been so nervous about this huge wall that's been in the works and, well, it IS huge, but it's not as awful as I feared. It will be interesting to see what it's like after it's painted and after highway 7 opens up again.
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| Today. (Use the tree on the right as your reference point for the coming photos.) |
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| One month ago. |
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| Three months ago. |
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| Two years ago. (Look how close the cars were!) |
9. ...and a goofy photo of Rose to close out this long blog post:
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