I have to admit I’m solar-powered. You always wondered why I’m full of enthusiasm and great ideas. Well, that’s my secret. It’s the sun. When the sun goes down so do I. So I get plenty of sleep which is awesome. I’m like Wall-E when I wake up. I have to situate my face so that the sun can fill up my battery reserves and then BVrrroooong! I make that sound a mac makes when it starts up and you forget to turn off the volume before shut down last time (Don’t you hate it when that happens at the library?).

This also goes for my moods. Sunny = Happy. Cloudy = Sad.

It’s great that I live in Southern California where it is sunny 90 percent of the time but when it’s cloudy I suddenly become like the rest of you sad people on anti-depressants and I don’t know what to do with all this gloom! It’s so murky and, and…awful!!! How do you cope?!! How do you get anything done? Ugh. I feel like I’m wearing cement shoes and my arms are stuck to the ground with strings of chewing gum. I just want to go crawl into a hole and die.

This is all not very fantastic when you’re planning a birthday party for a little girl who is turning six and birthday parties are what you are good at. There is no failing at birthday-party-planning in this house. No sadness allowed! We eat obstacles for lunch. Bring on the challenges!!! Fifty people in a small mobile home with muddy feet?! I can do it!!!!

As you can see, my winter-wonderland of backyard fun with stumps for chairs and bedspreads for tents might not be happening. My visions of tulle strung from the trees and girls sipping lemonade is vanishing before my very eyes. All I can see are freezing cold fairies with muddy feet running in and out of my house and tracking mud all over my peach-colored carpet. Which I hate anyway so I guess it’s not that big of a deal but I’m still getting hives over it. Ugh! Mud! Kids! Hyperactivity! The bounce house people won’t deliver the bounce house if it’s going to rain!! What am I going to do?!!!!

There is a thirty-percent chance of rain predicted for Saturday. I know in Portland that would be a perfect day for an outdoor party. You might even throw a pool party on a day like that and wear a bikini but here? We are weeenies! We are freezing our butts off!!! We are seriously shivering and moaning. It’s sad and pathetic and majorly cramping my party-planning style.

Well, until the sun comes out. When the sun shines I can think of all kinds of crazy ideas. I can do this. We can have an indoor party. I am excellent at crafts! But when the sun goes back behind a cloud again I shrivel up. The obstacles! It’s too hard! I just want to cancel the whole thing.

Such crazy talk.

So here’s my plan: The bounce house people said I can decide on the day of the party whether or not to have a bounce house. If it’s raining we’ll just move on. If it’s not really raining we will move the bounce house to the front yard and put it on the driveway where there is no mud. I don’t know where people are going to park but that’s their problem.

Inside: I’m going to move all my furniture to the side and create a big open space in my living room/office. Maybe I’ll talk Toby into letting me borrow the giant heirloom Persian rug that he has rolled up in Bug’s room at his house that is not getting used. He won’t mind too terribly if it gets chocolate cake ground into it, right? Hmmm…that probably won’t fly.

Then I’ll use all that tulle that I was going to put in the trees outside, inside. It will be like prom night! I’ll just hang it from the ceiling from an old hula hoop or something.

I bet you wondered why I have a whole bolt of tulle. That’s a good question. I’m weird. I used to do flowers for weddings back in the 90′s and I had a much bigger budget back then. I guess I just bought a whole bolt of tulle and I still have it to this day. I have a whole shed full of floral supplies leftover from those days. It’s coming in very handy.

So with the tulle and these stars it could be magical, right? Bug and I made silver stars the other day with card stock and glitter. I was going to hang them from the trees outside with my fairy orbs but now I think I’ll just hang them inside. Maybe I’ll get crazy with some sheets and make fairy tents inside too. That will be super fun when the kids pull them down along with the sheetrock from my ceiling. Oh boy.

I wish I had a man around the house who liked to build things. That would be so awesome. I could probably install a giant branch in the middle of my living room and bolt it to the ceiling. The cats would go crazy. (Note to self: If ever dating again make sure to date someone handy.) But I have no man around the house and my dad is working until Saturday so I’ll probably have to scale back my visions. That’s okay. It’s gonna happen. We’ll make it work. It always does.

Ugh. How am I going to make this work? You see this kitchen? Charming you think? Shudder. The wallpaper offends me so badly that I think I’ve blocked it out. It’s like a weird vibration in my head that makes me only see white where the little flowers are. But then I got this idea that I would rip off a part of the wallpaper near the sink. It had some water-staining and was really driving me crazy. I thought I would do what I did in my bedroom and go with the whole I-live-in-a-run-down-Parisian-apartment look where the ripped wallpaper reminds me of an Anthropolgie ad.

It did not work. Now I have a big blank spot over the sink that is still water-stained and your eye is drawn to it because it is NOT wall-papered!!! I might as well install neon signs pointing at all the ugliness. This would not be a big deal if the weather was great. I would just route everybody straight to the backyard and they would avoid the kitchen but now all my guests are going to be filing through my kitchen and silently judging me. I just know it.

If I had a man around the house I would ask him to paint all the wallpaper red for me or maybe pistachio green to match the cupboards. (Boy, don’t I seem like a catch?) I would do it myself except all those shelves would have to be removed (and the screw holes are puddied) and there is this light fixture contraption near the sink that my Grandpa installed that is bent on electrocuting me. I already tried to de-install it once and it zapped and ker-powed at me like a comic book villain. I’ve decided to leave it alone. So I don’t think this kitchen eyesore is going to be magically beautiful before the party. Back to blocking it out.

Did I mention that we went to one of Bug’s friend’s party this last weekend and they had a huge perfect house where they regularly host weddings in their living room? Yeah. No pressure. None at all. How does one go about canceling a party at the last minute again? Can I just board up my house and pretend I don’t live here?

Let’s talk about what is working. The craft ideas for the party are going along swimmingly. I know it’s hard to tell when I’m being sarcastic and when I’m not but here I’m actually happy about something. I decided to use Momfluential’s idea for fairy house kits. All those floral supplies I have on hand totally saved me. I didn’t even have to buy one thing to make all these bags up. It’s kinda scary that I have that much crap on hand but hey, it works out. I get to get rid of a lot of stuff and the kids get make fun fairy house with odd bits and bobs. I hope they are into it. I know I will be. I am all over this kind of craft like a fly on…nevermind. You get the picture. It’s going to be fun.

I think I’ll give each kid a stump disc and maybe some putty to stick things into. I was going to be on glue-gun duty but I decided with thirty-some kids they’d probably all want me to glue something and one of them was bound to get burnt. Since I don’t know every kid as well as I usually do I think I’ll pass on all the possible lawsuits. I think they can manage with sticks and putty and chennile stems and string. It’ll be fun.

The next thing that is working are the fairy drinks. I bought a whole bunch of canning jars and covered the printing on the lid with some silk flowers.

Then I punched a hole through the metal lid with my trusty metal hole-puncher and my super human man-hand strength. Actually, I only did one. It was pretty tough but it can be done. I’m leaving the rest of the lids for Saturday and I’ll let my Dad do it. Or any other random strong person who comes around.

Then I filled the jar with ice, a lemon slice and some delicious homemade lemonade from my backyard. I screwed the lid back on, stuck a pretty striped straw through the hole and presto! A perfect fairy drink!

So I’m making it work. When the sun comes out I’m pretty positive.

I write a lot of reviews these days. It’s a really great way to make some extra money and the products I sign up to review are usually products I don’t mind saying a few good words about. It’s a win-win situation for me and the company I am being paid by. However, lately I’m starting to get peeved at the people who comment on my reviews. Not you guys of course. You are my real readers. You’ve come to know me over the years and you care about me. Some of you comment on my review site and I love that. Your comments are always interesting and unique and most importantly they answer the question I usually pose at the end of my post. But you know what a majority of the comments are? Copied and pasted canned answers from people who don’t read my normal blog or even the post which they are commenting on. This gets my goat.

I know reviews can be boring. I don’t read them very often myself unless the product being reviewed is something that I am already interested in or the blogger who is reviewing them is super funny or interesting. I don’t pretend to be super funny or interesting but I do try to write reviews from my own unique perspective. I do put the work into each review. I don’t copy and paste content or slap one photo up and call it a day.

I also realize that review posts are always contests. There is always incentive to comment and a prize for some lucky commenter. I realize that whenever you attach dollars and prizes to posts then you are going to attract readers that are only there for the prizes and dollars. But here is where I come in and can make a difference. I don’t think it’s fair that people who don’t even bother to read my review posts should be allowed to win the prize. If your comment does not answer my question at the end of my post then I think you should be disqualified.

So here’s my secret to my loyal blog readers: You have an advantage over all those copy-and-paste commenters who are not loyal SAJ fans and don’t know me from Adam. They don’t read my posts. You do. So if you are so inclined, you could win an easy $100 just for paying attention! Go ahead and skim the review if it’s boring. I understand, I do it too, BUT pay attention to the prompting question. Eighty percent of the other commenters are not paying attention and I am going to throw their comments out when I use random number generator to pick a winner.

Speaking of… here’s a review I wrote about V8 V-Fusion + Tea. It’s a surprising little drink that gives you some get-up-and go and tastes good. And guess what? The answer to my prompt question is NOT what your favorite flavor is!

Okay. I’m done ranting.

I sold my big huge Steelcase desk on Etsy the other day and had it shipped to Stockton. Stockton is about 400 miles away. Shipping a hundred pounds of steel is no small feat. Thankfully, the buyer was super nice and happy to pay the exorbitant amount that shipping costs. Still, I was totally overwhelmed. How was I going to get this big honking thing from my house to the Greyhound station?!!

First we had to find a Greyhound station. This scared me because in my personal experience Greyhound stations are always in the bad part of town. I used to ride one from Hayward to Santa Cruz back when I was in college and it was creepy. Drug dealers, prostitutes, homeless people yelling at you, drug addicts…they all seemed to hang out at the Greyhound stations. But that was 1992 and Hayward was the prostitution capital of California back then. I hear it’s really fixed up now.

After I figured out where the Greyhound station was I had to get my desk out of my garage. And guess what? My garage door is broken. We don’t use the garage much because Toby’s old Volkswagen Super Beetle is housed there and it’s dying a horrible sad death because Toby works all the time now and has no time for oil changes or fixing all four flat tires. I don’t know what he plans on doing with his old car but it has sentimental value so we keep it around. Also, I’ve forgotten the combination to the lock on the broken garage door.

Then I had to find a truck to transport the desk to the Greyhound station. Toby’s van was out since he needs it every day for work. I was hoping a neighbor could help me but we couldn’t match up our schedules no matter how hard I tried. It doesn’t help that I’m constantly out of town.

I hemmed and hawed over the whole issue for days. Frankly, it put me in a bad mood. I hate having things like this hanging over my head and I’ve already had one bad experience with Etsy when I didn’t ship something fast enough so this was stressing me out. I decided it was time to call my brother.

You know what’s so great about my brother? He’ll drop everything and come rescue me. It doesn’t matter if what I’m asking him is completely inconvenient and impossible. He always finds a way.

I thought he’d drive his big old red truck but that truck isn’t insured right now and it doesn’t have registration. Also, his fuel pump went out. This is par for the course for my brother though. He’s a mechanic who likes to collect automobiles with challenges. Next he was going to drive my sister-in-law CC‘s new jeep but it was missing a part. So what does he do? He finds the part and puts the jeep back together. He borrowed a trailer from a friend and was off to my house four hours later.

I was prepared for the whole thing to fall through. There were so many obstacles. Not to mention, my life seems to be a comedy of errors these days. I tried to keep calm and carry on. Amazingly my brother and CC showed up and helped me get the desk out of my garage. (Toby remembered the combination!) Then we were off to the Greyhound station in a mad rush to make it before the bus left at 5pm. But there was traffic of course. Traffic traffic traffic.

I was so worried that we’d miss the bus and then have to do the whole thing all over again. It turns out my worries were needless though because Greyhound is pretty accommodating. If I missed that bus they’d just put it on the next. In fact, they’ll keep your furniture around for days for you. However, the desk had to be packed in cardboard because it’s in parts and the sharp edges would be a danger to other luggage during the trip. And of course the guy who packs things was not there.

So we left my desk at the Greyhound station and I came back the next morning by myself to take care of the matter. The next morning the very nice packing man was there but he charged $80 to pack it which was about $70 more than I had. I don’t know why I thought he could do it for ten bucks. I guess I’m just really dumb when it comes to shipping giant metal desks.

I made a phone call to the buyer and negotiated a bit with the packing guy. We figured out it would be cheaper if the desk was put together. My only problem was I had no way to put the desk together. I wish I kept a toolbox in my trunk but I don’t. I should also mention that I had Bug in tow. She has been extremely whiny and high-maintenance lately AND I was supposed to be at my mom’s by noon to have lunch with my Grandpa who thinks I’m mad at him if I don’t visit him regularly. Whatever, though, right? This kind of stress is just normal.

I didn’t know what to do. If I couldn’t get the desk put together would I have to call my brother and pick it back up again? The packing guy said I could borrow his screwdriver but the thought of wielding a 100 pound desk around an unfamiliar space while keeping a whiny four-year-old occupied seemed incredibly daunting. I was starting to think I should just cut my losses and leave the desk to rot at Greyhound. I’d refund the money to the buyer and just walk away…but that wasn’t a very good solution either because I love my old desk. I want it to go to a happy home!

I think the packing guy felt sorry for me because after a few minutes of me fretting he offered to put the desk together for me and pack it for only $55. Of course I only had $10 but that was quickly solved by a quick trip to an automatic teller machine in the lobby. I took out $60 and gave him the extra $5 for a tip. I wish I could have given him a twenty but I’m already losing money on this transaction and I couldn’t justify taking more money out of my already anorexic bank account.

And then I walked away. Part of me is still worrying about that silly desk. What if a screw was missing? I thought I had them all in a baggie taped inside the drawer but I didn’t take the time to double check. I just hope it gets to the buyer in one piece and I can finally take a great big sigh of relief.

BUT what I really wanted to blog about was the ride in the jeep to the Greyhound station! I was going to scrap this whole long complaining post but Bethany (my personal editor and friend) read it and told me it was worth keeping. So what I really wanted to say is: Riding in a Jeep with no windows is quite exhilarating and windy!

And hats are good!

Do you know what bad days are good for? For cutting your hair, that’s what. I know. I know. I know. I can see you shaking your head in disapproval but before you launch into a lecture about doing things in haste that I’ll regret later, let me share with you that my original idea of a haircut was for my whole head. I showed some restraint. I only hacked off my long flowing (in the wind) side-swept bangs.

It was so windy today. Bug and I went to the mall (not to buy things of course but to admire the koi pond and otherwise waste time) and my stupid bangs were blowing all over the place. Most of the time they were floating above my head four inches high. I am so so so sick of these stupid bangs. When I am home, I cannot stand them touching my forehead and falling into my eyes so I pull them back out of my face with a big fat clip or a bobby pin. Unfortunately, I am not one of those cute girls for whom this is a good look. I’m embarrassed even for Toby to see me but sometimes you just have to get the dishes done, you know?

So after admiring mannequin after mannequin, and skinny OC housewife after skinny OC housewife…all flaunting their blunt-cut looks so chic and suave, I decided to throw my rebellion against this trend TO THE WIND! and just embrace it. My hair was meant to be cut this way. I have two cowlicks at the back of my head that force all of my hair to grow forward onto my face. I might as well just get a bowl, cut it and be done with it.

Now, I realize this is probably not the best look for me and my crazy face. (Yes, I do think one of my eyes is upside down.) As you know, I don’t color my hair and I have quite a few wiry grays. Sometimes I think my hair looks like a broom. You might as well just flip me over and sweep up those crumbs. The doll-face look might be hideous on me. But I just don’t care any more! At least not today. I’ll probably regret it for the next three months that it takes to grow out but today I am happy and carefree! Not a single strand of hair is in my eyes or tickling my nose and it feels GOOD!!!

Do you hear that wind? I said, bring it!

Oh how I love Spring!

Good thing I’m the boss here at Lemon Week SAJ because anybody else would be FIRED! So it’s day two…sort of. I didn’t say I’d do all the days in a row! Whatever, right? Just write something already.

So far we’ve made lemon scones, lemonade, a vodka drink for me (that I called SAJ-quil because I was fighting an irritating cold that I am now over) and Lemon Bars!

I love LOVE lemon bars. It’s really bad. I inherited this love of lemon and sugar and butter from my mom and now just like my mom, I find myself battling extra pounds on my body that make me less lithe than I’d like to be. Dumb genetics! I shouldn’t have made the lemon bars because it is next to impossible for me to walk by the refrigerator door without hearing those little bars screaming for me.

Shut up! Lemon bars, shut up!!!!! (I can hear them all the way from my seat at the table.) I am so taking them to a friend’s house and leaving them there. Ack.

Weight schmeight. (My attitude becomes me, I know.) In my book, you can’t have a lemon week without lemon bars so here I am introducing them to Bug just like my mom introduced them to me. Hopefully, Bug takes after her dad and doesn’t inherit my thunder thighs or my incredible lack of willpower.

Bug loves to cook with me in the kitchen, the poor kid. She also has to put up with my harebrained method of recipe-reading that involves frantic number-checking and re-checking and then weeping and wailing because I cannot read a recipe from top to bottom in order without skimming or leaving out major parts.

I’ve always thought I was retarded because I cannot keep numbers in my head longer than a butterfly sneeze. I’ll read 1 1/2 cups and then by the time I walk from the cookbook back to my mixing bowl, I’ve forgotten whether it was 1/2 or 1 1/2. I know most of you will laugh at me but this is a serious problem for me when it comes to baking. In fact, this is why I don’t bake usually. It’s way too much work for me. You should see me racing back and forth across my kitchen trying to put together a list of three ingredients. It’s insane. And then sometimes I mix up teaspoons with tablespoons and you can see why things don’t always come out right.

I’ve self-diagnosed myself with dyscalculia, which is sort of like dyslexia but with numbers instead of letters. I’ve always hated math ever since I was forced to play “math baseball” in second grade. I remember I practically peed myself in fear as I stood at the blackboard staring at the squiggles while the class shouted at me to add or subtract. I’ve managed through the years, figuring out ways of counting on my fingers secretly or making up complicated dot patterns. But recently with motherhood it’s gotten worse. Sometimes when I’m at the bank, I have to write my account number three times before I get it right. It can be pretty embarrassing.

Anyway, this is not a moan-fest about how much I hate math. I just wanted to include that so you can see why baking is extra fun for me. I can design notecards and web banners and even packaging while using a ruler and fractions and picas just fine but for some reason when I’m in the kitchen, I get struck with major anxiety about reading numbers or just plain reading. It’s weird.

I mostly wrote all those words about math anxiety and dyscalculia so that you don’t laugh when I tell you that I misread the lemon bar recipe (thanks Calee for the link!) and somehow couldn’t figure out how to make the shortbread crust that goes under the lemon bars. I thought it wasn’t included in the recipe so I found another recipe online and used that. But it wasn’t enough so I had to make two batches. Amazingly, it all turned out fine. I don’t know how but it did. I guess shortbread crusts are indestructible.

But because of my crazy-making recipe reading, Bug had to wait quite a bit between the crust-making and the lemon-bar-mix—making which is fine. Patience is a virtue right?

The lemon bars were divine.

Me and my many chins enjoyed them mightily.

A trip to Bethany’s isn’t complete if I haven’t broken out the box cutter a few times and showed some cardboard who’s boss. So when I discovered that Christmas Eve is actually tomorrow and not today (How did I get that mixed up?), I decided I needed to make some cardboard Christmas trees STAT.

However, cardboard is not so abundant around Bethany’s house as it used to be. I poked around her garage and found the old exercise equipment box but I already hacked that thing to shreds last time I was here. None of the pieces were nearly big enough for my grand plan. I had a Christmas tree LOT on the brain.

I shoved my cardboard Christmas tree idea into the back of my head until later in the week when I just happened to be at the craft store buying supplies for my mystery Alpha Mom craft (which posts Thursday). NO, I didn’t buy cardboard. Who do you think I am? That’s just silliness. I drove around to the back of the store where they keep the dumpsters full of cardboard and swiped a mother-load of flattened boxes for FREE!!! If only my little hatchback trunk was bigger. There were so many boxes back there I could have built a whole cardboard city!

And you know I would if I just had the time.

After the cardboard was successfully transported back to Bethany’s (no small feat) and sliced and diced into stand-up trees, I whipped out some silver spray paint (that I just happened to have on hand for my mystery craft) and sprayed those puppies silver.

Silver spray paint is awesome! Now I know why those grandmotherly plastic flower-arranging types spray paint their flowers silver! It might look cheesy but it is SO EASY and SO SATISFYING!!! This paint is a dream. I don’t remember what kind I bought but I’ll go check later and link it here. It goes on smooth and dries in seconds!!! It was so fun to paint, I found myself eyeballing Bethany’s patio furniture and wondering how she might feel about a metallic theme.

Waiting for paint to dry is my least favorite pastime. Right up there with waiting for glue to dry. Which brings me to a big thorn in my side. Glue! Oh glorious and stupid glue! Why are you so tricky? I have spent way too much time in my life trying to figure out what is the best glue for which craft.

I would say hands-down that a glue gun is the BEST and most AWESOME glue and should be used for ALL crafts except for the part about the burning and not being very kid-friendly. Stupid glue gun. Why do you have to be so hot like that? And no, cool glue guns are not as good. Trust me.

After the trees were all painted and looking pretty in a row, I decided I’d glue some opalescent sequins to them for a Christmassy flair. I reached into my handy dandy craft box and pulled out the white school glue that I had bought at the grocery store the night before.

And now I know why the store brand glue was so much cheaper than the name brand glue. GROAN! What a mess! It was completely separated into two parts!!! Some kind of nearly clear water on the top and thick white paste on the bottom. What the?!! I guess glue isn’t a top seller at the grocery store.

I was so mad. I shook and shook that glue but it would not mix up. Then I squirted off a good bit of the oily part into Bethany’s flower garden (sorry gardeners, I think it’s biodegradable..er, um…) and tried to glue with milky mixture that was left. It did not work.

White glue dries slow enough as it is but when it’s separated like Italian salad dressing, there is no hope. Those sequins slipped and slid all over the place and no matter how long I left them out in the not-so-sunny sunshine they would not stick! Stupid glue!!! I may have shouted more than once for the nice neighbors to hear.

Then I tried to wipe off the watery glue and start over and that ruined my beautiful perfect silver paint job that I was so in love with!!! BAH! In the end the best glue was some glitter glue that I found in a drawer of Annalie’s art supplies.

It’s by far the quickest at sticking and it isn’t too terribly messy for kids to use. Plus, it sparkles! Win win! That stupid grocery store crap can go hide in some smelly old back room next to the trash compactor as far as I’m concerned. It’s completely useless. Maybe the gardeners will discover it makes a great fertilizer. Pfft.

Anyway, the trees are done and they look pretty cool in Bethany’s window. She has such a great view.

Just don’t look too closely at the sequins that are only glued to one side.

It’s good to be home. I could moan and complain about how I don’t have a dishwasher or a washing machine or even air conditioning and how much I’m going to miss all those lovely things during this long hot dirty summer now that I’m back to my humble apartment with horrible carpeting BUT life is not so bad, you know?

Toby is a bit of a lecturer with me. I don’t know if it is because he’s six years older than I am and much wiser or if he just likes to hear himself talk. Sometimes I think the latter, but at least he likes to talk to me, right? He has a lot of good things to say that have really helped me grow up. I must add that I am one of those people who always feels profoundly young. Not in the youthful, picture-of-health way but more in the I-was-born-yesterday-and-I-feel-like-I-have-no-clue-what’s-going-on way. And amazingly, some of his lectures sink in.

Appreciating what I have and making the best of it is one of the things Toby has taught me.

First a little history: When we first got married both of us cooked. We took turns and made a lot of cheesy quesadillas in the microwave. We had “Fend-For-Yourself Nights”. It worked and we got by. Then Toby quit his old job to become a successful and very busy photographer. We still did things jointly. Toby is a great cook so it was fun.

Many years later I decided I wanted to taste the luxury of being a freelancer too. Why does he get to stay home all day and work? I thought. Unfortunately, my business didn’t quite take off as quickly as his did. I had a lot of down time between jobs and I wasn’t making enough money to pay my half of the bills so I started doing all the cooking to make up for my lack of contribution. Toby was busy. I needed to support him this way.

Mind you, I hate cooking. I’m just no good at it. I’m not terrible. I’m just not one of those creative types who likes to invent things in the kitchen. I invent cooking disasters and channel my creativity everywhere else. I have no brain for chemistry and I have never understood the beauty of a white sauce. Sauce schmauce. If you have to eat goopy stuff, I say, go out to eat!

But sadly, Toby is one of those freaks who doesn’t like to eat in restaurants. He thinks about germs too much and doesn’t enjoy eating with the general public. Mostly, I think he just thinks that food tastes better at home. He might be right.

Slowly over the years I have acquired a small list of recipes that I can do well. There are about ten of them. They get us by. I read a lot of foodie blogs and I keep hoping some of their enthusiasm and creativity in the kitchen will wear off on me but they haven’t. Cooking is still a chore.

So what does Toby have to do with that? Well, he still thinks I should cook every night even if my cooking is not the greatest. I know, what a slave-driver, right? But I agree with him. Restaurants can be pricey and I don’t really need the hidden calories. I also have the luxury of staying home and not working so part of my job is to run the household and make the food. Sometimes I feel like all I do around here is make the food but it can get sort of zen-like after awhile if I psych myself up enough. It’s a process. It’s something I do because I love my family.

I’m getting so terribly far away from my point but my point is this: Toby said something a while back in one of his lectures about the housing crash (his favorite topic) that made me think. He said people can become accustomed to anything. This can be really bad like prisoners becoming accustomed to torture in concentration camps, or it can be sort of bad like working every second of the day to pay off a miserable mortgage, or it can be good like exercising regularly. It might suck in the beginning but over enough time you will learn to think of your circumstances as normal. And in the end, you might even learn to love what you have suffered for.

Now this is extremely true for me in two things: Breastfeeding and cooking every night. I am SO PROUD of those two achievements. I will sing my own praises from the mountaintops and not even care how dumb I might sound because I am so amazed at my own hard work. It’s true.

I HATED hated HATED breastfeeding. It hurt, it caused immense anxiety and it didn’t work very well. My baby didn’t even seem interested half the time, there were problems galore and I cried and cried and cried…but I did it. Toby forced me to, really. No, he didn’t hold me down and physically force me to wake up in the middle of the night to feed my child, but his opinion on these matters means a lot to me. He felt it was best for our baby, and in the end, months and months later, I finally agreed with him. And now, I’m one of those moms who would recommend it highly. I’m not going to become a Nazi lactation nurse but I will say, where there is a will there is a way. It’s just a long way sometimes.

The same is true for cooking. I still don’t love it and I really really love just getting a cheeseburger now and then BUT I’m proud that my family eats at home every night. When I hang out with my extended family and they turn to fast food because they haven’t planned out a weekly meal, you should hear how irritating I can be because I think my own meal-planning skills are the greatest thing ever. Of course, I’m just as guilty of drowining my hunger in a bag of french fries as the next person, but I’m a solid believer in putting out the effort to think ahead and NOT getting caught in the I’m-starving-there’s-nothing-to-cook-let’s-just-go-out-to-eat trap.

Have I ranted enough?

I guess my big point about all this writing is that even though my life at home can seem like the pits compared to staying at Bethany‘s beautiful five-star resort (where I have the freedom to eat Trader Joe’s nuts all day long or spend the day painting and then hop off to the local food court for some yummy Indian food…) home is not really that bad. I do like my home. I do like working hard to keep my family fed and clean and sweaty.

Wait, that part doesn’t fit but you know what I mean. We don’t have air conditioning here but lots of people don’t. You can get used to it. Beautiful Parisian women go home to their sweaty apartments in Paris too. They probably walk their pretty bare feet over ugly carpet and they might even stick their head in the freezer just to cool off sometimes.

Anyone can become accustomed to anything. Just like I could easily become accustomed to a five-star resort and expect it. With enough hard work and willpower, I will be proud of my little life in this shabby apartment. We live at the beach, after all! I get to stay home with my daughter. We’re doing without the luxuries so that someday we can afford them debt-free. (Hopefully before we reach retirement.) I am blessed.

So when I got home I took photos of this life that is my home. I am determined to find the beauty in this life. I will take photos of my dirty carpet (and photoshop the stains out) and you will see the happiness here and not the dirt.

Because it’s my home. Home sweet home.

Home again, home again. Poor Toby, he’s been eating leftovers for a week. I’ve spoiled him over the years and even though he’s a perfectly good cook, he never cooks for himself anymore. Even when he’s starving. You could say I have job security. He missed his girls. So we’re back and I’m up to my ears in household chores. Which is fine. Them’s the breaks.

When we got home yesterday I wasted all day doing I have no idea what. Probably forgetting that I have a job and that job is to run the household or something like that. So suddenly when it was time for dinner, I was nowhere near ready and we had a fun Flashlight Easter Egg Hunt Carnival to go to in about five minutes.

I stressed about it for two minutes, tried to call Toby for the other three and then just jumped in the car leaving him a scrawled note about a frozen pot pie in the freezer. I knew he would be bummed but you only get to go to a few flashlight Easter egg hunts in your life before the fun of it wears off.

Bug wore her hand-me-down dinosaur costume with some bunny ears stuck on her head. I know it’s not very Easter-y but I thought she looked adorable. She seemed to be into it too. I thought it was a great outfit until we were at the carnival and some little girl screwed up her face into a scowl and said, “You don’t look like a bunny.”

Bug took the insult in stride, like kids will do when they don’t quite understand the cattiness that we adults layer onto a sentence like that. The little girl was only stating the obvious. But I have to admit that a small part of me wanted to smack the little girl into next Tuesday and the other part of me wanted to run home and dress Bug in something more “normal.” What was I thinking dressing her up as a dinosaur for Easter?!!

Oh yeah. I was thinking of the cute photos I would take. Or NOT take because we got to the carnival so late because I got lost. We completely missed the flashlight Easter egg hunt because I couldn’t find the park. I have been looking at the sign for the carnival all month but never actually got around to googling the park address. I thought I knew where it was but after a half an hour of driving down the street that had the same name as the park and not finding said park, I finally had to call up my mom in tears. It turned out the park was in Irvine which is the kiss of death when you are trying to get anywhere on time.

I swear stoplights in Irvine are timed to be five minutes longer than normal stoplights. You will sit at an intersection for what seems like forever, strumming your fingers madly on your steering wheel, while nothing but space and birds fly by. No cars. Just space. Then finally when a car comes from the opposite direction, then the stoplight will stop them and let you go. I think the city engineers are down in some basement lab playing video games with my life. They jump and shout for joy when they can keep me from going across town in less than ten minutes. I hate Irvine.

Sorry. Rant over.

So anyway the Easter picture! Ha ha. This photo cost me five bucks. It also shortened my life by five years. I wasn’t going to pay for a silly Easter Bunny photo but after we missed the flashlight hunt I felt really bad for Bug. All the other kids were carrying their baskets filled with eggs and she had nothing. The goodie bag station was shut down and all the rides were either for big kids or had lines a mile long. She really wanted to hug the Easter Bunny so I caved.

While most kids would be afraid of such an evil looking rabbit, Bug loved her. She marched up and happily sat on her lap. I took the photo you see and the carnival photographer took another. Then we waited around for our photo. It wasn’t done so we found something else to do. We made bunny masks and tried some blue cotton candy (which I’m happy to say Bug did not like…it tasted like stale bubble gum).

When we came back, the photo was still not ready. We wasted another half an hour milling around. Still not ready. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Nine-o-clock rolled around and the photo was still not ready. By that time my poor Dinosaur Bunny was starting to nod, my arms were tired from holding her, my feet were frozen and my eyeballs were giving away my inner rage by bulging out of my head.

I knew that the photo was NOT worth waiting around that long for but I had spent FIVE dollars on it. FIVE DOLLARS! I was so mad at myself. Why am I so dumb about things like this? I should have walked away but every time I asked them how much longer it would be, they promised me that my photo was only five minutes away.

I should have asked for my money back but the girls operating the ink jets were only high school volunteers and they couldn’t help the fact that earlier in the night someone had tripped over the electrical cord running the printers. Part of me just felt bad for them. I remember being that age and having customers irate with me.

Finally the photo spit itself out and it looked like crap. Of course! All I can say is that next year we will get there early, park closer and leave before it gets dark. Also, I’ll make dinner plans. Like maybe a pizza and a cocktail.

*first photo is my final photo for 7days. Farewell 7days! See you in the summer!

You know that list you have in your head of things you want to do before you die? I have one of those lists. It has silly things on it like “work at Starbucks and learn all their evil secrets” and “make a patchwork quilt by hand” and big ones like “have an art gallery opening with wine and cheese” and “illustrate a children’s book from start to finish.” Things like that. I’m working on my list. I’ve crossed off a few. There was the time I made a pie crust from scratch and I did have an art gallery opening that one summer that went to the dogs.

Yesterday, I decided to finally cross off the “make a cake from scratch” item. I’ve had enough of the taunting from my foodie friends who say cake mixes are for weenies. I don’t love baking but I do cook dinner every night. It’s not like I’m a stranger in the kitchen. Sheesh! It’s the only room I can call my own anymore! Which does not please me, believe me. I HATE cooking.

But how hard can a cake be, right? How dumb can I be?

Apparently very dumb. I cracked open a few cookbooks and was immediately stumbled by things like this:

Cake flour.

What is cake flour? I have wheat flour and regular flour but where am I supposed to get cake flour? And then after I’m done making this cake, what am I supposed to do with the leftover cake flour? It’s probably just going to take up valuable space in my pantry and get bugs. Phooey!

Double-acting Baking Powder.

What?!!! There is more than one kind of baking powder? The half empty can in my cupboard that has been there for the last five years won’t work?

Extra-fine sugar.

Huh? I have sugar in the raw, powdered sugar, brown sugar, sugar cubes and regular old white sugar but I don’t have anything called extra-fine. Am I going to have to mill my sugar with my make-shift mortar and pestle (which is really just a bowl and a glass cup)?!!!

These are the kinds of things that intimidate me and send me off to my laptop with my tail between my legs. I know all you bakers are shaking your heads because you know this stuff by heart but to me it’s as crippling as learning another language! Good thing I have cake-baking friends standing by on instant messenger.

To be honest it wasn’t all the foreign ingredients that were crippling me. I was having a bad day to start with. It was a day that can only be summed up by saying that I have a three-year-old underfoot who rambles on at the mouth incessantly. I couldn’t even read a recipe from start to finish without an interruption every five seconds. I was on edge to say the least.

But I’m stubborn. I really wanted to cross that cake off my list and I’ve also determined that the only way my three-year-old is ever going to learn to play by herself and leave me alone is if I ignore her. This is a battle I must fight for both our sakes.

I tried to involve Bug in the cake-making process as much as I could and I’m sure she was having fun “helping” but it was an uphill battle. I’m not even sure I won the battle. I snapped at her. I got frustrated. I slunk into the other room to have a mini-cry fest. Baking a cake should not be this hard! Yet I wasn’t about to use up her precious 1.25-hour naptime on baking. That time is for ME AND MY LAPTOP!!!

Things got a lot better after I melted some butter and added the cocoa powder. I was beginning to think that maybe I can do this after all. It smelled divine. Chooooocklate…….buuuuutttter…….mmmmmmm… The batter went together smoothly enough and everything looked great as I poured it into my cake pans.

Isn’t it cool that I actually have cake pans? I decided to skip the jelly roll pan that the recipe called for and use my fancy-dancy cake pans instead. I’m living dangerously! I didn’t grease the pans because the recipe didn’t say to. I figured there must be enough butter in the mix. Truthfully, I didn’t really even think about it. Greasing pans isn’t top of mind for me.

It wasn’t until I tried to flip the cakes out of their pans and they didn’t budge that I suddenly remembered that there is some rule about this. Maybe I should have consulted with someone before I switched up the pans. Lesson LEARNED. Cakes in pan 1: Brenda 0. Stupid baking.

Thankfully by some miracle (and perhaps the heart-attack inducing amounts of butter in the recipe), I was able to knife around the edges of the pan and wiggle the cakes out with only tiny little mini-cracks around the edges. The cakes stayed intact. Hallelujah!

The only thing left to do was ice the cakes and stack them! I didn’t care about making homemade icing because that is not one of the items on my list. I’ve made homemade icing before and it was nothing to write home about. I had some tub icing in my pantry fromfouryearsagobutit’stotallyokay and that was fine with me. I slopped it on, put the cakes together and just as I was spreading around the top layer of icing suddenly…

The cake cracked open and swallowed me up!!!! Seriously! LOOK AT THAT CRACK! It’s like the Grand Canyon! If you look closely you can see tiny little people in rubber rafts floating down the Colorado. I hope they’re enjoying themselves because I’M NOT! SchmickenSchmackenStupidCake!

So I twittered it and took comfort in the fact that at least a few people might have some fun laughing at me. Ugh. I also remembered that even real bakers have cracks like this and they just cover them up with icing.

So I did and it looked fine. Pretty, in fact, if I do say so myself. Never mind that the cake is trying to creep off the plate and hide behind the microwave. I have WON the cake battle. Take that you stupid cake. You better taste good.

And it did. I think. I don’t know. I guess I was expecting Toby to fall all over himself telling me how delicious it was. I daydreamed that it would be so good that he would rush out and buy me a complete new set of pans and a red KitchenAid mixer because I deserve them. Or something.

But Toby didn’t really care. He’s just not that into cakes. I think he tried to go through the motions of spending time with us and appreciating that we did all this for his birthday (that was SEVEN days ago) but truthfully he hates birthdays. I for some reason cannot get it through my head that it would all just be fine if we did nothing for his birthday. We could do laundry on his birthday and he’d be just as happy.

Poor guy. I don’t mean to make him out to be the bad guy. This is just a lesson to me (and maybe every other wife out there who has high hopes) that husbands do not change. You can’t force them to be excited about things that they aren’t. He tried, he really did. But I have truth goggles and I went to bed sad that I had put out so much effort and snapped so many times at Bug. Was it worth it? Did it taste better than a $1.98 cake mix? I don’t know.

I have some satisfaction that I did it and I can cross it off my list. I think if everyone raved about it, I could see myself baking this recipe over and over until I knew it by heart. Maybe it would be one of those things that I would pass on to Bug and she would remember fondly of us cooking together…maybe.

Or maybe I’m just over it.