01Oct
And the winner is…
Congratulations, Sarah! Carly from Beba Bean will be in touch with you regarding your gift certificate. And just for everyone’s peace of mind, Sarah was chosen by random selection. See?
Don’t forget that just by leaving your email address and comment, you were registered for a 10% off coupon to Beba Bean. YAY! Everyone gets to play! The Beba Bean team will get the coupon codes to you all via email.
Once again, I’d like to give a big shout out to Carly at Beba Bean for her thoughtfulness. Thanks also to the entire team at Beba Bean for sponsoring this super funny giveaway.
Have a great weekend!
01Oct
I don’t know about you, but this has been one of the longest weeks of my life. By Monday night, I felt like this:
By Tuesday night, I felt like this:
By Wednesday night, I felt like this:
(I let my hair down on Wednesday…)
And by Thursday night I felt like this:
No real reason. Its just been looooong. Every single morning this week I considered calling in to work and staying in bed all day. And every single morning Beanie woke up at 6:00 AM. And if you’re gonna wake up, you might as well go to work, you know?
But it was a battle, let me tell you.
So on this Friday I am a little spent. A little slow. A little sluggish. And when I’m in these moods, I really just need someone to think for me, you know? To make my decisions and tell me what I need to do. My brain is sitting on some beach somewhere, so I really need direction in my life. Because, in this condition, I should not be making decisions on my own.
If you find yourself in that same state of mind today, then allow me to provide thoughtless, mindless, brainless activities for you to do today. Oh, and did I mention that they all center around me?
I’m self centered. Most bloggers are.
FUN THINGS (that revolve around Katie) TO DO ON A FRIDAY:
1. Vote for my blog over at thebump.com. I’m being nominated in the Best Mommy Blogger category. If I should win, my first act as Best Mommy Blogger will be to ban the term Mommy Blogger. Thank you.
2. Join the Marriage Confessions Group on Facebook. Be the first to know about giveaways and fun posts. You also get to see random pictures of me and the Bean while we sit at the computer taking pictures of ourselves. Join! All the cool kids are doing it.
3. After you join the MC Group on Facebook, be sure to upload your picture to the group photo page. I love seeing who you guys are. So far I’ve only had eight people upload their pictures, so will my ninth reader please post their picture already? There’s been some confusion over how to post pictures. That confusion probably stems from the fact that I accidentally deleted the “Upload Photos” button. Its kinda funky how you do it, but here are the instructions.
- From the fan page, click PHOTOS at the top
- Open a Fan Picture at the bottom of the next page (any picture, it doesn’t matter)
- Click SEE ALL PHOTOS at the top of the page with the picture
- You should now see an ADD PHOTOS button at the top of the next page
- Facebook will walk you through the rest
4. Follow me on Twitter. I love to chat with people through Twitter. Much easier than chatting through the blog.
5. Check out Chris’ latest post in The Man Cave on how he’s married to such a dirt bag. While I would like to defend myself, I have no argument. I yam what I yam. And I yam a dirt bag.
6. Don’t forget to sign up to win a $100 gift certificate to HomeGoods on Marriage Confessions Reviews. The giveaway ends October 14.
Alright. I’m out of ideas so I will now crawl back under my desk and finish my nap. If my boss is looking for me, please tell him that I have moved. To Philadelphia. To eat cheesesteaks. Yeah, that’ll fool him…
03Oct
Guess who finally found her way home….
BAILEY BOO!!!!
Early this morning, a lovely, kind, Heaven-sent couple in Pennsylvania woke up to find Miss Bailey sitting on their back porch. She was still wearing her tags, so they called my friends, Jon and Sarah, and said the sweetest words to any dog owner: “We found your dog.”
Thanks to everyone who made a phone call, posted a picture on Facebook, sent out an email, and – most importantly – said a prayer. Bailey is coming home today to one happy family!
Isn’t it great when stories have happy endings?
04Oct
Have you ever visited The Bakerella‘s website? No? Well, what are you waiting for? To say Bakerella is just a baker is like saying that Pavaratti was just a singer. That Target is just a store. That Oklahoma! is just a musical.
Bakerella is a such an effortlessly wonderful baker that she makes me think I, too, am an effortlessly wonderful baker. So on Saturday I went to Michael’s to gather all the supplies I’d need to attempt Bakerella’s cake pops. I wanted to make pumpkin cake pops. So festive and they really seemed so easy.
Beanie and I first cleaned the kitchen together so that we had a clear work surface. Chris faked a massive heart attack when he saw me actually cleaning, but I told him not to be such a smart ass and so he hid out in the backyard for the rest of the day.
I only call someone a smart ass when I’ve got on my serious pants. And Chris is scared of me when I’m wearing my serious pants.
I asked Bean if he was ready to work some cake pop magic. He assured me that he was wearing his serious pants, too, and he was up to the challenge. And then he called me a smart ass and so we had to take a time out and talk about our language.
After that, I was ready. The cake pops start out by baking a box cake mix. Whenever a recipe’s first step is a box cake mix, I feel really good because I can actually make a cake from a cake box mix. This usually makes me think that I can make whatever comes next in the recipe because I’ve already made a cake. But I’ve really only made a box cake.
Its a false sense of accomplishment. And I blame Bakerella.
The most fun part of the recipe comes next. You take your beautiful box cake and you crumble it up in a mixing bowl. And it looks like this when you’re done…
Well, actually. Yours will have about twice this much crumbled cake because I ate half the cake as I crumbled it.
Once the cake is crumbled, the fun really starts. You take one tub of cream cheese frosting…
And mix it up with the crumbled cake.
The good news is that since I ate half of the crumbled cake, I had to eat half the tub of icing, too. Otherwise the proportions will be off. And a good baker sticks with correct proportions. And I’m nothing if I’m not a good baker.
And P.S. I eat icing right out of the tub. Sometimes with a spoon. Sometimes without.
When you’ve added the frosting to the crumbled cake, you roll up your sleeves and start mushing it all together.
TWO IMPORTANT WARNINGS:
Warning #1:Â This is incredibly messy and your hands will feel disgusting.
Warning #2: You will eat half of the crumbled cake/icing mixture as you mush. Better have a big glass of milk on hand.
Once its all mixed together into a mushy pile of heavenly goodness, I suggest you take a minute (or 47) to clean your work station. This should include digging chocolate cake mush out from under your fingernails.
I wonder how many hours of her life Bakerella has spent digging cake out from under her fingernails. And I wonder how many cakes you could make from all the cake under her fingernails? These are the thoughts that fill my day.
BACK TO THE MUSHY PILE OF HEAVENLY GOODNESS…
You then take the mush and start rolling it into little balls. I was all over this because this step is just like when I make Chris’ favorite cookie. Its so freaking messy and your hands get every more disgusting. I did discover that if your hands were a little damp, the mush didn’t stick to them quite as bad. But I never did figure out how to keep my face mush-free when I stuck it down in the bowl for a little snack. I’ll get back to you on that.
Once all the balls have been rolled, you take your little lollipop sticks from your lollipop-making kit from Michaels….
…You then take the lollipop sticks and stick them into the balls. Now you have cake pops!
Now you put your cake pops into the fridge so they can get good and strong and firm. Because the NEXT step is to coat them in candy.
After I put my pops into the fridge to firm up, I checked in with my sous chef. Beanie had set up shop in his high chair. As a sous chef, his responsibilities are super important. He has to chew on his freaky rattle with the balls on its head. He has to try to get his feet in his mouth with the high chair tray in his way. He has to blow raspberries. I mean, its a tough life for a sous chef.
With my sous chef taken care of, I turned to the candy coating for my cake pops. They are made by melting these candy chips down over a double boiler.
(Dear Bakerella – In your recipe for these cake pops, could you please explain how to use a double boiler? I did not know what a double boiler was or how to use it. This resulted in Chris trying to tell me how to do it. Which further resulted in me trying to kill him. At the last minute, I decided there would be less legal mumbo jumbo if I just kicked him out of my kitchen. In short, it would benefit my marriage if you just included the double boiler instructions in your recipe. Thanks.)
This is the point in my story where the poo hits the fan.
I take my cake pops out of the fridge. I take my first pop and begin to roll it around in the melted candy. Only, it didn’t work like I expected it to. The chocolate was too thick and the pops weren’t firm enough. The cake pops fell apart in the chocolate.
Then I cried.
Then I picked up another cake pop and tried again. Same thing happened.
And then I cried some more.
Now, lets all take just a moment and bow our reads in silence over the half a dozen cake pops that were sacrificed this afternoon.
We lost a lot of good pops today. But I’m not giving up. I will stay the course. I will persevere. I will conquer the cake pops.
This is not The End.
This is to be continued…
