thehappycat.net

Current Mood: Excited

My semi-punky version of Raggedy Ann…

This was a useful class. Gave me lots of ideas on how to approach the things I am actually interested in making. Maybe I’ll have time to make something for the 4th but I’m not sure yet. I have at least 3 designs I want to try, all are kinda gimpy but gotta start somewhere!

/sigh it’s only Wednesday… the long weekend is taunting me by taking its time getting here. So ready for a 3 day weekend! So ready for sleeping in a bit. I still haven’t recovered from last weekend since it was jam packed then Monday night required frantic baking and Tuesday was the class. Wouldn’t trade it tho, it’s been the best few weeks ever as far as I’m concerned. One day of sleeping past 5:30am tho and I’ll be all dandy tho!

Not sure if a run is in the cards tonight. I really want to go but I am lacking energy and my legs are a little sore feeling for some reason. Actually they feel more fatigued than sore. We’ll see how the day goes. I’m also in dire need of hitting the store. The only food I have in my place is cake making stuff currently. That was a depressing discovery at 10pm last night. Even cake supplies are low! One lone egg is sitting in the fridge contemplating its fate. I am planning on test poaching it since I’ve never done that before.

Those cinnamon rolls I have been wanting to make may have some potential to be made finally this weekend!

Oh weekend, how I’m looking forward to your arrival.

Current Mood: Happy & Tired

B took me shooting this weekend… I was fun! Took me a decent amount of time to even start to feel comfortable tho. I was like shaking awhile after each shot I took. So there were lots of breaks but I got better towards the end. I only shot from 7 yards away (I think) but I managed to get a couple shots in the center. B can consistently shoot the head which was pretty amazing. I would totally do that again tho I’ll bring some ear plugs to wear under the ear protection they provide since it’s REALLY loud.

Actually I found the experience not only fun but pretty useful for work. I’ve never handled a gun or heard them in real life. Only in games and movies. It was kind of cool to see and hear what they really are and get me a bit more acquainted with a shooter mentality. I never realized how much recoil feeling there was. Pretty crazy!

We went surfing on Saturday for a bit. I got trapped in a mound of seaweed, it was nasty. There were a lot more people out that day so I had a harder time but still had fun. I definitely wanna keep trying this. I got in the water a few minutes Sunday but I got cold to quick and went back in. We didn’t get in until around 6:30pm. Got some cool video of him surfing tho at least. We had also gotten up at like 5:30am that do so he could go surf and I could play around with my camera. That was awesome! Luckily half the time I wake up around 5:30 anyways so this wasn’t difficult at all.

I made this quick and easy little dessert for him. A layer of Rice Kripie treats, topped with a layer of peanut butter mixture, topped with milk chocolate fudge. It was pretty good! Took me like 30 minutes to make which rocks… Nice to find fast and simple yummies to make. Made French Toast too. I’ve never had it before so I wasn’t sure what I was aiming for but he said it turned out good so that made me happy. That was pretty simple to make too. I think I need the bread a bit more stale next time.

I have a ton of laundry I need to do tonight and I need to make a cake for my Tuesday class still. With all this stuff on my plate tonight I am gimping out and am going to make a box bake. “Whatevs”. It’s all about decorating anyways for this class. I also need to go running tho I am feeling a bit run down from the weekend. I’ll see how I feel when I get home but I’d really like to at least get 2.5 miles in. My knees and wrists feel kinda achy tho so I’m a bit concerned maybe I’m getting a small cold. I certainly don’t wanna be sick for the upcoming holiday weekend.

The goal is to crash by 10 tonight… Let’s see how close I can get to that.

Current Mood: Excited & Happy

I’m baking right now… I’ve slacked and I had a ton of buttermilk left over from last weekends pancakes that needed to be used. I generally make chocolate cakes but tonight I am baking a vanilla buttermilk cake. Hopefully I’ll end up with three beautiful layers that I will freeze for some future occasion.

Which brings me to the title of my post. The good and the bad of baking.

The good

• If you bake like I do, you bake from scratch… and the reward is an awesome sense of accomplishment whether it be a recipe you’ve made before or one you’ve just come up with. Even it if fails it was yours and you’ll makes the necessary changes for next time.
• If you don’t want to be a fatty, like me… you pass off the goodies to friends, coworkers, boyz… And they love you for it. I enjoy making something yummy for people to enjoy.
• If you are artistically challenged, *raises hand*… This is an awesome creative outlet which doesn’t require some significant artistic skillz. At least at the level I’m decorating. I’d more technical, know how to use your tips and apply pretty frosting. We’ll see how much that changes when the little gum paste creatures come into play…
• It makes your apartment smell SUPERB! Who needs expensive vanilla burning oil when you are making the real thing! I apparently have a new smoker neighbor who hangs out on their balcony and the

The bad

• CLEANUP!!!! God, what a pain in the ass. Even if you have a dishwasher. I mean normally when I’m baking I make ike 3 different things so I need to wash by hand at least 2 times so I can reuse stuff even before I ever get to think about the dishwasher.
• Ingredients matter! It’s important to get good quality items. Good quality ingredients cost $$$.
• Equipment. I want more. I always want more. There is so much cool shit out there and I want it all!!! Also $$$…

Ah, the cakes are done, flipped, and cooling before their voyage into the freezer until they become something presentable. This will probably be a work cake I put together next week. I need to make a 8×8 cake for class Tuesday but I’ll make that on the weekend. These layers smell delicious!!! I will never taste them but I can’t wait to hear how they are liked. I am thinking a straight mocha buttercreme frosting or a tinted buttercreme frosting with chocolate ganache. I have a nice big chunk of expensive chocolate waiting to be used… tho sometimes I have a hard time using the expensive stuff for work… is that horrible? HAHA. Read above for the suck of $$$ ingredients!

I’m tired and my sleep schedule is being dictated by how fast these suckers can cool. Cool suckers, cool!!!!

Tomorrow is Friday, looking forward to seeing B. Have a yummy thing I want to make him I think he’ll love but can’t make it until tomorrow. Should be quick to make tho and 2x yummier nice and fresh. Every weekend has been such a blast, can’t wait to see what this weekend holds!

Current Mood: Flirtatious & Happy

It’s hard to say… I am slacking at baking this week. I was going to bake a cake tonight but then I looked over at my cute cast iron griddle/grill and remembered I still had to wait for that sucker to cool down and clean it from dinner. That is the only real bummer about cast iron I guess, the LONG wait times. It cooked me some acceptable chicken tonight tho so I will forgive it. So… I’m not a huge meat person and I don’t know what’s best to buy… but the pieces I got from the case at Whole Foods tasted a hell of a lot better than the prepackaged Foster Farm filets I bought tonight… Is not all chicken created equal?! Apparently not.

Looking forward to cooking something breakfasty on it this weekend. So many options of yumminess to make. We got French Toast, double chocolate pancakes, bacon and eggs… Whatever it is, it can all be made at once. Yes, I find that exciting.

I’m not slacking at working out tho which is good. Went running 2 miles on Sunday and 2.5 miles tonight at respectable paces, especially for not running in awhile. I am no Caleb Keiter but that guy’s an animal! Tomorrow I shall do something from P90X since I think I’ve learned I am not made to run 2 days in a row without significant bodily malfunctions.

Speaking of malfunctions… I wonder if this new HRM is really accurate for me. I apparently have a gimpy heart… I mean it seems to do everything I need it to… I live… I’m active… works well enough for me. When I was born tho I guess there was a hole in it or something. I’m very technical about this aren’t I? I don’t really know anything about it actually. I just know when I was a kid they said do sports and it should close mostly on it’s own as you get older, which it has. And every doctor goes “ooh” and “ahh” when they listen to it because they’re intrigued by the murmur or something. Except for the last doctor who was like “OMG you’re gonna die tomorrow! Don’t you get light headed walking?!” I was like “No… I do 7 minute rounds of jiu-jitsu with people who outweigh me by 40 pounds”. Needless to say I did not go back to her.

I got off subject.

I wonder if because of the murmur my readings are higher than what they really are? I just don’t bust my ass when I run and my average is like 178 and my max is like 181. Maybe those are acceptable numbers… I sure don’t know. It’s interesting to read the difference in numbers between running and P90X tho. I’ve spent some time finding better routes to run that are more varied and have less stoplights. That is making it more enjoyable. I just hated having to stop all the time on La Jolla Village Drive. Which is why the Miramar run was nice but not very scenic and pretty stinky from vehicle exhaust.

Have I mentioned I want to go surfing again?! Like so badly! Tho B mentioned something about sharks earlier, hehe… If you know anything about me you know my infatuation with sharks. So I set my mind at ease by looking at numbers, lol. Numbers. Yup, numbers make everything better.

Speaking of numbers and death… There was a horrible train accident in my hometown. The Metro system back east had a collision and unfortunately 9 people have died and many more injured. My Dad rides the Metro so as you can guess I was quite freaked out when I hear about this since it happened at rush hour and on the Red Line which is the line my Dad takes. So there was a horrible 10-15 minutes trying to contact my parents to make sure all was ok with them. Called home first, no answer. Read more article. Call Dad’s cell. No answer. Read more article. Call home again… still no answer, what the fuck people…. Read more article. Call Mom’s cell… finally an answer. They hadn’t even heard about the accident, they were at the mall shoe shopping. Thank god. Last time I felt that kinda fear was 9/11 when I was unable to even get a call in to them since all the phone lines were down or swamped. Horrible feeling. Sympathy out to all the people who lost someone in the train accident.

Ok, so 1 cup of Cheerios seems to fill me up more than chicken and asparagus. What’s with that? Oh well, I’ll deal with that tomorrow. Time to go wash that grill thing now.

Current Mood: Flirtatious & Happy

B took me surfing this weekend and it was AWESOME!!! I want to go again, hehe. I had such a blast (even tho everything I have ever seen on Shark Week was playing in the back of my mind). I lasted longer than I thought I would. I assumed I’d be done in like 30 miutes but I managed somewhere between 60-90 minutes. I started to get cold towards the end since it seemed the waves stopped coming in and we were just sitting on the boards for awhile. I managed to stand up for like under 2 seconds one time but I definitely got a decent idea of what kinda feeling I’m looking for to even try getting up.

I was forewarned that my knees would be bruised. B knows what he’s talking about. I do have 2 bruised knees! Well worth it tho. My ribs are bruised too, tho not visibly. I have mutant ribs that stick out that we were making fun on before we ever went surfing… and yes the mutant ribs apparently were roughed up by the board. Really funny actually, doesn’t hurt bad but it’s amusing. I think I bruised my chin too which should teach me to be on the right part of the board!!

I cannot wait to go again. Totally can see myself enjoying this a lot. And it was AMAZING to be in the ocean and not have to worry about contacts!!!!

I made us chocolate chip pancakes with freshly made whipped cream on Saturday. They were good. I love making stuff from scratch, makes me feel so accomplished. Even more so when it’s enjoyed! It also made me decide to get a griddle so I can make more than one pancake at a time, LOL. So I went out and bought a nice large Lodge griddle/grill that will fit over 2 burners. I think I should be able to make 6 at a time now. We had left overs and B suggested freezing them, I had never heard of that but I did. We had the rest this morning and they were still rockin’!

Next weekend, French Toast I think. I really do enjoy doing this kind of stuff. Makes me feel good on like 10 different levels, hehe.

I even made myself some chicken on the grill side of my new toy. It was good! But reinforced in my had why I don’t cook for just myself. Pain in the butt clean up. Especially since this is cast iron, but it had the best reviews when I was looking online. Bought it at Great News in PB. Was like 8 bucks cheaper than I saw online and it’s like 16 lbs so I probably saved even more since I didn’t need to pay for shipping.

I also went for a short run today and felt pretty good. Only went about 2.1 miles but I ran that at a decent pace. I have been slacking at running with all the other stuff that’s been going on but it’s time to get back on track and split the workout time between running and P90X. Basically if it’s a nice evening out it will be a run and if it’s not so nice it will be P90X. I think that should work out pretty well. I have given up on the Nike+. That thing just isn’t accurate for the way I run I guess. I’m quite happy just planning out my route on dailymile.

Man this weekend flew by tho. Not that I mind at all, just means it was fun! I want eternal weekends tho!

I did manage to forget to pay my Q2 estimated taxaes last week. Hopefully the penalty will be overlooked or very small.

Tomorrow I get my hair highlited red again. I’m excited about that. I love the red, I just wish it lasted longer. The brightness only lasts about a week then it just looks a lot more subtle.

I have decided against purchasing a house, I think I have mentioned that before. So I think I’m gonna let my Dad invest a lot of the cash I saved up for me. Tho I am gonna put a few thousand aside so I can lift the Jeep. I’ve really had that on my mind lately, hehe.

Anyways…  Good, good weekend.