December! Say Whaaaat?

oh my GOODNESS i am such a slacker and it kills me. i do actually think about this from time to time. work has been so weird lately, with the making up hours thing, and more driving. woah. i miss running, but it is too f*cking cold outside to do anything, and being sick for the last week hasn't helped.

it's official though- ThinkGeek is coming  to syracuse! december 23rd is our grand opening! so you better come out. i had the opportunity to visit the buffalo store on monday, and will be going to the albany grand opening tomorrow. this place is made of magic. i am super excited.

work aside,i was able to sneak out a batch of these fancy space macarons! because galaxy themed is where all my favorite colors happen to be. they came out pretty great if i say so myself. it is hard to see in the pictures, but i totally had silver shimmer on them as well!

work is going alright for the most part. i am still stuck at gamestop, meaning since we are owned by them, we are training our new employees with their registers, and are acting as free floating payroll to help the stores around us. the hours are whatever though, meaning it's like "make your own hours," which sounds great, but you have to pay attention to make sure you get them. also, training the part timers has been between 10a-7p, so it's pretty much the entire day. it's quite tiring, and i can't wait to have somewhat normal days again, although the recent weekends (or saturdays and sundays) off has been nice.

but then there's that motivation factor....to do stuff...or to stay home and relax?? lately i've chosen the latter, especially with this cold. blah. it's almost gone, at least.

thanksgiving has come and gone, and i managed to sneak out a pie and a cheesecake! oh, and some cookies, that i realize i never took a picture of. they were these awesome pumpkin spice molasses cookies from nestle. i got the pumpkin spice chips on sale and found these, the perfect use for them. i also used an actual pumpkin rather than the canned stuff for my pie and cookies! the pie recipe came from my fall taste of home book. it came out pretty good according to ron. i still stand to this day, i am not a huge pumpkin supporter, but in tiny amounts, like the cookies, i don't mind it.

that cheesecake though...

i spent over an hour poring through recipes and researching (kind of), what makes the chocolate hazelnut crunch cheesecake from the cheesecake factory. i think what i got came out pretty decent, but it is not quite there yet. that hazelnut crunch layer. i need to adjust that. probably more nutella on top, but my version is lighter than that of the chain restaurant's counterpart.

it was still pretty tasty, regardless. i let it cook slightly too long, too. i had stepped out for something (i can't remember for what), and thought i had enough time, but when i got home, the timer was going off. just the outer edge was a little over done, but the rest was fine.

this was of my own mish-mash of recipes! i used an extra thick graham cracker crust, a layer of crushed wafer cookies mixed with a little nutella (the "crunch" layer is like the inside of those ferrero rocher candies, which is mostly wafers with chocolate), a chocolate hazelnut cheesecake (i have a chocolate cheesecake recipe in another taste of home book, where i substituted straight nutella for the 6 oz of melted chocolate chips), a sweetened sour cream layer, and topped it all with a layer of nutella. thanksgiving dessert! because why not complete the day with a super indulgent cheesecake?

that sunday after the crazy weekend, ron and i went up to ontario orchards to cut down a tree! surprisingly, the weather wasn't too bad for the end of november, and we found a pretty good one, along with $20 worth of halfmoons, fudge, and apple cider donuts. you know, local bakeries and such, or rather farm stand? i don't know- the halfmoons were as big as my face so i had to get two- one chocolate and one vanilla. i can't say no to my favorite cookie of all time. he mostly wanted to say he used his roof rack, and to post a picture of the tree on top of his car. at least it wasn't a tire.

today i was able to sit down and go through my recipes and decide on what i am going to make for my holiday baking list this year. a little late, but i'll most likely start them next weekend, or during that week around work. i have:

chocolate chip
chocolate italian cookies
mint chocolate pinwheels
chocolate orange biscotti
salted almond fudge truffles

yay! lots of chocolate! because holidays. i also plan on making a batch of gingerbread cookies for home.

with any luck, i may have some more to share, but in the mean time, thanks for reading! come back soon! ☺

**these were cupcakes for my boss, my other co worker baked them for him since i was leaving. my last weekend. XD

Fall Tidings

november already! where has the time gone? naturally now that halloween is over, all the christmas stuff is out and about, and i wont lie, but i am getting excited, despite my lack of money. i just love glittery things, and christmas flavors- i plan on making gingerbread this year. i have been saying it for years, and it will happen this year.

OMG. genius idea. i will get to that in a minute.

today's post is more of an up to date thing, with more pictures of my adventures last month, including virginia beach and the pokeball cake. oh, and my fantastically colored spoopy cupcakes. because star sprinkles! also, little bits here and there about all things involving me. ☺

such spoopiness! i love complimentary colors together like this. it is the essence of halloween! these were just my basic chocolate cupcakes, but with peanut butter chips added! oh, and white whole wheat flour.

aside from going away for a week, work has of course been getting busier with the holidays approaching. after next week, though, i won't have to deal with much of it until december, most likely.... :o

that's right! it has finally happened!! november 12th will be my last day at gameshop! they are opening a THINKGEEK in carousel mall, and i will be taking over there as assistant manager! with any luck, aside from the higher volume of people that hang around at the mall, it should be less stressful....no numbers to worry about other than reserving stuff, and item demo-ing the shit out of all the neat things we will sell!!

which brings me back to my most excellent idea.....

 POKEMON! GOTTA CATCH EM ALL!

i was thinking of the gingerbread thing....i for one, plan to use my ninjabread cutters to make ninjabread men, buuuut....i also just thought of making a gingerbread house. but instead of a house, i could attempt to re-create the storefront for the new store! this is all just a thought, of course, as i have no idea what the store will turn out to look like. we only have a spot claimed for now. we will be training for a few weeks at a local gameshop, and then we have to put the store together.

it's going to be busy even without customers! the grand opening is december 16th!

i forgot, i also "taught" a painting class. it was one of those wine and paint things! i think it went pretty well! i am waiting to hear when the next one will be!

so yeah. mini vacation, new job, a few cakes and a painting class later.....i am down to my final days at the company i have given my life to for 9 years. although, thinkgeek is still owned in part by gamestop, so i guess i am still donating my life away, just for a better cause.

did i mention we were part of hurricane matthew while we were away?

the upper end of the storm reached virginia, we didn't have power for almost a day. it was pretty windy, gusts up to 60 miles an hour...but it was pretty cool. a lot of things were closed, but we managed to find a diner that was open and got breakfast. i cooked in the crock pot the other couple of days, and we rode our bikes a whole bunch. we got a bike rack for the car and brought ours down with us, considering it was at least $30 for a session of a couple hours. i went running up the boardwalk one day, we went to the local museum, and just kind of relaxed for a bit. i read 3/4 of the fifth harry potter book, mostly due to the power being out and ron napping. it was a good few days overall.

next adventure will probably be the return to the outer banks next summer, unless i take any more time before then. my paid time off transfers, so i still have a bit to use! ☺

there is still plenty of time until next september, though!

these last two are from halloween! with all the pokemon hype going around, and my "sister" coming in as pikachu, i grabbed my lab coat shirt and went as professor oak. i was also rainbow dash on saturday the 30th.

the numbers is a report from our computer. cuz that new call of duty and all.....except you know you have a problem when pokemon is outselling call of duty. XD  aaahhh they just dont make em like they used to! but honestly, with all the hype, i am considering picking up one of the new pokemon games. have you seen rowlet? he is essentially a bird ball, the most adorable thing ever, and you  know how i am about birds. not to mention, he evolves into a ghost bird type, and haunter was my original favorite ghost!

SO. with all that being said, my days are numbered, leading to a fantastical new job, pokemon is coming soon, and it was all preceded by me hurting myself getting out of bed monday morning. i'll try to come up with some new stuff, i can't let everyone down in my final days!

have a good week! thanks for reading! ☺♥☺

Late October Update

once again, almost the entire month has passed since i have posted. i seriously cannot wrap my head around where all my time and effort is going. no idea at all. at any rate, i had a couple of cakes over the weekend, and even made some birthday cupcakes for work (cuz we had two birthdays in october)! on work note, i think between yesterday and this morning, it is the most time i have spent at home in i dont know how long, but its not a bad thing. it's just always something, it seems. ugh!

well enough about that. i can complain about it all day long and it won't really do anything. so here are some pictures of my latest creations! oh! i almost forgot, maybe i'll throw some pictures in from virginia beach- we went down for our anniversary and got caught up in the storm that swept the east coast (hurricane matthew)! it was pretty interesting.

i had quite a bit going on for october. i also "taught" a painting class, one of those paint and wine sessions right after we got back from virginia beach, had some football themed cupcakes right before i left.....things are getting crazy!

these guys were a last minute request. i try to accomodate what i can, but having two jobs and doing this on the side can get stressful. i had someone else ask for a cake that weekend, too, but i had to turn them away. i had to deliver these early since i was leaving that thursday. i worked a couple doubles on top of that, and had to worry about packing and such.

PLEASE. i have it on my facebook page, and i will say it here: GET YOUR REQUESTS IN TWO WEEKS IN ADVANCE. again, i do this outside of work around two jobs, and ask for a bare minimum kind of payment (usually my supply cost and a little extra). i should start asking for extra for each day beyond the two weeks.....i put a lot of effort into my work and sometimes feel i am underappreciated.

moving on....once we got back from virginia, i had to crack down and get in cake mode for two more looming on the horizon, one being this wedding cake i made for my cousin dave and his now wife, elyse. because fall and halloween? yep. my fridge was jammed full of cake. i had nine layers for this one, and four more for the next one.

i had to bring this one in three pieces to the location (beardslee castle near herkimer). there were several dowels holding it together, as it is tilted. first ever tilted cake, by the way. i actually piped the roses out and refrigerated them the night before, so i was able to attach them when i got there. i also (as you can see) added the spider webs upon arrival as well.

i was up pretty late on thursday working on everything. i made their "cake topper" since they couldn't get one, and got a little frame to put it in once we were done with it.

i think this is one of my favorite cakes i have made so far. it's always the ones i spend lots of time on, i noticed after thinking about it. i put about 10-12 hours into this one.

sigh. well, for now i guess i will just post the cupcakes and the wedding cake. it is now time for me to get ready for work, because what day isn't complete without it? hmm. oh well. that just means i have to post again soon to show you the other stuff. if you follow my instagram (birdladyleesh), you can see more stuff there, as i update it pretty frequently now that im getting into it. pictures make me happy. well, enjoy these, and have a good week! thanks for reading!

October Already- Apple Cookies and Banana Bread

Yet another month has come and gone, many crises encountered and (hopefully) averted. Ive been getting the feeling lately that i am almost suffocating where i am right now. Yet, i tried to do something about it, and i was almost afraid of the change. 

I went around, applied to a bunch of places, and ended up with an interview at a call center. It went very well, but the hours would have been 330-midnight. That is pretty late for me. Its one thing to do it once in a while for our goofy midnight sales, but to stay in a cubicle and get yelled at because your internet isnt working properly? Slightly less stimulating. But....here we are again. Continuing the same routine ive been doing for years. There are two rays of hope, however, but i will not hold my breath, as believing i have a chance usually curses me into a deeper, more desperate hole than im already in. 

These cookies, though!!

I had a dental procedure done a week ago, and now i have stitches in my teeth. I had been living off of apples and peanut butter (almost), but now, as the apple skins can get stuck between your teeth, i had to find a way around it. That, and i have to stick to non-crunchy foods, and chop everything else up into bits for another week. I got these out of one of my taste of home magazines, and the recipe is super easy! Seriously, its like a half cup of everything. Check it out!

http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/apple-peanut-butter-cookies

Sigh. I suppose there is a bright side to things. In a couple days, i will be heading to virginia beach for my 4 year (technically 9) anniversary. We are taking a long weekend for lots of reasons, aside for our anniversary. It will be nice to get away for a bit and hopefully clear the tension. I made him some banana bread today, too! This was a new recipe i tried, and it seems like it came out pretty well. No burnt edges, or extra crispiness or anything. Here is the link:

http://funcheaporfree.com/2014/08/grandmas-famous-banana-bread-recipe/

Well, i am technically at work. I suppose i should leave this at that for today. Wanted to share the treats, and maybe vent a little. As always, i appreciate the few readers i have, and thank the few i get to see for the support. Thanks for reading! 

Officially Fall- Caramel Apple Cider Cake, Insane Inflatable, and More

prepare yourselves now, aside from the delicious apple cake i am about to rave briefly about, i may go on a rant again. haven't decided yet, though, as i am not feeling as sad as i have been lately. anyway, so this cake.

this caramel apple cider cake comes from a blog of a blog, from pinterest. my pinterest link goes to country pleasures, while in her post, it goes to a hint of honey (which is not a direct link to the recipe, just their page). (also, random note, country pleasures posted this on my and ron's anniversary, a year before we got married! just thought it was funny. more on that in a minute.)

it is more of a spice cake, i think, although the frosting by its self, you can taste the apple cider in it. the cake is made with brown sugar, cinnamon, apple sauce, and caramel sauce. oh, and some white whole wheat flour. eh, eh? not terribly bad. until you get to the caramel sauce mixed into it. it is totally worth it, though. i didn't even use my mixer on it, as only the frosting has the butter.

i spent another day baking and cooking (kind of). aside from this cake, i made corn bread and had some cheesy broccoli chicken in the crock pot. i still need to make some rice, but that requires effort.

i am still silently wishing i could have more days to spend at home. as much as i hate this place because i live in a cave (hence all the horribly lighted pictures), i haven't had a day in a while where i just get so sit around and read or watch hulu or something. i've even been slacking off with running, and that makes me more achy, cuz my body is expecting the exercise, but it's not happening, and it's like, "hey, you should go do something. stop being lazy," and my brain is like,"be lazy. got it." aaaand, here we are. i can't get motivated over anything. being anxiety ridden and depressed isn't helping the case. not today so much, but lately everything has been stressing me out. work, home, work, car problems, work, money issues, work....sigh. i feel like i am in the same boat i was so long ago, where nothing i do is good enough, because they are threatening my job security once again for numbers, this coming from the place that has no idea what it wants to do anymore, and i am sick to death of going in and wondering if i can complete the day without a) walking out, b) telling someone off/punching someone in the face, c) setting fire to everything, d) curling up into a corner and crying while rocking back and forth, etc. it's so overwhelming that i can't wrap my head around anything. one thing though, i keep telling myself that once february comes around, that is going to be my last car payment, and i will have a car payments worth of extra money to put toward other things, plus the fact that it should reduce my car insurance, because no collision. so close, yet so far away. i have also taken up to scrolling through instagram and watching all the birds, cakes, and other things to pass the time and make me happy. reading gets me away from reality for a bit.

i tried a drip thing, but the caramel i used for in the cake did not double well as a topping, it was just really runny. it still tasted really good. also, those chips on top? salted caramel chips. i found them at tops a while ago, and have been waiting for the opportunity to use them, and this was definitely it. and sprinkles, because i can. (it was kind of a birthday/anniversary cake.)

i made another round of jello shooter cupcakes for my work friend/sister (all of our customers suspect we are related), because you need a special kind of cake (or cupcake) for a 21st birthday. the cupcake recipe is a cream cupcake (mainly from the addition of cream instead of milk), so it has a slightly different texture, but it paired well with the jello and cream cheese frosting. the recipe comes from heather christo's blackberry cream cupcakes. my rendition is strawberries and cream, of course! i used her vanilla cupcake recipe, improvised a cream cheese buttercream (i had some leftover buttercream that i mixed half a brick of cream cheese into), and made alcoholic jello with UV Cake vodka, about 1/3 of the jello (of 2 cups, about 2/3 cup vodka) being booze. i find that half and half is too strong, but a quarter isn't enough.

okay, now i am rambling about alcohol to water ratio in jello shots. stop me now. where has my morning gone?

with that, i'll post some pictures from this years insane inflatable 5k. it was just ron, my mom and i, but it was good fun, none the less.

it rained a little right before we started, but it wasn't overwhelming. i was disappointed that i didn't get any battle wounds. mom and ron had some rug burn (or something of the such), and my mom almost died rolling down one of the obstacles, but we survived. we survived and got breakfast after. it was a pretty good day.

i might be running out of things here for now, but last thing i will leave you with....finally got my tires put on! i cannot stress how sad my wallet is, but it is totally worth it. the rims look really nice, and having new tires is a world of difference. the others were so unevenly worn, it sounded like i was riding in a helicopter they would get so loud. i am still getting used to my car being so quiet that i can hear the engine.

i love her. car bffs. ♥♥♥ one nice thing that i have done for myself and my car. they are my first aftermarket addition. one of the little things that brings even a little joy to my day.

i did forget one other thing! i had a pretty bad day at work a few days ago. it started with a migrane, i tried to get someone to cover me, and then had to go in anyway, all sorts of crap happened, up to and including a customer who yelled at me because his kid bought downloadable content and couldn't return it. ron gets out of work, and then brings me this from barnes and noble. totoro music box!! i also have a plush catbus. i am pretty sure i have wound it up every day i've had it so far and listened to it. it plays the totoro theme song. we watched the movie the last two nights going to bed, because i can't get 10 minutes into a movie without falling asleep. so yeah. i have the best husband ever. just saying.

now, i am full of cake and tea, and need to get ready for the rest of my day. because work. maybe it won't be so bad today. who knows, though. have a good weekend, all. thanks for reading!