January Treats and More!

hello again all! i suppose this is almost turning into a bi-monthly thing, or something like that. i dont dare say i might have a consistent day off, because if i do, i will probably curse it, just like every other time. as per usual for my posts lately, here is another summary of the last couple weeks.

we start with one of the best things- i made (more) cake! except this time, i made it just for me to eat. because everyone needs a little cake now and then! also, because chocolate....

i feel like ive been needing too much chocolate lately. people get stressed out and drink and spend lots of money, i just gorge myself with chocolate until i cant stand it anymore....which usually takes a while or doesnt happen. i mean, even with this cake. i made this super awesome dark chocolate frosting, courtesy of sally's baking addiction, to try and tame the chocolate beast, but i basically just wanted to eat it with a spoon and call it a day. i put it on top of a devils food cake from my book, all cakes considered, and filled it with a homemade strawberry jam. that little hint of strawberry was a perfect combination with the cake and the frosting. oh, i am sad to see it go (we just finished it with dinner tonight). i suppose i can make it again though. i'll probably make something different to change it up a bit.

it has been a long couple of weeks with work and whatnot. since i have the joy of continuing to work for gameshop, i got to see their continued love for their employees with all the payroll theft to stay under our 10% budget for the fiscal year. what that means is, i get to spend a lot of time alone in a busy mall store, and it sucks. it continuously makes me want to eat chocolate all day. i really hope things will change next month (end of fiscal year).

i got really sick not long after i posted the last post. i actually left work early two days in a row, three times in total since one day i worked doubles and left both jobs early. it was a hard weekend. thankfully i ended up with a sunday off and did nothing for the most of the day. kind of like today. anyhow, one of the days i camped out on my couch, kairi came over to sleep near me. i barely remember him flying over, but i woke up and there he was. they all need to be attached to me. those other two pictures, one was when i woke up in the morning, the sky was really pretty with all the orange and purples, and the second one was kind of an "accident" or coincidence? it is this lamp post outside our window, and ron had lit a candle, when i looked out, the reflection of the candle in the window lined up with the lamp and it looked like the light was in the lamp. i thought it was neat. this coming from the person who cant stop laughing at bird videos.....

....or the fact that i am a living birb meme. because, like i said, they all need me. miraculously, they didnt try to kill each other in this one. kairi is on my knee, satch had a shoulder, i was holding cosmo away, and nubs is at his house. that was not long after i was sick. maybe even one of the nights i came home early. i dont really remember.

i DO know that the weekend after, we had our grand opening weekend, by which time my boss had captured my plague, and was unable to make it through the day, so i got to supervise and make sure everyone was doing their thing.

oh, and take pictures. ☺

i took pictures for all of our cosplay contestants with my fancy camera and hung out with our dm for the day. he is from florida, so it is probably the only time we will see him around here. he was pretty cool though, along with the other guy from home office.

i wish we had gotten a few more people who dressed up, but oh well. our opening celebration took place 3 weeks after we had opened initially. there will be more in the future i hope!

aside from all that, things are okay i guess. post holiday cooldown. aside from rons car, which we have dubbed "princess," now i am just working on saving up for our annual north carolina trip. we are going the first week of june! i just hope things work out.

today, the most exciting thing i did was make lasagne. i havent done so in a while, and it seemed like a good idea. with any luck it will feed us for a few days. the only thing i need at this point is a good sauce recipe so i dont have to use canned sauce. nothing wrong with it, but i put everything else together, so a nice home made sauce would be great. for the cheese layer, i use a part skim ricotta, mozzarella, eggs, oregano, basil, onion and garlic powder, thyme, and rosemary, then there is a layer of sweet italian sausage. i was pretty satisfied with it. i still am on a soup kick, maybe next paycheck i will make my cheddar broccoli soup.

also. this year.....i WILL make a goddamn coconut cream pie!! im pretty sure ive said this like 3 years in a row now. like, a legit pie, not out of a bucket or a box. soon.....

the last thing i got, last week i went ice skating for the first time EVER. kris and ron were with me, it was pretty fun. a little weird because its different from rollerblades, but fun. it was really cold in the rink. i mean, i guess it has to be, but i couldnt feel my fingers after an hour or so.

ron just had fun either dragging me around, or threatening to throw me somewhere. i was also unintentionally really good at spinning in circles when i tried to stop. i dont really trust front brakes on blades or skates, i just feel like ill end up catapulting forward and fall on my face instead of stopping gracefully or something. not that there is anything graceful about me to begin with, but whatever. i am kind of hoping to go again, i guess this place shuts down in march for the summer.

anyway, i guess i'll leave it at that for now. kris was just here and we played a round of clue- the harry potter edition. it was pretty cool, even though i am not good at guessing games. better than the game of life, where i couldnt avoid getting through life without any kids. my birds are better.

have a good week all! thanks for reading!

New Year, New Things?

congratulations!  you made it to 2017! now what?

...

......

....yeah, i dont know either. but here are some cakes i made this week!

neat, huh? these were for our friend gabby's kids, i painted woody on the one cake, and made another style pokeball! i was a little worried on how woody was gonna turn out, but he worked pretty well.

that's been about it cake-wise over the last month or so.  work has been pretty crazy busy with assembling the store and finally opening three days before christmas. oh my goodness. it is totally worth it though.

it took us four days to get everything checked in, sorted, and displayed. i rang out our first sale ever, and here we are! we even had this group, gathering of the sabers, come in on that friday to hang out and promote us!

 yes, i totally got to hold a $700 light saber. it was purple. it was fucking glorious. we are having our "opening ceremony" on friday january 13th, where they will be giving out prizes and stuff. its almost like we get two grand openings! needless to say, i basically get paid to hang around and play with stuff all day.

the longer drive to work makes it a little tougher to have any time, but  now that the holidays are over, hopefully things will tone down a bit and i can sort things out. i am still at the restaurant two nights a week, and i just signed up for a gym membership so i can go running while its nasty cold outside (it was 9 degrees this morning. NINE DEGREES.)....that is at least after i recover from my second bout of the plague. i got sick again a few days ago, i even went home early. twice. three times if you count that i worked twice on thursday and left both places early.  that is a rare occurrence.

this was last week, random light saber fights just break out sometimes, you know? ☺

it makes me so happy that my regulars from fayetteville have found their way out here and have braved the mall to come see me. i mean, not all of them, of course, but a few. it's pretty great. maybe i will have new regulars here, but who knows. it's so busy compared to my other store, and i actually have employees to tell what to do because of that. it's really weird. at least i have good employees.

i made these salted almond fudge truffles for christmas, and they were some of the tastiest things i've ever made. ron said they reminded him of a 3 musketeers bar. i got the recipe from heather, actually, and made them mostly for her. she found them here, at will cook for smiles though. they're fairly easy, although i think doubling the recipe made them come out a little softer than they should have (i dont think i had enough chocolate in them, but oh well), but they still were workable enough. i will probably revisit this recipe in the future. nubs, is just because nubs in a stocking. hes such a little poop.

in final news, though im sure not many of you care, my car reached the 100k milestone last week! oh, it doesnt seem like it should be so soon. although, i guess after 6 years it was about time. she will be ALL PAID OFF in february!! its so close, yet so far away! i love my girl. ron got her a short throw shifter for christmas, too! now i just have to find someone to install it.

well, that's all i got for now. i am going to sit for the next hour until i have to get ready for work. sick doesnt go away overnight. clearly. -_-
have a great weekend, all! thanks for reading!