Recent Doings

Well.  It's been a while!  Believe me, I have not, definitely not, been lazy!  Thing have been happening one after another and I've been crazy!  However, I have gone to bed a LOT of nights, wishing I had blogged.  I miss it!

So, here's the update, along with a few photos to document our crazy lives around here.

I have been busy baking more fun cakes!

First, I made Simon a Reese's peanut butter cake for his birthday.  His request.  He also requested not to be posted on the internet, so here is the cake, sans birthday man (I wouldn't call it an incredibly gorgeous success, but it tasted good):

It was fluted around the edges, but the hardening chocolate glaze hides that a little. 

Caleb turned THREE (about six weeks ago).  I ended up making two birthday cakes.  Yes, overboard, I know.  But I had an awesome train planned for his birthday party, and then realized that he didn't have anything for his actual birthday...and ended up making him a dinosaur one on the fly.  It turned out pretty cute, especially for a spur-of-the-moment thing: (it's a little messy, I know)

Showing off one of his presents before our birthday dinner. 

He wanted to eat the head.

And then here is the Actual Party Cake, a train.  I have to admit, I had SO much fun making this one, and it turned out amazing...despite being a ridiculously easy thing to do.

On to other, non-baking things.  Simon and I went to Florida for a wedding in October, and had our first time away without kiddos in...a long time!  The kids stayed with Mom and Dad.  Here we are at the wedding

Right after the wedding, Lyla started crawling, standing up (assisted of course) and trying to cruise.  She's getting SO BIG!

For Halloween, we had a cowboy and a little bear.  Caleb was a bear his first Halloween, too:

That's all for now...more to come!

Found: One Mop

Also Pictured:

One suspect

Giving Myself Plenty of Grief

I. Am. About. To. Kill Someone.  If only the right, expendable person would surface, I would be able to seriously contemplate it.

Taking time out of this, the crazy day before Thanksgiving, to blog, was definitely not on my to-do list.  In fact, my list is a mile long--now longer, as I will explain.  It's almost noon and I have about forty-seven more hours worth of work to do before Hubs gets home.  Yet here I am...too frustrated to continue with the day until I vent a little.

Here's what I did.  I made a lovely little list--of course, overly optimistic, but what's new?--tuned Pandora to my Thanksgiving channel, threw another of the perpetual loads of laundry in, and turned to my kitchen.  Cleaned it quickly, then on to dusting.  But then I paused.  I glanced at the kitchen sink.

My kitchen sink is white, and very, very poorly sealed.  In fact, the term "very poorly done" could apply to just about anything done to this house in preparation to sell it to us.  The guy was either a complete, unbelievable idiot, or the laziest, cheapest jerk ever.  I tend to lean towards both.

Anyway--the sink stains like crazy.  Pour out half an inch of red wine and the last dregs of the coffee, and I've got a lovely, brown-mottled sink that drives me crazy.  So, there it is, and I think to myself--"No, I don't have time to scrub this sink.  I'll just bleach it."  I grab the bleach, give the sink a few glugs in each side, then open the hot water faucet.

And leave the kitchen.

Phone rings, I get on internet for caller.  I respond to email from Hubs.  I check a sale I get an email coupon for.  I talk to Caleb, I declutter the living room.  I grab a load of laundry from the bathroom floor, and bring it into the kitchen to deposit it as the Next Load.

I stare at the sink.  It is gleamingly full of a softly blue water.  And...so is the counter...the stove...THE FLOOR---and the SINK IS STILL ON!!!!!!!!!!

Oh yes.  I have flooded my kitchen.  And that's not the Awesome Part.  There are several more, Awesomer Parts.  First, remember: bleach in the water.  Second--

We painted two bedrooms this weekend.  Moved everything out of them into the kitchen and living room.  And a goodly number of Things haven't been moved back yet.  For instance, a mesh basket of ironing-to-do, a small ficus in a wicker planter, a tent (don't ask) only halfway in its box, and The Bills, which are lying on the floor next to the plastic filing cabinet they should be inside.

Okay, and here's the best part--where I really went over the edge.  NO mop.  None.  Gone.  I scoured that kitchen (wading through two centimeters of warm, bleachy water), then dried my feet and searched the rest of the house.  It. was. gone.  Called husband.  He tells me he has no idea where the mop is, and why am I so upset about a mop?  And exactly how did the kitchen flood?  I may have hung up on him then.

So.  Old towels sufficed, and the kitchen is now bleachily dry.  Except for under the dryer and the stove.  Lord knows what to do about that.  I guess they'll dry.

The Destroyed Things are small in number, and I think the bleach was diluted enough not to hurt most of the things it touched.  But seriously.  How much harder can I make my own life???