Today is my day off. So far I've caught up on sleep and gotten a haircut. Pretty active day, eh? Oh well, that's what weekends (since this is mine) are all about.
It's been fairly active in Lawrence lately. We had a monster of a storm yesterday; it was raining so hard you couldn't see more than three feet out the window. Parts of Lawrence flooded, I-70 was closed and KC got hit really hard too. Just another Kansas summer. I guess it's not boring, though.
It's been a week since I got back from my trip out to Lewis, which is always a good time, but also kind of sad. I love going on the road trip with just my dad and grandma, because we don't do stuff limited to just family very often. But it's also filled with sad memories — death of my maternal grandfather, death of my cousin's little girl, death of my dad's brother when my dad was 11. I mean, I guess that's how life goes, but it's so sad to think about all that in one day. After we plant flowers, we always do a mini-tour of the area around Lewis of places back in my grandma's and dad's life, the first being a farmhouse that was the first place my dad lived. He went inside it and it was abandoned, run-down, smelled bad, everything. It's weird to think that if I went inside the house my dad built for me to grow up in I'd probably be really apprehensive too. It's not abandoned, but it's been completely changed. Anyway, point is, the trip is always very sad, but happy too. I still have my grandma to go with, and that's definitely always an experience. Plus, every time I go I learn more about her life. We went through her cedar chest and found both her wedding gown and a plaque from her college sorority days...in 1941. Those letters in the picture are ones my grandpa wrote her before they were married and he was stationed at various army bases, dated 1940-1942. Incredible.
The weekend after coming home from that, I really wanted an easy dessert to make. I was browsing the LJWorld sites and found a food blog they have called the Flying Fork. Somehow I stumbled upon a pink lemonade pie that looked really yummy and easy. Originally I wanted to make pink lemonade cheesecake, but the recipes all called for chilling overnight, and I didn't really want to wait. So I ended up with an easy pink lemonade pie — four ingredients! Okay, so it wasn't technically as much baking as it was chilling, but it was dessert and tasted really yummy. That night AC came to town, and we all went to see the A-Team, which I actually liked. I know critics hated it, but for a movie about a show that was already really ridiculous, they did a good job. The casting didn't bother me either, and I thought it would. Murdock is still my favorite :)
Saturday I worked dayside at the newspaper, and I got the best assignment ever. I got to cover the cat show! I know that sounds horrible to some people, but I have no issue spending part of the day with kitty cats. One Maine Coon was the biggest I'd ever seen; he was longer than the torso of the guy carrying him. There were definitely some characters there, including one guy whose Maine Coons were named things like Francoonstein and Coonzilla. Creativity, yes! So I went to the show and then wrote the story for the paper and put together an audio slideshow. It was a fun day at work.
If you couldn't tell, I've been on a cupcake kick lately, and that continued after my cat extravaganza. I made cherry limeade cupcakes to take into the newsroom. Man, those cupcakes are lime-y. The recipe uses limeade concentrate out of the freezer — the whole can! They'd be really tasty as just lime-flavored cupcakes too. Then on the frosting I departed from her recipe and kind of just made my own grenadine frosting. All in all, I thought they were pretty good, but I'd kick up the cherry flavor a bit next time.
A couple days ago I made brownies just for fun. No picture of those, though. They were eaten before I could shoot a pic.
Now it's time for me to head to the gym to counteract all this baking. I joined Body Boutique this week, so now I just have to make sure I actually go on a regular basis. I guess the nice thing about working in a newsroom (among many other things) is that when I bake, there are always a bunch of people willing to eat the desserts. Plus, cupcakes always brighten my day, so I hope they brighten other people's as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment