wussy cake instructor

And one quick vent... our cake class was cancelled last night-- because it RAINED. Yes that's right... 1 20-minute thunderstorm and our teacher cancelled class. OF course, she didn't do this until 6pm... when we were already on our way to get there. So we (and 2 other people from our class of 5) ended up a Micheal's only to be informed we'd driven out there for NOTHING. GRRRRR.

So class is pushed back one week now. Next week will be lesson 3... and then into July to finish the course.

And now to go bake off some wings! Its Wing night... tonight's flavors
Store bought chile-lime
Semi-Homemade honey BBQ
Jesse's Hot as she can figure out how to make them Hot Wings
Sweet and Spicy Ginger Soy Wings (new trial recipe)
YUM!

Science Tuesday!

Your Salad is Tommorrow's Dirty Fork: Turning plants into plastic
"Chemists at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in Richland, Wash., have come up with a way to efficiently and cleanly turn such naturally occurring sugars into plastics, making Tupperware from trees a real possibility."

Your smoking is hurting the kiddos: AKA... no duh, I have been telling people this since I was 5... AKA Why doesn't my Father-in-Law quit already?!?!
" Babies with at least one parent who smokes have five times as much cotinine, a nicotine byproduct, in their urine than infants whose parents are non-smokers, UK researchers report."

Back when I was your age, Pluto was a Planet; Pluto falls even farther behind Eris
"The decision was a dark day for Pluto lovers. Still, they held out hope that the icy world would remain the heavyweight of the Kuiper belt"


That's it from the random roundup of today's amusing science news. Hope everyone feels a little smarter from their reading, or at least can win a random bet or something.

Bits and pieces

It seems Craig has managed to pick up my cold. So hopefully he's not sick for too long. I am finally feeling better after going to bed at 7 last night-- yep, you read that right. I slept from 7pm until 7am... and finally feel almost human. Now if I could only stop coughing like a 70 year old chain smoker I'd be back to normal. Winnie had another day with no messes-- YAY! She does have the most painful ear splitting bark though--- ugh, I sure hope she doesn't do that all day while we're at work. 5 barks is enough to make me want to try and chop out her vocal cords.. I can only imagine what the neighbors think after a day of that noise.





I've got a long and hectic procedure at work today, so I am hoping to be out of here by 5. The one thing I can say about this procedure is that when it is done I have TON of data. So its nice to show the boss that I can be productive-- it just makes for an unpleasant work day. Keep your fingers crossed that it works!


Here is one pic of a previous run of this experiment. The procedure takes mouse boobs (yes, the techinical term) and turns them into a soup of single mouse boob cells. Then I can run those cells through a machine called a flow cytometer that lines them all up single file and looks at them. It looks at them for what they have on their outsides--- (that is, are the tags I stuck on there)-- I can then see how many cells that have a certain tag (A) also have other tags (B, C, etc)-- then I can quantify how many cells are A+B vs B+C, vs A+C--- which tells me something about the kind of cells that make up the mouse boob. The big problem for me is that I put a LOT of cells in, but only the ones circled in the picture are the ones that matter. So it takes me a long long time to get enough of the important cells--- oh yeah... and it takes me 6+ months to get a mouse with the right combo of genes to be old enough for the experiment--- so there is a lot riding on it working right--- cause if it doesn't I have to start over with breeding more mice-- YUCK!









Other than a big science day, we have cake class tonight--- no actual cake this week, just working with fondant and gumpaste-- we're learning carnations, "fantasy flowers" and daisies. Should be a quick and easy class. I'll try and get some pics up tomorrow for everyone to see.






Also-- if you have any recommendations for an affordable reliable car-- 4 door, decent gas mileage (ok, so anything will be better than the blazer was), has a radio, good safety record, would hypothetically hold a car seat and associated progeny related crap, that doesn't look awful-- please, let me know.
The blazer is dead (may she rest in peace) and I need to find a new car. I figure I am going to have the new one for a bunch of years, so practicality is important. All suggestions of models or makes are welcome!

The dog days of summer

A very happy, very wet, very tired Murphy!

After snoozing the morning away on Saturday and a quick lunch at Moe's with Kim. Craig and I headed over to Shelley and Erin's with the Murphinator and some movies. We hung out in the pool for the afternoon to beat the heat (did I mention I kinda hate summer)-- and then grilled up some hot dogs and kielbasa and watched some movies. (Pursuit of Happyness-- very good, I enjoyed-- wholeheartedly recommend and Open Season-- kinda blah... except for the last 25 minutes where the animals attack-- brassiere clad deer antlers being used to slingshot toasting forks with flaming marshmallows-- maybe a kids movie? not a great plot-- some funny moments)

Murph LOVED swimming, and though we left behind enough fur in the pool to build at least 3 more dogs-- he had a great time swimming with their lab Nick. We had to eventually lift the murph out of the pool and make him rest-- he would have swum himself into exhaustion. He was a very very very happy dog.

In an added bonus... adding some Murphy kibble to the weeners diet seems to have helped! no messes on friday night, saturday at all, or sunday!!! woohoo. (she was eating out of his bowl anyways.. so we just went with it)

Craig and I at the Reception

Congrats Mike and Leah! Well, the wedding went off without a snag. After keeping the groom busy and calm on Friday night-- and making him go to bed-- and doing my best to convince him to eat on Saturday morning, I was there from noon on to run errands, get blood out of the best man's collar (hooray for the tide pen!), fluff skirts, retie corsets, calm nerves, repeat instructions, alter the bride's gown so it wouldn't fall off and distribute tissues. My days as a wedding planner were fun--- but EXHAUSTING! I have no idea how Kim did it all-- and did a WAY better job then I ever could have. This cameraphone pic is from midway through the reception-- we finally got a chance to relax and enjoy!

Craig, Kim, and I stayed til the very end (1AM!!!) to pack up gifts and clean up the hall. Craig and I were THANKED by the newlyweds by name in their toast.. which was incredibly sweet (and utterly unnecessary)-- we were happy to help out and glad to be able to wish them well on their big day.

I was given a centerpiece to take home, and as long as Tiki stays out of it-- it should last for a few days-- and it is certainly very pretty. I will work on getting a pic of it on here.

At the rehearsal

Just a quick cellphone snap shot of Mike and Leah at their rehearsal. The church was lovely-- a church in the round with all sides in stained glass. Beautiful! Particularly with the afternoon sun shining through-- everything was in colors.

FYI-- the muttley

FYI... the Weenie is on thawed pre cooked meals that MIL sent with her. They look like brown rice with ground beef, peas and carrots. I am worried that they may be contaminated, and continuing to feed her them may be the problem-- she's been getting sicker the longer she has been on these "baggies" of food.

The internet has lots of ideas-- I may try some chicken (no fat) with some plain oatmeal (a different grain)-- so hopefully tomorrow I can try that. The vet sites I have been reading suggest having her off food and water for 12 hours to try and clear everything up--- so we may end up trying that too. She's still gobbling down food and water without pausing to breathe--- so maybe giving her stomach a chance to settle for a little will help. (At least, I sure hope so....)

Keep your fingers crossed.

FINALLY! A post that won't mention poo.... (well, I won't mention it after the title)

I have been given "permission" to start writing my first paper in grad school. This paper will be on the stuff that I took to the meeting in Colorado in March and a little bit more. I am finding it very very very hard though to start writing it. Writing anything with my boss is a challenge for me. We have VERY distinct writing styles and neither of our styles suits the others at all. My drafts do not come back with editing on them, they come back with the same thing rewritten in my bosses words. This has been extremely frustrating for me over the past few years and I am not looking forward to the debates that will have to happen on this paper. I want to feel like my paper is MY paper- and I know that my boss is the "expert"-- but outside of the atrocious grammar I display on my blog-- I know how to write. If there is one thing St. Tim's teaches its girls-- it is how to write well. My writing is more clear and much more simple than my boss's. It gets the same points across, but in a much more reader friendly manner. I do not oversimplify things-- rather he tends to over complicate them with obtuse vocabulary and odd sentence structures. I really want to get this paper written and published by the fall-- I am just hesitant to start what I know will be an unpleasant couple of months to get it done. I need the authorship to get myself a job when I am finished with grad school, and getting this paper out would be a huge help with that as I will be first author.

So really, I am just procrastinating on starting this paper til I haul in these last trailing bits of data that should be finished next week or so-- and then I have to knuckle down and get it written. I have figures worked out for the most part-- and I like doing that part and I am good at it! Its just this writing that is the big road block. Keep your fingers crossed that my boss recognizes that this is MY turn to write a paper-- and he has help EDIT it not rewrite it. That will be best for everyone's sanity.

(Photo is a sneak peek of part of one of my figures-- one mouse boob! in green!)

not strep.. well, I think?

So Nyquil did the trick last night and I was actually able to sleep. YAY! That helped a lot. Today I feel better, not great-- but better, so I think probably not strep.

Last night I met Leah's mom and got my translating duties figured out, then went for pizza "Old world style" The sauce was over the cheese... odd, but tasty. Craig and I met Mike and Leah's family and hung out for awhile. Then we tied 130 little multi colored bows on their programs. So, I have paid back the time she helped me tie bows on all my programs.

Tonight is rehearsal and rehearsal dinner-- yay food!

mini-doglet crapped 4 times last night in our bedroom doorway. and then vomited huge piles on the rug... what do I do with her?!?!?! The food she is getting is obviously not agreeing with her, but its what we were told to feed her. Any suggestions for gentle on puppy stomach meals? Cause a few more days of this... and well... I'm either going to super-glue her back end shut or she's going to have to be an outdoor dog. (ok, I'm only venting, but really... something has got to change)

Strep? and other ramblings

So I think I may have Strep Throat... ugh. I don't like this. My throat hurts-- keep me awake all night kinda hurt, but no fever. So do I try and get a doc appt or just muddle on?!?! Is this just some little viral thing that will pass or am I going to suffer if I don't go get some antibiotics now.

Oh yeah.. and this morning, my car started smoking. Yuck. I really need to get a new car. and soon. I hate to say goodbye to the blazer, but it barely runs anymore-- its just not reliable. I need something that I KNOW will start-- and gets some better gas mileage too. Time to start looking more seriously for a new (to me) car. Not an expense I am looking forward to at all.

Work is ok, we're getting a new imaging system in today that could make my life a LOT easier-- that is, if it works. I have to go demo it at 1pm. Keep your fingers crossed. Green glowing mice are good!

In other news-- Winnie is a moron. After her long walk this morning, she came inside and immediately crapped on the rug. Then turned around and ATE it?!?! WTF? This dog has serious issues.

Another day of science

Random Science Headlines of the Day--

Genetically Modified Food-- Really, It IS good for you.
New genes mean less pesticides and better nutrition. (so take that Euro-hippies)

Rest of the World says "No DUH!" to inbreeding polygamists.
If you marry your cousin, your kids will have problems.

What Doesn't Kill You, Makes You Stronger" (and by YOU I mean the E. coli)
Antibacterial Soaps and cleaners good for Bacteria, bad for people. C'mon folks, all were doing is breeding super-germs. (Multidrug resistant strains anyone???) Feel free to use alcohol containing sanitizers, but save the antibacterials for when they are REALLY needed.

Goodbye Mr. Wizard. You'll be missed.

Sad Pirate Happy Pirate

Just two quick bits of evidence that I am married to a nut! (ok, a loveable nut, but a nut all the same. )

He then wore said paper pirate hat ALL THE WAY HOME. At least he didn't sing "Yo, Ho, Yo Ho a pirate's life for me" the entire way!

Irish Cake

Here is the Irish cake.


On a review of the Guinness cake-- VERY GOOD. Not overly sweet. Nicely moist. Dense enough to take icing, just be careful of cut surfaces as it makes a LOT of crumbs. This cake domed a fair amount when I baked it, so it required some leveling. I am not sure if that is a me specific problem or a problem due to the recipe, so be warned.

I filled and frosted it with an Irish Cream/Cream Cheese Butter Cream. No more of that nasty crisco icing we had to use before. Other than getting mildly buzzed by evaporating alcohol fumes while whipping the icing, it really doesn't have too much of an alcohol taste to it. (Much.... can I serve this to my intern? He's only 19... of course, when I mentioned what kind of cake it was his response was "Cool, an Irish Car Bomb in a cake" so I have a feeling I am not the one doing the corrupting here!)

There are some lumps and bumps in the fondant on this one-- we were using the base cake to demo different techniques and then just did this as the way to leave it finally-- so it had stuff "glued" on and then pulled off which left it less than perfect under there. This one is pretty simple as class this week was to cover a cake in fondant-- we didn't learn any flowers or anything else, so its a basic cake.

Guinness Cake

Tonight is Cake class 2---

the Guinness Cake recipe

THIS RECIPE MAKES A TON!!!!! (seriously, 1lb butter, 4 cups EACH flour and sugar)

So due to PA's archaic liquor laws-- we were not able to buy beer on Sunday, and you have to buy a case (or pay almost as much to get just a 6-pack)-- we are now the proud owners of a case of Guinness, Craig sees this as no hardship... and the bottles are funny-- they have widgits to get them to foam correctly.

Stay tuned this evening or tomorrow for pics of the finished "Irish" cake.

Our Craptacular Neighbors

Yesterday evening, our lovely White Trash, Jerry Springer fodder, bum with multiple baby daddies and a prepubescent boyfriend all living in the same house neighbor decided to entertain. By entertain, I mean she invited over a bundle of men and their ridiculous motorcycles. I appreciate a good bike... one of my gal friends from HS rides regularly-- so its not the bikes that bother me. These were funny looking though-- I guess some sort of defective combination of a big wheel kids bike with a grown-up motor cycle... but hey they had NEON! Woohoo.. that just screams class doesn't it?? What my big problem is was it was 10 pm (and then 10:30 and then 11:30) when they decided that a fun activity is to sit on the bikes in the street and rev them up loudly, over and over and over. Needless to say, adult beverages were involved in this event. Also, these morons parked up the whole street so there was no where for me (carrying the load of groceries) nor anyone else to park. They thought this was quite funny and would laugh as residents drove slowly down the street looking to park. They also participated in high speed drag racing up and down the block from 5-9pm-- not so good in a small quiet suburban neighborhood.

Sometime after 10, I went across the street to ask them to cool it with the reving engines, as it was getting pretty late. I got mocked. And one of them complained that Craig while mowing the lawn got grass clippings on his bike. I laughed and said there was no way I was going to complain-- my husband mowed the lawn -- as far as I cared, that was good.

So the moron troupe continued their noisy revelry into the night-- keeping the future Jerry Springer kiddo stars out and shreiking as the adults kept drinking and hollering. Seriously, what is wrong with people. This was a MONDAY night. Not a weekend-- not a holiday. Not that any of those excuses rude neighbors and their trashy guests-- but seriously-- 30 people drinking and motorcycling and shouting at 11 at night on a Monday?!?! There is just no reason.

Any one have any ideas on how to deal with this. They are just awful neighbors. I don't want to start a war with them, but I don't think I should have to deal with their carrying-on all the time.

Tempting as it is to just sit on the porch with a shotgun and pick them off for the betterment of the human gene pool-- I am pretty sure that is illegal... and immoral. So any realistic solutions are more than welcome. Meanwhile, I will pay a damn sight more attention to the neighborhood before we buy our next home-- and keep praying that those three rental properties across the street get sold out from under them to nice normal families.

Oh, and NEVER NEVER NEVER will I let my (hypothetical) kids play in those peoples houses or be unattended while they are around. They're just BAD BAD BAD news.

On a side note-- not all our neighbors are awful, its really just the 3 rentals across the street from us-- and one more up the block a little ways. Most of our neighbors are young families, who work hard, and try and keep their properties up-- but a few bad apples... well, you know the story.

Visitors!!!

Amazingly, I have had visitors from 4 continents!?!?! According to google analytics-- I have gotten visitors from all over the US-- some I can account for for people I know-- others have been referred in from other places I can only guess. Even cooler are that people from South America, Canada, Australia, England and France have stopped by. Woohoo... I feel famous. OK, so this is still only a home for my random ramblings, but its neat that someone out there is reading.

Anyway, to all my visitors-- Please feel free to comment, leave a message, 0r whatever-- I'd love to know who out there is reading this.

To Kiki- thanks for being brave and commenting-- nice to meet a reader!
Friends and family-- hope you are enjoying these silly messages and a chance to catch glimpses of Craig and my life in the pics I post.

Weekend in Review and plans for the week

This weekend was largely spent catching up on laundry--- the oh so exciting life of newlyweds. Woohoo. We did go see Pirates 3 :return of random sword wielding squid yesterday. Craig enjoyed it, I found it loud... and very random. But, if you like random fish creatures fighting against colonial British forces and pirates, this may be the movie for you! (ok, and Keith Richards makes a brief and to me comical cameo) Swashbuckling fun-- but at least it was a couple hours in air conditioning!!!
More exciting was that we then went to dinner at Passage to India in Harrisburg. Delicious as always-- and even better when we had a buy one dinner get one free coupon! (for once hubby's need to save every piece of junk mail we get worked out for the better!!) I had some sort of lamb -- lamb Rogun Josh or something like that. It was quite tasty-- not too spicy-- just nicely flavored. And as a bonus, there were enough for leftovers-- I just have to make up some rice-- that's the kind of dinner I can handle any night-- even when it is 90 in my kitchen.

Today we got some laundry done, I got my veggies transplanted outside (heres hoping they survive), polyurethaned the outdoor sink and the new front door step, and got the guest room cleaned out for this coming weekend's guest. Not too bad a day-- the good thing about laundry folding is that it is the ideal fit for chick flicks! Today-- Circle of Friends, Dance with Me --Vanessa Williams AND Chayanne! ;-)-- and When Harry Met Sally-- one of my all time favorites ever. So it was a nice afternoon. Craig is locked down in the dungeon working on his homework for his online course. I guess that's what I get for encouraging him to go back to school and get his Master's finished up. Two of us in grad school... what was I thinking?!?!?!

This week looks to be a full one. Monday has my semi-monthly or whenever we remember to schedule it rotating dinner with two of my friends from grad school, Tuesday brings cake class -- stay tuned. The first cake we're doing this time is "Ireland"-- Should be pretty good. (and yes, I will share recipes) Wednesday is wings night here again. Thursday Craig and I have dinner at our friends who are getting married this weekend to meet their parents who we'll be helping get around while they are here, then Friday rehearsal/dinner with the to-be-wed Mike and Leah, and finally Saturday is their wedding. Should all be fun, but some Sunday I will definitely be looking forward to a NAP!

Stay tuned- I should get some decent pics to share this week. If nothing else, I have a pic of Craig in a pirate hat that is BEGGING to be shared!

so far so good!

So day one of crate training the poo machine I declare a success!

I got home from work, let her out of the crate-- took her for a walk immediately-- she went OUTDOORS-- no mess in the crate nothing! sooo yay!

Then we come back in-- she happily wanders around-- gets a drink and then goes to lay down and sleep-- IN HER BOX. I didn't do anything-- I came back in the room and she had settled her self down in there and fallen asleep! YAYAYAYAY!!! Since I have been home she has wandered in and out of the crate quite happily as long as I just leave the door open--- she comes when I call and then sometimes just goes back in the crate on her own--- there may be hope for the little monster after all! She seems to get that the crate is HER den and is comfy there. Lets hope this continues---
No poo on my floor!!!!!!
Yay!
I will have to get a pic up here of her chilling in the crate-- she seems very at peace there.

Final Cake Course

We had class one of the last cake decorating course last night-- Fondant and Gumpaste-- we dutifully picked up the tools and I packed all the items required for class this week and headed off-- but class was USELESS this week.
This week's topic-- tinting fondand and covering cakes with fondant-- I had that mastered 7 months ago-- BOOOOOO.

So I am hoping next week will be better-- if nothing else, Craig and I have picked a theme for the 2 cakes this course-- countries. So stay tuned for the current plan of one Ireland cake and one Spain cake-- this should be interesting.

(oh... and we may get in trouble... cause-- well, I can lay fondant better than the teacher-- sooo... well, I may have had to help fix her demo cake-- so... should be an interesting course)

The poo-machine crapped in the house AGAIN. So she's in the Murph's crate while we are not home. She needs to learn that she can't poo where she sleeps-- and she needs to have a small sleeping area for awhile to enforce that. (Not that murphy's crate is small by any definition)Hopefully we can get the mutt trained before too too long-- cause ugh... 4 year old neurotic midget dogs are not my thing-- and my patience is strechted VERY thin with her. Craig got Murphy trained, so hopefully he can work a miracle on this little monster.

Katie and James are Married!

Katie, my roomate from the first year of grad school got married this Saturday in Maryland. Craig, Kim and I were invited to see the big day and we carpooled down. They had a short outdoor ceremony in the early afternoon (whew... it was HOT out!) and then a lovely (air conditioned) reception. The cake was tasty! (no scary buttercream or tasteless fondant-- it was frosted in whipped cream!) It was a nice day and they happy couple well, looked very happy! Congrats to Katie and James!


Here is one quick picture of Craig and I from the reception-- Craig was enjoying the "Moby's"-- a special rum drink recipe from Katie's family-- so he had a pretty good time!

The remainder of this weekend was spent hiding in our room-- the only air conditioned room in the place-- amazingly, you can now see the floor-- we dug out all the boxes and bins of stuff and sorted out winter clothing that could be stored away in the attic or cellar for the next few months and now you can actually WALK in our room--without tripping! The plan is to allow the Murph and the poo-machine in the room tonight so they can enjoy the AC as well. I think for Tiki's well being... she'll be just as happy to stay out of there and have the run of the house in peace!

In the interest of peace I did rid myself of a few pairs of shoes this weekend as well-- Craig seems to beleive that two laundry baskets full is too many--- he fails to understand how I can NEED 5 different pairs of black sandals (the casual pair, the super high heel strappy ones, the semi-casual dress pair, the flip flops, the comfy but still dressy pair etc...) So I discarded a few pairs that were well past their prime-- including my FAVORITE sandals of all time-- these are the ones my mom called the "spartacus" sandals-- brown leather, criss-crossed straps, flat soles-- I wore these things to death-- across Europe, through college, they went with anything and were so very comfortable-- my dad had given them a second life with a few rivets 3 years ago-- and I had nursed them through last summer with glue and tacks-- but the time has come to say goodbye---and so this afternoon-- I tossed them in the trash--- of course-- this means I have to go get some new ones right?!?!?!

Craig is hiding in the cellar working on his HW for his online class-- its cool there and it means I get sole control over the TV! (so with a choice of 5 channels-- there's not too much to argue over-- but still!)

This week cake class starts up again on Tuesday and I've got my first full week with Undergrad Guy--- so it should be a busy week. I think I have one more fitting to go to with a friend for her wedding dress and I have to put together a wedding emergency kit to take to her wedding on June 16th--- its my turn to play "Kim" for a change and deal with all the nonsense that pops up so she doesn't have to worry-- Hrm... I should make sure the guest room isn't too bad either as we are keeping the groom the night before the wedding.

Big news over at my SIL's blog-- she's got all her paperwork to Vietnam and is #1 on the waiting list for a little girl--- looks like our new niece will be here before too long!

And as for my future SIL-- she's a trooper-- she survived her first entire weekend at my parents this weekend! And my Mom only had wonderful things to say-- about her and about her pup who came to visit too! So apparently the nuttiness that is my family hasn't completely scared her off-- and we are thrilled that she'll be one of us!