Baking Fail

Day 27/31:

I swear, sometimes the only way I get through the day is because of this corner of the kitchen. Sometimes I think my dear coffee will get me through anything.



Tomorrow the kids have their Halloween parties so today we were making sure costumes are ready and cookies and cupcakes are done. Well, they are now done but it's also 1am. I thought I would make cupcakes in ice cream cones for Erin's classroom as it's a classic dessert that's a little fun. But as I took the last batch of the boys' cookies from the oven I apparently turned the oven OFF without noticing. So the tops of the cupcakes cooked but not the middle. I noticed this and turned the oven on hoping that it would still be okay. But the middle of the cupcakes collapsed like a souffle and settled into a chewy mess at the bottom. When I tried to frost the cupcakes (thinking that maybe I could salvage them somehow?) the tops collapsed into the vacant hole and it all just looks like crap.



Think they look vaguely okay from the distance? Well how about a close up. Yeah, not so appetizing. On the other hand, a bunch of 2nd graders are usually not picky about sugar so for a brief moment I considered giving it to them anyway. So I decided to try one and see if they tasted edible, given that they already had a big strike against them in the looks department. WOW, that was gross. Chewy, nasty, nasty. Aaaand... Garbage. So at about 10:30 I headed to the store and got some more cones. I almost gave up here and bought the cupcakes pre-made from the store but I had already sold Erin on the idea of ice cream cone cupcakes and I didn't want to disappoint her.



This time (REALLY important tip here) I made sure that the oven was ON. I know, who would have thought? Anyway, this worked out much better than last time. The kids might even eat these.



Now with some fake dirt (Oreos) and some worms they are disgusting in a good Halloween-ish way instead of a OMFSM-what-is-this-disgusting-thing-get-it-out-of-my-mouth-before-I-puke-ish way. So yeah, the kids will be thrilled and I am finally going to bed. Yay!

The Best Laid Plans

Day 12/31:

All the best planning in the world does not account for a 60 pound 1 year old puppy. I made these curtains this weekend, even stayed up a little late, and then yesterday Luna decided to get chewy before I got a chance to hang them. So today I am being realistic about handcrafting in a home with pets and children. There are definitely projects that go wrong, even when you're getting all the steps done right. Lucky for me I think I have enough extra fabric to correct this and lucky for her I like her so much.

Boo on Walmart's color matcher

I normally use Walmart paint. It's a lot cheaper (only $13 per gallon) and it has generally held up well but on occasion it's very frustrating. Like this week.

We picked out two colors of blue for the living room. This room (including the attached entry way and halls) is using 8 gallons of paint. Seriously. 8 GALLONS. Anyway, we got a couple of sample cans to figure out where we want the lighter blue and where we want the dark blue. We picked one large wall and the upstairs hallway for the dark blue. Well it turns out that when mixing the quart cans Walmart's fandeck match is correct and we get the right blue. When mixed in gallons, rather than say it can't do that, it makes purple.

The red circle is the gallon size, the blue circle the quart size. Do they look like the same color to you? Because apparently WalMart thinks they're the same.



Unfortunately we had already painted the upstairs hallway (don't mind the bad cut-in or the unfinished picture in the middle) by the time we discovered this (thinking it would dry differently) so as you can see the room now has a purple wall. Dammit!



So now we have to either buy 8 quarts instead of two gallons (at a really stupid price) or go try the color matcher somewhere else since I already had the room cut in with the right blue and I am NOT climbing up a 20' ladder for 2 hours again. In the meantime my living room looks like a serious bomb went off. Argh!