I am a lucky girl

Had a great night last night - made a bunch of truffles to bring to Thanksgiving - did my grocery shopping for the pumpkin cheesecake (my vote's the only one that matters when it comes to my baking, and that's what I want to make) - and the ingredients for my (in?)famous 'pink stuff'. Also - I need to pick up some frozen dough balls to make rolls. I like them waaaaaaaaay better than the pre-cooked kind.

Tomorrow - I have a super fun day planned - going with Mom, Faith, and Azi down to Freeport - doing some shopping at the different outlets & dun dun dun - this is the kicker - going to the LLBean employee store. This is the main reason that it rocks to work at LLBean - granted, I like the job, and being able to get discounted gift cards & items totally rocks - however, the employee store knocks the socks off anything else. I'll be sure to tally up all of my purchases on here after I've made them and mathed them out. On my wish list are: tent poles (probably inside an entire new tent bag, but whatever, it's worth it for $10) - a super fuzzy bathrobe, some more luggage, couch/chair covers, flannel anything, pants for Peter & for dad, and whatever else I can find that is totally awesome & totally cheap.

This will be my first time going without Kathy, which makes me sad, we've always tag-team shopped, and I'm nervous about going by myself. But I'll be okay, I'm sure of it - if there's one thing I'm uncommonly good at - it's buying stuff.

On a completely unrelated topic - my beloved 11-year-old got her report card last week, and got her first C+ - we'd expected it, because she's in the accelerated math class (and apparently, these days, fifth grade accelerated math does fricking algebra, what's up with that??? I have to google how to help her with her homework - which is not making me feel any smarter). So - we knew she'd been working really hard - of course she got all As & Bs in the rest of her classes, but this was her first quarter without getting honor role, and her heart is absolutely broken. It's pretty tragic. This was also the first quarter that I rewarded her by giving her money for her grades - I needed to do something to take the sad little edge off.

Okay. I'm ready for some serious shopping tomorrow - get ready world!!!

Yummmmmmmmmy

I am a big fan of cheesecake. Big surprise, right? In all seriousness - I would probably be a very thin girl if it weren't for all the delicious foods in the world. I'll happily wear my current size if it means I can keep eating yummy stuff though. No objections from me!

I've only ever made a cheesecake once - last Thanksgiving, I made an amazing pumpkin cheesecake with a gingersnap crust, and a sour cream glaze - it was one of the most delicious foods in the history of the universe.

I'm pretty sure I want to make that for Thanksgiving this year - because, honestly, how can you beat it??? BUT - I was thinking - and back when Saki & I were dating, we would occasionally go to the Cheesecake factory, and my fave dessert was the carrot cake cheesecake. I went online to one of those restaurant copycat sites and got a recipe for it. Now I have to decide which I want to make. Cheesecake isn't a cheap food to make - it's got a lot of ingredients - and, as much as I'd like to believe that store brands are as good as name brands - you're not going to see me baking with something other than Philadelphia cream cheese - I just don't want to risk it to save twenty cents.

I have a big decision ahead of me.
I'll keep you posted.

Back to Blogging

Here we go - I'm back to working two jobs again (loving the underpaying second job oh so much more than the overstressing first job, but I think that's the nature of life, right?) - and unable to sleep very well - so I think it's time to devote myself to some more casual rantings.

Today, Asrai and I drove to see Dan & Maria in Dover to pick up the mattress & boxspring they were giving her. I'm not a bad mother for having my daughter sleep on a thin, bendy, springs-out-all-over mattress. Faith and I had much much much worse mattresses than that when we were kids - and we've turned out so well, I've always assumed that the worse your mattress was as a child - the more kickass you are as an adult. I admit it, I was simply justifying not buying the kid a new mattress. Do you have any idea how expensive they are???

Back to the story - we were at D&M's house - and they are in the midst of renovations. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera - but I wish I could show you how absolutely gorgeous the paint they've used in the living room is - I think the name was something along the lines of spring green - but that really doesn't tell you how great it is. I'll be sure to put a picture up when I get a chance to take one. The mattress, also, is pretty damn amazing - I'm anxious for the next time Asrai stays at a friend's house overnight - I'm quite sure I'll be crashing in the twin bed.

I also made some beef stew today. I've been calling it "rancid beef stew" - because I wasn't 100% about the beef. It was one of those - how long was it in the fridge debates - it looked a bit un-awesome - but smelled fine, so I decided to go with it. Does that make me a bad mother? Nope, once again - I'm in the clear - it appears to be totally fine. As usual, the beef stew was super delicious - and I even made brownies with the last egg in the house for dessert (a little insurance for the "not a bad mother" decision). Hopefully, neither of us will become terribly ill sometime soon. Fingers are crossed, as I think we're out of pepto.

Tomorrow, I've got LLBean - and the University (of course) - I can't remember if I lined up a babysitter yet though. I'm guessing I did, really, would I be that forgetful? Okay, so there's about a 40% chance that I don't have a babysitter lined up yet. I'm sure everything will work out. I think that's my biggest strength - the way things around me have a tendency to work out in the end. I bet there are a lot of ghosts who wish they had that going for them.

I must sleep eventually. Hopefully some more mundane things will happen tomorrow so I'll have something else to write about!