Vacation day one continued- Let's get drunk!

Ok sort of.

So after we spent the morning at Costco with Uncle and Auntie (have not decided if I should reveal their real names or make up ones like lots of blogs do- like Uncle Big foot and Auntie Nemo, which makes sense if you know them. Except I will never remember to call them their fake names and be wondering months from now who on earth i was talking about), including the Hot Dog lunch with fries and orange pop- so against the rules, and then the ice cream! (Oh the ice cream I said they couldn't have and then Uncle bought anyway) we came home for Maggie's nap.

Probably one of the most fun car rides ever. We were blaring Miley Cyrus "Party in the USA" (how did that get on my iphone...) and scaring Maggie out of her sleep. F-U-N! Once home, I de-tarted Maggie and even managed to get her out of her dress and in to Princess pj's instead. And she was passed out.

Rest of the afternoon was boring. Wii boring (wish I never bought that thing, but that's another entry too). So I decided we should have dinner early and head DOWNTOWN!!
And go to a PATIO!!
And do things ADULTS do!

I explained to the kids we would do what Mommy and Daddy used to do before they ruined our lives  came along. We were going drinking! Yippee!

OK so it was one beer on a patio and the kids had chocolate cake. We even stopped into the Crocs store and bought Owen some overly expensive rubber shoes that will probably give him blisters and he will out grow in 30 seconds, plus Gibblets or what ever they are called. Jibitzs? I can't remember. I actually had to walk back to the store to get the clerk (who was overly helpful- $50 later) to show me how to put those things on. Theatre major here.

We had a great time! It even rained on us on the patio and the kids thought this was funny. We had staring contests. And zerbert kisses. And BEER! Yippee.

The AFTERMATH

It was such a fun night. And then we go home. And completely high on sugar and well past their bed times, the kids ran in circles screaming their heads off, toothbrushes in mouth (so a no-no) in their underwear. It took forever to get them to calm down. Good lord.


Haven't heard a peep from them. Or Him who passed out on the couch at 9:30 (20 minutes after the kids) and has since gone to bed. I got to watch Top Chef: Just Desserts. Fine by me.
It was almost like having a normal life! One that I would like to live.
A keeper for sure.

Owen re-enacting the "Scare
Maggie awake" car ride.

It never gets old.

Rain Shmain

A step away from spray tans and upper lip waxing.

Today, oh joy of joy, I played Princesses with my 2 year old daughter, Maggie. LOVE!

I was never a girly girl as my mother can weepily attest to. I never wore frilly girly things. Or even girl clothes. I stole my brothers jeans and "Krusty the Clown" t-shirts. I have only just started wearing dresses to work, cause I can't find pants long enough.

So today Maggie got dressed up in a dress 3 sizes too big and let me put make up on her and we danced around. Me in my wedding dress. Her in her big girl dress. We almost had Owen in on it too but Maggie wanted to wear the dress he had on. Of course.

I don't think people were too impressed at Costco with the tarted up two year old. Who cares? It's not like I entered her in a beauty pagenat. 

Cause there aren't any in Ottawa. I checked.

My favorite photo of her EVER.

Unfinished business

Ok. So that kind of flopped. Million excuses. None particularly interesting. Trying this again.
Why?

Well over the last (october to July...november december january...counting on fingers...9 MONTHS?) 9 months I have changed jobs twice, lost 20 pounds and realised I am wasting my life.

Hello my name is Mid-life crisis.

I realised I spent a lot of time watching tv. It is mostly Food network, now (lots of nutritional value). But a few reality tv shows creep in. And my husbands lives HBO so I idlely sit down and watch. Nothing like adding value to your life with "Games of Thrones" or "Spartucus" (CGI penis= nugh said). When your conversations at parties revolve around the latest Alien mini series...it ain't good. Especially when no one else knows what you are talking about.

Well that changed when I hit the most weight I have ever weighed without sharing my body with another person. I realised my job was stressing me out completely, and actually became a stress eater. So I decided to change.

So I decided to waste my time on the internet instead. Brilliant!

I lost weight (more on that later), started cooking more, eating more natural and forcing my kids to do it too (super awesome if you like to hear whining over high fructose corn syrup). And started reading more blogs. (Actually, that's what I did at my old job when I was suppose to be working. Cough.)

I want to spend more of my time doing what I like. I wish I was super crafty. I am not. I have little sense of design or style. I know when I like something but couldn't create it myself. So I turn to blogs. love them. But they make me feel like Martha Stewart does: better haircut but completely inadequate.

All these blogs are so beautiful and full of artistic creation. Where are the blogs for the crafty failures like me? Oh wait. That's right. I started that...

So I am back to finish it. And all the projects I have started in the last 9 MONTHS. I could have made an entire other person but apparently chose to start a bunch of random projects instead.

Next: a review of my failures. This should be fun.

Dipstick's attempt at dip with stick

Day Two Part B: Not so much

So clearly I didn't post immediately after I triumphed over the cake pops. Instead I crumpled onto the couch to rest. It took longer then I thought, but not unmanageable.  This project had some unplanned bumps and lumps. Su-prise, su-prise.

So this is how it went.

The balls were the right size this time. Maybe too big. I will get to that.

So I rolled them all in to turds and put them into the little flower mould. I did find it was easy enough. I pushed the bottom into the sides of the mould to even it out. I tried to form the top into a cupcake mound. Seemed easy enough but I had problems with the top of the cupcake getting smushed down the side of the mould. Not quite perfect muffin tops. But it didn't seem to matter too much.

Next on to the dipping. I decided to try to microwave the wafers. Double- boiler method seemed too time consuming. Microwave was very easy. I was worried about the chocolate burning, but the chocolate melted perfectly. I put about 30 wafers of the milk chocolate in and nuked it for 30 seconds. I took them out stirred (they were still hard) and put them back in for another 30 seconds. I stirred them again until they melted completely.

Dipping the bottom was fine. Although I should have melted more at a time to cover more of the base easily. The chocolate started to harden quickly, so you have to stick the sticks in right away. I do recommend dipping the sticks in to the chocolate. As I will explain later, I think it makes a big difference.

Dipping the top half was more challenging. First off, white chocolate takes twice as long to melt and it wasn't as smooth- a little too thick. They looked really nice when dipped in a lot of chocolate. It gave it a really nice smooth appearance. But then the tops were so heavy, they started to break and fall off! It also pulled about a dozen of the sticks off. I think these were the ones I didn't dip in chocolate first. Hence my recommendation to dip stick. So they became just bite- no pop.

I tried to figure other ways of dipping.  I dipped and then spun the pop in a spoon to see if it would even it out. I got mixed results. Some were ok. Some it wiped off too much chocolate. I tried spooning chocolate on top, that didn't work at all. I tried using a spoon, at an angle, in the bottom of the bowl to ensure even spreading, sort of like a grader. This was the best. But not all the pops got even coverage. Some you could see the cake between the bottom and top dip.  I guess it's ok, but not perfection like the Bakerella photos. I topped them with Smarties and sprinkles we had kicking around.

Next was tasting. Oh boy Oh Boy OH BOY!

Yeah not so much...

The flavour was just not one I was keen on. Can't explain it. And I have a huge sweet tooth, so it wasn't that. They just didn't taste...good. I think if I were to try them again, I would maybe use chocolate icing or vanilla. I am not sure if anyone else tried that. I don't know why Bakerella choose cream cheese to begin with.

However my guests liked them. They even took some home with them (Thank god). My son liked them. My daughter did not. I enjoyed licking the dipping bowls.

So all and all, I am glad I tried it. But I won't be rushing to make them again. And I probably would just do balls instead of wasting time on the cute cupcake shape or just do bites instead of pops.

Oh and sorry for the bad photos. The camera died and all I had was my iPhone. Can't let dead batteries get in the way of progress!

My Mushy Balls

Day Two Part A: Disaster strikes

So this is why I am doing this. To save you the extra time and embarrassment.

So lesson learned: Its better to buy the mould BEFORE you make the balls. Turns out my balls where way too small (never said that before). But it was a bit of a blessing because this morning I tasted one of the... looking for word other then ball... treats this morning. The texture was not one I found enjoyable. It was super mushy. So too much icing. But with them being too small anyway this was a perfect excuse to do-over.

I took the rest of the cake I had left (remember I was only using half) and with the help of some child labour, we crumbled it up, threw in some more icing, added in some balls and got to work. Now Owen wasn't a ton of help. He was too caught up in the fact that they looked like pooh. You and Martha, Owen (see what video I am talking about here). But we managed to start with a new lump of mixture to reshape. We tested one out in the mould and then rolled it in too a ball to see how much it was. We used that as our guide. Smart thinking. Too bad I didn't think of it earlier. Not as helpful later.

We ended up with about 40 balls. The recipe says you should have 75. So I am thinking my mould is a little bigger then hers. No biggie.

By the way, I picked up the mould as part of a little Wilton set at Michaels'. Came to $5.69 with tax. If only I had brought the 40% off coupon from the flyer this week. It would have been almost half that. Sigh. Can't be perfect all the time.

The balls are back in the fridge firming up, hopefully. The earlier texture didn't bother my husband. But then not much made out of chocolate would bother him.

So tonight is dipping night. Wish me luck.

Oh and I have to still clean the house, make an appetizer and main course.
Did I mention how awesome I am?
You don't believe me either.

These are my best friends so if they can't love me filth, mushy cake bites and all, then... I will be lonely.

Fake and Bake

So lets ignore the long period between my first attempts and this current blog. Let's pretend I was saving the world or something. Well now I have returned. To bake.

So I will be tackling some tasty or cute or cool crafts/treats that I discover on other blogs. I think they can be intimidating for those novices like me. But why let that stop me? I figure this blog might help me overcome some of my fear of the artsy.

Super cute!
Photo from Bakerella's Blog

My first crafty attempt are these fabulous looking cupcake pops! They are on a blog called Bakerella and they look so tasty and easy enough to make. Right? Right?

Some of the comments on Bakerella's blog said they were tasty although they took a bit of work. Great. "Bit of work."That could mean anything.

Well I am going to test it out for you and let you know how hard they really are. And they better be yummy!

In order to ensure success with two small kids running under foot, I figured break the task up over a day or two. My best girl friends are all coming for a visit this weekend. What better way to celebrate their visit then cake pops!! Even better, the night before, the boys are going to a hockey game, so I will have an evening to try and chocolate coat these goodies.

So...

Day One: Baking and rolling. 
Easy right?

You have to take a regular cake mix of your choice. Good old Duncan Hines Chocolate fudge was kicking around in my cupboard. So I whipped it up, following the same regular instructions. I let it cool while I went off to pick everyone up from school and work. (Sidebar: I was off sick today with a nagging cough. So although not well enough to work and I was well enough to tackle several crafty projects laying around.)

Later at night, once the kids were sufficiently passed out (I was interrupted once by Owen asking to go to the bathroom which scared the crap out of me), I cut the cake in half and then into quarters. Somewhere on Bakerella's blog, she recommended taking two pieces of cake and rubbing them against each other to crumble them up. This worked well enough. But I found the top layer, the skin if you will, didn't crumble so well. Actually the more I tried, the more it became a mushy cake ball. So the bigger ones I just set aside. I am sure mushy cake balls will be put to good use later.

The blog recommends running it through a food processor to break it up more. Fine if you own one. And even if I did, it would make too much noise and wake the house up. So I just dug my hands in a crumbled it up as much as I could by hand. Took about five minutes.

Next you take cream cheese frosting and mix it in. She says you can use store brand or "make your own". La-la. I imagine that is said with a happy lilt. Like "Yeah! Finally the opportunity to try out the new cream cheese frosting recipe I have been dying to try. Yippee!" I do not have said home made recipe burning a hole in my apron (also don't own one of those). This is why these things are intimidating. Who are these magical people who not only have recipes but actually MAKE their own?

So No-Name frosting it is! Did I mention I am painfully cheap. Or as I like to call it, "really cheap". I figure it's all going to taste about the same in the end.

It took a good hand action to mix it all in. And I occasionally shot cake all over the counter trying to mix it all in. I then put my hand along the rim to make sure any fly aways were contained.
I only used half the cake. I figured it was better to start with only 30 pops instead of struggling through 75. So I used half the frosting can. But its never exact, right. So I am not quite sure the consistency was right. It was awfully wet. But there is no guidance as to whether this is correct or not. So lets see if it makes a difference. Or ends up ruining all the hard work so far. Fun.

So I rolled the balls up. I am never good at measurements or size. Or consistency. They are kind of all over the map. I guess this way I am sure to get some right! Didn't take too long to roll them up. It did end up being quite messy. But again is this because the consistency was wrong? I figured pop them in the fridge and hope they get good and firm.

So tomorrow I will be shaping them and dipping them. Then they will have time to harden before my BFF's show up. BFF's-Yes I am cool like that. LOL. Sigh.

I have yet to find the right kind of cutter for this. It needs to be quite small. I read on another blog that they got some at Michael's so I will try there. I already bought the chocolate in blue and brown (my favourite. Classic) and the lollipop sticks. Here's hoping the success continues.

Well I am calling this a success.


P.S. Oh and what do you think of the new name? Like the double entendre??

So in order to have a successful blog, I need a quirky blog name. Right now, I am "The better life for Dummies, written by Dummies". It's not quite right. Its too wordy and there's no double entendre or inside joke. After looking at other blogs, these seem to be the key to a good blog name. Although I do like the title of Chief Dummy.

I will keep working on it.

I am also not convinced of my template for this blog. These orange swirly things seem quirky enough. But it's not as artsy as I envisioned. Not sure how to get around the few choices through Blogger. I did like one with a picture of a chair and some pictures on the wall. But its just seemed too weird. And pointless.  Again, working on it.

And now, like the rest of my life, someone is yelling at me about doing something other then what I want to do. And so it ends.