Dessert Friday #24

It was kind of a boring Dessert Friday last week. Well, I guess not. Maybe. You can judge.

I overdosed on sweets the entire week last week, and by the time Friday rolled around, I was actually in the mood for something salty (I know, I don't think any of us expected this day to come). So Nick got a bag of caramel and cheese popcorn from Garrett.

:D

And...uh, I only have one picture because we may have destroyed most of that bag on the 12-minute train ride back from work. It happens.

And just because Dessert Friday was kind of not really a dessert (and also because it was about to expire), I had a crème brûlée the next day after lunch.

Lunch dessert.

Did you know Costo sells packs of microwaveable crème brûlées? Now you do. I microwaved mine and it turned out fantastic, but you can also take a blowtorch to it...if that's something you keep around (you chefs out there).

Last Friday night was a quiet one for me. One of Nick's coworkers was having a party, but I had a work holiday party the day before, so going out was just about the last thing I wanted to do on Friday. So instead, I elected to stay home, watch approximately 4 hours of Friends, and sit next to Bailey on the couch.

Okay, you can take one more picture of me.

She got a little camera shy.

Stop, I'm blushing.

Nick also got me a yoga mat for Christmas (!!!) and I broke it in immediately.

Ahh!

It's an Aurorae Northern Lights mat, and it cost approximately three times as much as my old yoga mat (which is on its last legs, I'm sad to say). SADLY, I think I broke this one in so much (read: practiced twice on it) that it already has a small rip in the middle (what!). Thankfully Aurorae has a good defect policy, so as long as I get on returning it soon, I'll be able to get a replacement.

The rest of the weekend was spent at Ikea picking out bookshelves (our old one was literally leaning to one side and I prayed every day that it wouldn't fall over) and then putting them together.

The instructions for the shelves came with a good life tip.

You should have at least one friend.

We ended up getting two bookshelves because I wanted glass doors and Nick was all "But I like seeing the books," and apparently our method of compromise is to just get everything everyone wants, so now we have one bookshelf with glass doors, and another one that's identical except without the doors so Nick can see his books.

We spread out the building over two days, and Bailey supervised both times.

Do it right.

As soon as I opened the box for the bookshelf with glass doors, I regretted buying it because there were approximately six gazillion bits and pieces.

What is this?

Have fun with that. I'll be here.

Bailey got a bit curious at one point.

But there are toys on the ground!

Thankfully she knew she would in big trouble if she so much as sniffed at any of the pieces, so she mostly stood her ground on her tower.

Please. I'm an angel.

Apparently the building process was so enthralling that she ended up passing out.

Just let me know when I can jump on the shelves.

It turned out okay. There was a small hitch with one of the hinges, but we now have a standing bookshelf with glass doors.

It has doors!

I don't know why it looks crooked. I took a torpedo level to it from all possible sides, and it was straight every way, so I'm just going to stop panicking and assume that it's not going to fall over.

Dessert Friday #23

It's been so long since Friday I couldn't even remember what I had for dessert until I asked Nick.

Back to Crumbs.

Nick took responsibility of providing Dessert Friday last week since my desserts from Magnolia were such a big failure the week before.

PB

Red velvet

Surprised I ate the red velvet one? You shouldn't be. I bet next time I go to the doctor for a check-up, they're going to come back and say I have abnormal amounts of red food coloring just sitting in my system and it's slowly poisoning me.

Thanks cupcake

To counter the massive amounts of terrible-for-me food I ingest, I've started doing more yoga because it's colder than Siberia outside so I never want to run, and let's be honest, I hate running with a passion whether or not the weather is agreeable. I'm also too cheap to spend $500 on a yearly gym pass (IT'S A LOT OF MONEY OKAY), so that leaves me and my yoga mat in my dining room (on days when I don't go to the studio).

Bailey watches me struggle through every Ashtanga move and judges heavily.

You're doing it wrong.

She's been an absolute terror the past few days, basically running laps and jumping all over the place.

GIVE ME YOUR HAND I WILL EAT IT

She'll have bouts of sanity, but don't be fooled. She's a nut.

Lies. I'm an angel.

We're doing this "Letters to Santa" charity thing at work where we each buy presents for a child in need in one of the neighboring schools, and last night I spent approximately 45 minutes of my life wrapping this toy cash register that my child requested. She also requested a puppet, but apparently Target and Wal-Mart do not carry puppets, so I gave up the first time I went shopping and got her socks instead. Then of course last weekend when I went to Ikea, there were bins after bins of puppets. Of all places. So now she gets her Christmas wishes, plus two pairs of fuzzy socks.

This was really hard to wrap.

It was a terrible wrapping job. I'm not even going to show you a picture. That child is probably going to open her present and wonder why Santa hates her and mangled her wrapping paper.

Orrr she'll just start playing with her cow puppet and toy cash register and put on those adorable fuzzy socks. I like this scenario more, so I'm sticking with it.

In other news, Nick and I beat Machinarium and now I seriously don't know what to do with my time.

Although...my Blu-Ray set of all (yes ALL) the Harry Potter movies came in the mail today (finally, it's been so long I forgot that I bought them), so I guess that's what I'll be doing for the next week or so.

Dessert Friday #22

Don't worry. I'm still alive. Just really terrible at keeping up with posting.

On Friday, my friend Katherine told me about this computer game called Machinarium, so...that's what I've been doing since Friday. It's a point and click puzzle game, you're a robot, you have to go along and solve these puzzles...I'm making myself sound like the most interesting person in the world, right?

Absolutely wrong.

I got Nick and myself cupcakes and a slice of red velvet cake from Magnolia for Dessert Friday last week.

Yup.

Everything looked great, as you expect it would.

Pretty.

I have to say...big, big letdown. I got a pistachio cupcake:

Interesting.

And a devil's food cupcake:

Indulgent.

Let me just say...save your cents and stick with the regular vanilla cupcake with vanilla buttercream frosting. The pistachio frosting tasted interesting, but it was so fluffy I almost felt like I was eating Cool Whip with crushed pistachios sprinkled on top (disclaimer: I have absolutely nothing against Cool Whip, but when I'm paying $3.50 for a cupcake barely the size of my palm, I'm expecting better). The devil's food cupcake had cream cheese frosting, so that obviously won me over. Still though...I think the vanilla + vanilla is better.

And then. Then there was the slice of red velvet cake.

Hello.

Okay. This thing cost $6.00, and sure, it's slightly bigger than your average slice of cake, but I will absolutely not buy it again. The cake itself was dry and tasted nothing like red velvet cake. My friend at work, Eileen, made red velvet cupcakes for my birthday that tasted 100 times better than this stuff. The frosting? Don't get me started. Oh wait. Too late. I got started. Not cream cheese frosting, which is a crime. It's some weird very whipped up stuff that wasn't even their vanilla buttercream (which is heavenly, I'd just like to say). It tasted like water and powdered sugar whipped together (which it probably was).

So, in summary, I will not be buying red velvet cake from Magnolia again. It's basically just dried-out cake with some red food coloring, and it tastes worse than anything you can make from scratch yourself (not a baker? you could still do better than this), and it's $6.00 out of your wallet.

I'll eat it if you don't want it.

End rant.

Oh, I also got a 2-inch thick memory foam mattress topper last week for my bed.

It's alive.

Don't worry, it didn't stay crumpled like that.

COMFY

Which isn't really a great thing, because now I'm even less motivated to get out of bed in the mornings, and the only thing I want to do is sit in bed and play Machinarium. Which is what I'm off to do now.

You are lame.