cupcakes & quilts

Tonight it stormed. Again. Not that I'm complaining - storms are right up there on the things I love, slightly behind beer. Plus it's free water and my lawn has never looked so good.

While the rain beat against the windows, I made 4th of July cupcakes to take to work. I'm hoping they'll hold up overnight - I accidentally put 1/2 cup of milk into the frosting instead of 1/4 cup. Crap! Which then meant I had to add more powdered sugar to thicken it up. I should have put in more butter, but I used the last of it pre-catastrophe. So the frosting has an odd fluffy texture, instead of being creamy and firm, and is threatening to completely collapse. I'm hoping I don't have to offer my coworkers a pile of mush tomorrow. Let's all cross our fingers, shall we?

I'd love nothing more than to take them all to bed and eat them beneath my wonderful new bedding:

Isn't it just so warm and cozy? Ruffly and girly? It's completely different from any bedding I've owned before. The cats are already sprawled across it in glee. And now it's time for me to climb in, open my new Cooking Fresh magazine, and read until I fall asleep.

the sky was angry today

So I was going about my leisurely Sunday morning activities: letting the dogs run in the yard, enjoying my coffee while reading blogs and the news online, doing a few loads of laundry, making some veggie juice.

Time slipped away, and suddenly it was 1:00. I had mowed half my lawn yesterday and had to keep stopping to rest, since I was still a bit herxy. So it took me forever. Today I planned on mowing the rest of it, weedwacking, edging, etc.

I hauled out the weedwacker (which converts to an edger) and edged the driveway back to the garage, taking my grand old time. Then I noticed the sun was missing. I looked up, and the sky was completely blue-black in the west. Crap.

I put the weedwacker away and rolled out the lawnmower, cranked it up, and started mowing like a crazy person, trying to beat the storm. My lawn was so long in the back that it had taken a few days to dry out from the last storm, so I needed to mow it NOW.

Back and forth, sweating, pushing, emptying the clippings, watching the Big Whompin' Clouds get closer. Then the thunder. A bright gash of lightning that went straight to the ground. I finished, panting, put everything away, and dashed into the house as the rain came down.

It was a glorious storm.

Now it's still cloudy but the rain has passed for the moment. I'm going to get some weeding done in the garden and then take a jacuzzi bath with sea salt and let the next round of storms hit.

Oh, and I'm in the final stages of going through the cruise photos. I'll upload the Cozumel batch soon.

Enjoy your Sunday!

can't cough no mo'

My lunch: breaded, baked fish with dill; sauteed zucchini in olive oil, minced garlic, and red pepper.

One of the great things about living alone is that when you get sick, you can hack and cough and make all sorts of disgusting sounds without grossing anyone out. You can walk around in your pajamas for days on end. You can take a three hour nap. You can watch the entire Deadliest Catch marathon, muting it only to sleep. You can stop cleaning your house. No one cares.

I have bronchitis, that joyous virus that makes your chest burst into flames with every breath, the kind that makes you double over in coughing fits and leaves you gasping for breath, ribcage screaming. Good times. After my three week herx from hell in February, followed by a depression "flare-up" through March and into April, and now this, I have to say I'm pretty run down.

Having a cold is awful, but it's not the same as soul-crushing Lyme disease, where you can feel the sickness permeating the deepest parts of you. A cold or flu is like an annoying little brother, poking and jabbing at you to make you miserable. It doesn't really mean any great harm, it just wears a joker hat and screws with you. But Lyme means it. It's sinister and deadly and tries to destroy you from the inside out, finding all your weak spots and setting up an evil camp. It wants you to give up.

So I'm am jabbing right back at the virus, doing everything I can to get better: hot epsom or Himalayan salt jacuzzi baths, vitamins, green juice, tons of water, and some light bouncing on the rebounder to get the lymph system to flush out the bad stuff. And lots of sleep, which I feel is the most healing thing of all.

lymie goes domestic

Aren't these cute?! Can you believe I made them?

So there was a sale at Michael's on those fun icing tips and bags for frosting. I got caught up in the spirit and bought bright pink cupcake holders and glittery sugar sprinkles for the top. And here they are, made from scratch: vanilla cupcakes with buttercream frosting.

There are 24 of them, all waiting to travel 2 hours north tomorrow to spend Easter with my family. It's the first time I've been able to see my nieces since they've moved back with their dad, so I can't wait. Expect many photos to follow!

Happy Easter, everyone!

luck o' the lymie

Me, in front of the Guinness Brewery, Dublin, Ireland, May 2004.

No one should cry on St. Patrick's Day. I mean, really. It's like the perfect holiday: beer drinking is encouraged, as well as hearty, heavy food. Gravy is involved. Gravy! What can go wrong on a day where gravy is crucial? And yet, I found myself in the Kroger parking lot, tears welling up like a dork.

Enough.

Let's go shopping.

I bought potatoes, gravy, onions, cream, butter, beef sausage, Guinness, and this cute little shamrock plant. Seriously. How fresh and springy is this? Who could be sad?

I came home, savored a Guinness. Or two. Or four. In glasses I bought in Dublin, right after my tour of the brewery, and brought carefully home in my carry-on luggage.

I boiled some potatoes and whipped them with cream and butter. Fried some sausage and onion in more butter (this was not a point-friendly meal!). Layered the potatoes and gravy with onions and sausage, and baked it all until the top was golden and the gravy was bubbling through.

Mmmmm. Feeds the soul. Unlike German food, which for me, feeds the blood - Irish food feeds my soul. There is something so earthy and simple and pure about it. I am 1/8 Irish - my great grandmother's name was Carnahan. And my mom's birthday is today, and though she is German and English, she is honorary Irish because of that.

I ate it while watching a feature on Ireland on the Travel Channel. There it was: Belfast, Dublin, Cork, the Guinness brewery - all the places I lived and breathed in those first fiery days with Lyme disease. The countryside. The "coconut bush" - Rosanne, did we ever find out what those are called? I think it's Broom Bush. And, yes, it was hard to watch. Who besides me feels panic rising when watching a show about Ireland? Yeah, no one, that's who. I can't help it. Ireland is the last link to life as I always knew it, the second before it all fell away.

How about some ice cream to feel better?

Maybe some Mint Chocolate Cookie Ben & Jerry's. Combined with Dancing with the Stars. And that, my friends, wraps up St. Patrick's Day 2008.