yule log

I did it! My very first Daring Bakers challenge and I finished (just in time too!)


(The picture is awful, but it's the best I can do right now. When baby demands my attentions, I must obey. He's currently clawing my hands as I type.)

Anyhow, my alterations to the recipe were:
-creme de cacao instead of the rum
-I ran out of granulated sugar after the 1st 1/4 cup (I know!) so I subbed brown sugar, cutting the amount down by about 1/4 total.
-cocoa powder in all the components
-stemless mushrooms (my stems just went funny looking, so I went with a lichen type arrangement.)
-The buttercream finally thickened up, but I had to whip it like a meringue. No curdling though! hurray! I also melted the butter before adding it. Worked out very well for me.

I had fun doing this, and I think I'll do it again, but we'll see what the relatives think on the 25th. :)

best day ever?

Soooo E. has started teething, just in time for finals week! Yay! Yesterday he screamed and cried and whined ALL. DAY. LONG. He slept for 10 minutes at a time. 3 times. Yup, 1/2 hour of sleep total. He finally slept for two hours only because I was holding him the entire time. This on top of him suddenly deciding to switch to a once-every-hour feeding schedule. At night too.

The diaper-change thingy we have fell off the wall, and tore the hook out with it. So I had everything you could ever need for a clean bottom all over my hallway. I also have a big hole in my wall. Or rather, the University's wall. We'll need to spackle the hell out of that one.

The crib broke. I discovered, after taking the thing apart and blocking my hallway even more, that we had to do some serious metal-bending to get it back together again.

I smashed my knee into the doorframe and may have fractured it, but I can't get it checked out for another couple of days. In the meantime anything involving use of my leg or any part thereof is extremely painful.

I have two final papers due today and tomorrow.

At least E. finally fell asleep. Gaaaaaaaaaaaah.

Happy Hannukah, y'all!

I know, it's the third night and all, but why not! Chabad Student Club put together a fun party for tonight; they had an ice menorah and snow machine, latkes and sufganiyot. Unfortunately it started raining this afternoon and is still going strong, so we had to move inside. So no snow. Oh well! Would have been nice, but it was still fun. We lasted through one play of Adam Sandler's Chanukah Song, the actual lighitng and a plate of food before we called it a night. I was making latkes but I totally screwed up the recipe somehow, so Cam stepped in and rescued them. He is making one tasty pile of latkes! Have a great night!

three months old

the last week!

Heading into the last week of classes, and I am very happy! I'm working on getting my final papers done this week, so I can turn them all in Thurs/Fri and be DONE. My morphology paper might take a little longer though, as all I have is a topic and no actual research. Oops!

This weekend was a bit packed. I found out on Friday that the sorority Inductions were going to be pretty rushed; Emily had reserved the Women's Center from 5pm on, so they could have the dinner, then presentations then Inductions, as always. The week before she is told that they can't actually get in until 5:30. Then that DAY they tell her that they have to be out of there by 7. What?! So I offered our apartment for the ceremony, so they had the dinner and presentations as planned, then the sisters headed over and set up, then Emily brought over the pledges. I have no idea how it went, as E decided he NEEDED me last night. Poor baby. He was uncomfortable (teething) so he missed his afternoon nap and pretty much pitched a screaming fit from 7-10. He did sleep until 5:30am though, so a mixed blessing to be sure :).

Kat also came over yesterday, so I can draft new pattern pieces for the back of her dress, as it is WAY too low, and I'll be getting started on that as soon as I'm done with my papers. Alright, time to get to work!