First Gift for Baby!

I came into work yesterday and found a gift sitting in my chair. I was thrilled to find that it was the first official gift for the baby! My friend Dawn crocheted a beautiful baby blanket for Baby Duchek. It is super soft and fluffy and so cozy! I can't wait to start using it!

Baking Blunders

I have a theory: the left side of my brain ("logical") and the right side of my brain ("creative") don't always know how to coordinate while I'm baking.

You'll see why I have that theory momentarily...

So normally I'm a fairly organized person in most of my daily activities. I know exactly how long it takes me to get ready in the morning which allows me to sleep in until the last possible moment. I have precise indicators along my route to work that help me determine what the most efficient route for that day will be. I have a set routine to begin each day at work. I could go on, but I think you get the general picture. However, for some reason, my methodical and logical nature somehow gets out of whack on certain occasions while baking. Mind you, most of the time I have perfectly normal and successful baking sessions. So I don't know for sure what causes my head to sorta disconnect, but I think my theory above is a close bet to what's going on up in yonder brain.

Real life example (happened this very week in fact!): I was making russian tea cakes and using my stand mixer to blend the ingredients. I had already creamed the butter and sugar and was at the stage of adding 2.5 cups of flour. I had the flour guard on the bowl (so as to avoid a repeat of the great brownie mishap), and was slowly adding the flour. I had about 1/2 of the flour in when I noticed a big glob of the butter/sugar mixture was still stuck to the beater. The right side of my brain started thinking about ways I could get the batter off of the beater blade without having to stop the mixer and use a spatula or spoon. I thought about how when using a hand mixer I'd just amp up the speed and whip it off the beaters. Somehow, I thought this would be a good idea with the stand mixer...with all of the unmixed flour still working it's way into the batter. Before the left side of my brain could catch up with the right side, my hand had already flipped the switch to a higher speed, and WHOOSH!!!! Suddenly I had flour ALL OVER the once clean counter top. Brilliant move, that one.

Just another one of those "DUH" moments to capture in my baking history.

Happy Birthday Brian!

B and I had a lovely day together celebrating his bday. We both took the day off of work - what an excellent idea that was! It was so nice to spend the day together and have a mid-week day off. He opened his presents throughout the day which included a snowboard (surprised him good with that one!), mini-knife, mini-bag that converts into a bigger bag and a tweed vest he's been coveting since we saw it in Victoria back in Oct (another good surprise! )

We went out for brunch and then spent some time up in Bothell shopping at these great little shops called the Country Shops. It was especially nice because we missed the usual crowds what with it being a weekday. Got some more Christmas shopping done there and stopped for afternoon tea. We ended the day with dinner at home and angel food cake with strawberries for dessert. And lucky for me, I avoided a repeat of the angel food cake disaster of '02!!

Check out the rest of the pictures here.

C is for Cookie

And F is for Fudge, and Y is for Yum!

Boy did my oven get a workout this weekend! I invited some girlfriends over for a cookie baking fest on Sunday, and we made use of every surface of my kitchen counters and even spilled over into the dining room. We all had a lot of fun gabbing, baking and snacking the day away. In the end, we made 6 different kinds of sugary treats. However, I was terribly remiss in my picture taking duties and forgot to photograph the final products! I will say everything was amazingly delicious, and I believe B would second that opinion! (He got to come home from a day on the slopes to a veritable cookie buffet!) Here are a couple of photos from the baking party.

Before the madness began. Picture of the party favors I put together - a pot holder and cookie plate for each person.


Picture of Heather and me coating the Russian Tea Cakes. Eva's getting ready to check on the fudge.


Check out the rest of the pictures here.

The rest of our weekend was pretty low-key. Friday night we hosted a Buffy/Angel marathon, and then I spent Saturday running errands while B and Jim worked on re-wiring our internet network. Yep - that means we are starting preparations for turning the office into the baby's room! Next steps there will be breaking down the desk and bed and then starting to shop for furniture. Eek!

This Thursday is B's birthday, and we're celebrating in part by taking the day off of work! Wheee!!! Not sure what we're doing just yet, but it'll be nice spending the day together and relaxing.