Please Say A Little Prayer

A dear family friend passed away on Wednesday from kidney cancer. He was only 22 years old and a senior in college. Some would say he had had nothing but a difficult life, he was born with spina bifida but he never let his physical limitations impact him in any way.

He always had a smile on his face and was super easy to talk to. You couldn't help but like this guy.

He was just diagnosed with kidney cancer a few months ago. This news has hit everyone very hard. Kyle was an eagle boy scout with him and feels like he's lost another brother. I can only imagine that Bob feels like he's lost a son.

It's very difficult to be so far away when things like this happen. We're taking solace in the fact that he is no longer in pain.

Please keep the family in your hearts and prayers.

Happy Birthday Carol!

Since you wanted me to save you a cupcake I made one ESPECIALLY for you!Then Kyle came home from work......And this is all that was left of the beautiful cupcake I made especially for you.And Kyle looks VERY smug about what he did.

Best Wedding Cake Frosting EVER!

That's what Kyle said after he ate some of the frosting off of these cupcakes I made this weekend.There was a secret filling in the middle of the cupcakes - see the small little cupcakes that aren't frosted along the bottom of the picture.These entire things are made from scratch (out of necessity) but they were surprisingly easy and I will definitely make them again. I think the hardest part was converting the ingredients (in metric) to the recipe (not in metric) and then whipping the frosting by hand since we don't have a mixer (I'm still too cheap to by that stuff!). Luckily when I gave up about 1/2 way through Kyle was there with his brute strength to finish up.

Since I'm not a foodie at all I pulled the cupcake and frosting recipe off of allrecipes.com

INGREDIENTS

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup baking cocoa (I'm sure I used the wrong stuff - I think I used chocolate powder)
  
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 3/4 cup water
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon vinegar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (I put in a little extra for Kyle)
  

FILLING:

• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened (I used 200 g - a little less than what it calls for)
  
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (again, chocolate chips don't exist here so I made my own with some Swiss chocolate and a hammer)
  
• 1 cup chopped walnuts (I left these out)

DIRECTIONS

1. In a large mixing bowl, combine the dry ingredients. Add the eggs, water, oil, vinegar and vanilla; mix well. Pour into 18 greased or paper-lined muffin cups.
2. For filling, beat cream cheese and sugar in another mixing bowl. Add egg and salt; mix well. Fold in chocolate chips. Drop by tablespoonfuls into center of each cupcake. Sprinkle with nuts. Bake at 350 degrees F for 25-30 minutes.

I mixed the dry ingredients in one bowl, wet in another (like the recipe says to) then made the filling before I mixed the wet and dry together. It says it yields 18 - I made about 13, but I WAY overfilled them and kinda made a mess and then had filling left over to eat along. I think I probably could have made the 18 is said.

INGREDIENTS

• 2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 tablespoons milk
• 2 tablespoons cocoa powder (optional)

DIRECTIONS

1. Cream sugar, butter and vanilla. Add a small amount of milk (1 to 2 tablespoons). Add cocoa if desired and beat until fluffy. If frosting is too sweet add a little more milk.

Everyone loved them at the party I took them to on Saturday night so I was pretty excited. I'm a really bad baker (and cook for that matter) so I get REALLY excited when something I make doesn't completely suck.

My New Boyfriend(s)

Met Bob:And Stanley:And Wilson:
Bob's awesome! He does everything I tell him to - he's at my beck and call. Sometimes I even make Kyle and Bob go and do things together for me. Actually, these Freitag bags are super cool. They are made out of recycled semitruck tarp, inner tubes and seat belts. That's what gives it so much character. It's meant to be just a bag but I'm using it as my purse right now (you know, to fit in :) ). The great thing about this is that it's pretty lightweight but completely weatherproof. AND, it's 'manly' enough that I can get Kyle to carry it sometimes - like when I make him go to the store and buy me stuff because I'm making him cupcakes from scratch.

Flat Stanley is my paper friend from NKC. He's come to stay with us until the end of the year and we take him around to different places and do different things. He even helped us pick out our (first - I can only assume that Kyle will want his own) Freitag bag.

Wilson came out of a cereal box - that's right, I bought cereal just for the toy. The toys were supposed to be from The Dark Knight but apparently the Europeans got confused and threw in a character from another Batman movie. I was hoping for Batman - but I lost. I named him Wilson because he's my buddy when Kyle leaves me at home for hours at a time - you know like 'Castaway'? He also packs a mean uppercut!

The Quickest Way to Make Me Never Talk to You Again

Beat me over the head with your (you know, probably wrong) political or religious views. There is nothing more annoying to me than you, somehow, turning every conversation into how George W. is an idiot and how you're counting down the seconds til change... Didn't your mother every teach you not to talk about politics, religion, and money?

Don't get me wrong, I'll discuss (key word, discuss - not argue) the above topics with you - all you want! But, you are not allowed to come at me like I'M the idiot. You want to discuss issues, let's go - but you better know about the issues. And "McCain is old and Obama is hot" is not an actual issue.

I agree as much as the next guy that it's time to have a change - 8 years is a long time and there's a reason that there's a 2 term restriction. But I equate this election to what Kyle thinks of the book "The Da Vinci Code". He thought that there was so much hype around the book that people 'had' to read it just because of that. Then they'd scream from the rooftops 'LOOK AT ME, I READ A BOOK - ALL BY MYSELF! I KNOW HOW TO READ'. It's suddenly 'cool' to be political.

Just because you can regurgitate 'facts' from Ihatetheothercandidate.com does not mean that you're informed and should be spewing your information like sewage.

I commend you if you have done your research and actually made a decision based on facts.

That being said, I am very excited to see the outcome Wednesday morning (my time). Either way this is a monumental election. I believe it's going to be a lot closer then anyone anticipates (Sorry folks, just because you voted on Facebook doesn't mean you've done your duty...) and can see the pros in both candidates. I'm interested to see how 'my world' reacts.