National Bundt Day - November 15

Courtesy of The Food Librarian, designed by JustJenn

Courtesy of The Food Librarian

Proud Bundt baker for many years, I still have my I Like Big Bundt pin from The Food Librarian from 2011. While nowhere as ambitious as Mary the Merry Bundt Baker/Food Librarian, I did make two this week.

I cheated a little and doctored two cake mixes, but I still chopped nuts, and grated baby carrots (and my knuckles), and I still used Grandma Ollie's trusty and now well used bundt cake pan for:

Mail Room Matt's Carrot Cake Birthday Bundt

Frosting on the side

Though, the surprise was on me. He took the whole week off. Whoopsie Daisy. His colleagues were happy. I hope it tasted okay. I went back today, and no one saved me a piece. WHAT THE...?! You always tithe the baker, people. Feed her and she may be fat -- and happy to make you more food.

Also, a stressed person may just bake up a storm to try and use other parts of her brain.

Case in point.

I got home really late last night, after going cross-eyed late at the office in the throes of data streams. (SO MANY DATA STREAMS) I don't like spreadsheets with over 65,000 lines and countless columns. (I like deadlines of next week even less.) It's handy to know some filtering tricks, so that you don't get too sour on the whole project(s). In honor of National Bundt Day, I was determined to bake something - that would then end up in the office, and so as this bundt baked, I also balanced my checkbook, paid my bills, and worked on this blog post all the while wondering how many poppy seeds I'd have to consume before the opiates took effect and I could sleep.... (Consuming the other 1/2 cup of powdered sugar glaze frosting certainly didn't help with the whole sleep situation!)

But I digress.

Dump, doctor, mix, and dump

Bake, test, touch, remove and cool

Flip, pray ... and Cheer

Et viola

An  Excel -- ent Lemon Poppy Seed Bundt to Blunt our Sour Pusses Stuck in Data Tables with a generous coating of SugarRush to Power Through The Night Shift Sweet Glaze

A long name but apropos, as pieces should be taken home by another colleague to thank her husband, the font of all knowledge on Excel formulas. We drink so gratefully from this font, and it makes our day sweeter. Thank you Jeffrey.

Photo of the Day: Retail Therapy

Wednesday, August 7, 2013, Saint John, New Brunswick

City Market

We never did spot what was cheaper than therapy.

Wreck it Wednesday: Wreck this Journal Updates

From the Preface: 
Warning: During the process of this book you will get dirty. You may find yourself covered in paint, or any other number of foreign substances. You will get wet. You may be asked to do things you question. You may grieve for the perfect state that you found the book in. You may begin to see creative destruction everywhere. You may begin to live more recklessly. 





 
It's been a while since I've posted the updates about my Wreck this Journal, but I have been slowly working on it. This past week, in particular, saw a burst of activity - mostly while I was waiting for other things to happen. It was good to use it to process other things that were going on.

Updates on existing pages:

The above is a riff on the apocryphal library school story about raw bacon being used as a book mark. It's a print add for Oscar Mayer (? I think) bacon, that uses Boolean operators. I'm a geek.

New pages:

Everything smells like Tea Rose perfume now ... It's kind of nice, especially when you don't have time to go out and smell real roses. Also, I bet people of a certain age can't get a Tears for Fears song out of their head. (This one.)

This one word is PATIENCE - what I was trying to exercise one night at Symphony Space while waiting my place in line for Neil Gaiman to sign The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

I filled this page up too quickly, to the amusement of an usher. So I moved on to this one. I had already slapped the two Janet Evanovich stickers in there, and it let to some interesting internal debates. It started in the lower left corner of the Morelli page and wrapped around, saying things like:

~8:30 pm  6/19/13 waiting for GAIMAN @Symphony Space OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE

It is completely silly that I am actually dedicating these two pages to an internal monologue - especially one that now has to focus on two fictional characters in a series of novels that has unfortunately gotten to be formulaic but I stuck these stickers here so I might as well commit. Plus I have time to kill waiting for a much more intriguing novelist to sign his most latest book. The usher may have a point ... Why do I/we need autographs from writers? Shouldn't the book be enough? Obviously NOT, as a full sold-out house is waiting for this guy to sign their book, and their stuff, so they have another piece of him. But this was supposed to be a monologue about MORELLI vs. Ranger. Morelli - reformed bad boy, house, home, dog, job, family, still enough bad to attract. Ranger - international man of mystery, sexy as hell - but... Not one to settle down with, no shared childhood/cultural BURG history. After all the back and forth, it's really annoying. Pick one or choose yourself. It's 2013! You don't need a man. Really. I mean, it's nice and all, but ... seriously. Time to grow up Stephanie, the character. Janet the novelist should have moved on 10 books ago. The audience has, and I have wasted two pages writing about this and the signing line hasn't moved!

P.S. After writing this, getting dinner @ 9:30 and waiting 2+ hours, watching train schedule -- decided author's work more imp. than autograph. Gave him 1 less interaction, me home around midnight, less commute stress, and some sleep. May be short-sided, but there it is. 
11:50 PM 6/19/13

Post-note: According to the author and organizers, Neil Gaiman wasn't done signing until after 1 a.m. If I had left at the end of the reading, like my colleague, I would have gotten a pre-signed book. I waited until 10:30 and left with an unsigned copy. Who was the smarter one?

Wreck it Wednesday: Wreck This Journal Updates

 From the Preface: 
Warning: During the process of this book you will get dirty. You may find yourself covered in paint, or any other number of foreign substances. You will get wet. You may be asked to do things you question. You may grieve for the perfect state that you found the book in. You may begin to see creative destruction everywhere. You may begin to live more recklessly.

Wreck it Wednesday: Wreck This Journal Updates

From the Preface: 
Warning: During the process of this book you will get dirty. You may find yourself covered in paint, or any other number of foreign substances. You will get wet. You may be asked to do things you question. You may grieve for the perfect state that you found the book in. You may begin to see creative destruction everywhere. You may begin to live more recklessly.



 

 

Wreck it Wednesday: Wreck This Journal Updates

From the Preface: 
Warning: During the process of this book you will get dirty. You may find yourself covered in paint, or any other number of foreign substances. You will get wet. You may be asked to do things you question. You may grieve for the perfect state that you found the book in. You may begin to see creative destruction everywhere. You may begin to live more recklessly. 

  

Still in progress:

Fun times, fun times. 
Maybe I shouldn't have reinforced the holes 
before I stabbed them up?

Negative comments are easy to find, especially in fashion magazines.

When the journal said make a paper chain, I thought, DAISY CHAINS.

Wreck it Wednesday: Wreck This Journal Updates

From the Preface: 
Warning: During the process of this book you will get dirty. You may find yourself covered in paint, or any other number of foreign substances. You will get wet. You may be asked to do things you question. You may grieve for the perfect state that you found the book in. You may begin to see creative destruction everywhere. You may begin to live more recklessly.