Time for an update on my sister Sara’s health situation. To review: for months and months now she’s been dealing with anemia & an enlarged spleen. Doctors in Charlotte have not been able to figure out what’s wrong with her and they also can’t decide if they should take her spleen out or leave it in. She is tired all the time. She is swollen to the point that she looks pregnant. She can’t ride in a car for more than an hour without pain. Sleeping is a problem because of the pain. A few weeks ago we went to Wake Forest University to see a doctor that was supposed to diagnose her. Finally her blood tests came back. They STILL don’t know what’s wrong with her.
Last week her doctors here put her on a new medication. Continue reading “Sara health update”
Month: April 2009
Just in case the 80s really do come back
When I was in middle school in the 80s I got my ears double pierced and my left ear triple pierced. That made me three times cooler than the average chick, ya know. Every now and then I’ll find myself poking an earring back through those extra holes. I haven’t worn earrings in those holes in years and years, yet some odd compulsion has me sticking an earring through them periodically. Why? Is my subconcious worried that wearing all of your earrings at once will come back in fashion and I’ll be left with just 2 holes to adorn? At least I’m not still pegging my acid washed jeans or jacking my bangs up a mile high anymore. Although that would be totally rad.
I heart Twitter
Twitter is partly to blame for my lack of blogging lately. But don’t be mad at Twitter, good things happen there. For instance, Hugh Jackman, yep, the real Hugh Jackman tweets. And he started a contest on Twitter where he’d donate $100,000 to a tweeter’s favorite charity. You had to tweet him the charity & why he should pick it. He ended up splitting the $100k between 2 very deserving charities. How great is that? And he twitters himself. He doesn’t have some assistant do it. Love him!
Then there’s one of my favorite singers, Lily Allen. She also tweets herself. While on her American tour this Spring she would tweet clues to her fans. Then they would follow the clues to find 3 sets of free tickets to her show! She did this for just about every show I think. And the coolest part is that she’d hang out and see that the tickets were found then meet & have pics taken with the winners. I just think that was such a cool thing to do. Especially in this economy. Sometimes she’d even include VIP passes. Love her!
I love Twitter cause I can 
update my Facebook status via text from my cell while out and about. Plus it’s fun to tweet back and forth with tweeps. Their tweets get sent to my cell via text too. So go sign up & follow me!
Blogger’s Block
I’m also having a bit of blogger’s block. I’m going to attribute this to CSP being on vacation this week. That means I’m spending less time at the computer, less time writing in my journal, less time writing in general, cause I’m spending all my time hanging with my homeboy. Facebook & Twitter aren’t suffering. Maybe that’s because they are quickies. Hopefully I’ll snap back out of this once he goes back to work next week.
Anyone up for a Spring session of Photo Bloggy Days soon?
Reader’s block
I’ve done pretty well with my reading this year up until a week or so ago. Here’s my list of books read so far in 2009:
- Black Notice, Patricia Cornwell
- True Believer, Nicholas Sparks
- A Walk to Remember, Nicholas Sparks
- All About Him, Denise Jackson
- The Lucky One, Nicholas Sparks
- Remember Me?, Sophie Kinsella
- Change of Heart, Jodi Picoult
- Last Precinct, Patricia Cornwell
- Vanishing Acts, Jodi Picoult
- Memory Keeper’s Daughter, Kim Edwards
- My Sister’s Keeper, Jodi Picoult
- Undomestic Goddess, Sophie Kinsella
- The Pact, Jodi Picoult
- Nineteen Minutes, Jodi Picoult
- The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron
- Are You There Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea, Chelsea Handler
- Picture Perfect, Jodi Picoult
- Confessions of a Shopaholic, Sophie Kinsella
- The Idiot Girls’ Action Adventure Club, Laurie Notaro
- An Idiot Girls’ Christmas, Laurie Notaro
- Twilight, Stephenie Meyer
- Shopaholic Takes Manhattan, Sophie Kinsella
- Mr. Maybe, Jane Green
- Little White Lies, Gemma Townley
- New Moon, Stephenie Meyer
- Eclipse, Stephenie Meyer
- Breaking Dawn, Stephenie Meyer
- Shopaholic Ties The Knot, Sophie Kinsella
- Shopaholic and Sister, Sophie Kinsella
- Shopaholic and Baby, Sophie Kinsella
- The Hopeless Romantic’s Handbook, Gemma Townley
Something happened though. Once I finished the Twilight books & Shopaholic series I lost my mojo. I finished Hopeless Romantic just fine, but since then I haven’t had much interest in reading. The library emails me when a book from my list is ready to pick up, but nothing is getting me excited. Hmmm. I do have Knit Two here at home so maybe that will get me going.
VET = Very Expensive Trip
Monday CSP & I loaded up all the pugs and went off to their yearly vet check up. On the way there they were all smiles. 
At one point traffic was stopped on the highway as this guy wrangled a huge turtle off the road with what looked like a length of seat belt. Forgive the glare on the photo, couldn’t get the window down in time. 
So nice of that guy to risk life & limb for the turtle. Cause that turtle was pissed. He didn’t realize his life was being saved.
The vet report: Zoe- everything’s fine. She’s weighing in at 12 lbs. She had the best time there. Molly- needs to lose some weight. She’s up to 25 lbs. Yikes! Kiki- Also needs to lose a couple pounds. She’s coming in at 17 lbs & our vet would like to see her at 15. Kiki is our problem child. She is allergic to grass (convenient since our yard is covered in it). She’s been on allergy meds for a couple years. But this go ’round, not only did our vet up her dosage (during pollen season) but she diagnosed an ear infection in Kiki’s right ear and noticed scarring on her corneas. Her nose wrinkle has grown with age and is apparently rubbing on her eyes. So guess who’s getting a face lift? MY DOG. I could go for higher, perkier boobs and an iPhone, but instead my pug is getting plastic surgery. Of course we will do anything to keep her healthy and comfortable, so we’ll figure it out.
On the way home from the vet the pugs were pooped. 
Look at how they are looking at me! As a friend of mine pointed out, they are most likely thinking “Bitch, please”.
Carolina Blue Birthday
Friday was Papa’s birthday. Saturday we gathered together over at Papa & Gigi’s house to celebrate. I baked Papa a Carolina Blue cake to celebrate the occasion. I used this cake as inspiration.
First I mixed up white cake mix then separated it out into two bowls. Then I colored one with Wilton icing color Sky Blue to make Carolina blue. 
I added white batter then blue. It settles into concentric circles. 
It looked so cool when they came out of the oven! 
I looked up UNC’s logo online and drew it onto the cake. Then I filled in the lines with blue butter cream (all icing made from scratch thank you very much) and outlined it with white. 
Then I painted blue glitter gel onto the blue icing to give it sparkle. Papa LOVED his cake! 
He even went and put on his Carolina Blue shirt. Papa was really surprised when he cut into the cake. 
The inside was all fun & stripy! 
Click on all pics to enlarge.
Almond Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies
Easiest cookies in the world to make. SO good. So first you need to buy some Absolutely Almond Pound Cake Mix from Tastefully Simple. I used this recipe and added to it.
Ingredients
8 oz. pkg. softened cream cheese
1/2 cup (1 stick) softened butter
1 egg
Absolutely Almond Pound Cake Mix™
Directions
Combine first 2 ingredients; mix until smooth. Add egg; blend well. Stir in AA Cake Mix (may have to knead with hands until dough forms). Shape dough into 1-inch balls; place on lightly greased baking sheet. Bake at 350° for 11-12 minutes or until cookies are light brown on bottom (cookies should not brown on top and will only flatten slightly). Cool on baking rack. Makes about 45 cookies.
Here’s what I did differently. I added some chocolate chips (about half a bag) and a small bag of coconut. Plus a teaspoon of Almond extract.
Instead of rolling little balls I just use my Pampered Chef scoop to scoop out the cookies on to my baking stone. Easy peasy. The cookies come out a little cakey and so good!
Sweet standoff
We were having a baked good situation in our house that finally came to a head last night. You see, when I was baking my BIL’s birthday cake at the beginning of the month, CSP was whining that he wanted his own chocolate cake. So I baked him a chocolate cake. And that was fine. Until he saw Pumpkin bread mix at Aldi. Then I baked him pumpkin bread. And that was fine until he thought of putting chocolate chips in the pumpkin bread and making them muffins and would I please do that? So I did and that was fine.
Then last night I baked up some almond/coconut/chocolate chip cookies. They smelled so good while they were baking. And they taste damn good. But I noticed while I was mixing them up that my kitchen counter was awfully cluttered. There was one slice of chocolate cake in the cake dome. And a fourth of the pumpkin bread was turning into a brick in the loaf pan. And there were still 4 pumpkin/chocolate chip muffins in a zip loc bag. I’m not a huge fan of chocolate, and especially not chocolate cake. All these baked goods are mainly just for my hard working man to enjoy. So it was easy for me not to notice the cake sitting there since I have no interest in it. And then I saw CSP eyeing the almond cookies. Oh hells no. I had to lay down the law. So I did. And a while later….
CSP: (plops down on the sofa and groans) I’m gonna throw up.
Me: What’s wrong with you?
CSP: I’m so full.
Me: Well why’d you eat so much?
CSP: You made me!
Me: No I didn’t!
CSP: You said I had to eat all the muffins before I could have any cookies. Well I wanted cookies tonight! That’s 4 muffins I had to eat!
More groaning and moaning.
Me: I don’t feel sorry for you at all.
Puggy goodness
Zoe went out with me the other day while I ran errands. She LOVES going for rides. We just did a bunch of drive through things (dropped off mail at the blue post office box, dropped off library books, etc). 
She had a great time. When we got home we hung out on the porch with CSP & the other pugs for a while. We’re really loving this long, cool Spring. In the Carolinas it too often jumps from Winter to Seventh Level of Hell HOT. 
The pugs are so funny. They saw me take a picture of Kiki on her Daddy’s lap so then they each had to take a turn and get a picture. Hams.
Bless Your Heart 