Trick or Treat?

I had to provide a "treat" for school earlier in the month and decided on my Mom's cupcakes. They are actually lemon-ish cupcakes but I added a little orange food coloring. I'm not a fan of icing and these taste great without so I just added some decoration to make it more appealing to kids. Not only were you expecting an orange flavored cupcake...it also looked like it might have some chocolate icing but it was really just black icing. I started out pretty ambitious - trying to make jack-o-lanterns and spider webs, then just opted for an easy swirl.

Here's the recipe. You will not be disappointed!

1 box of Lemon Supreme Cake Mix

Four eggs

3/4 cup of oil

1/2 cup of sugar

1 cup of apricot nectar

This recipe will make a little over 2 dozen cupcakes if you only fill the cups half full.

I try to keep the cakes from baking up above the liner.

If you don't want "icing" - you can make a glaze out of lemon juice and powdered sugar to drizzle on top.

- Or just eat them without!

Crystal Anniversary

Last week marked 15 years of marriage for the hubby and I. Instead of going through all of the hassle of trying to "get away", we decided that our time would be better spent tackling one of the most time consuming chores on our "to do" list. We chose to work on "the" room (previously mentioned). It took us a total of 16 working ours together. As we worked, we talked about our past, present and future.

We came to the following conclusion...although we have managed to live happily as a married couple for 15 years... we do not, however, feel that we would have been so great of a match in an employee/employer relationship...I would have been sent home within two hours of reporting for duty - flip flops are not appropriate footwear for a construction environment. Then I would have been put on suspension for repeatedly standing too high on the ladder. In turn, I would have sued him for workers compensation after hurting myself on his ladder.

Bedroom Make-under

Here's the latest project we've been working on. WE - as in "the hubby and I". This one was not a project that I could do alone - due to the painted ceiling and the size of the room. With the two of us working - it's a full two day project. You can't really experience the true color of the walls in this picture but it's basically a moss green with a sponge of another shade of green and maroon - with a glaze on top of that. It's VERY dark in real life.


Here's what half of the room looks like now. We've still got another coat to go on the ceiling. The fan will be taken down and spray painted white. I contemplated painting the ceiling a shade lighter than the walls but it's such a long project as it is - we're going to stay with white to keep it quick and simple. All the the trim will receive a fresh coat at a later date.

Here's a picture with some of the remainder of the room to show the contrast.