Desserts

I have not been very good about posting to my blog; however, now that I have rearranged some things in my life, I plan to be a lot better about it. So I am going to start my new posting life by talking about desserts. I love to make desserts, but I don't always have the time to create elaborate ones. Here are some of my favorite quick desserts which are delicious.

Brownies -- make a 13x9 size pan of brownies from a box mix. They are as moist and tasty -- and sometimes more so -- than what you make from scratch. Be sure to make the cake-like recipe which is on your box. It calls for an additional egg. Absolutely delicious brownies!

Bundt Cake -- once again, use a box mix. Pick your favorite flavor and buy a can of frosting to go with it. Chocolate cake, chocolate frosting; lemon cake (my personal favorite), lemon frosting. Get the idea. Make the cake according to the box directions and bake in a bundt pan. After baking and after you've removed the cake from the pan, cool completely. Then microwave the frosting container for about 20-30 seconds. IMPORTANT! BE SURE TO REMOVE THE FOIL TOP ON THE FROSTING CAN. Then, drizzle the frosting over the cake with a spoon. Another fabulous dessert.

From time to time I will share more of my quick dessert ideas with you.

Pet Paws Evening

I know I haven't posted for a bit. My only excuse is that I've been busy. Among other things, such as work, we celebrated Kentucky Derby Day (wasn't that fantastic!) and saw Singin' In The Rain at one of the local high schools. I hope everyone had a great Mother's Day.

This was my Pet Paws Scrapbooking evening and this is the layout we did. The theme is "Pets leave paw prints on our hearts." As always, we had fun and had a delicious dessert, Kentucky Chocolate Pie.

Celebrate Mother's Day

This is the Mother's Day layout we did in my Celebrate and Have a Good Time class this evening. It's an easy but elegant layout. The most time-consuming part was cutting out the flowers and outlining with Stardust pens to add a bit of glitter to the pages. (And everyone knows how much I love glitter) The saying on the white at the bottom of the pages reads, "A mother holds her children's hands for a little while...their hearts forever."

Books

I am reading so much these days. I carry a book with me all the time. I recently finished my second Mary Kay Andrews book, Savannah Breeze. She is a very typical southern author, funny and irreverent and her books are filled with quirky characters. I am now reading my third Laura Lippman book, but it is the first of her Tess Monaghan series. I am really not getting into it, but often authors' first books are not as riveting as their later ones. I really hope this is not true for me.

Got a lot to do. Dinner tonight with friends. A 12 hour crop tomorrow and I'm working 4 hours in the middle of the day. I made an orange cake for the crop. It looks absolutely wonderful. Still have to pack up my stuff. Also have a Celebrate and Have a Good Time scrapbook class on Monday which I am still getting ready for. Guess I'd better go and do something.

Rocky

Rocky is here with me right now. He's my daughter Kerry's dog, part black lab and part beagle. He looks like a small lab and barks like a beagle. Yesterday Kerry called to say that one of Rocky's toenails had grown into the pad of his foot. So today she dropped him off at our vet's and, since she had to work, I picked him up when he was ready -- and paid his charges, too, of course. For a few days, he needs to take antibiotics and painkillers.

Priscilla, my rescue poodle, was not happy that I brought Rocky home. She is very territorial and tried to chase him off. For the most part, Rocky puts up with Priscilla. I want her to learn to get along with other dogs so that we can get a second rescue dog.

Right now, he is laying on the rug by the front door, and Priscilla is laying on the couch. Peace is reigning.

I hope everyone had a great Easter Sunday. My husband and I had brunch at the restaurant our daughter works at; otherwise, we would not have gotten to see her.

This evening is my Pet Paws scrapbook class. You have to love both scrapbooking and your pets to put together a pet scrapbook. One of the group recently got a new dog from a rescue center while another member had a baby in January and plans to adapt the pages for children. In their honor, these pages are titled "New Arrival." If you are interested in a kit, let me know.

Here's a photo of my Easter card. I stamped the basket filled with eggs using teal Staz-On ink on pale pink cardstock; then colored in the eggs and basket with water color pencils and used a water pen to blend the colors. I used dimensional glaze on the bow and on the rim of the basket. (Dimensional glaze is my new favorite) Then mounted the basket onto green cardstock using dimensionals. Voila!

I am so excited! I am a Chicago Bears fan and there sure hasn't been much to cheer about for the past couple of years. Worse, I live in the Indianapolis area and, as you know, the Indianapolis Colts beat my Bears in the Super Bowl a couple of years ago. Now, DA BEARS have acquired a great quarterback -- Jay Cutler from Denver. Did you know that Cutler is from Santa Claus, IN? Maybe, finally, this season I'll have something to cheer about.

Welcome

Welcome to my new blog! I am really excited about starting a blog and hope you enjoy it. I love to read and to scrapbook, but don't have enough time for either. I teach two scrapbook classes a month. One is called Pet Paws in which we scrapbook our pets. The second is Celebrate and Have a Good Time in which we scrapbook the celebrations that make up our lives. I love doing this and am surrounded by a marvelous group of women who teach me as much as I teach them. I also belong to a book club which meets once a month. I just finished reading In Harm's Way, which is the true story of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis in WWII. Next up is The Friday Night Knitting Club.



Stay tune for more about my life.