No time

If I had time to blog ... which I don't ... I'd tell you about my son, Peabo. He somehow became a teenager overnight on me, complete with stinky teenaged feet and a compelling need to use (moderately) foul language around his mother.

That last part? Totally won't fly.

He wanted total world domination for his birthday. Again. He got this cool book called Rule the World: 119 Shortcuts to Total World Domination from his grandparents. Now he's well on his way.

I'd tell you about the cupcakes I made for his party: Martha Stewart's mint-filled brownie cupcakes. Not one of the kids liked them, except for my diva, but she likes brussels sprouts, so you never know with her.  I'm still transitioning from the Big Get Healthy to the Big Stay Healthy, so I couldn't even try them. I was smart enough to bring a back-up cake to the party, though. Talk about over-prepared - I mean, who brings a back-up dessert to a birthday party? But at least all those brownie cupcake haters had something sweet and sugary to chase down their pizza and popcorn.

I also made Peabo cinnamon buns from scratch, and the world's most chocolatey brownies, also from scratch. My first ever from-scratch brownies. And homemade mac & cheese with chicken and ham and broccoli. It tickled me pink that my Peabo, who used to eat nothing but chicken nuggets and frozen pizzas, wanted a slew of homemade birthday treats. Needless to say, I made him everything he asked for.

If I had time to blog ... again, I don't ... I'd tell you about how the crazy dog is no longer satisfied with barking at my beautiful children but is also herding them and occasionally nipping at them, and twice left little bitty tooth bruises on my Peabo's thigh. This, after all my researching and training and learning to use a clicker and pretending I don't mind having stinky, oogy fingers from treating my dog with cut up hot dogs and chicken. We're now down to the last option, the one where I call the rescue group and suggest that we may not be the right family for this beautiful dog. They are investigating. But I think the upshot of it is, perhaps, that kids with loud voices and spectrummy tantrums do not work and play well with border collie. We are stressing him out.

We'll see how it goes.

If I had time, I'd tell you about the afghan I started knitting, with fat circular needles in a rich purple and olive. It's for a friend. I think she doesn't read the blog, but if she does, well, dear, it's NOT for you! (It is, but we'll keep that between the rest of us.) I made up the colorwork myself - the pattern was for a solid - and it's blending beautifully. Except that not having time to blog means I have no time to knit, either, so I probably won't finish it until 2015. If I'm lucky.

I don't have time, though, to tell you about it. Instead you get little snippets that are not particularly well thought out.

Better than not blogging at all. Right?

And now I'm going to bed.

Lemon Jell-O Cake, or Why I Love My Sister

I like cake.

You're shocked, I'm sure. Because I've only blogged about cakes and cupcakes like 83,000 times. (And yes, I'm exaggerating. But not by much.)

My aunt makes a cake she calls Better Than Sex Cake. And there was a time when I might have agreed with her. You should make this cake. It may not be better than sex, but it is better than a great many other truly wonderful things. Including chocolate. I kid you not.

Good as this cake is, however - and it is extremely good - it is not the best cake ever.

The best cake ever is the stuff of memories. It's the cake my mom made for my birthday every single year growing up. It's baked in a Bundt pan, coated in a simple powdered sugar glaze, moist, with a blaze of lemony flavor that just zings through your mouth. We call it the Lemon Jell-O Cake.

I have not had that cake in nearly 30 years.

My mom's been ill for a very, very long time. When all that first happened, her brother kindly stored her things in his basement. There was a flood, though, and much was destroyed. Baby clothes she'd made by hand for me and my sister. Her original artwork. Mirrored pillows and other items from her travels to India.

And books. Many books. Including her cookbooks, and the recipe for the best cake ever along with them.

I spent years searching the interwebz for that Lemon Jello-O Cake. I never found it. I found cakes that stole the name, easy cakes, light and lemony. But not one was right.

And then, my sister's birthday came. I was pondering how best to help her celebrate and decided to get her thoughts on her cake. I gave her a couple of options. First up, the tiramisu cupcakes I wound up making (awesome!). The other was Martha Stewart's lemon curd cupcakes, for the lemony memories.

Which is when she told me about her wonderful gift. She'd rescued my mom's old, water-logged Fannie Farmer Cookbook from the flood. And inside it, hand-written and just a little smeared, was my mom's Lemon Jell-O Cake recipe. (Which is apparently Paulette's recipe, only we don't know who Paulette is.)

My sister read it to me over the phone, because she is just that awesome.

I made it last weekend. It is every single bit as good as I remembered. And given how much flavor hindsight and nostalgia add, that's saying something. Still not better than sex, but definitely getting closer.

Enjoy. And remember to send a great big thank you to my sister.

Paulette's Lemon Jell-O Cake
1 package Duncan Hines Lemon Supreme cake mix
1 3 oz package lemon Jell-O
4 eggs, slightly beaten
3/4 cup oil
3/4 cup apricot nectar (my store didn't have it, so I used pear nectar instead - still yummy!)
2 tbs lemon extract

Mix all ingredients together and pour into a buttered and floured Bundt pan. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes minimum, usually longer.  (45 minutes did it for me, but my oven is dead-on accurate.)

Glaze
 2 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice (fresh-squeezed, please!)

Mix and let stand. Pour over cake when it comes out of the oven. (I poured it along the inner and outer edges of the pan ... oh stars, but what that does to this cake ... you'll just have to find out for yourself.) Leave in the pan until it cools. Eat it.

Giving credit where credit is due: my mom once told me that this recipe came off a box of Duncan Hines Lemon Supreme cake mix. I've been all over their site, though, and couldn't find the recipe. I did find a similar recipe here.

Ice Cream for Breakfast

Today was the very best kind of day.

A year ago - and this is where blogging is just a little surreal, because you do get to look back a full year and see where you were - but a year ago, I was in a very different place. A year ago, I dropped a pitcher of iced tea on the floor, burst into tears, and put my cranky kids to bed.

Today I had ice cream for breakfast.

Today I had eager kids bouncing on my bed, and an amazing au pair who woke up early and helped them mix and scramble and toast and scoop. They gave me ice cream for breakfast, with four spoons and a heaping helping of Belgian chocolate sprinkles (I am so planning a trip to Belgium, 'cause those folks really do have their priorities straight when it comes to food).

Today I had my family around me, with two mothers in the house and a birthday to celebrate, and plenty of yummy goodness. That includes some incredible cupcakes - and yes, I made them, but it's not really bragging because they are not really my cupcakes. These cupcakes belong to Martha. THE Martha. They are Martha Stewart's tiramisu cupcakes, and they are easily worth whatever you have to pay for real vanilla beans to make them happy.

What's funny is, that bad day, a year ago? That's the day I realized I was happy. And yes, I know that seems a bit contrary. But it's true. I knew I was happy because that one bad day didn't knock me down. It didn't send me diving for the covers. That one bad day was followed by one good day. And then another. And another.

And that's what makes happy. A string of good days, with a bad day plopped in there from time to time to remind you of what you've got.

Crap happens. It happens a lot. And then you have ice cream for breakfast.

Happy Mother's Day, folks. Gosh but this mom thing is fun!

12 Things We Learned on Our Vacation

There is no denying this has been a pretty crap year for my kids. Lots of stress and turmoil mixed in with a few lovely moments that kept us all going. Figured we should make a few more lovely moments, so I took them on vacation.

We'd already planned on coming west to Washington for a family reunion. I turned that weekend into a two-week trip. It's the single longest vacation I've ever had ... and easily worth every moment of leave and every penny of savings I've poured into it.

Here are 12 things we learned on our vacation, in no particular order.

1. There are at least 10 words for poop: caca, feces, droppings, guano, scat, spoor, manure, dung, ordure, excrement. Granted, I already knew most of those. But my kids were thrilled. A whole new set of potty words to play with. Yay. And many, many thanks to the "Animal Grossology" exhibit at Seattle's Pacific Science Center.
2. Shouting "Uncle Jon is a poopyface!" to a mountain full of strangers is the surest way to get my kids to smile for a photo.
   
3. My diva can sing. She had her little brother laughing hysterically in the voice synthesizer room at the Experience Music Project. But her Oma & I, off headsets, were treated to the real thing - a beautiful rendition of Hoku's Perfect Day. My diva rocks!
4. My diva talks in her sleep. And her little brother snores.
   
5. You can fake an underarm fart. I have not tried this myself, but my kids are available for demonstrations.
   
6. If you're standing on the deck of a ferry zipping across Puget Sound, do not blow spit bubbles into the wind. My oldest learned this lesson the hard way.
   
7. You can get a non-resident library card in Olympia for $10. Worth the price because it kept my Aspie awash in Hardy Boys books - a new discovery for him this trip. Why that's important: in one 24-hour period, between 6:33 p.m. on Wednesday and 6:33 p.m. on Thursday (yes, he kept track), he read three whole books cover to cover. And he could tell me their plots. He did it again the next day.
   
8. My redhead is four. He finally admitted it on Friday, just 6 days after his birthday.
   
9. Cupcakes and bookstores are my family's answer to Prozac.
   
10. The best vacations let you take a break every few days just to read, watch TV and play Uno.
    
11. The subalpine meadows of Paradise at Mount Rainier were designed by Walt Disney. It's true. Just go visit Paradise some random August day and you'll see what I mean. It is, hands down, the prettiest place on earth.
12. There are at least 35 people in the world who love my kids to pieces just because they were born. They love me, too. I knew that, in my heart of hearts, but it helps to be reminded.
    

When you get right down to it, of course, a single mom is never really on vacation. In these two weeks, I've barely had time to knit a full row, read a page in my book or even take a shower in peace. But I did get to spend real time with my kids. I read them books and held their hands and tickled them till they couldn't stop laughing. I showed them a bison and an elk, taught them how to find a good skipping stone, and took them to the Pacific Ocean. Well, close to it, anyway. And, in between "Don't hit your brother" and "Keep your spit in your mouth," I got to listen to them. They are great kids.

Turns out, I've missed them.

Suzie's Cakes

My kids and I are on vacation this week, exploring all that Washington state has to offer.

Yesterday we went to Aberdeen.

Not a ton of reasons to go there, except on the way to someplace else. We were on our way to Westport, a quiet coastal town with fabulous seafood (get the chowder), decent beer, and ... um ... great big rocks.

Aberdeen has none of these things. It's a logging town, and these days it's mostly gray and sad. Its biggest claims to fame are that it is the birthplace of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, and it is the home port for Lady Washington, a tall ship used in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

The ship was enough to send us off the highway on a quest to find the harbor. We never made it. First, they hid the harbor. Damn fine job, too - we couldn't find it, and we had a map. Then, someone raised a drawbridge and created a giant trafficky mess.

So instead we got to listen to my kids bickering in the backseat. My grumpy redhead was calling everyone "stupid moron" and "idiot boy" (thank you, Television) and hitting his siblings on the head with his brother's action figures. My little guy is unnaturally strong, so this really hurt. Why his brother was sharing his action figures, no one knows. You'd think one Wolverine to the head would make you realize, "Hey, maybe I should hang onto these."

Then, like a beacon, happiness appeared.

The sign on the window said Suzie's Cakes. The building itself was a cheery one-story with bright pink shutters - color enough to make the place stand out in the midst of a giant sea of gray. There was a little sign out front announcing "Wednesdays are Cupcake Days!" Well, it was Wednesday. That was enough to make us pull over.

Inside, heaven. The cakes were stunning. Even the sample cakes. There were reams of kid-friendly treats and decadent cupcakes. And coffee. Good coffee. Lots of coffee. Oh, and a beautiful, clean bathroom (I do have three kids, after all - we spent a lot of time in there).

The kids all chose brownie popsicles. You jam a brownie onto a stick, dip it in melted chocolate, then in either M&Ms or sprinkles. The kids adored 'em. Even my sweets-avoiding Aspie finished his, right down to the stick.

My au pair and I, we went for the cupcakes. Hers was a raspberry-filled vanilla. And I chose the Cupcake of the Day: a moist, lemony poppyseed cake frosted with a fat dollop of chocolate almond buttercream and sprinkled with almond slivers. Not flavors I'd have put together myself. But ... well, I ate it all up. Every crumb. I did not share.

Westport was fun - corn dogs and the Pacific Ocean. But Suzie's Cakes was the highlight of the day. Cupcake magic and an overdose of chocolate knocked the grumpies right out of my kids. They got along beautifully for the whole rest of the day.

Next time we vacation here? I'm heading to Aberdeen first.

Martha's Cupcakes

Next month - in fact, on the very first day of next month - it's my little guy's birthday.

He's very keen on the idea of his birthday. I think mostly that's because he wants presents. And he wants to be the center of the universe, even if it's just for a day. With three kids in the house, trust me, that doesn't happen very often.

So every night he asks me if it's his birthday tomorrow. He knows August is coming, but he doesn't quite get the when.

And this year his birthday is a little more complicated than usual. That's because this year, for some reason, my little guy is refusing to age.

I've tried to explain to him that he will turn four on his birthday. He says no. Vehemently, with full on pouty face. "I'm not gonna be four," he grouches at me. "I'm gonna stay three again!"

It's hard to disagree with him. I'd have been perfectly happy to stick at 32 for a decade or so. Not possible, of course. So I'm trying to convince him that older is okay. And I think I've found the perfect bribe.

Cupcakes.

I decorate cakes for fun and frolic. My kids' birthdays are a special treat because I get to pull an all-nighter, run a Harry Potter marathon on the portable DVD player, and get crafty with fondant, colored nonpareils and run-in sugar. Few other things make me as happy.

The kids love the cake thing, too. At least once a week, they will pull out all my many cake books and create fantasy celebrations in their heads. It reminds me of the Sears catalog, back in the day. My Oma used to call it the Wish Book (I think everyone else's grandmother did, too), and my sister and I would spend hours building a wished-up life complete with furniture, glamorous outfits, and - um - tools.

My little guy, though, is less about the cakes of late. Nowadays he's all about the cupcakes. He loves Dede Wilson's Baker's Field Guide to Cupcakes (oh, and I do, too - her Italian meringue buttercream is lightly sweet, all natural and utterly delicious). He'll sit with that book for an hour at a time, flipping the pages and sighing with cupcakey joy.

But today - oh, today! I have found the Holy Grail of cupcake books. I was at BJ's, doing the warehouse thing. It's tedious and annoying, so I treat myself to book browsing while I'm there. This evening I was rewarding myself with a fruitless hunt for the new Nora Roberts novel when I spotted it ... Martha Stewart's Cupcakes. Oh oh oh oh oh!! Gorgeous. Tasty. Inspired. Now, I can make my own chocolate faux-bois! I can make little fondant monkeys! I can create a tiny cupcake forest of meringue mushrooms! It's a cornucopia of cupcake creativity.

I think it'll be enough to convince the little guy that he does, in fact, want to turn four. Because if he turns four I will make him any cupcake he wants. In fact, I will make him two dozen of them. And I won't make him share.

I'd turn four for Martha's cupcakes. Wouldn't you?

PS: For kicks, check out the Cake Wrecks blog link on the right. Daily posts of absolutely abysmal cakes, with occasional highlights of a few stunning concoctions. If you're serious about your caking, try 52 Cupcakes.

The Blogroll

I'm a surprise blogger. Always wanted to try it, and now that I have a vehicle, I find that I actually have something to say. Had no idea it was in there. Surprise!

What this means, though, is that I never stopped to set the context. I'm betting that, as a result, you have no idea why I chose to put those random bits and pieces on the right side of the page. So I'll do a few posts over the coming weeks to give you the 4-1-1 (and yes, I feel silly even typing that).

We'll start with What I Read ... more commonly known as the blogroll.

First up is DivaSpeak, which I've been following since its inception. It is creatively crafted by a good friend who knows her pop culture cold (she blogs on Lost and Heroes, among many other things). She also has a knack for finding brilliant, off-beat content. My most recent guilty pleasure from the Diva: "I've dreamed about it ... have you?" It's one of those things you can't stop watching. Not that you'd want to. Dive into her archives. She keeps me entertained. She also has phenomenal taste in shoes.

The Bloguscript is my how-to-live-vicariously blog, because it's written by a friend who actually leaves his house. I read this and want to go do things and see things and hear things. His tunage is interesting, his grammar is spot on, and he's got a sense of humor just this side of snarky, as evidenced by his "You Might Not be a Redneck" post. He's been teaching me to blog, for which many thanks and a batch of banana chocolate chip bars - or at least a lasagna - are likely in his future.

If my friend iClipse is providing the mechanical bloggy know-how, the Yarn Harlot is providing the inspiration. I knit. I write. The Yarn Harlot knits. The Yarn Harlot writes. She makes me want to knit and write and then knit some more, because you realize, reading her, that knitting and writing are what life should be about. I want to knit a sock. I don't even like socks. And then I want to write about it. And take its picture. I think that means I am an honest-to-goodness fan.

Cake Wrecks is a new find. I've been decorating cakes for 12 years. Started with this stunning creation that I copied out of Colette Peters' first book, Colette's Cakes, for a dear friend's baby shower. It was a giant bib done in multi-colored buttercream loops, lacy swags of royal icing, and pastel animals piped with run-in sugar. It tasted like sawdust, but oh, was it pretty! My cakes taste better now and mostly come out to play for birthdays and special family events. This blog makes me laugh out loud. Often.

Eat Like Me is on the roll because I think I should want to read it. A nutritionist chronicles her day in food. Not 100% sure I'm there yet, though I do check in sometimes. And knowing this blog's here does seem to make me eat better ... I'm officially down 15 pounds since I started blogging in January.

Snark appeals to me, which is why I keep a link to Diary of The Food Whore and get her RSS feed delivered to my iGoogle page. A snarky caterer. Loves food; not so fond of people. Brilliant.

52 Cupcakes is - duh - another cake blog. Some of her ideas are a little off the beaten path: to wit, the Bisquick Bacon Cupcakes with Maple Syrup and Bacon Frosting. But she's unfailingly creative, and that works for me. I actually want to try those the next time I make breakfast for dinner with the kids.