Spring Has (almost) Sprung

Happy (belated) Easter!

And if you are not Christian, happy Passover!

And if you are neither Christian nor Jewish, happy Ridvān, Theravada New Year, Hanuman Jayanti, Mahavir Jayanti, Akshaya Tritiya (I'm early on this one), Vaisakhi, and Spring Equinox! And if you're still not happy, then Happy Monday, motherf@#ker.

Spring winked its coquettish eye at us over the weekend before sneaking back behind the folds of gray clouds and gusty wind. But while she was hanging out this weekend, we did some spring like things out here at Camp Crystal Lake.

It started with Roo waking up and leaving her comfortable bed to lay in the sun.

Go away; I'm sun bathing.

T. and I decided to take full advantage of the gorgeous Saturday weather to take a trip to Ikea. Yes, this was dumb, but it was Saturday and we'd only had two cups of coffee each, so we were obviously not thinking clearly.

Ikea art. It's deep. Super, duper deep.

We got a new lantern-stool for the back porch, a shade for the office deck door, an arm chair (that has not yet been assembled), and an ice cream cone. Just one cone; Trevor declined to participate, citing the fact that we were on our way to eat lunch, but is there a rule against eating an ice cream cone before you eat lunch? The answer is no: there is no rule against that.

We got home and did some homey things, which included cleaning the windows and putting in the screens, sweeping up, and hanging our new flag.

U.S.A.!

Now to be fair, Trevor did 89.76% of this work. I helped wash the windows, and I did a little sweeping. But he pretty much did the rest.

I did, though, bake a cake for Easter at the Bosco's place, and that took up a bit of time. It was a two-layer cake decorated like a lamb face. I'd gotten the idea from a post by blogger & baker Lyndsay Sung on the Handmade Charlotte blog and figured I'd give it a whirl since the tutorial made it look so easy. And adorable.

My first cake turned out beautifully, but my second, not so much. Check it out:

Guess who's got two thumbs and forgot to grease the cake pan?

But since the top I'd cut off my second cake was still in tact, I just plopped it on top of my first cake and had a rounded lamb face instead of a flat one. Because lambs are three dimensional, suckers.

Boom.

I dyed my frosting a pink that was more bubble-gum than baby-girl, but the rosettes I made turned out pretty good.

I finished the rosettes,

which actually looked like the tutorial!

and then made my little lamb face out of fondant:

Just the ghost of a smile

And it was done!

Thank you, Coco Cake Land, for an adorable cake that was actually pretty easy to make! 

Little does this lamb know that she's about to get a knife to the face.

It was a lambgasm at the Bosco's Easter Brunch

And what, you might ask, did I do with that sad, sad cake that fell apart on me when I tried to get it out of the pan? Did I heartlessly toss it in the trash? Did I feed it to the neighborhood flying squirrels? No. I put the pieces on a pretty dessert plate and spackled them with leftover frosting.

They sure as hell aren't pretty, but they're tasty!

And what are we doing now? Well, Trevor should be getting into the Jeep and heading home from the Metra station right about now. I am sitting on the back porch, listening to the neighborhood come alive in pops between the short, weak showers of rain. I am also humming along to The Best of the Animals.

I am anxious to see more of the flowers that are shooting up,

Roo is also very anxious. She is hoping that they sprout peanut butter flowers. She might be disappointed.

And I am enjoying Roo as she flies around the backyard like a furry, three-legged Flash.

See that blur under the trellis? That's her. I clocked her at about 62 MPH.

Hopefully we'll get more nice weather this week so Roo and I can hang out some more on the porch. And I might do some grading. And I will likely eat some cake scraps. And finish my audiobook.

Maybe I'll see you around.

A Post In Which I Feel Better That Break Is Over By Eating Twelve Pounds of Dessert

As soon as I started to do a bit of the work on Friday afternoon--work I'd put off doing all week long--I realized that my break was finally over. But right before I did that first bit of work (grading, of course), I had my ladies' lunch: Julie and Max, Mary and Sophia and Lydia, Caren and Lindy (Lilette was home with Tim), and me and Rebecca (both of us childless).

Pretty ladies!

Maxie Five Cents, looking cool as usual

One nice picture just after sitting down, before the toddler hijinks began

Maxie Five Cents, staring me down. He's a tough cookie.

And then I knew that my fun was over and I had to do a bit of work (and a bit more knitting and a bit of straightening up before my amazing V-Write mentee, Angelica, and her friend Chantal came over for some hang-time on Saturday.) But I swear that I did a little work.

On Saturday the girls suggested that we make an Oreo pie, and I thought it was a fine idea. Better than fine, actually, so we got our ingredients and the girls got to it. Although they first had to see what all the fuss was about baker's chocolate. Was it really as gross as I told them it was?

Yes. It really was.

They quickly got over that, though, and went to work.

Cooking up some pie filling

Chantal, scraping the cookie crumbs for the crust

Angelica, pouring out some crumbs

A layer of ice cream? Don't mind if we do!

The almost finished product

Once the pie was at this stage (and covered in more crumbs, obviously), we stuck it in the freezer and I started dinner while the girls did some work. Angelica did her science homework and ACT prep, and Chantal worked on a cover letter for a job she's applying for at the Anti Cruelty Society. Obviously, they will both be successful because they are both fantastic.

But to be really successful, they needed to eat a balanced meal. So we sat down to eat some vegetable soup with pasta and sandwiches,

Dinner

and, of course, pie.

Dessert--also part of the formula for success

The mostly eaten product

The girls went home with leftovers (a half pie in my house would not have lasted the night) and set our next date to go check out the Mitsuwa Marketplace in Arlington Heights.

And today, Sunday, was Easter; and there was a lot more dessert. I mean, a lot.

There was lamb cake:

The most suspicious looking lamb in Chicago

And since that lamb was so suspicious, we took care of him, and quick.

Oh, sorry lamb. Did you need that head? TOO BAD. Lamb jerk.

There was also marzipan cake (nearly as fun to say as it is to eat!):

There was another cake (caramel) and good four pounds of cookies. Bo was responsible for eating 2/3 of them. I might have been responsible for eating the other third. That's what aunts are for.

We burned off a few calories by playing catch.

And then T. and I retired home to watch the season finale of The Walking Dead (o.m.g. how am I supposed to wait until October for the next season? October!?) and the season premiere of Game of Thrones (o.m.d. [d for dragons, of course]). And I have more work to do before tomorrow, but instead, I worked on this post and am now watching Superman on t.v. And I might eat a cookie before I go to bed. Yes. I think I'll do that right now.

My finished vanitas picture. T. suggested the inscription.