Happy...

A Wonderful Happy Birthday ....

to my mom.

She's 91 today.  (I hope she doesn't mind my telling her age but I'm thinking if you are lucky enough to make it to 90 or beyond, then you might want to shout it from the rooftops! I certainly would.)

And she is still as beautiful and intelligent as ever.

I know this because I spent last week with her and my dad.

They also celebrated their 66th wedding anniversary last week, a number that completely blows my mind.

Recently ...

41 years ago on their 25th

 and 66 years ago.

Pics of just me and my mom are few and far between. I could only find this one.

I took a selfie with her last week, but because I really want to stay in her good graces, I won't post it. She didn't "have her face on" and really didn't want me to take it.  But this one from 2008 is a pretty good one. At least we both look decent.  

And I think I need to work on getting another picture with her. One every 8 or 9 years? Not enough.

Happy Birthday JeanMom!!!

Baking at High Longitude or...

Baking at High Longitude or...
More Adventures in Living in the Middle of Nowhere


Friend Diane just came back from Steamboat and she had this little story to tell.

While riding up the elevator one night, two very inebriated young ladies got on with her.

Tipsy #1 commented that she was "so drunk" and she just had no idea how she got that way, she didn't think she had THAT much to drink.

Tipsy #2 reassured her that she didn't drink that much, it's just that "at this longitude, the alcohol hits you harder."

From here on out I am going to stick to the theory that I live at 8000 feet longitude and it makes it difficult for me to assimilate any alcohol.

If you don't get what's funny about this story, I'm not going to help you.


Anyway...

Bunny turned seventeen on Monday and she requested an Angel Food cake for her birthday.

I will refer you back to September a year ago when I made the mistake of ordering a birthday cake for Belle rather than making her one. I thought by ordering and paying for a cake I would be spared the embarrassment that would accompany an ugly cake. I'd never baked at 8000 feet and knew it could be tricky.

Here was her cake:

Here is what she expected:

Belle wanted something elegant and maybe with a little bling, but definitely cheetah printed.   Apparently I did not convey that clearly.

Now September a year ago we had just moved up to this high "longitude".  Since then I have done quite a bit of baking and pretty much figured out some of the alterations required to make baking successful.

BUT.

I have also heard that Angel Food cakes are a little harder to master than some of the other baked goods.

So I started a day early and planned to just make an Angel Food cake from a box mix.

I neglected to actually read the high "longitude" instructions on the box. Usually it requires more water or higher temps, nothing out of the ordinary.

Ha! This time the high "longitude" instructions required corn starch, something that wasn't in the pantry. And the grocery store is about 18 miles/30 minutes away.

Thinking I could figure this out, I went on the internet and found a different brand cake mix that just required some extra flour. Ok, that should work. I had a Betty Crocker mix, that was for Duncan Hines but seriously, how different could they be??

Apparently quite a bit.

Here's what I ended up with:

 Cake #1.

I've always heard of cakes "falling" but I've never experienced it. Until now.

So, off to the store again anyway. One hour round trip.
Another cake mix and this time I got some corn starch,too.

And here is cake number two:

 Cake #2.

While it may not look much better, it actually rose very high, overflowed and then settled back down to a manageable shape.

Flipped over and drizzled with pink icing, it didn't look too awful.

Bunny turns 17!

And it tasted just fine.

So happy happy birthday Baby Bunny.  

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And two weeks ago, while I was in Texas, the Big Guy also had a birthday.

It was a busy, crazy week and there was very little time for baking, celebrating, anything-ing. 

The Big Guy was very understanding.

I did go to the kids' favorite breakfast burrito place for burritos to bring back to Colorado. Big Guy asked if I would bring him some, too. 

Voila!  A Breakfast Burrito Birthday "Cake".  Candles stuck between the burritos, the Happy Birthday song sung and my oldest officially turned 23. 

Yikes!

Really there are candles between those burritos. 

Just hard to see. 

Karma, Milagros and Me

Karma, Miracles and Me....


Last Friday I was in a mood.  You know. A "woe is me" mood.   Needed things I couldn't find, wanted things I couldn't have. Maybe a little overwhelmed. Hohoho and the Christmas spirit. All that jazz.

In an attempt to put myself in a cheerier mood I drove through McDonald's for an iced tea and paid for the car behind me, too. A random act of kindness. Wasn't sure if it was going to make me feel better, but even if it didn't, I felt like it might bring some good karma.  You never know.

But I was still in a mood driving home.

And then! Milagros. Miracles.

 

These are milagro charms.

For real.

There was a huge box on the back porch from my friend Cathy and inside was a Christmas tree. And for the tree- milagros.
Milagro means miracle. It also means a little charm used as religious offerings, mostly in Latin American countries.
So little milagro charms hung all over this wonderful little tree.  It was beautiful and special and completely and totally unexpected. It was such a treat it made me cry. In a good way.

Karma?

Saturday morning I woke to this email:

"It was great to meet you last weekend at the market in Denver! Congratulations!  You won the pair of earrings!  Just let me know where to send them and I'll get them in the mail. Thank you!!"

Now I enter little give-aways online all the time. I'll stick my name in a jar if there is something I'd like to win.  But do I ever win? Do you? 
I don't.   
But the week before in Denver I wrote my name on a slip of paper and Lo! and Behold! I won some earrings. Fabulous earrings at that. 

Very fun earrings from Aaron Sault Jewelry.

Check out his work. 

Original. Organic. Very cool.

Karma? 

Sunday was my birthday.

I woke up to *snow*.  The first snow of December. 

A dusting of snow.

And the link to the video if you can't see it here. 

I worked, by choice. Why not? I like working.

It was a bit slow but one of the regulars came in and we chatted and I mentioned it was my birthday.
When he left, he said he might stop back by later, before we closed, but that's not unusual. Some people come in twice a day.

And ten minutes to closing here comes this nice gentleman back in the front door with a big box under his arm. It looked like a toy box.  
And he announced "Here is your birthday concert. These guys are going to serenade you. Unfortunately they don't know Happy Birthday but they do know lots of Christmas songs."

Isn't this adorable?

The Birthday Concert

And if, by chance, you can't see this video, click here.

Sorry it's a little blurry.

Totally made me smile.


I came home to presents and cards and flowers and lots of little treats.

Then Bunny and her friend boy took me to dinner. And the restaurant staff sang "Happy Birthday" to me in a wonderfully embarrassing way. (Thank goodness it was early and the restaurant was pretty empty.)

Absolutely a wonderful birthday from start to finish.


So was it all just coincidence?
A milagro?
Karma?

Who knows?
Who cares?

But just in case, I think I'll stick with those random acts of kindness.


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And a poem, given to me by my friend Cherrilla one Christmas probably 37 years ago.
Apparently I've been prone to these moods for a while.
It's copyrighted 1907 but it still holds true some days.

Nobody Cares For Me

I'm just as mad as I can be

For nobody cares for me.

I slapped the cat and banged the dog 

And they don't care for me.

I stubbed my toe on a great hard rock

And jammed my thumb in the door.

But nobody seemed to see

For nobody cares for me. 

Written by M.T. Sheahan.

Sums up those moods pretty nicely.

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I'm traveling at the end of the week.

On Sunday night, the Winter Solstice, there will be a little party so I can see some neighbor friends.
That's No. 31: Have a Solstice Party.

And then there will be Christmas and family and more travel.

Posting may be random. 

But I'm thinking about all of you. 

Merry Christmas.

No. 14 Again and No. 60 Finally.

 No.14 Again... and No. 60 Done. 
(but mostly just where I begin the birthday celebrating...)

No. 14: Go to the Nutcracker Market was the very first challenge I completed.

It was a great Christmas market with lots of interesting stuff but I expected a bit more in the way of hand made products, not quite so many imports.  But I had never been before and it was definitely worth it.

 So when my friend Cherrilla sent me an email titled : 35 Indie Craft Fairs Every Creative Person Needs To Visit....well, what was I supposed to do? Ignore it?  I think not. 

I went through all of the dates/locales and lo and behold! one of them was in Denver. That's just right around the corner. (Sort of.)  And I already had plans to go up and visit my friend Diana that weekend.

So plans were made and off we went. (Bunny and I - she wanted to see the friend boy.)

We made a total weekend of it and why not? My birthday is next week and friend Diana's is two days after mine.   So we both celebrated a little early.

Friday night was the Parade of Lights in downtown Denver and we did a parade like you're supposed to- with a little kid in tow.   Diana's little great nephew came with us. Diana and I both have raised kids, we figured we could handle one three year old for a parade. Ha! Bunny and her friend came and saved our butts. Nothing like two teenagers to entertain a three year old when you have to wait over an hour for the parade to begin.

 Aren't the lights beautiful? 

Like stars.

 A giant white tiger balloon.

 A toy float.

 Samoyeds wearing lights. 

 A twinkling gingerbread house/float.

 And a twinkling marching band!

 Look at the mane on that horse.

Sigh.

 Three year old and friend- sharing Pez, not a drug deal. 

And at the end of the parade- a giant penguin balloon. 

There were floats and balloons and fire jugglers along with horses and dogs and high school bands, all decorated with lights.  The weather was above freezing. The friend boy had never seen a big city parade. The little boy had never seen a parade at all.  All in all, a pretty perfect night.

Saturday we went to Georgetown to see the Christmas Market. Again, perfect weather and a lovely day.

 The movie "The Christmas Gift" was filmed in Georgetown. 

It starred John Denver and this taxi cab.

(And yes, this is absolutely the worst pic ever.  Of me. The cab looks pretty good.) 

A wonderful little mountain town with buildings dating from around the 1860s, 

decorated for Christmas.

I confess these guys were the highlight of the day.

Aren't they just little nuggets? 

The Christmas market wasn't very Christmas-y but the little town was adorable and we saw mountain goats on the drive there.


Saturday night Pam from Simple Details stopped by for a quick visit. She's another December birthday.  The Sagittarius ladies were ruling Denver over the weekend!

Then dinner was devoured at Hillstone's Restaurant. I'm counting this as #5 for No. 60: Hit five restaurants in Houston that I have never been to before. We eat out all the time but always end up at the same places. Time to branch out.  

Hillstone:  Snazzy restaurant in the Cherry Creek area of Denver. 

Even though Hillstone isn't in Houston, it was definitely a new restaurant and it was definitely branching out. And I haven't been in Houston for a while to complete No. 60, so there's that.  I said in the beginning I could bend the rules and I have and I will.
I had a beautiful birthday trout accompanied by a couple of India Pale Ales.  Branching out in the beer department has been another challenge- although not one on the list. Also I got to dress up and wear heels! Woohoo!

Sunday was the main event. After taking Bunny and friend to breakfast (At Snooze, another new restaurant for me. One that required a one hour wait. For breakfast. ) Diana and I headed off to the RiNo (River North) art district for the Firefly Handmade Market. And it lived up to its name.

A cool little event center in a very cool, up and coming part of town.

Beautiful handmade items, delicate jewelry, artisan soaps, jams and sauces, and fun printed items.

There are some very very creative people out there. The market was inspiring. Possibly a few Christmas presents were purchased.

And I didn't take a single picture because they had that "No Photos Please" rule. (O! Or maybe because I was lazy. Or see above about presents that are supposed to be surprises.)

So while I didn't really complete anything new, I am crossing off No. 60 for good and counting No. 14 as done twice. And I got a start on celebrating my birthday. I have always envied, admired and wanted to emulate the people who manage to spread their birthday celebrations out over an entire month. I truly think that is something to aspire to.

Maybe next year!
Maybe a new challenge???


(And did you notice? Not one single photo of me and Diana together. That should be another challenge. I never seem to get pics taken with my friends. Need to master the art of the selfie or at least learn to hand my phone/camera/iPad to someone to snap...)

No. 35: Part Two: That 40th High School Reunion + a Birthday

No. 35: Part Two: The 40th High School Reunion Pics 

I went to my 40th High School Reunion. But first I reminisced and posted lovely high school photos of some of my friends from 40 years ago. While I was at the party Saturday night, I did my best to get pics of those same people.

Some comparisons....

Curtis in 1974

Curtis

(With Lisa Laird Married Name that I Don't Know) 

and Brown

 And here's Brown in 1974 

with Carol that is no longer with us.

Brown and I talked about how much we wish she were still here. 

So both of these guys are looking pretty good. The hair isn't as long but at least they still have some!!

Right? 

Me with Mary in 1974

Me with Mary now.

I think Mary looks almost exactly the same, just shorter hair. And both of our faces are thinner. 

What's up with that? 

Me with Emily.  

Wish I had gotten a better pic of her. 

I swear she looks better now than then.

Half of Brown, Me, Emily and Kevin, back in the day.

Here's Bobby/Bob and Kevin now. 

They are just as adorable as ever except with, again, shorter hair. 

And Bobby then. We need to know his secret. 

You know, the "never age secret". 

 Sally, Me, Liddy- 1974

Me, Sally, Liddy- 2014

Sorry we are a little blurry- cell phone pics.

I believe we have all gotten blonder. 

Imagine that!

 Tricia then.

Me and Tricia now.

This was about the 7th selfie we tried taking...I had to break out the reading glasses just to see what we were doing. Both of us were pretty close to hysterical.  For some reason we just 

couldn't get it right. Some alcoholic beverages may have been consumed at this point.

Anyway, same smile, same fun person.

Tricia with Martha/Ann

Lynn, Peggy, Martha now Ann, Allison, Anne, Liddy, Me

And in the back middle we have Martha/Ann again, looking not one day older.

Did Robert E. Lee have something really magical in the water fountains? 

And just because- me and Liddy enjoying the night. 

We were good at that then, 

still good at that now.

The guys haven't aged. The girls haven't aged. The years have been good to all of us.

Thank goodness. 

Love them all. So happy I got to visit.

Thanks for indulging my stroll down memory lane.

No. 35 is officially complete.

AND.....

Today is 9/11.   For most that day is a day of remembrance, a sad day when many lives were lost senselessly.
For me it is my middle child's birthday along with my handsome soon-to-be-wed nephew's birthday.
A reminder that while there is evil in the world, there are also reasons to rejoice.
Happy happy birthday Belle and Brian.

Hard to believe that this baby...

 Born with a full head of black hair...

became this baby...

and turned into a natural blonde. 

Life is full of surprises.

No.40: Make a cake from scratch for somebody's birthday

No. 40:  Make a cake from scratch. 
Bonus points for doing it at high altitude!!


Last week my friend Liddy called and said she was headed to Colorado for the week. She has a house a couple of hours away from mine and she, a friend and a sister-in-law were coming up.
I was invited over to visit. Yay!

Turns out, Liddy's ummm...28th...29th?...birthday was coming up so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to knock out No. 40: Make a cake from scratch for someone's birthday.

Then I realized I would have to be doing a high altitude cake. We are about 7700 feet above sea level here in the little cabin in the woods. 

Google to the rescue.

I found this Website:  THK:Not Quite the Handy Kitchen.
Which had this cake recipe and even better- the reasons WHY changes are made to high altitude baking:  The Perfect Altitude Cake
I wish this guy was still posting. His name is Trevor and I get the feeling maybe he was/is with an aide/missionary group. I may be totally wrong. But I loved reading his blog.  Living in Peru and then Ecuador and cooking at high altitudes in primitive kitchens.
My kind of Heaven- making do in a foreign place.

So here we go.

The original is a Dark Chocolate Cake recipe from AllRecipes that he tweaked.

His ingredient list with notes:

My crowded counter with ingredients...

and toaster.

2 cups boiling water

1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour PLUS 2 tbsp
Note: Don’t measure the flour exactly.  The goal is to measure out more than needed.  Spoon the flour out into the cup and instead of scrapping off the excess flour that piles on top of the measuring cup, just pour it in.  Then, add two tbsp more of flour.  This gives the mixture more structure.  

1/2 teaspoons baking soda
Note: When you are baking at high altitude, leavening products become a huge challenge.  The idea is for each tsp of leavening called for reduce to a 1/4 tsp.  So, 2 tsp was the original amount so we reduce it to 1/2 tsp.

1/4 teaspoon baking powder
Note: Again, more leavening.  Since there was so much, I cut this in half from the original amount which was 1/2 tsp.  

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup butter, melted
Note: Usually you would cream the butter and sugar together.  Instead, you are going to melt the butter and mix the sugar with it.  I’ll explain that later.    

2 1/4 cups white sugar MINUS 1-2 tbsp
Note: Baking at high altitude, sugar also affects the outcome of a product.  It’s necessary to take out a certain quantity of sugar.  I left out about 1-2 tbsp of sugar.  

5-6 eggs
Note:  The original recipe called for 4 eggs.  You will want to add more, this also contributes to the amount of liquid in the mixture and the out-coming structure.  The eggs we get in Peru are various in size, some are extremely small, so I used 6 eggs in my mixture.  If you have all pretty well sized eggs just use 5.     

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract 

and then his explanations and how tos...

Note: explanations and more in-depth directions are all in italics.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).  When baking at higher altitude, it’s necessary to increase the temperature of the oven.  It’s usually the basic rule of thumb to increase the temperature by 25 degrees.  You need the liquid in the batter to evaporate quicker so the overall structure will set before it can rise too much and then break and fall.  

Grease 3 – 9 inch round cake pans or one 9×13″ pan.  

In a medium bowl, pour the boiling water over the cocoa, and whisk until smooth. Set aside and let cool.

Looks yummy- but it isn't. Yet.

Needs a LOT of sugar!

In another bowl sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt; set aside.

Basic note for baking at high altitude.  Mixing and beating the batter by hand will give you more control over how much air is incorporated into the mixture.  I will explain as we go along why the amount of air in a batter is so important.  

All seems nice and normal until this point.  Here I did something that I thought was going to ruin my cake.  I melted my butter over low heat on the stove and added the sugar to this, whisking until well incorporated.  Now, the first reason I did this was because the Handicap Kitchen mixer caught on fire and is out of commission.  The second reason is my theory for why this is necessary.  When you cream your sugar and butter together you are essentially creating pockets of air in your fatty product (butter).  Butter is not the only thing that does this in a cake batter, eggs also do this.  But, while a cake is baking at high altitude it’s important to not have TOO many air bubbles.  The leavening products react with the air pockets and cause them to grow.  This is their job!  But, at high altitudes this process happens a lot quicker and if there are a lot of air pockets and a lot of leavening product in your cake batter it will break and fall.  You will cry.  So, the challenge is to beat air into the batter in moderation with a reduction of leavening.  Make sense?  So, by melting the butter, I basically removed one more constituent of the danger of getting too many air pockets.  

Melting the butter and sugar instead of creaming it.

Novel concept.

Once you’ve mixed your sugar and butter together beat in the eggs.  It’s important to not beat the eggs in all at once.  However, you do want to be careful of beating the mixture too much.  I beat in two eggs at a time twice and then the rest of the times one egg at a time.  Does that make sense?  If you beat the eggs too much you will have to problem of too many air pockets.  You need to beat in the eggs just until they are mixed into the batter.  This should be approximately beating ten times for each (or pair) of eggs.  

Add in the eggs.

Then stir in vanilla.

Add the flour mixture alternately with the cocoa mixture.  It’s important at this point that you stir instead of beat.  If you beat you may add too many air pockets.  Work carefully, folding the flour into the batter and mixing in the cocoa mixture.  

So far, so good.

Spread batter evenly between the 3 prepared pans or into the 9×13″ pan.

Bake in preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes. Allow to cool.  I find that at high altitudes it takes a bit longer to bake cakes all the way through.  You may need more like 30-45 minutes.  

The world's most uninspired cake pic.

And yes, I needed 35 minutes.

I iced this baby with Betty Crocker's Buttercream Frosting.

And threw on some store-bought candy lettering:

I went with 29. Seems like that was a good age.

And how did it turn out?

It didn't fall.  

I thought it was a tiny bit dry but then again, the buzzer went off and I didn't hear it, so the cake may have been baking along for a couple extra minutes.

The flavor was great. Chocolate-y and not too sweet. 

 Candles to make it look less pitiful.

Lisa, Liddy and Kristin

Slightly blurred because.....

this is how we started the cake ceremony:

A Magnum of Dom Perignon.
Triple yum. 
If you're going to drink champagne, might as well make it
good champagne.

Happy, happy birthday Liddy!

No. 40 is done and has been consumed!