Brownie truffle wanna-be's

I've all but lost my urge to bake lately. Nothing jumps out at me as something that I-must-make-now-or-the-world-will-end, except that the other night, I opened our cabinet to organize our dry goods ( I know, exciting Monday night project, right?) and saw baker's cocoa and a recipe for Brownies.

I attempted to make said Brownies, from said recipe, and added a twist for St Patty's day..by adding mint extract & semi sweet morsels to the batter. I baked up a 1/2 recipe (in case the recipe sucked), put it in a ziploc and mashed it all together into a "dough" of sorts. I rolled the dough into 1 inch balls, and chilled overnight in the fridge, much like one would chill a cakeball. This morning before work, I melted semisweet morsels on 50% heat in the microwave and thinned it with a little bit of that dreaded Crisco for dipping. After dipping each brownie ball, I sprinkled rainbow jimmies on top and placed them in candy wrappers.

Super cute, minty wanna be truffles.

If you're looking for an easy, bite-size gift or treat for those around you, these are perfect!

How long does it take...

...to mow a yard???

In our case, it took NZ 2 1/2 hours to mow our "lawn".. which between you and me, is really just weeds. Last November, NZ had the backyard scraped and trenches dug..We now have a wonderful drainage system, so yay for NO MORE standing water next to the house every

time it rains....But, since then, we've had rain, and we've had weeds..and boy do those weeds grow...Now I know where that saying "growing like a weed" comes from...

NZ finally had a chance to get out back and mow this weekend ( it's been wet and our mowers been finicky), with a little edging help from our very favorite neighbor.

And yes, he's using a pushing lawnmower...He hasn't yet asked Santa for a ride on, as our plans for the backyard include a much larger concrete patio and a real lawn to mow, which should be maintainable by our push mower in the future..but for now, our sprawling yard takes a heck of a lot of manpower to clean up!

Birthday pennant banner

One of our etsy customers ordered a custom birthday sign for her little girl's birthday, along with some of our other Bucky & Boo party decor and was nice enough to send me a photo of the finished product...

Is this cute or what?

Sweet simplicity.

I've got a bunch of pennants made that need to be strung together...and can't wait to show them off.. I'm a huge paper source fan, and found some adorable paper to make some themed banners suitable for bake sales, birthdays, bridal showers, lemonade stands, tea parties or even just decoration for a child's bedroom.

Simple things

This is the life..

Uncle NZ & MRZ cruise the beach.

Have we mentioned how much we LOVE having our families close?

Adios mutha' fockas

I couldn't be happier to announce the end of an era.

After almost 4 long, arduous years of battling the raccoon population of our little domestic neighborhood, we WIN.

They had the upper hand on us for the first 4 years we owned this home. Let's just say that because of them, we...

...had our eucalyptus tree professionally cleaned out by the tree guy so that we could evict them from their tree home, if in fact that was where they were domesticating (and fornicating, apparently..the population has grown year after year..first we had 2, then 3...then 4..I think you get the picture) there. We learned after all that work of cleaning the tree out, that they were not residing in the tree. On the bright side, the tree looked fantastic with it's new trim..so it wasn't a lost cause afterall..

... had our kitchen trash ransacked by the bandits more than once..Nothing like waking up to dried egg yolk paw prints all over the kitchen floor ( yes, egg yolks, have you ever seen the amount of egg whites we consume in a week? I'd say 99% of the time, if you went through our trash, there's be at least half a dozen yolks kicking it in there)..And egg yolks, for those of you non-eggies, are a pain in the butt to try and clean up when dried..Anyone ever had their car egged? Yeah, it sucks...especially when it's your entire kitchen floor that is covered in them.

...fed the bandits $40 a bag cat food, not on purpose, of course. We originally stored Beav's food in the house, in a nice big bin with a "locking lid". Uhmmm, those bandits were able to get that lid off on an almost nightly basis, and with that, ate/spilled a good portion of our $40 a bag cat food! They were the best fed coons on the block! So, along with egg yolks, we also had a spilled bin of cat food all over the floor. And of course we would hear the commotion in the middle of the night, and NZ would get up with his "coon stick" ( a handle off of an old broken shovel) to go get them..but those suckers are fast, and would always beat him out the door and ride off into the great wild yonder.

...had to make our kitty an outdoor cat ( well, sorta..we also bought a new sofa, and beav likes to "knead" on it when left unattended, so he sorta made his own bed with this cause and effect). After a few months of the bandits entering our house (ick!!!) we decided to get rid of our cat door that lead into the house. NZ went out and bought a new side access door, and put the old door (cat door included) onto our garage back door, so that Beav still had a place to get out of the elements ( hah! What "elements" in SoCal? Spoiled cat...even on a cold day) and the garage became his sanctuary. The food bin got upgraded to a twist top bin, AND Beav got a brand new cat bed on top of the fridge for added warmth.

Problem solved, right?

Yeah,right.... I wish!

The coons quickly learned about the new enterance, and for the past 2 years have tipped Beavs food bowl and water over on a nightly basis. So, we've still been going through cat food like crazy, and afraid our kitty is getting bullied out of his meals. Add to that the fact that we have (on more than one occassion walked into the garage to find that something has sprayed my car, my sewing machine bin, NZ's lathe, toolbox, our washer/dryer and his fishing boots. DISGUSTING.

So, guess what???..TONIGHT WE WIN.

CHECK IT....

An electronic cat door..Beav's going in, you're staying out. Beav will get a brand new collar with a microchip that allows only him to enter and exit the door..Any non -invited guests will be greeted with a head butt to the door.

Adios, mutha' fockas!

Another door closed

Today is one of those days...

..the kind of day where I wish I could stay in bed, covers pulled up, and just lie there for hours.

In the past week, I have felt mixed emotions. Some days I feel content and actually excited about the decision we have made, and others I feel like another door has closed, and there are only a few more open in terms of bringing a baby home.

You know that saying, "When one door closes, another one opens"?? I want to know...where is our open door??


A year ago, having the surgery to correct my septate uterus, I never expected to have been faced with the decisions we have over the past year. I'm glad that we decided to do what we did, but at the same time, it didn't work. Nothing has worked yet.

I'm tired of the rollercoaster of hope & grief, although the grief of another month gone is no longer a surprise. Now it's more like a day of woe-is-me and then it's onto preparing for the next month. I swear this infertility business is like a full-time job in it's own. Appointments, meds, schedules, protocols...all in hope that "this is the month"..and with each protocol that doesn't succeed, I have felt like one more door is closing on us.

I'd love to say with conviction that we will indefinitely get pregnant and stop sitting on the sidelines as baby after baby are born to friends, family and colleagues, but with the 0 to 3 track record, getting pregnant is only half the battle. I am glad we still have options, but at the same time it doesn't make sitting on the sidelines as another month...year...years go by any easier.

Call me impatient, but I would beg to differ...If trying for 3 years and having ZERO living children is being impatient, then patience is not a virtue of mine. I'm tired of doors closing.

Breaking out the spontaneity

Last night we were...(pause)... spontaneous.

And...(pause)...we had fun.

What did we do that was so spontaneous and fun, you ask?

We took Nick's cousin, Rafi up on an impromptu invite to join him and a few of his friends at an old Hollywood landmark called The Dresden which, as soon as we walked into the music filled atmosphere, looked like we stepped into something out of the 1996 movie, "Swingers"...and when Nick said something about it, the guys we were with were like, "Yep. A scene from 'Swingers' was filmed here", and even better Elaine and Marty the musical entertainment in the movie, were performing last night as they do almost every night of the week.

[From the movie Swingers 1996]

Pretty darn cool--the decor and all..seemed like we took a trip back to the late 60's, very Mad Men-esque, mid-century if you want to be architecturally correct. Lots of orange, lots of wood panelling, lots of pleather seating..... It was fantastic.

My favorite part--the freaking chandelier lights (I'm a dork--I know)..but check these things out!

Okay, so maybe I should break out the honesty here, and admit that our spontaneity ended up with us sleeping in this morning since we're not used to climbing into bed at 2:00 a.m. anymore, and maybe, just maybe , we had to take a few cat naps this afternoon to make up for our late night jaunt to Hollywood, but Oh-em-gee was it ever fun to just get in the car and drive somewhere at the spur of the moment like we used to.

We may not be as good as we once were, but we're as good once as we ever were.