Friday
What perfect timing that Valentine's Day was on a Saturday this year. I've been wanting to make cupcakes for the Saturday tennis group for quite some time, but haven't gotten around to it. The holiday gave me the incentive that I apparently needed. So Friday afternoon, as soon as I was home from work, I went straight to the business of baking cupcakes. With an audiobook as entertainment (Plum Spooky, by Janet Evanovich), I had a very pleasant afternoon. The decorating was kept to a minimum with simple colored sprinkles and colored sugars, but the cupcakes were festive all the same. I made Tom's favorite: spice cake with cream cheese frosting. Nothing complicated, just Duncan Hines from a box.
A box generally makes around 24 cupcakes, but we often have 30 or more tennis players on Saturday. I didn't want to make another box of cupcakes so I made Cakemix Cookies instead. (I just made up that name) I found the recipe on Bakerella's website and thought they looked easy and fun. She uses Red Velvet cake, but Publix didn't have any so I made mine with Devil's Food cake instead. And I'm so glad I did because they were simply delicious and tasted somewhere between an Oreo and a brownie.
In an attempt to be holiday festive, I tried rolling the edges in colored sprinkles, but that wasn't working very well. Instead, I tinted the filling pink and considered it good enough.
After the baking project was completed, Tom and I were just getting ready to head to Publix and then to pickup our obligatory pizza when Friday the 13th lived up to some of its hype. It started with a rumbling crash from the vicinity of our bedroom. We rushed in to find that Tom's entire side of the walk-in closet had collapsed into a heap on the floor. The builder hadn't bothered to look for studs when he installed the closet shelf and the wall anchors screwed into the drywall had given way.
Tom and I waded into the mess and extracted his hanging clothing so that they wouldn't end up hopelessly wrinkled. They're currently draped all over the house. Looks like we have a project on our hands now.
Well, with that excitement out of the way, we finally headed out to finish our errands and get our pizza. On our way out of the neighborhood, we came up to a car sitting in the middle of the road. Just when we decided to go around it, the driver started forward so we followed. But the driver was weaving around and driving a bit erratically, causing us to hang back a bit. Unfortunately, this clown kept heading along the same path as us so we had to keep following. After he crossed the center line several times we knew we had to do our duty and call 911 to report this possibly impaired driver. While keeping the line open with the 911 operator, we followed the driver all the way to Publix. We turned down a different row so that he wouldn't realize were were tailing him and watched him pull into a handicap space in front of the liquor store. Nice! At this point we disconnected with the dispatcher, after she assured us that they would have an officer there as soon as possible.
We don't know the outcome of the story, but we're checking the Crimewatch section of the newspaper every day to see if anyone was arrested on Friday night for DUI. While we don't know his name, we do know which house he lives in so we'll watch for the address.
Saturday
Saturday morning I went to tennis as usual, bringing with me two dozen cupcakes and a box of sandwich cookies. Another player had brought strawberries, so there were plenty of treats for everyone. It surprised me that the cookies went faster than anything. I had cut some of them in half since they were king of large, and I guess it was easier to grab a half a cookie on the way to the court then to deal with a cupcake. Though, but the time I left (an hour early because I had shopping plans with Joy) only eight cupcakes remained and I have no doubt that they were scarfed up by the time play was finished.
Joy and I went to Florida Mall, mainly so that I could return the expensive teapot, but also of course for the fun of shopping together. Remember the purse I bought from Nordstrom a couple of weeks ago? The Longchamp with the dark cray crocodile pattern? Well, as much as I tried, I just couldn't get it to work for me. It kept sliding off my shoulder! I thought Jenn had a point, when she mentioned that the male velcro might be scratchy when wearing a sleeveless shirt. So I tried replacing it with female velcro, but that didn't do any good at all. But I didn't know if I would be able to return the purse, as it now had vecro attached to it. Taking off the first velcro was a pain and scarred the leather, too. I thought I might have better luck if I just left the velcro attached.
Well let me tell you, Nordstrom has the best customer service ever! I've thought so before, but now I'm convinced of it. The manager let me exchange the purse, despite the fact that I had "altered" it. What a relief, because it was somewhat pricey.
Though, at first it looked like I might have a bit of a problem. Joy and I had looked at nearly every purse in the department and nothing was clicking. I did find a little Kate Spade that caught my eye, but it was a tad smaller than I wanted and getting my new wallet in and out was a bit of a struggle. And then I discovered a wonderful slouchy little bag by B. Makowsky. Generally, I don't care for slouchy bags but this one was just so cute! And red! I'm really conservative so I don't know why this one appealed to me so, but it did. Inside is a zippered pocket that divides the purse in half, plus there is another small zip pocket inside. On the front are two vertical zippered pockets and there is a small pocket on the back. It looks totally cute while being worn on the shoulder, too, and it's surprisingly comfortable to carry. I moved my stuff in and started using it right away.
The first store we visited once we got into the mall was Helzberg Diamonds. Joy's next door neighbor is the store manager and we generally stop to see if she's working and say hello whenever we're at the Florida Mall. But this time we actually had some business to tend to in her store.
I have been wanting diamond stud earrings and had planned for Tom to buy me a pair for my 40th birthday. After pricing a pair of 3/4 carat at Jon's Fine Jewelry Store in Cocoa Village, I pretty much gave up that idea. But Ann and Joy advised me to shop around and see what other jewelry stores had to offer. Laura was more than willing to take a break from the Valentine's Day madness to teach us all about diamonds.
Long story short, the diamond studs at Jon's are Hearts on Fire. They are incredible diamonds, beautifully cut and brilliant. But perhaps I don't need quite that level of quality. There are other beautifully cut diamonds that don't cost near as much as the Hearts on Fire diamonds. In fact, a pair of very high end diamond studs at Helzberg cost nearly half of what the H on F diamonds cost. While I don't see myself getting a pair for this birthday, as was my original plan, there still may be a pair of diamond stud earrings in my future.
Another store Joy and I visited that provided an interesting experience was Sephora. Finally! I was able to look and smell and sample as much as I wanted, without someone waiting for me (tapping his foot and glancing at his watch). We spent quite a bit of time there, though we didn't end up buying much. Joy sampled several perfumes and I sprayed myself with one. Neither of us purchased a fragrance, but I did buy a lipstick and a lipliner. The lipliner was interesting. One of the employees showed me how to fill in my lips with the pencil, instead of a lipstick, to get a nice matte effect. At first it was a bit startling. I thought the color was bolder than I'm used to. (Tom's reaction wasn't exactly a good endorsement, so now I'm afraid to use the liner). But Joy pointed out that the Sephora girl had drawn outside of my lip line, creating a more bowed and pouty look. So I may give it a try, lining my actual lip shape and see if that still frightens Tom.
We went into plenty of other stores, such as Victoria's Secret and Dillard's. Again, we sprayed fragrance on whatever spare skin we could find. Of course, at this point, we could hardly tell what was what and the blend of scents had to be interesting to say the least. Our sinuses were overwhelmed by that point and we couldn't smell ourselves.
At last, we were shopped out and made one final stop at Godiva where we treated ourselves to Dark Chocolate Raspberry Chocolixirs.
I really love the pictures of your treats! Nice work, both on the baking and the camera. I do like the red bag. Very attractive and I like the size. I'm glad you called 911 about the sad case of the drunk driver. That's too bad. Hopefully something good will come of it.
And Dark Chocolate Raspberry Chocolixers? mmMMMMmmm
Posted by: Denise Baum | February 18, 2009 at 01:09 PM