New Mousepad


I’m not a big online shopper. I can easily count the purchases I’ve made on one hand. If you don’t count a couple of ebooks, there are exactly two things I have bought online. Tonight I decided to get this mousepad. I like it cause it is about St. Patrick’s Day, coffee and I do need a new mousepad.

I’ve been putting off getting a new one for a couple of years. The one I have now was from my ex-husband. It’s a yellow smiley face. But, it’s been shedding the backing for a few years until it’s kind of bald around the edges (on the back). Sometimes my hand gets a bit numb from resting on it when I’m using the mouse awhile. So, it’s time for it to be retired.

I really need to put up a corkboard or something like that. I get bits of things I’m working on cluttered all over and lose track of things as they get buried. So, it is a sensible idea. I can also put old smiley up on it, give him a featured corner. You can’t keep a good smiley down.

Welcome to the Day

I’m going to try writing Morning Pages (again). I haven’t looked up the official rules in awhile. I think it was intended to be written long-hand but I’m ignoring that rule. I’m such a rebel that way. This morning I’m too tired for long-hand.

My brother is coming over. So I got up early, even before the alarm clock went off. I scurried around to tidy up. Does anyone else have a brother who is actually tidier than they are? Not that I don’t like things tidy, I just keep putting off the actual doing of the tidying. Anyway, I unloaded and loaded the dishwasher, got boots straighted at the door, made coffee, moved a pile of books, and assorted other stuff that keeps sounding pretty lame as I’m writing this list. Why do I now feel tired?

I felt pretty perky when I woke up. I began planning my day. Planning what I would write here. Then I began working, got dressed, stuck my hair out of my face. Now, I’m just waiting for Graham to get here, the men who are coming to photograph the renovations to the basement and the other men (I’m only presuming they are men) who will be picking up the bag of clothing for donations which I also scurried around with this morning.

Do you know how creative you need to be to have an X on a plastic garbage bag? You can’t draw it on with marker. I’ve been there before. I picked cardboard from a piece of junkmail out of the recycling and cut an X out of it. Then I taped it to the bag. Now, I’m not sure if they said to leave the bag at the end of the driveway or not. I don’t want it picked up as garbage. No, it’s not garbage day but there are a lot of people who come along and look through anything put out here. I think they mainly want glass and such which they can get paid for. Still, that bag is out there for a purpose and – I don’t want them phoning me to complain that I had nothing to pick up when I said it would be there.

I have this thing where I feel at fault for everything already. I don’t need more.

Anyway, the man is here to do the photos. My brother is here showing him the basement so I can have my coffee like a good working zombie. Maybe I can have a nap later, if I’m sneaky about it.

Cinnamon Roll Cupcakes with Coffee Icing and Cream Cheese Frosting – Bakingdom

Cinnamon Roll Cupcakes with Coffee Icing and Cream Cheese Frosting – Bakingdom .

Cinnamon Roll Cupcakes

Makes 12 cupcakes

Ingredients FOR THE SWIRL
1/4 cup (1/2 stick or 56.5 grams) unsalted butter (melted)
1/3 cup (85 grams) brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

FOR THE CUPCAKES
1 1/2 cups (190 grams) all-purpose flour
1/2 cup (100 grams) sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick or 113 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup (113 grams) sour cream
2 eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

To make the filling: In a small bowl, stir all of the ingredients together until combined. Set aside until ready for use.

To make the cupcakes: Preheat oven to 350 degrees (180 C). Line a muffin pan with cupcake papers; set aside.

In a large bowl, or the bowl of a standing mixer, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add the butter, sour cream, eggs, and vanilla and beat until smooth. Scrape the bowl, making sure there are no streaks of flour remaining (do not over mix).

Place one tablespoon of batter in each of the paper liners in the prepared muffin pan. Make a small well in the middle of each cup of batter with a toothpick. Stir the filling to make sure the butter is combined, then spoon a scant 1 teaspoon of the filling into each cup. Use a toothpick to swirl the filling and batter together.

Add another tablespoon of batter to each cup and repeat the filling/swirling process.

Bake for 18 to 22 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Transfer to a wire cooling rack and allow to cool completely before frosting.

Excellent with Coffee Icing and Cream Cheese Frosting (1/2 recipe)

Banana Muffins at 4:00AM

I’ve been sleeping badly lately, waking up too early, getting to sleep too late/ early. Anyway, I went to bed early and woke up about 2:00AM today. I puttered around, slacked on Facebook games for awhile. Then I got thinking of more intelligent things to do, like doing something with that last banana getting over ripe. Banana bread needed 3 or so bananas, which wouldn’t work. So I checked pancakes but I am pretty sure my Mother (who is here, still sleeping) would turn her nose up at banana pancakes. So I went with banana muffins. I found a pretty standard looking recipe and added my own finishing adjustments. Right now they are in the oven.

I added some orange juice squeezed from an orange I was eating at the time. It was a delicious orange, very juicy. I added an extra egg, partly to make up for the lack of a second banana and partly because I didn’t want to leave one egg all alone in the fridge. I added cocoa powder because it smells so good! After I thought about adding some coffee, instant. But maybe that would have been one ingredient too many. So they are baking. Should be about ready to come out now.

Thoughts of the Day

No man will ever have  a real appreciation for the day your period stops. They complain and make jokes about our periods, about the warm up and the start but they will never know the happy day of waking up and knowing it is over or, at least will be over that day.

I’m living alone right now. So on this, my day of waking up to find it down to a trickle, I can put away my maxi pads and the PMS pills. Usually, I always keep them put away. But, one nice thing about living alone is not having to hide away everything connected to my being a female as if it is all a dirty secret. Not just maxi pads, but my bras, underwear and my body itself. There is something seductive and fun about walking to the bathroom for a shower, wearing nothing at all and coming back the same way, just wetter. I can flick a towel over my chair and sit right here to drip dry. It’s nice getting dressed without struggling to pull clothes over your wet skin.

I’m not a towel dry person. I prefer to drip dry when I can. Usually this means I get dressed wet and then my clothes absorb the shower water. Not the option I like best. I don’t know why I don’t like using the towel. Maybe it’s part of not wanting to put them all through the laundry. Do you know how much it costs to wash towels? A whole load of laundry (because they really can’t go in with anything else lest you want fluff/ pilling over all the other stuff).

There are other good things about living alone, even if it isn’t for very long. I don’t walk around the house naked as I’ve heard others do. But, no one will make me feel guilty for wearing my nightie past noon. I like my nighties. They feel pretty, sexy and girly all at once. I don’t get to feel that way wearing anything else at any other time of the day.

I also get to leave dishes out until the afternoon. I don’t have to keep the kitchen counters bare of anything but the essentials. I can leave the coffee out, on the counter, right beside the French press. This would drive some people crazy with the urge to put things away, not me. I like leaving it out, handy, right where I want it to be when I want to make coffee. Why is this such a hardship for some people?