Busy Tuesday

Today a lot of things happened, all pretty routine, nothing dramatic or horrible or particularly stressful; it was just a crazy quilt of a day. Lots of snippets of different stuff.

Debbie called today to come and pick up Fink. Ink. She was very very happy to see her mom, and will probably sleep for a few days. I was nice enough to send her back with gas that almost cleared the room. This morning she got to Mookie's dog food faster than I could get to her...and the result was a malodorous dog with a case of gastrointestinal hiccups for most of the morning. We offered to watch her again when Debbie has the baby, but Barbara has already offered, and it'll be right after Mr. Kramer goes to NY for IFT. She's going to be sad, and Ink will keep her occupied and make her smile when she misses Kramer.

But we won't be labless long. We'll have Hawkeye for a week in March; this weekend I'll be watching Hooper, and I'm going to ask Pat if I can try and bring him here. It's going to be four days, and I just feel bad that he'd be alone that long. Mookie gets along with everybody; maybe Hooper will get along with mookie too. We could play ball for hours outside...maybe not hours. But it's fenced, and I'd feel less nervous playing with him in a fenced area. Those of you who know Hooper know that he's go anywhere after his ball...probably even in front of a car. So, fenced is better.

Today, we received Roxanne's portrait, which was a Christmas gift from my parents that we received two years ago. It took us almost a year to pick out the picture to use. It's so wonderful, such a wonderful likeness of her. The artist, Kathryn Bowden, is a lady down in Florida, who has a wonderful talent and can paint animals that look exactly like them...she captures their spirit within the paintings. I look at this picture, and it's her. Cleaner, though. But she captured the triangle eyes, and the "clown nose" as we used to call it. We're trying to decide where to put it; I suggested the kitchen because it was her favorite place in the house. We've all had the same reaction to the picture...silence and then tears. All of us. And it's not an emotion that we "caught" from one another. We've all done this at different times. Max walked in, looked at it, and wept; he said "I miss her so much". I told him that I thought about her every day, and had wondered when the feeling would go away, this sadness. But now I think that it won't ever go away. She'll be with us, in our hearts, and one day we'll all see her again. It's a beautiful portrait. But there is one flaw. There's no drool, and she's way, way too clean!

I am working on a project: this project is cake. I'm making a really neat cake that looks like a little girl's dress. Right now, I'm making the test cake. So far, so good. It's baked, and I've carved it into the shape it needs to be.

Baking it, making a pattern and carving it wasn't too bad...but the next step is coming up. The icing and decorating. That's for tomorrow...but today was the prep work. Fondant. I've always wanted to work with it...it's just so pretty on a cake. But everything I've read about it said not to buy it from Wilton already made...it's expensive and nasty. So, I looked on the internet, found a recipe, and decided to give it a whirl.

It's one pound of marshmallows, a few tablespoons of water and two pounds of confectioners sugar. Oh, and a half cup of crisco to grease your hands and the counter with, so it won't stick. (It stuck anyway, but my hands are soft). I got it made, and it's resting until tomorrow in the refrigerator. I was so excited about it....here's a pitcure, although it just looks like a white blob. But I think that its right, and I'm looking forward to seeing what I can do with it! By the way, after I got this done, I found out that the cake I'm using as a guide was covered with frosting, not fondant. OK, so I'll make some flowers and a bow. It's going to be cool.

I'm starting to get Richard's cold...the one from Valentines Day and the day after. I started with a bit of a sore throat late this morning, and right now (7 pm) it's progressed into something I'm concerned about. I started on the Zicam therapy right away; I hope it helps. Baby puppy class and then big puppy class is tomorrow night, and I really would like to go and work Kristoff.

Richard has PT three days in a row this week, due to his going to NY on Thursday. It's going to be so strange to have him not here. He's been home every night from Thanksgiving week until now...that's a record. I'm worried about him going by himself, but it's not too far that I can't go up to NY in a couple of hours and help him.

I have lots of things I want to write about...the Barber Shop/Bail Bondsman commercial (in Salisbury, no less), Max's re-animated love life, among other things.

But right now I'm going to take some nighttime cold medicine, and wait for the doorbell to ring. President Obama signed the stimulus bill today and I'm going to try and wait up for the messenger who's going to bring me my bailout check.