TWTW - gray gray gray

Friday I hit the grocery store in the late afternoon and made salad, birders in the air fryer, and root veggie fries for dinner. Gold Rush for MFD - same as nine years ago, apparently - and reading for me. I was asleep early. Last week took it out of me. 

Saturday More shite weather, finished a book, Gold Rush including MFD confessing that he has been on a Gold Rush fam page. Who am I married to? It was wet, cold, icy. Salad, spaghetti with veggie meat sauce from the freezer, and garlic bread. I was up until 1 reading. 

Sunday No one wanted to get up, I literally made the bed with Bruce in it. At 9:30 I picked up bagels, homemade pop tarts, and macarons from Dead End Bakehouse. We took unshowered selves and the dogs to the beach in the late afternoon and nearly killed ourselves sliding down the icy ramp being pulled by dogs who did not seem to be sliding. I almost wet my pants laughing. Gus's 16th Valentine's Day, whooop! I made a roast, asparagus, and baked potatoes (tried them in the air fryer and they were great). I finished a book (Every Last Fear comes out March 2, put it on your list), started another, and wondered how TF another weekend slipped by with no projects done and seemingly no time gone by.

Presidents Day. I’m not off, I've never been off since I started working a real job in 1999, but at least I can observe it again. After a week of mostly gray with one sunny day, I'm dying to see the sun too. It doesn't look like that will happen early this week. Not into the first true winter we've had in years. 

Well, it turns out this was not the weekend I'd get my ass up off the couch and do things. Next?

President’s Day. I’m not off, I've never been off since I started working a real job in 1999, but at least I can observe it again. After a week of mostly gray with one sunny day, I'm dying to see the sun too. It doesn't look like that will happen early this week. Not into the first true winter we've had in years. 

Thursday Thoughts - Mister blue sky please tell us why you had to hide away for so long

1. Raise your hand if you get excited to recycle. All of these things had to be thrown out yesterday but none of them went in the trash and I loved it. 10 out of 10 get a life Y/N

2. Wednesday was my work from home day this week, and with the two hour savings on commute and ability to get things done at lunch as well as the lack of office distractions, I am by far the most productive on my work from home days. I got a big work writing project done yesterday, made it to the post office and the library, and did what felt like endless laundry that is now all clean but is not all put away. You know how that goes, right? About that library trip - super pumped for this stack.

3. Yesterday was National Pie Day so I made pecan pie muffins, recipe from my friend Kim, instead of going out and buying one. I used what I had and felt thrifty and smug. I'm putting this here so I can reference it: 1/2 cup flour + 1 cup light brown sugar + 1 cup chopped pecans, mixed. 2 eggs beaten + 2/3 cup butter softened and beaten together. Add wet to dry, mix well. Fill muffin tins 2/3 of the way full and bake in a preheated oven at 350 for 20-25 minutes. I took mine out at 22. Degoddamnlicious and I reheated them later and added vanilla ice cream.

4. Have you seen the Fyre Festival documentary on Netflix? Hooo-leee shit. I am going to have to reactivate Hulu for a minute to watch that one too. I'm glad to see people stepped in to help Maryann via her gofundme. I hope they did for other locals as well. It is fucking terrible to do that to people. I feel for the people who didn't get what they paid for, sure, but the locals...it makes me sick.

5. All the nail colors this week (Essie No Place Like Chrome, You Me & the Sea, Penny Talk.

6. Bruce is infatuated with the ice but cries and jumps off when it cracks while he's standing on it. Repeat 573 times every time he goes out and there's ice.

7. Summary of feminist thoughts this week:

8. Summary of white supremacy thoughts this week:

9.  Reminder:

10. Ecards...well, that's what this woman means.

Toodleoo now. 

What appears after the hyphen in Thursday Thoughts is a song lyric to whatever I'm listening to when I start to write the post. This week is Mr. Blue Sky by ELO

Chocolate cupcakes with vanilla pudding cool whip icing

Do they look pretty? No. How do they taste? Pretty fucking good.

I wanted to bake something last Saturday. Baking is not my natural habitat, cooking is. All of these recipes I was looking at seemed complicated and I was like I'm going to go back out and get a box mix or something pre-made. Hold the phone, I came upon these cupcakes from Sugar Spun Run. One bowl? SOLD. I mostly followed the directions, then rooted through my pantry to find things I could assemble icing from and honestly these turned out fucking amazing. The cupcakes were moist and rich and the icing was not too over the top sweet. I'll never use a box mix again, and that's why they're appearing here, so I don't have to hunt down the original recipe and try to remember how I made the frosting.

Cupcakes
 2 cups sugar
1.75 cups + 2 TBS flour
3/4 cup Hershey's cocoa powder (unsweetened)
2 tsp baking powder
1.5 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2/3 cup vegetable oil
1 cup 2% milk
2 eggs lightly beaten (they were supposed to be room temp, mine were not quite there)
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup hot coffee (this deepens the flavor, I seriously suggest you use this. If you don't have it, use hot water)

Preheat oven to 350. Line two 12 each cupcake pans with liners.

Add all dry ingredients to bowl (if you have a bowl with a spout to pour, use that) and whisk together well. Add oil and milk, stirring until combined. Add eggs, stirring until combined. Stir in vanilla extract. Add the coffee and stir well - batter will separate at first and is very thin (hence the bowl with a spout to pour).

Fill muffin tins 2/3 of the way full (I always overfill and fuck this up but I scrape them off and they're fine) and bake for 18-23 minutes depending on your oven. Mine is a little on the fritz and again, I overfilled, so 23 minutes. Allow to cool fully and remove from pan.

Icing
1 tub cool whip, thawed
1 package instant vanilla pudding
1 cup 2% milk
1/4 cup powdered sugar

While the cupcakes are going, combine pudding mix, powdered sugar, and milk and whisk for two minutes. Fold in Cool Whip and refrigerate until ready to use. Do not ice those cupcakes or anything baked until it's fully cooled, you got it? Unless the recipe indicates otherwise, of course, and calls for melty shit. Because that's what it'll do, it'll melt in and look disgusting. Ask me how I know this. Never mind, don't.