My Little Pony Cookies

I mentioned once upon a time that I’ve started decorating sugar cookies. It’s been quite the learning curve, but it’s always good to learn something new. I kept getting asked, what do you charge, what do you charge. Sadly, I live in the midwest where you don’t have this type of cookie done at a bakery so I could even decide if I was in the right ballpark. I’m still not sure I am. I think with experience I can get a little more, I’m not really sure. Someone needs to help me here, please!

Anyway a couple weeks ago I was hit up by a girl I went to high school with on Facebook. She asked if I’d be able to do cookies for her daughter’s birthday. She wanted My Little Pony.

Ooooo… I’ve never done My Little Pony. I didn’t have a cookie cutter in that shape. I wasn’t real sure how to answer. I was worried, really worried! I kept asking questions and kind of putting off an answer for as long as I could, then I really had to give her an answer. My friend YouTube came in to play and I found a video telling me how to do it. Later I found an easier one but I already decided I could do the video I found so I shot her a price and said yes. I did a test run and was okay with it. Now it’s missing a leg, details, and I didn’t wait between different icing applications, but I knew I could do it….

Sunday I began the process. Time to make the sugar cookie dough, let it chill in the fridge, cut it out, and place it in the freezer. That’s just my process.

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Clothes Nazi

I have become the clothes nazi at our house… kind of like the soup nazi… (think Seinfeld…)

I don’t ask much of Tbug because she isn’t here. I’d like her to spend her time with us versus cleaning her room, etc. The one thing I ask is for her to put her dirty clothes in the laundry so that I can wash them. That way I’m not going around trying to figure out where all she put her dirty clothes… I’ve found them under toys, behind the bed, under the bed, in the bathroom, yada yada yada.

So the one thing I ask of her is to put her clothes in the laundry. 1 thing. That’s pretty much it. Recently (like a couple months ago) I just happened to stumble in to her room and realized there was a wet towel on the floor along with night clothes and whatever she wore that day. I was pretty upset and took them all away. Eventually I gave them back but made hubby tell her how upset I was because me telling her doesn’t seem to do much…

We wound up with her here 3 weekends in a row. Last weekend she got some new clothes. Wore them on Monday. I reminded her to put her clothes in the laundry as she was changing back into her mom’s clothes only to find all the clothes she had worn on her bedroom floor. This was after I reminded her to put them in the laundry. I took them all away.

When we picked her up on Friday I told her she lost one of her new shirts and I’m not really sure when she’ll get it back. I was pretty upset. Saturday she got another new shirt. When she was getting ready to leave on Sunday I told her to put her laundry in the dirty clothes as well as had Abug remind her. I went in to her room after she left and found the above picture. <sigh>

So I have a bunch of brand new once worn clothes sitting in my room. I don’t know how to get it through her head to put her clothes in the laundry. I’m beating my head against the wall. She’s only here every other week, she doesn’t solely rely on just those few clothes. Hubby told me to take away all her clothes except 1 outfit that was hideous and didn’t match.

He told her she’d get them back in a month and she’d have to do the laundry. Nothing seems to be working. I sent her the above picture and her response was there are no words. There are no words? No clothes for you…. ack!

Wow 2 posts in a row talking about poor Tbug. I love the kid, don’t get me wrong! I really do. This is just one of those things I have to record because it really isn’t worth getting upset about but it’s frustrating all in the same. Now I just have to figure out how to get it through her head to put her dirty clothes in the laundry. I even gave her her own laundry basket and that didn’t work either. HELP!

Driving Lessons

I’m pretty sure I have a few more gray hairs…

Remember a couple years ago when I was trying to teach Tbug how to drive a standard? I told her before she could get her driver’s license she had to be able to check the oil in the car (not change it, just check it), change a tire, and drive a standard transmission. So 2 years ago I attempted to teach her because at the time we had a standard… If you remember (if not I”m telling you now) she ran the car into the back of the tractor. I was 2 weeks away from having Abug. I was very pregnant. We were in our driveway and not going very fast but we both bounced off the dash. She hasn’t lived it down…

Well her mom moved her across the state line into Kansas. I don’t really know Kansas law but I know you can get your drivers license at 15 (instead of 16) and you can get your learner’s permit at 14 instead of 15. She doesn’t have it yet, but I guess her mom is talking about letting her get it. Gray hair #1. I also guess her mom has been letting her drive their vehicle (I don’t know, just what Tbug tells me). So lately she’s been bragging about “Being a Good Driver.” I keep telling her to knock on wood because she’s getting way to cocky and needs to learn some humility.

Anyway Sunday I walked out to the barn to let the horses out before we went to town. I walked back to the house and went to get in the passenger seat and noticed Tbug was in the driver’s seat and hubby was in the back seat. <sigh> 2 years ago all over again, except it’s not a standard so if we hit something we won’t bounce backwards if she has her foot on the clutch….

Hubby agreed to let her drive down the driveway. She sits so stiff I was nervous. Hubby kept getting on to me for being nervous. I was like, hello… I was in the front seat when she ran into the tractor. He then let her drive out the driveway and down the road. We live in the country so the roads aren’t very populated.

Let’s see… she rolled through a stop sign, didn’t stop. She didn’t put her seat belt on. She almost took out a guard rail. Sigh! And I was in the front seat to witness it all. I made her stop in the middle of the road (no one around) and put her seat belt on. I yelled at her for rolling through a stop sign. There was a guy who stopped in the middle of the road and she wasn’t moving over so I yelled again. and I closed my eyes going over the bridge, I only know about the guard rail because hubby told her.

Uh huh… and she’s a “Good Driver.” I told her she needs to learn more humility and not brag. Instead, learn how to be a good driver….

Note: She’s not a bad driver, but she’s definitely boasting on herself way to much…. I hope we can teach her better and the end goal is to make her a good driver!

Da Bull

Well… Saturday didn’t go the way we planned…. Here’s the story….

My dad was sent out of town for work and wasn’t sure when he was going to come home. No big deal. Friday morning I woke and went to my Mother-in-Law’s to water cows, what I do most days. When I got there, a few of the cows were at the stock tank, the mosied off and the bull came over. We’ve had this bull now for about a year. He was supposed to be a show bull but they decided not to show him and we bought him instead so he’s not really afraid of anything. I just knew he was up to no good for some reason but I couldn’t place a finger on it.

Later that morning I got a text message from my MIL saying the bull was out. Not a big deal except I was 20 some miles away so I jumped in the truck and headed that direction as fast as I could get there. I got there, we got him in, and I went back to what I was doing.

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Be Our Guest

Beauty and the Beast is probably one of my all time FAVORITE movies. That and Dirty Dancing. I’m pretty sure my grandma was a saint because anytime I was at her house I just HAD to watch Beauty and the Beast. I almost know all of the words by heart. I wish I was kidding….

Tbug likes Beauty and the Beast too. It isn’t her favorite Disney movie, that would be Lion King, but she does like it. A year ago I heard they were making Beauty and the Beast into a live action movie… to say I was excited is a bit of an under-exaggeration. So I marked it on my calendar a year ago when I heard about the release date. Yes, that’s true… maybe a little sad, but very true.

This year Tbug and I were discussing it and she said she wanted to see it too. I told her it was a date. Well then all the scuttlebutt about gay scenes and people needing to avoid it and yada yada yada. I hate to say it but that didn’t detour me at all from seeing it and truthfully, you have to be looking to see the scenes they were referring to as gay… whatever.

I would like to say the movie is friggin awesome. We saw it in 3D and I may not do that again. I will be owning this movie when it comes out on Blu-ray/DVD. Loved it! I wanted to be Belle. I kind of like her! She’s my favorite Disney Princess! Very Educated. Very worldly. Doesn’t want to settle. Yet finds her prince… who wouldn’t want to be her?

Rainbow Cupcakes

It’s time for the next installment of this cupcake thing I’ve been up to. Remember, these come out of the January/February 2017 Food Network Magazine.

When I woke up the morning I made these, I was worried about having 2 ingredients. Lemons, which I was fairly certain I had and Cake Flour, which I was pretty sure I didn’t have. I did go to the pantry to see if I had cake flour and surprisingly I did. WHAT?!?! I guess I bought it for something else one day and had some leftover. So… if you don’t have cake flour, not to fear! Make your own! Wait, what? Make your own cake flour. Yup! You read that right!

Cake flour:
1 cup all-purpose flour minus 2 tbsp (that is subtract 2tbsp of the ap flour). Then add in 2 tbsp corn starch. Use your handy dandy sifter and sift 5-6 times to incorporate the corn starch. Bam, your own homemade cake flour.

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Tale of the New Dishwasher

Every so often life doesn’t go as planned. It happens. Last week I went to start the dishwasher and about 3 minutes in it started beeping at me. I opened the door and it was throwing an error code and it stunk. Like water was standing in it and it was stinky. Yuck! Couldn’t help but wonder how long the water stood in there really.

I finally got the code to clear, tried to start it again, and no go. <sigh> So I wound up doing all the dishes by hand and then right after that was when I took Abug to bed and she threw up and it started a downhill spiral, real quick. Anyway… we won’t focus on that!

So When hubby got home from his work trip he took the dishwasher out and tried to figure out what was wrong. We got one code error to clear and a new one fired up. End of the story was, the dishwasher was toast. Luckily it isn’t ours… lol. It’s mom and dad’s dishwasher so we told them what was going on. We went on the hunt for a new dishwasher for them.

We wound up at Lowe’s. We asked the guy what he recommended and then that’s the one we bought. The next thing was to install it. I think daddy had a pretty cute helper! Just saying 😙😜.