Vyxxan's Virtual Venture

Archive for the ‘Other stuff’ Category

A couple of weeks ago I had a slice of cake.  I never eat cake, I don’t care for it… but I know other people love cake and that was pretty darn good cake, even for someone who isn’t a fan of cake.

So, I decided to hunt down the recipe for it, and make it for my BBQ party I had last weekend.   My sister Valerie ended up making the cake for me, and we modified the frosting recipe quite a bit.

This was in Family Circle, but it’s been modified and I’m too lazy tonight to look up the link.  The original recipe makes WAY too much frosting for the cake, so I’ve cut it back a bit.  I hope I’ve got the proportions right… (edit: no I did NOT!  Please see below!!!!)

 

Tiramisu Bundt Cake

1 box french vanilla cake mix

1 pint coffee ice cream, thawed and melted

3 eggs

Heat oven to 350 degrees F.  Coat bundt pan with shortening and flour, or use a baking spray (not a cooking spray).

With a mixer, beat the cake mix, eggs and melted ice cream on low until blended.  Beat  2 more minutes on medium.  Pour into prepared pan and bake for 35 to 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.

Cool on wire rack for 20 min, then invert onto a plate to cool completely.  (put in fridge when cool enough)

Frosting:  MAJOR EDIT HERE! I messed up when typing this up, as the recipe made so much extra frosting. I was trying to even things out, and ended up totally messing up the proportions and measurements.

4 oz cream cheese, softened

4 oz sour cream    This is too much.  Halving the recipe would make this be 1 oz.  2 oz. would probably be okay, though.

4 oz butter, softened   I also messed up here. 3 tablespoons is what the original recipe called for.   Probably 2 tablespoons would work well.  I’d taste the mixture before adding anything else to it…

1.5 teaspoons instant coffee dissolved in 1.5 teaspoons of hot water and cooled

1.5 cups powdered sugar, maybe more, up to 2 cups.  Maybe less.  Start with 1 cup and work your way up.

In a large bowl beat cream cheese, sour cream and butter until light and creamy.  Add in the dissolved coffee and start adding powdered sugar.  Frosting should be fairly thick, but not lumpy.  Chill until ready to frost the cake.  The original recipe made twice as much frosting as needed, and this is a rich frosting for a rich cake.

When the frosting is chilled and thickened more, spread on the sides and top of cake.  If too thick, thin slightly with a teaspoon or more of water.  If you cook, you know how to do this.

Garnish the top of the frosting with cocoa powder.  Just a sprinkle through a small sieve.

Put the frosted cake into the fridge to chill, and store in the fridge after that.

Makes about 16 servings.  And probably extra frosting even if I’ve cut some ingredients back.

Ron said that this is the best cake he’s ever had.  We had 1/2 of the cake left after the BBQ party, and I was going to take it to work to share… until Ron had a slice.  We had a big lot of frosting left in the mixing bowl, and I was going to dump that out… he said NO, it’s wonderful frosting.  So, this cake and frosting definitely has his approval.  :)

My sister did a lovely job with the frosting, too… a bundt cake is hard to frost, but she managed to make the frosting dribble just right and look elegant.  I would have just slapped it on however.  Val also is the one who said the frosting needed more coffee flavor, so she changed the 2 tablespoons of coffee liqueur to adding the instant coffee.  I think it still had the coffee liqueur in it, but had almost no coffee flavor.  That’s why the frosting recipe at this point is iffy and may need tweaking.  I’ll have to make it again to define amounts… and I don’t usually eat cake.  :)

 

Enjoy…

hugs,

Vyx

Okay, so I’m lazy… shoot me. I’ve cleaned closets, and lot of other parts of the house, but I’ve never got around to cleaning under the bed. I was pretty sure I’d need a rake, and I was right. Still stuff under there I can’t reach.

Tonight while remaking the bed I asked Ron if he really needed the electric blanket to be still plugged in. I keep tripping over that damn cord that should be under the bed but keeps escaping.

Nope, he doesn’t need it plugged in any more… at least not for the summer. So I go to untangle it and pull it out and all I can see are shoes.

Shoes, piles of shoes, under the bed. If you’d seen the piles of shoes I’ve already cleaned out of this house… and the brand new clothing… sheesh… with what Ron’s ex left here you could have given away whole outfits and work/church wardrobes for weeks…including shoes… but I’ve already cleaned all that OUT. Multiple garbage bags full, car loads full. I’m not kidding. 3 or 4 big bags just out of the coat closet/wood room. Filled up cars full of bags of stuff. I didn’t realize how bad the situation under the bed was before or I would have done it sooner.

So I start hauling shoes out from under the bed. There were a couple pair that may or may not be Rons… a brand new pair of mens shoes in size 9. Ron has never worn that size. Tons of other pairs that at the best had been worn a time or two. Everything from athletic shoes to flip flops to fancy pumps.

Because I’m so flabbergasted that someone could have this many pairs of shoes… I mean, geez, was he married to Imelda Marcos?… I took a photo. This is just after me cleaning here for 5 years, of me finding more and more of her junk and getting around to getting rid of it. I’ve cleaned out under couches here… chock full of shoes. The closet had more pairs of shoes than I’ve owned in my life, I swear. Most of those shoes were worn ONCE if at all… some were brand new and never worn at all. Same with the ones in this photo… I can see no wear at all on some of these… but some looked like maybe they had been worn a bit. So, you lose your shoes under the bed and I guess you just go buy more? This isn’t even a woman who worked… she was a stay at home Mom, who evidently spent a lot of time and money shopping.

Now I know some women love shoes… I used to love shoes, too. I’ve found such cute shoes that I had to have them. I’ve even done that as recently as 5 years ago. Then I realized I’d never wear them and gave them away at work. Shoes I buy now are strictly for comfort at work and home. I’ve got a perfectly good pair of dressy flats if I need them. I never wear heels. I probably still own a pair of wood/leather heeled mules, but I bet the leather is getting mildewed. I do own a lot of athletic shoes, but that’s more me trying to find a comfort zone… older shoes hang around because they fit. Still, if I have 20 pair of shoes I’d be surprised. I certainly couldn’t move and leave my shoes here under every piece of furniture in the house.

Anyhow. That amount of shoes 1/2 fills a big 30 gallon garbage bag. It’s heavy, I can barely lift it. I’m not taking them to Linda. Thrift store can have them. I’ve sent a lot of her stuff to her via her kids… but I quit doing that a while back except if it was a car load. Then I send it with one of her kids, and let her deal with it. One bag it goes to the charity thrift store. If she wanted this stuff she would have taken it, right?

Still need to get a rake in here, just so I get all the mates to the shoes… sheesh. I can’t believe I missed that under the bed was so full of shoes. My little dog sleeps under there all the time, but I don’t know how… didn’t look like there was even room enough for another shoe. :)

All for now… :)

hugs,
Vyx

My husband Ron had an appointment with his (new) Neurosurgeon this week. New because his previous doctor no longer works at that clinic. He wanted another doctor anyhow, but didn’t have any luck finding another one… no one else would see him. He was lucky that another doctor at the same clinic would even see him. Sheesh.

The news wasn’t good. His neck is healing, but not fast enough to get the cervical collar off just yet. The collar is going to stay on until August now.

He had faxed the clinic new forms for FMLA last week so that those could be mostly filled out and ready to go after his appointment. Well, the clinic gave him the papers back and the most important bits were NOT filled out at all, thankfully we saw that and had it done before we left.

We drove from that appointment to his workplace. Human Resources guy wasn’t there, Ron had to go find a supervisor to take the forms and put them in the office. The few people I saw were wondering when Ron would be back… they really miss him, he’s a good worker. Quality and production are not the same without Ron working there.

Well, Ron got his answer about when he’ll be back the next day. He is no longer employed at EPC. You get 12 weeks of FMLA and that’s it, after that you will point out on attendance points and be fired. It’s not like he’s malingering… he WANTS to go back to work. They evidently can’t give him a medical leave of absence for any reason. You know he didn’t break his neck on purpose, it’s something beyond his control. But they are treating him like he’s staying home on purpose. Not like the good employee he’s been for 19 years in July. (he’s actually worked there for 20 years, but they have an anniversary date on July 1. If you start working there July 2, you have to work for nearly two years before you have an 1 year anniversary. Insane, eh?)

I’m ticked off. What a freaking lousy way to treat someone. Oh, sure, they’ll hire him back when he’s better, but as a new employee with no status and not even the same wages. But they let someone ELSE have medical leave for 2 years… right up to a retirement party for the guy. But for Ron it’s the sh** covered parachute.

There are no published policies for =anything= at that company any longer. They used to have an employee handbook that explained stuff like attendance points, vacations, bereavement leave, etc., etc. You know, like a normal company has. Heck, the previous HR person even tried to change the vacation stuff on Ron, and there was a notice that had been posted on their bulletin board for years with evidence to back him up. “With 16 years service you get 4 weeks paid vacation.” She tried to change it to 18 years. The Plant Manager was worried about that, as he was up for the 4 weeks, but Ron was the only person who spoke up and had it clarified by headquarters in Indiana. Can you imagine? The plant manager won’t even ask or get it fixed?

So I’m thinking that Ron ought to call or write to the headquarters in Indiana about this. That oughta be fun. Locally, the company is non-union. At headquarters they are union. If there was ever a time to have a union, this is probably one of them. Ron always wanted one here, but most of the other people where he works are too wimpy. They let some new HR person change vacation rules and never speak up. That ain’t Ron.

Of course it might not do any good, him calling. He’s now a Former employee. I’m so mad at EPC that I could spit. This is how you treat your employees? Hell, they aren’t even an American company any more… they are owned by some outfit out of Europe… and European companies tend to treat their employees better, or so I’ve heard. The plant here must be the red headed step child or something. Sheesh.

Today we went there and he turned in his key fob (opens the door), got his lock off his locker and cleaned that out. His key fob had already been deactivated. He’s got hundreds of dollars worth of tools in his two toolboxes, but we can’t get those yet. Would take a forklift to get em into the truck, and I’d get them home and not be able to get them back out of the truck. They did promise to watch over the toolboxes (which are locked) until we could come get them. We will see if that actually happens.

Shame on you EPC, for not having some kind of leave of absence policy, hell, for not having any policies at all except those you make up on a case to case basis. You really think Ron is coming back? Hell no! He only stayed with you as long as he did because of the vacation benefits. If he has to start over, he’s going to take a better paying job. Forklift drivers make more money than Ron was making. Ron has been a lead man at EPC, not just a machine operator… he knows machines, and if he doesn’t know them he learns them better than anyone else. Proof… he was running new machines. He could out produce anyone on any other shift, even if they worked more hours and had more experience than he did. Quality? Best. Other operators would keep running even if the machine was running junk. Ron wouldn’t… he’d get it fixed. Even with down time, he’d still out produce everyone else. Week after week after week… Running 3 shifts? Ron would produce more on his shift than the other 2 shifts combined. But he is temporarily disabled… so you fire him. Great idea. Idiots.

And that’s all I’m going to say about that. For now.

hugs,
Vyx

I went to Hobby Lobby yesterday and bought some fabric. My son had given me a gift card at Christmas that I’d never got around to using. Armed with a 40% off coupon, I went shopping.

Most of HL I never walk through. All that home decor stuff, ugh. But I do have to go by the stamping stuff and the clearance corner. Didn’t see anything I wanted there, but since all the cake and candy stuff was on sale, I got some mini paper baking cups. I’m going to need those next winter, for fruitcake cookies.

I did browse a bit… saw a double layered plastic cup with lid and straw. Ron could use something like that for his pepsi, a double layered cup wouldn’t sweat. He won’t drink with a straw, but we could toss that bit… however, after more investigation I decided it wouldn’t work. Has to be hand washed, can’t go in dishwasher. Forget that! Even if it wouldn’t get washed that often, I am not buying something that isn’t top rack safe.

Made it over to the fabric area, and what I’m looking for is some fabric to sew a cover for the generator that sits on the porch. I am thinking canvas, some kind of sturdy fabric. I finally find the denim, canvas and twill. If I go with twill, I can actually buy a color. Hmm. But wait… don’t I have dyes at home? Why be boring? I went with a white twill. I asked for 5 yards and the gal starts measuring it and folding it up. It’s a darned cut piece rolled on the bolt. But it’s 4 7/8 yardage, so I take it. I know I don’t really need 5 yards, just want to be on the safe side. Since I didn’t measure the generator before I left home, I’m guesstimating.

On my way home I stop at Chicken Holler. They are a garden center mainly, but they also have a big wood stove showroom. I remember when they used to be out in the middle of nowhere. Now they are right smack dab in Farmington with McDonald’s, Dollar General, Sonic, Shell gas station and a grocery store all across the street. Oh, and the Farmington High School right next door. I had stopped by on Friday to see if they had any hydrangeas. I’ve actually never cared for hydrangeas, but last year I saw some SUPER blue ones. I decided that if I could get a SUPER blue hydrangea, I’d get one for my birthday this year. They had a few, some that are advertised as blooming all summer. I got one of the long bloomers and a bag of Aluminum Sulfate to make sure it will bloom blue. Have a place picked out to plant it, will probably get it in tomorrow.

Anyhow, on to photos…. the cover for the generator was a grill cover. Perforated plastic, and the cats destroyed it pretty quick. It didn’t fit well anyhow….

And then the one I sewed and dyed. Hopefully it will last a lot longer that that crappy plastic one. I’m waffling on spraying it with Scotchguard. I did put a LOT of fabric softener in the final rinse, that acts as a water repellent to some extent.

I could have fitted the top part of that a bit better, but aside from the rounded corners at the end pieces I didn’t want to do a lot of fussing, so I went with only the bottom measurements. I have a bit of fabric left over… including a piece that I measured wrong and so I was lucky I overestimated! The hem is 6 inches deep, I did that for weight, so that the weight of the fabric will hold it down better. It’s protected from most weather and most of the sun, so I hope it lasts a few years. Not that it was a lot of work… but it was a PITA to sew all that yardage into an open cube shape! At least the cats won’t rip it apart instantly like they did with that plastic grill cover.

While that was washing and drying I walked the dogs. Got down to Copperhead corner and realized that yet again, I forgot the camera. So, after we all came back I got the camera and went down to the far end of the property again. That one wild flower I like to photo. Some day I might dig it up and move it up here… and probably kill it in the process…

I also took some photos around the yard. My clematis is blooming. It’s being beat to death by the wind, but it’s blooming ever so nicely!

Then there are the flower beds in front of the porch. A few years ago I put in a bunch of bags of dirt, sprinkled mixed seeds in there, and then put baby chicken wire on top to keep the cats from digging. We had some pretty good flowers until the next year and the cats figured out how to dig into the dirt through the wire. So I pulled all that off… and built frames that went from the wood border up to the porch. That worked until the wire got bent and cats would just climb inside to use it for a litter box. AUGH!

Last year I had nothing to keep cats out, I took all the chicken wire off and I had four o’clocks and lunaria. They all did well. But after digging up the naked ladies just outside of one wood framed bed, I realized that the poor plants wouldn’t grow because the footing sticks out from the rocks. No wonder I have trouble with things growing and needing watering too often… it’s just some dirt on top of concrete for half the bed. Duh! No wonder all the plants want to escape… it’s not just being used as a litter box, it’s that there is no ground to put roots down into.

So, a couple photos of how the plants are escaping the lack of soil…

I plan to make the flower beds about twice as deep this year. I’ll move the landscape timbers out and put longer ones in at the sides… except for maybe that I’ll extend them down a bit, too. So that they go past the corners. My hydrangea is going to go in on the far left of that second photo, a couple feet out from the walls. It seems to be the best place for it. Needs some shade, only gonna get that somewhere close to the house.

Plus… evidence that my grapes will get fruit this year. One of my muscadines hasn’t leafed out, and both are still bleeding sap although the other one has started leafing. I don’t see any signs of blooms yet on the one survivor, maybe I’ll never get fruit from those. Sigh. I’ve already bought a replacement for the one that isn’t doing anything but leak sap… a concord grape. I love the flavor of muscadines, but perhaps the cultivated ones from Georgia won’t ever do well here. (oh, and a few years ago I had a mystery vine… duh, it was a wild muscadine! It had fruit and against Ron’s advice I even tasted the fruit. Alas, the neighbor weedwhacked those all down.) But anyway, the REGULAR grapes are gonna fruit this year, every single plant has buds. Sweet!

All of the regular grape vines have lots of these buds. I must be doing =something= right! Even if those cultivated muscadines aren’t doing so well… Big sigh!

One last photo. I’m overrun with Armadillos. There is a burrow under my blackberry hedge, and the blackberries aren’t growing very well in that area. I want to get rid of them, but as far as I can tell, there isn’t much you can do. They do have sensitive noses… armadillos can smell the bugs and worms and such that they eat, that’s how they know where to dig. So, some ammonia on a rag and poked down into the burrow. I thought they’d all come running out, but no. So I put another rag down and poured the last cup of ammonia out of the bottle into it, and left the bottle in the hole. None of that has seemed to bother the armadillos… they just dug the hole bigger so they can get in and out around that bottle. Sheesh. I need a BIG rock. I bet they’d just dig around a big rock, too. A fire might work, but there is a wooden fence post just above that hole so I’d likely catch that on fire. (I was thinking of pouring some charcoal down that hole and then lighting it)

Anyhow, the armadillo hole.

Looks HUGE, and it actually is pretty large now that they’ve dug it out more. I want them GONE… armadillos make for bad garden neighbors.

Well, I’ve got pizza to make for our dinner and more things to do before dark… and then it’ll be bedtime and work in the morning. I’m glad I could get a few photos up today, a blog without photos is boring!

hugs,
Vyx

LOL, sounds kind of crazy doesn’t it? I don’t wear make up. I barely remember to put moisturizer on my face. I’ve always been lazy about my hair… I keep it short so that it’s easy to care for and I use cheap shampoo. I just have never been too interested in looking like everyone else.

But I saw something advertised recently that sort of interested me. I have an eyebrow problem, always have had. If I don’t do something I basically have a big brown caterpillar across my face. For most of my life I did nothing most of the time. Shave off the middle, maybe, if I even bothered to do that.

Then a friend told me that getting my eyebrows waxed would probably work really well AND it wouldn’t hurt nearly as bad as I thought. I knew tweezing was never gonna be my thing. So, I went and had it done. I was amazed… it really =didn’t= hurt that bad, and I finally had shapely eyebrows! This was 10 years ago or so. Since then I’ve gone to salons to have it done, tried various products at home to do it myself, but I was never really happy with the results. The best eyebrows were that first time. Then it all went down hill. Got one of the best haircuts once, but the stylist who cut my hair so well almost gave me two black eyes doing my brows. It’s sort of a hit or miss thing… even with the same stylist. I’ve come home far too often with mismatched brows. Doing it myself is almost as bad… sometimes wax strips would work, sometimes they wouldn’t, and I tried quite a few products. Cold liquid wax, strips, goo, glorified tape.

So, when I saw this new heated wax system being advertised I thought… hmm, maybe. It’s the Sally Hansen Simple Spa Wax Warmer kit. Not too expensive to try, at about $20. I got one. No cloth strips, which I was skeptical about. Can they really make a wax that doesn’t need a way to get it off?

Yes, they can. It works beautifully. It works better than any hot salon wax I’ve ever had done. Much better than the cold wax stuff at home in any variation. No cloth strips to either wash or throw away depending on the type of goo used.

The applicators are just craft sticks… popsicle sticks and tongue depressors, and that is a mistake. Need a thinner stick for eyebrows, really. Not a problem, I can find the size stick I need for next time. The wax heats up in about 20 min. or so, and you test the heat on your inner wrist before using. Don’t want it too hot. Apply it… and this is the tricky part if you are doing your own eyebrows, lol! I managed to drip some right into my eyelashes… that small craft stick is too big even for my bushy eyebrows. But it comes off with a bit of baby oil, so I didn’t have to yank out my puny eyelashes. Let it cool a bit, then rip it off. It takes all the hair and not the skin. Most of the home products always take some of my skin, too. This one didn’t. Not only that, but the redness went away faster.

So, and I know this is a weird place and time for me to be posting a beauty product review… but I love this new kit. It works better than anything else out there for home use, and I rate it better than salon wax, too. Hey, if I mess up I have only myself to blame… I’m sort of tired of paying someone ELSE to give me mismatched eyebrows. Five stars for the Sally Hansen Simple Spa Wax kit!

Hugs,
Vyx