Vyxxan's Virtual Venture

Edit… 5-28 with a photo…

I thought Libby might be pretty close… she wanted to come in the house, actually insisted by pawing at the door last night… even tried to open the storm door.

Today I got home and Libby is in the middle of having kittens. Funny thing about our cats, they will always give birth within a week or so of each other.

I’ll go count em, but no photos tonight. Libby usually only has 4 at the most. Tonight she has 6. So, between two momma cats our cat population almost tripled. Egads!

hugs,
Vyx

Okay, really, there are only 6 new kittens… LOL! (but I bet if I counted all the kittens that have been born here since I met Ron we would get awful close to 100)

Born last Friday, I took these photos on Saturday. I’ve been really busy and/or tired so not blogging much, but I know everyone wants to see baby kittens.

Lucy is the mom, and this is her first litter. She’s a good momma!

Enjoy….

P.S. No, I don’t know why there isn’t a photo lucy3.jpg… I guess I skipped that number!

Hugs,
Vyx

Actually I was hoping to get to 100 posts on this blog by today. 99 is going to have to do it.

Today is my birthday, I’m 50! Egads, where did the years go? Maybe I’m just eleventy thirty nine. Or this is the 21st anniversary of my 29th birthday, lol! Certainly I am far too young to be FIFTY! :) I don’t feel a day over 35 or so most of the time. LOL!

I’m having a great day even if it didn’t start out so great. I didn’t go to bed on time last night, because I had to watch a dvd that my sister Valerie sent me. It’s a photo and video montage of me from baby to now. Really really wonderful, and I’m sure it was a lot of work! So awesome that it made me cry!

Woke up with a headache, did my usual routine getting ready for work. On the drive there a truck that usually tail gates me and won’t pass was in front of me. Huh. He pulled over and let me pass him, I was in shock. It was a trifle foggy, but not as bad as it can get. Guess he wasn’t in his usual hurry and I was in my normal hurry. :)

Work was a bear, but since everyone knew it was my birthday I got wished happy birthday by nearly everyone. Took my dvd case to work to show off how professional it looks. (It should, my sister Val =is= a pro!)

Came home, brought what was left of the cake with me. Walked dogs, remembered to take camera to get a photo of the super pretty wild flower I noticed last night. Get on computer, read all my messages from Facebook, plus emails from my sisters. Opened my snail mail cards, got 6 from online friends.

And… LOL! One of my friends sent me back the confetti I’d put into her birthday card! Well played, Jan!

I have a steak to cook and want potatoes to have with it… and I think Ron is going to deal with it all for me. He got up early tonight. With our schedules like they are, going out to eat would just be too much trouble, so we’ll eat in.

Of course I still have chores to do… so I guess I’d best get to doing them before I run out of steam. Been a really nice day, even with having to work and I’m very happy on my birthday!

hugs,
Vyx

I don’t like cake. Seriously. I especially hate bakery cakes with yucky frosting. Bakery frosting is gross. (butter cream with white margarine, loved it as a kid)

But I’ve been wanting to make an applesauce cake for a while. I had a jar of applesauce no one wanted to eat. Big jar. Don’t want to throw it out, so I looked online for a cake to bake with it.

Found a recipe that looked pretty good. No fat at all in the cake, no milk, no eggs. Some odd ingredients, but I just left some of those out. I added some ingredients I thought would help, too, like a couple eggs.

Tomorrow is my birthday. I’m not real popular or anything but I still don’t want anyone bringing a cake for me, so last night I baked one and took it to work today. The preemptive cake, lol!

The recipe I used I found on RecipeSource.com. I used Splenda instead of sugar, since I had some on hand.. I’m sure that cut down even more on the calories. I was surprised that most of the diabetic recipes I found used Splenda…. but didn’t cut down on the fat at all. I understand why… fat adds flavor, especially if it’s butter or margarine that you are using. If it’s just cooking oil, though… yuck, leave it out if you can! More applesauce! (Low fat or no fat products add extra sugar, you really have to watch that!)

The problem with applesauce as a cake additive is… it’s very hard to mix in and the batter will be REALLY stiff… but after cooking the cake will weep. And weep. Powdered sugar for a topping? Turned into a glaze.

The original recipe link: http://www.recipesource.com/baked-goods/desserts/cakes/31/rec3100.html

I don’t think I should post the recipe here, just the link. I changed the heck out of it anyhow. For one thing, I made it half again in size to fit a 13×9 pan. Yeah, the recipe says you can use a bigger pan, but I know that the volume would NOT be nice. It would be a very THIN cake.

My new recipe:

Preemptive Applesauce Cake

9×13 inch pan, greased and floured (I used canola spray and cake flour) Heat oven to 350 F.

3 cups flour (I used cake flour, just because I had some)
1 1/2 cups Splenda
2 teaspoons baking soda
3 teaspoons baking powder (not called for, but didn’t seem right to me)
1 teaspoon salt
4 heaping tablespoons cocoa, unsweetened (far as I can tell this is just for color? can’t taste chocolate in the cake and original recipe says you can leave it out, next time I will add a lot more)
1 teaspoon cinnamon (I left out the rest of the spices, apples and chocolate both go well with cinnamon)
24 oz jar of unsweetened applesauce
2 eggs
water to make the batter be able to pour (sorry, didn’t measure this)

Mix dry ingredients, add applesauce and eggs and water as needed to make a very thick batter. Pour into prepared pan and spread it out, bake for 45 min or until toothpick comes out clean. (this was right at 45 min for my version of recipe)

I DO recommend sifting some of the dry ingredients together… the things that like to clump, like baking soda. My finished cake came out with lumps of baking soda floating on top. I didn’t use a mixer, just a wire whisk. Mixer would probably be better, get more air into the cake, too.

I won’t try powdered sugar on this cake again if I cover it, it wept too much and turned the powedered sugar into a fine glaze. Not a problem, really, but to be really sugar free you’d want to leave it off anyhow. (I did find a recipe to turn Splenda into powdered sugar, but way too much trouble)

It tasted fine, mostly of applesauce and cinnamon. Not too dense, not too light. No yucky fluffy frosting.

Great cake for a gal turning 50 who is trying to watch what she eats and watch her weight a bit. Even if I don’t normally eat sweets or desserts.

(the cake is a lie!)

Hugs,
Vyx

The lilac bush went crazy this year. Butterflies are loving it, I am too.

Macro actually worked on the camera. There is a button, but when set on Auto the camera should actually switch when you are close up. Doesn’t always work, however. I am not in the habit of walking around the yard with glasses handy, so I never can tell if it’s going to work, lol!

The clematis I bought on sale last year. Seems to be doing okay after being eaten by the neighbors’ goat and/or pony last fall. Sort of a natural pruning, which it did NOT need. I am going to need a better trellis for it to climb, the one it has came with it and isn’t nearly large enough.

Kittens are out playing and starting to eat food.

They don’t always hold still long enough to take a photo.

The calico is the biggest kitten… and also the wildest one. She’s a week older than the other two.

Libby’s boys. Libby is in the upper left corner, and that is Tyler and Fluffy posing. They are almost all grown up now. Libby seems to have the most exotic looking children of all the cats.

I had a lot more photos but the light was horrible and some didn’t focus properly so I skipped the uploading.

Well, I have lots to do today, indoor stuff. Gotta get the new blinds hung so I can quit using a tablecloth for a curtain…. the usual cleaning and laundry stuff… some drawing and carving of a new stamp… and then bake a cake to take to work for my birthday. Sort of a preemptive cake, so that no one else brings one. I don’t particularly like cake.

hugs,
Vyx