(and with that, I think my mother just fainted in horror)

Anyway. Gene and I both had Martin Luther King day off a few weeks ago. I spent part of the 3 day weekend making these. (Okay, they looked a little messier than the picture on Bakerella’s website). I have talked about them on Facebook and honestly, I can’t believe I forgot to talk about it here.

Cakeballs = a medium sized amount of work (bake cake, let it cool, crumble it into biggest bowl you can find, mix with entire tub of frosting, shape into balls onto cookie sheet, let them set, cover in chocolate, let them chill).

Cakeballs also = delicious. Ohhhhh, so good.

A 9×13 red velvet cake made about 56 cakeballs. I took a dozen or so to work (where they were very popular and I felt like a rock star, which is rare) and Gene and I enjoyed the rest. Slowly.

And, if you’re not into eating chocolate balls, one of my Facebook friends elegantly renamed them “Cake truffles.”

(Oh well. Mom, this means the pressure is doubly on you – you have to make the fruit salad for Xmas, OK? I know it’s expensive, but I will pay you. Or stick a freakin’ bow on it, I do not care. Want. Fruit. Salad. Has medicinal value).

(:::Pauses to consider Blanche at Woodstock:::  )

(Ha ha ha).

Anyway, I took the day off of work. I spent the morning at the Nissan dealership (oil change! filter change! something or other cleaning! $200 and change! Whee!) and of course at Dr. P’s office (see separate ranting post). (Except I left out the part where my appointment was for 10:45 and I didn’t even get out of the Waiting Room of Doom until 11:30).

And then Gene and I went shooting. He’s a membership of a local wildlife association (don’t worry, we didn’t shoot anything but targets, and believe me, the targets got the worst of it). I shot big guns and I did pretty well. I don’t like guns, but I do think that when I have shot them it gives me a respect for what they can do. And I know one thing: I do not want to get shot. Holy cow that must hurt. It’s hard enough pulling the friggin’ trigger.

And, I made a birthday cake for Gene that we started eating on Saturday. It was this cake and it was delightful. I made it from scratch. Yes, really. The recipe calls for cake flour, but I couldn’t find any. I should probably have looked longer, but the cake was still good. (Oh, and while I was baking the cake, Gene bought me a bouquet of flowers. Yay!)

Slept until 20 until 9 (I know this is not getting me any sympathy from any of you!)

Eaten brunch! (Yum!)

Gone to the grocery store! (So close to keeping it under $100! Damn you, 2 for $6 queso!)

Swept and mopped kitchen floor! (The Boy’s mom did this every day when she and Gene were married and I can’t understand how she did it. Just…err…floored)

Vacuumed the living room floor! (On the topic of “vacuum”, am I the only one who is surprised that of the 5 letters in that word, the letter that is duplicated is the “U”? English is a very funny language. Why not Vaacum, Vaccum or, hell, even Vacum?*)

Scrubbed the crud off the table on the patio! (So icky. I left a citronella candle on that table for YEARS and at some point, scientific events occurred and the next thing I know, bam! Wax on the table!)

(OK, after the vacuuming but before the scrubbing, I sat on the swing on the patio and finished a book, but still!)

And I guess Sunday Laundry is eternal, right? Mom’s probably doing hers right now, so I get the weekend laundry thing from her. 

Oh, hey! Forgot the important part. I’m a genius because tonight’s dinner? “LEFTOVERS”. I made this and this for dinner last night (well, Gene grilled the pork) and there are tons of leftovers.

* If someone IMs you and his screen name is “Vacum”, you have my permission to NOT respond. He is a dirty man. I promise. Did I ever tell you about the time the GM from one of our locations sent me a work email from his AOL email address and it included the letters (egad) “C” “U” and… anyway. And I promise the address wasn’t BiznessAcumen@aol.com** or something that might have excused it. If your personal email address is pervy, then get a hotmail address that is innocuous. Seriously, what email address did he have on his resume??

(And finally, do you know how many tries it took to spell innocuous? Four).

** Although, that would make an equally hilarious email address. (I think I just scared off my last reader who is not related to me).

If you guessed the Cheesecake City IKEA, you are SO RIGHT. (Or else you stumbled upon me in FaceBook for the 10 seconds that my status was updated as “Elaine is…freaking glad that IKEA’s open. Hooray, meatballs!”).*

Seriously, this was the top story on the morning news today. I’m not going to hurl myself upon the IKEA for a couple of weeks, hoping a tiny bit of the new wears off before I brave it. I hear the traffic was nuts and since I’m just going for the food, I can wait. Plus, I’d rather go on a week day and when am I going to get a week day off work for awhile?

But, holy hell, was it ever tempting to just go there after work. I don’t know what I want for dinner but yum – they would be a start.

* This is why my Facebook status still says “Elaine…is awake” — the meatballs are too deeply personal to share with Facebook. But you, blog readers, are different.

That said, why did I just eat the two entree meal from Panda Express and like it more than any of the Asian food I had in actual Asia?

Sorry, food snobs.

OMG. Delicious. Every time I popped one in my mouth I would initially taste french fry, just like every meal I’ve ever had at Wendy’s, McDonalds, etc and then BOOM! A woodsy taste – that’s the truffle part. Delicious. I think I need to have those fries again someday. (And no, there is NO befouling them with ketchup).

What I love is when the candle dies out or when the Toady leaves and blows out the candle. Then the room has that pleasant smell of birthday cake 30 seconds after the guest of honor blows out the candles. My gut kicks in and says “Hey, are we getting cake?”

This also happens when the candle burning is vanilla scented. I swear, it’s like every time I open my mouth I get a mouthfull of vanilla frosting.

So now I have a reputation at work for being able to “smell cake.” I hope someday I’ll learn to shut my yap. My Former Sister Accountants know entirely too much about me!

(Oh, and no matter what comes out of the microwave, I always am sure I smell french fries. What does THAT mean?)

(Yeah, guess who wants fries and cake? Preferably separately, but together if need be).

Can we just go to the BBQ restaurant a mile from the house?

(Actually, I think we’re going to the tapas place across the street from the BBQ place. It sounds fancy, but they have the yummiest White Castle type cheeseburgers).

Yum. I needed some for a recipe and purchased the bigger size can tomake sure I’d have enough. Had PLENTY. Enough to finish off the can before dinner even came out of the oven. Those things are awesome. Recipe was simple – 1 1/2 cups of the yummy french fried onions crushed (in a ziploc), 1 egg (beaten), 4 chicken breasts (boneless skinless). Cover chicken in egg, coat with onions, bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. Just obnoxiously yummy.

(But I still refuse to try the disgusting looking green bean casserole so popular at pot lucks and family meals!)