Celebrate Good Times...C'mon...

I have this memory of myself as a teenager making a chocolate cake out of an ancient cookbook I still use to this day for my mum's birthday. It might be good to mention here that, until I met the Captain, cooking of any kind was limited to heating up something in the microwave. My mum wasn't big on it. Having been forced at a horrifically early age to cook for her family, then going on to have a husband and seven children of her own to feed, cooking never felt like much fun. So the first time I went over to the Captain's place and watched him make me french onion soup, my jaw dropped. He never even picked up a can opener!
You can imagine what this cake ended up looking (and tasting) like. The icing was too runny, so when I tried to spell out "Happy Birthday" in red, on a sheet of green icing, what I ended up with was a drippy brownish blur. Between that and the fact that the cake had the consistency of a brick, by today's standards, I'd have considered it a disaster. But my mum at least acted thrilled (it may have been the sugar rush), saying no one had ever made her a birthday cake before. I like to think that my skills both in the kitchen and in the area of homemade gifts have vastly improved since that time.
And, in a completely unrelated story, today the Captain makes his victorious return home! The kids are beyond excited and I'm going to have to find a way to keep them occupied until after dinner, when we can finally go pick him up. I guess it'll be good practice for Christmas Eve. Groan...
So, today we have two reasons to celebrate. Happy Birthday, Mum! I hope you like the knitted nativity scene. And welcome home, Captain! Please don't dump your crap everywhere and drive me crazy for the next 3 weeks.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I'm Too Old for This @!#%

Between Christmas and the New Year, I decided to treat myself and subscribe to In Style magazine for a year. I like clothes and makeup and all things girly, so it seemed like a fun thing to look forward to receiving in the mail every month. And it is. But I have some complaints, and I think they have more to do with ME than the magazine. WHO?! : In my teens and 20's, if you named a celebrity--a singer, actor or anyone famous for anything --I'd have been able to pull up a mental image and a list of things they were famous for. Today, I flip open the pages of my magazine, see an actual picture of a celebrity with their name printed underneath, and I STILL have no idea who the hell I'm looking at! Kristen Stewart --hmmm...name sounds familiar...is this someone I went to high school with?! Judging from her youthful photos, I'm guessing not. At least HALF the people featured in this magazine elicit this response from me now. Apparently, I really need to get with the program...
Read more

Real vs Fake

Image
The Captain has only been gone 2 weeks. Already I've committed the ultimate marital sin. You hear stories about the things wives get up to while the husbands are serving overseas. The wife who moves a new guy in the minute her husband's gone. The wife who clears out the bank account and does a runner. The one who takes all his extra tour money and spends it on new shoes. I never thought I'd become one of those nuts who does something crazy while he's away. But I have. Yesterday, I bought one of these: Okay, fine. For the average marriage, this is not the ultimate sin. But when the Captain finds out, things may get a little heated. You see, the Captain grew up with a real Christmas tree in his living room every year. It's a tradition that is important to him, and one on which he will not compromise. I grew up with a fake one, so the idea of a real tree doesn't bother me too much. I admit, I like the gorgeous, fresh pine smell that fills the room when you bring ...
Read more

The Luck Of The Irish

Image
As far as I know, I do not even have 1% Irish in me. The last time I looked into it, I found that I was 99.9% English with, I think, a tiny smidge of Scottish if you go back far enough. This, however, does not stop me from going hog wild on St Patrick's Day. I already have the beef marinating for my Steak and Guinness Pie tomorrow. This year, it seems I've cashed in all those lucky four-leafed clovers I found out back as a kid. In just over a year, I have won no less than FOUR blog giveaways! Blogging is turning out to be better than the lottery! Two of those giveaways I won this month within a week of each other. A big thanks to Nezzy for the fantastic $40 gift code at CSN Stores , which I gave to my overworked mom who has been playing nursemaid to my dad after his knee replacement surgery. At the risk of making a sweeping generalization, anyone with a man around the house knows what it's like to look after them when they're under the weather. Am I right?! My mom dese...
Read more