Rainy Days And Man Food

We've been getting a lot of rain lately. Oh, it doesn't amount to much, just showers two or three times a day. Although yesterday, about 5pm I was out feeding the critters and it came a real downpour. It was raining so hard even Mr. I-Love-Playing-In-The-Water Toby decided to come into the shed with me and wait it out. It didn't last long, but was the faucet was sure wide open while it lasted.

Of course, the trouble with all this rainy weather is that however much we might need it, my body doesn't like it. I get all kinds of aches and pains and the blahs, and wonder if maybe, just maybe, there might be a stronger pain med out there that wouldn't make me sick.

So here I am, trying to be in a "super-work" mode, and my body won't cooperate.

For instance, we had our first "Crash Test Dummies" session Tuesday night, and we'll have the regular webinar tonight. Hope my brain doesn't explode from all the new information I keep trying to cram in it. (There will be NO smart aleck remarks along the lines of, "What brain?")

Anyway, the guys know I'm super busy right now and not feeling the best. So yesterday, I called up Jess and told him I was ready to take him up on his offer to bring food home if I wasn't feeling well. We discussed all the different fast food places he passes on his way home from work - Burger King, Wendy's, McDonalds (he always throws that in just to get me going), Taco Bell, KFC, etc. You get the idea. I finally said, "You know what I usually order at all those places. Just stop wherever you want and bring something home."

Well, you won't believe what he brought home!
(Unless you already saw this on Facebook, ha!)

When he got here and hollered he was home, I went in to the kitchen and saw this HUGE RED BAG with RED LOBSTER on the side.

WOW!

Talk about a BIG surprise! He'd bought home my favorite coconut shrimp dinner, complete with their yummy bread, a salad and baked potato. And all the condiments of course!

He'd decided I needed a special treat instead of another fast food meal. The man did GOOD. He's probably picked up enough brownie points to last him for months! ;-)

We sat at the table and ate a real dinner, and my, was it nice. It was DELICIOUS. Red Lobster is positively one of my most favorite restaurants.

When Jess decides to cook, he really goes all out!

But that's not all! Nope, when Jonathan came home from work, he brought home a nice fresh thick crust pizza from Domino's. Yum! A midnight snack!

So I've got leftover pizza, and a salad and bread from Red Lobster, for some nice lunch food.

And Jonathan is off from work today, so tonight he's cooking supper. More man food!

Wow, this is really nice. I could get used to this!!!

MANmade Cake and Pie

When Richard and family last visited, I asked him if he'd be interested in any of my Wilton cake pans. He's the only one in the family I know that is "into" decorating cakes. With Ellie's birthday coming up, he thought that was a good idea, so we took the time to dig a box of cake decorating stuff out of the storage pod.

It didn't take him long to make use of some of them! Yesterday they had a conglomerate birthday party for the Kroeker clan, so Richard volunteered to make the cake. And what a cake it is!
Ellie is into all things Sesame Street, but particularly fond of Elmo and Oscar the Grouch. Richard used the ball cake pan he got from me to make Oscar's head, and 4 round cake layers stacked together to make the garbage can.

What an awesomely cute cake! I think he did a great job with it. He said it took longer than he figured, but they usually do. It's time consuming to construct one, then do all that tedious piping the icing on.

Since he did the cake on Saturday, and the party wasn't until the next day, he was presented with the problem of keeping the cake from drying out. You can't just lay plastic wrap on the cake, or the icing comes off with the wrap and there goes all your hard work.

Once again, he put his little gray cells to work and came up with a workable, if humorous looking, solution.

But not only do we have MANmade cakes in our family, we have MANmade pies! Last time Jess and I visited my dad, he asked us if we'd like some apple pie for dessert. Of course we said yes! I just figured one of the ladies who have sent him pies before had sent this one. It wasn't until we'd finished eating the pie that Dad 'fessed up that HE made it.

Well all right! I'm really proud of the way Dad's taken to puttering around in the kitchen and making things for himself. He makes pies, and cakes, and one of the latest new recipes he tried was for Sausage Jambalaya. Go Dad!

I for one am all for MANmade food!