Jay had to leave early this morning for a church council retreat - they were gathering to define the mission of Peace Lutheran Church. I got up, just before his alarm went off, at 6:45 a.m. I got on the internet and checked my emails and then checked in on the famous owl, Molly (see one of my earlier posts). I knew I had a busy day a head of me and it would be best to get a early start. My list looked like this:
* Make Strawberry Pretzel Salad
* Make a white cake
* Make raspberry mousse for filling/torting white cake
* Make buttercream icing to ice and decorate cake
* Assemble and decorate cake for church potlluck tomorrow
* Make grape Jell-O; apparently Jay wants liturgically correct colored giggly stuff coordinated for chruch potlluck
* Type up four recipes and email them to a friend back in Ohio so they can be included in a cookbook
* Do laundry
* Work on school lessons and get the kids' assignment sheets for the week typed up
* Do whatever else I or the kids can think of that needs to be done, plus all the normal day activities!!
Worse of all, Jay and I didn't go to bed until midnight last night; the kids didn't get in bed till after eleven - Cassie babysat and we just lost track of time. Jay spent time watching basketball games on TV and on his laptop - he had to cheer OSU on over his laptop. After putting the kids to bed, I was busy looking for those four recipes that I needed to type up.
Well, that didn't stop us from getting up and getting an early start. Now, granted he HAD to, but I knew my list was long and would grow with the day. So, I got the cake in the oven, got my cup of joe, and then started typing. I did wake Zack, not on purpose, I was crushing pretzels for the strawberry pretzel salad. I'd bang with the rolling pin and he'd bang on the wall, I'd bang and then he'd bang. Finally, he came out and asked me what I was doing. I told him he could go back to bed, I was done crushing and banging things, but it was eightish so he could stay up, which he did. Shortly after that Mackenzie was up, which is amazing because she never gets out of bed.
Mackenzie helped me, bright and early for her, make the Strawberry Pretzel Salad. The nice thing about the things on my list they had multiple steps, so I could work on one and then the other and go back and forth till I completed them. Now, the draw back to that is there was no down time in between to rest my achy back.
I can't wait to have the Strawberry Pretzel Salad tomorrow. I know I have had this before, not sure where, but I happened across the recipe the other day and I could just taste it, I just remembering it tasting so good. Now the top layer isn't as smooth as Jell-O normally is because I walked away while it was in the bowl getting to the right consistency to spread over the cream cheese/whipped topping layer, so I had to stir it up and spread it the best I could.
Decorating a cake takes time too and there are multiple stages. First, bake the cake and let it cool. Make the icing and any fillings. Layer and tort cake, then crumb coat. Let chill in fridge for at least an hour. Then ice the cake and let chill in fridge for another hour. Smooth icing and then decorate.
Mackenzie helped decorate the cake and she did a fine job.
Okay, I hate wasting a good thing, but bottom line - if we keep the leftover buttercream icing we will EAT it. Hello . . . I do NOT need it, nor does anyone else in this house. Me for weight issues and the kiddos for sugar bug issues!! So, I told Mackenzie she could practice her technique on the practice board, but when she was done we THREW all the left over icing OUT!!
After I got all our goodies, for our potluck tomorrow, made it was time to make dinner. Which I might add, we have an extra cake because last night I made a red velvet cake with cream cheese icing for Jay's retreat today and he forgot it in the car. Anyway it was time to make dinner -see what I mean about that list just gets longer. So I whipped together some homemade marinara sauce and threw in some homemade meatballs (pulled from freezer and made with hamburger and ostrich meat) and boiled some angel hair pasta . . . ta-da dinner is served.
Well, I didn't get all the laundry done and I haven't even started on school lessons, but I am DONE for the day. I am going to go and lounge for a little while, and then I'm sure I'll start on that school stuff. But knowing my husband, he will encourage me to stay a while longer and sit with him. Which I think I might have to do.
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