Rainbow Cupcakes

Yum!

A few weeks ago I was not bored as much as wanting to do something both creative and edible. With a box of white cake mix, vanilla frosting, and some food coloring and the adventure began.

I made the cake mix per the instructions and then I divided out portions of it into 5 different bowls. I added food coloring to four of the bowls and then just started to make my cupcakes.

I took a spoonful of one color and then another and another until the cupcake cup was two thirds full.

For some cupcakes, I tried to layer the colors and others I took a toothpick and tied to swirl the colors around. In the end, it was a colorful mess.

Once the cupcakes were out of the oven and cooled I added the frosting. I wanted the frosting to also be colorful so I scooped it into a zip lock bag, I don't own pastry bags and didn't think to grab one earlier, squeezed all the frosting into one corner, added a few drops of coloring and then cut the tip off the bag and began to squeeze/pipe the frosting out. I can thank that idea to the show The Great British Bake Off.

You can see from the pictures a few cupcakes without frosting and then some with the frosting.

How did they taste? Okay, they tasted just okay. The adding of the food dye caused the flavors to change a little bit. Not enough that I wouldn't do it again, I think I would just want to make sure that the cake was flavored with something. Maybe some strawberry in the pink or some lemon in the yellow, or just some kind of overall stronger vanilla for the cake itself.

Since we don't need a dozen and a half cupcakes for just 3 people, and I didn't make enough for my workgroup or my husband's workgroup we sent them to work with the Broha.

However, to make sure the cupcakes made it through the night I had to kitty proof them.

I enjoyed making these cupcakes. If you've got an extra 30 minutes or so to add a little bit of color to your next baking creation I would highly recommend it.

Thanks for reading and if you've ever made colorful cupcakes like this before what did you think? What would you do different, or have done different the next time? Leave me a comment below!

Creative Writing - Coffee Shop

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

It all started out like a normal Tuesday in any big city. The cars started honking their horns before 7am like roosters. The small shops and stores were slowly opening up their doors. The sounds of hoses washing off cement and scraping of tables being pulled onto the sidewalk could be heard.

This sleepy predictability was Morris’ favorite part of his day. Though he did not know the shopkeepers by name he knew their routines almost better than they did.

Since today was Tuesday, he walked slowly towards his favorite coffee shop to enjoy a cup of overpriced coffee with a slightly stale pastry. While he waited quietly for his order to be up he sat down at a tiny table and pulled out his laptop as was his normal routine.

Before Morris could even type his password his name was called. He quickly got up to retrieve his coffee and pastry. As he sat there sipping his coffee he suddenly heard, “HELP! Please can someone please help!?!"

Morris, quickly looked up and around the cafe for the person asking for help. No one else seemed to hear this cry for help. His head swiveled like a top looking to the voice but saw no one in distress. Morris then heard the same cry again, “HELP! Please can someone please help!?!”

Again, no one else seemed to take any notice. The barista kept making other people’s drinks, the pedestrians continued at their same pace outside the cafe window and while everyone inside the cafe continued to stare at their phones. It wasn’t until Morris hear the cry one more time that he finally spotted the person needing aid.

It was a tiny little lego man that was screaming from the table next to Morris’. A 6 year old girl was slowly pulling the lego man apart limb by limb. By this point she had removed their legs and one arm and was slowly pulling off the other arm.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

As you can tell from reading, Her name is Abigail part 1, Her name is Abigail part 2, Her name is Abigail part 3 and a Beautiful day to sit on the side of the road, I have been having a few car troubles. Husband and I had 3 vehicles, and now we are down to one car. One is in the shop and will be worked on sometime in the first week of September and the second one was just dropped off so we don't know when it will be worked on.

Having such different work schedules we could have probably made having one car work for about 1-2 days but soon it will be too complicated, worry some and stressful. I suggested that we rent a car for a few days until one of the vehicles was repaired. He agreed with needing a second vehicle but instead of a rental company called his family to see if we could borrow something. His aunt said we could borrow a truck and I was very thankful and to have that option.

We then took a nice drive up Route 11, stopped by Dinosaur Kingdom II, for a visit before hanging out with his grandparents and his parents for the day.

Sidebar, if you live in southwest Virginia and have not stopped by Dinosaur Kingdom II, your really should. Honestly, it is hard to describe except to keep an open mind and take in for what it is, just a neat little walk through the woods.

Back to the story.

Where Husband's family lives in Rockbridge County, they do not have weekly trash days like we do. You take your trash to community dumpsters. The truck we were borrowing had a few items that needed to be dumped, so before we left his parents we also picked up some of their trash since we had to stop by the dumpster anyway.

After southern goodbye-ing for about an hour, we finally started down the road about 9pm.

I was in the truck, Husband was in his car and I was in lead. I missed the pull off for the dumpster probably by about 5 miles. So we turned around with Husband leading and he brought us to the right place. We quickly unloaded all the trash and had a debate of who should take lead on the way back home. I was new to driving the truck and couldn't decide what to do so he said I'll take lead and see you at the gas station.

Husband pulled out and I followed after him. We made it down the road probably about a mile before I saw his brake lights go on, the screeching of tires, the sound of a thud and then his car pulling ahead to the side of the road.

Since I had been going slower I had time to slow down but not slow enough. He had just hit a deer, the poor thing was either in shock and had come back into the road or hadn't left. The end result is that I too hit the thing, but since I was in a truck and higher it just went down underneath my tires vs really hitting anything.

Scared, confused, and unsure what to do I pulled behind where Husband had parked on the side of the road.  I got out of the car and started to cry. It was one of those shaking all over, not able to breathe, while tears just slide slowly down your face.

Husband was checking out his car and when he saw me he came over and was like are you okay? Is the truck okay? I was like I hit the deer too. Is your car okay? He was like it's still running.

I'm standing between the two vehicles, all the lights are on and I am just standing there shaking and crying. Husband just does what needs to be done. He went back to the deer to end her suffering and pull her out of the road. Once he does that and comes back while I still standing there unsure what to do. Do we need to call the cops? Do we go home? What do we do? Since it is now about 9:30pm on Labor Day night, and there is deer fur in the lights of my husband's car we do not call the police. Since the vehicles are driveable we head down the road to the gas station which was our destination already.

When we arrive at the gas station I have stopped crying and shaking. I fill up the truck and car with gas while we survey the vehicles for damage and confirm they are both driveable and head home.

While driving home I start to question my goal for having a small farm of goats, chickens, and a cow or two. If I just freaked out that bad about killing a deer I didn't know if  I could kill animals I raise? I ponder how in the last week we went from having 3 vehicles down to probably none. Also, I took a moment to be thankful we had the option to even borrow a vehicle since not everyone has that opportunity.

Suffice to say when I got home Husband and I had to have a chat to clear up some of the confusion that had sprung up in my head. He also confirmed that tomorrow he would be calling our car insurance people because his car was not driving quite right.

All I kept hearing in my head were two phrases over and over. "And then there were none." And, "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished."

The last time I had tried to help with the trash I had put a dent in the side of Husband's Dad's car.  I try to take out their trash again and we kill our last car. Great, just great.

That Tuesday, Husband ran around and dropped his car off to be repaired and to pick up a new rental while I worked and sent him a million text messages to find out what was going on.

Have you hit a deer before? If so when and what happened? Did you cry too or was that just me? Please let me know with a comment below!