Enjablog

So, I woke up this morning to find an email from my sister with The Blogess‘s latest adventure brushing her teeth with eyelash glue.

I sent her the following response, including picture:

Ok, so, first. I read this before getting out of bed this morning and then had to explain to Ian who the blogess is. “Some lady who blogs.”

Second, I can tell you how my call will go. For the past couple… holy cow. For the past *2 years*, there has been a tube of silicon sealant on my night stand, aka super glue.

We got this when Ian replaced the faucets and needed to attach the new drain pipe to the p-trap or something plumbing sounding. Anyway, it got moved to my nightstand when we emptied out the master bath to remove the vanity.

I don’t know why it hasn’t gotten moved, but I keep it there next to my similarly sized/colored tube of skin cream. I know that the contents have completely different consistencies and color, but every morning, I’m still a little paranoid about it. I guess it’s part of my waking up process now.

The glue was previously in the bathroom next to the toothpaste… where I often brush my teeth without glasses/contacts. So I feel like I’ve made the right move here. In that the right move is the least action and slightly less terrible results should a mix-up occur.

Anyway, just in case, you might want to pre-look up what to do in case someone super glues their hand to their arm. I’m glad my phone has voice dial. And it wouldn’t be the worst if my phone where permanently attached to me, right..?

We have since decided that the glue should probably get moved to somewhere not on my nightstand. I’ll consider it.

We finally had our buttercream party to clear out some freezer space! Had about 15 people stop by throughout the day. We started out with just the pre-flavored items I had leftover from cakes in the past couple months:
- Remy Martin buttercream
- Caramel
- Semi-sweet chocolate ganache
- White Chocolate cream cheese frosting
- Chocolate buttercream

We had cake, cupcakes, sugar cookies, and cardamom cookies. After the initial diabetic shock, there wasn’t much interest from anyone to try new flavors in the unflavoried frosting, but we made a decent dent in the leftovers. By the end of the day, I reclaimed 4 containers, and consolidated into 2 of our tiny snack-size containers. I might make another batch of the chocolate cookies I made a couple months ago to finish up the caramel.

Many of our guests were also kind enough to take goody bags home with them, including people willing to take a container of unflavored buttercream to experiment on their own! I have 2 containers left in the freezer, so enough for a cake that I can bring in to work or something.

This was also the first time Ian and I have had guests under the age of 17. Our place? Definitely not child-proof. Our low shelf with plant fertilizer, glass tables, electronics out everywhere, remote controls for everything… They seemed to have fun exploring though. And no injuries or broken items. One spilled drink, but that wasn’t even a kid. ;) And we did get a notification that the item we requested was available for our Chumby. Guess they’ll have to wait until next time to see it!

Ian and I have been getting disappointing results from our fridge for the past few years and finally got to the point where we were looking at replacing it. A few people had commented on the quality of the refrigerator brand we had, so Ian did some research into it.

Originally, we figured there was just an issue with the seal around the doors, but there were mixed reviews online as to whether you should replace it yourself. It seemed like a relatively minor investment compared to replacing the whole thing, so we called in a professional. (We had never even thought of doing that before! We’re slowly learning how to be functional adults. Slowly, but surely…)

Last week, Maani from All Year Appliances Repairs came to take a look at our fridge and didn’t think the seal was an issue. It was a relatively quick diagnosis once he opened up the vent covering the condensers.

Apparently the vent/condenser is supposed to be vacuumed every 3-6 months, but based on the condition of it, Maani guessed that it had never been cleaned. The fan was working fine, but the coils were so coated with dirt and residue, they were producing a lot of heat and not cooling anything. It was in such bad shape that he had to bring in the industrial blower because a vacuum wouldn’t do the job.

As a result of this, dirt from the condensers was blown all over the kitchen. I wasn’t actually home during all this, but Ian reported that the guy got completely covered in this residue and apologized for the mess. There really wasn’t much he could do about it while still getting the job done though.

Ian warned me of the state of the kitchen before I got home and even though he had done his best to clear stuff out of the kitchen before the blowing started and had vacuumed/cleaned some, it was still pretty clear when I got home that the fridge had been pretty gross. After a day scrubbing cabinets, walls, and counters, I was able to start a staging area for non-fixed items to be washed. And, as of today, our entire kitchen is back to being functional again!

Plus, our fridge works! It took a couple days for the temperature to normalize, but our freezer makes ice that’s completely frozen now and our fridge feels cold when you open the door. It’s pretty fantastic! :)

As I sit here procrastinating on my homework, I figured I should post up some pictures of all the things I’ve been up to in the past month or so.

My original plan was to get all the sample cakes for Sonny and Anna made and tasted by the end of February so I could offer them more options if they weren’t set on one of the original picks they made.  February got a little away from me, so my new goal was the end of March and then I could still have a couple weeks for any follow-up options and still have a month to practice.  I finished 3 days behind schedule, but it’s sounding like they liked a couple of cakes they tried, so I’ll still have over a month to make sure I have the recipe down.

My nieces had a big pool party birthday bash for their first and third birthdays.  I had a lot of fun, but we were only there about 3 hours and that was enough for me; I was exhausted!  E2 kept drinking the pool water every time her face got anywhere near the surface and E1 really wanted to go down the water slide.  Or at least play in the pool area where the water slide ended.  Just didn’t seem like a good idea… ;) They both really enjoyed being in the pool though, so it was fun watching them play around.

No pictures, but I went to my first Passover Seder party last week. Very educational and fun. Ian was able to modify his mom’s cabbage salad recipe to make it kosher for passover and we’ve been eating extras of that for the past week. So tasty!

Volunteered to help with setup for the FIRST scrimmage:

Volunteered to help judge the Center City Public Charter School science fair: