oofta

I remember when I saw this image in a magazine a while back and I thought...I want this!!


The image is slightly cut off but there is a lovely hanging art piece that spells out the most wonderful and lovely word...

OOFTA

Have you heard about this before? Have you used this word before? Hmm, well I do. I remember many moons ago dating a guy who visited Turkey and he came back with a similar phrase that went a bit like this...

OOF YAaaaa

I loved it, embraced it, started saying it and then somehow over the years it emerged in to 'oofta'. Then I realized that others would say it too so I wasn't quite as unique as I once thought. I love this word and don't use it enough. I use it as an equivalent to the following....

Oh my
Oh boy
Goodness gracious
Seriously?
For the love...
Oh my goodness
Holy sh*t
Holy crap
Bloody hell

But gosh does it feel good to sometimes belt out a good ol'....

And why? It has been an oofta kinda couple of months! And that's why I have been missing. And in chronological order, here is what happened...

1. Shila got hospitalized in doggie ICU with a severe case of pancreatitis and pneumonia. Thankfully, she made it out alive and is doing marvelously now. For two weeks though it was pretty rough and I had many moments of not knowing if she would make it. A part of me hasn't fully recovered from it all. OOFTA!!

2. Shortly after Shila started getting better, I got sick-shmick. Sore throat, cold, cough, fever...ick. The good news is that I treated it with mostly natural medicine and hence it didn't last as long. It definitely sucked but of course could have been much worse. Still though...OOFTA!!

3. We gave the sellers of the house an extension of closing date which was never submitted to the bank (although we were told the extension was approved) and hence we didn't close on the initial closing date of 11/11/11 and hence our contract was voided. Yup - we're still in our current house. Boxes still surround us and we have no -gulp- Christmas tree or decorations. That's a big deal for me folks. Big. Deal. Anyhoo, we put another offer on the house, only for the stupid bank to counter us at way higher than they originally accepted our offer at. Hello? Idiots. Idiots I tell you! Long story short, we stood firm and after multiple attempts by the bank to get more out of us, they finally accepted our offer at the original price. Seriously? We wasted almost two months to get back to the spot we were originally in? We are now slated to close this Friday. Needless to say that while I am grateful that things are back on track, I am very irritated at the roller coaster ride this has been. In the middle of this, we decided to go for a different house which we didn't end up getting. OOFTA!!

4. Taz was feeling a bit left out with all of this drama and so he has decided to start pooping in the house. Pooping! POOPING!! And sometimes he throws in some pee as well, just to balance it all out. It began when we started boxing up the house so we're pretty sure he isn't liking the feeling of being disrupted. Me too buddy, me too, but you don't see me popping a squat on the living room floor every night, do ya? I am a unique sort of very selective type of germ-a-phobe and so while some things don't gross me out, this is pushing me over the edge. He makes sure to leave his present in the middle of the night so we can't catch him. For a while I wasn't sleeping because I was trying to catch him in the act. Well that was silly of me. The little guy doesn't make one noise when pooping. I guess, which dog does, right? Anyway, in the mean time, we have figured out thought that if we walk him in the evening and time it just right with his feeding time, he won't poop in the house. I only wish he could just pick up after himself and steam clean the carpet for us. OOFTA!!


Yup and that's about it! I think it's been a pretty oofta-worthy couple of months. And you know the funny thing is? Apart from Shila getting sick, even through my moments of oofta-dom, everything has been very manageable. Everything is 'one day at a time' and a certain trust in that pesky yet reassuring phrase - what is meant to be will be. Most days I hate the sound of the phrase but every day I believe fully in it. And really...truly...things are ok. Things could have been WAY worse and I remember that every day and it is what keeps me calm. We are still so fortunate and so lucky and my 'oofta' moments are nothing compared to other people's 'oofta' moments.

And so while we re-start our journey in to moving, I may disappear yet again for a little while and then come back with a BAM! Or, I miraculously start blogging every day. Hmm - I think I know which one it might be. (wink)

Be well my bloggies!
~k

ps - googling images of dogs pooping for this blog post? Yah. Not so fun.

moving on

Nope, not from blogging! :) Rich and I are....

WooHoo! We are closing on our new home November 11th! Things might be a bit quiet on my end for a little while as we enter packing and moving hell. :) Actually - we've already entered it. Boxes are piling, rooms are looking empty and anxiety is going up! Oh yes - definitely in packing and moving hell!

But...it will all be worth it! We have been looking for over a year - gosh I think it's been a year and a half at this point - and have come close so many times only to lose out to another buyer but this time, the house was meant to be and will be ours in less than two weeks. TWO weeks! Yikes!! It is a four bedroom, in a great part of town, complete with a back yard, pool and a little craft room to call my own. I cannot wait! The house does need some work so we'll slowly chip away it over this next year. My blog will probably be full of home project updates. Get excited! (wink)

my best halloween costume

This year at our work, we decided to have our first annual halloweek potluck coupled with a team costume competition. As soon as word got out, the competition was fierce! Teams were conspiring to come up with the best costume! Our Leadership Team voted and finally decided on the theme of the circus, which I personally was very excited about! It made me think of one of my favorite books - Water for Elephants! Although I wasn't a huge circus go-er as a child and I am not so hot about those poor animals being paraded around for us humans, there is something still mystical and enchanting about the idea of a circus.

I took some time to think about a costume - initially I thought of a chinese acrobat (was going to hot glue plastic champagne glasses together in a tier on a head band). Also thought about a ring master or lion tamer, but none of those sounded exciting enough until I saw this...and suddenly I knew what my costume was destined to be!



So cute, huh? This is courtesy from Tip Junkie and although made for a young'in, I knew I could adapt to an adult costume.

I already had a dowel rod that I had spray painted black and easily found a red/white striped shirt at Savers. The rest came together quite easily! And the end product? Here you go!



Not bad, eh? My 'stache is kinda falling off in the pic but you get the picture. :) This has to be, by far, my best halloween costume!

umm?

We get interesting spam mail now and then...

happy bosses' day and more

To all those out there who are a boss, in any shape, way or form....

happy bosses' day!

I know that some folks say it's a hallmark day (akin to Valentine's Day) but I love this day as it is a time to take a moment to make sure you do something thoughtful for your boss. I've had a lot of positive experiences with supervisors which makes bosses' day even more delightful!

Today my team and I did something nice for our boss (we planned ahead of time) and...what was even more special, my team gave me a card with a note from each staff member, yummy Dove chocolate bars and my favorite? A starbucks gift card! They really do know me well! Chocolate and coffee - can't get much better than that.

And in other news...things over here have slowed down quite a bit - amen! Now that baby shower busy-ness is over, I've been relaxing, keeping the house clean and dilly dallying around on the computer and getting back to reading. While preping for the baby shower was intense :) now that it's over, I almost feel bored. I need to find that happy medium! So I have vowed to focus on a couple house projects such as cleaning up my recipe collection and de-cluttering the dreaded closets in the guest bedroom and den. And just like my sweet sisters on Sex and The City would, Rich and I will be doing a lot of this and this...

That's right Samantha and Miranda!

De-cluttering is a project that I like to view as team building as it involves both Rich and I (much to his dismay). He got out of it this past weekend but we will need to hunker down this saturday to get it done!

Speaking of my dear husband, does anybody have any tips, tricks or spells (?) to cure my sweet sweet husband of a habit of sniffing?

(ps - I will not be pushing your cute little nose you goofy bear!)

Every 30 seconds, Rich sniffs. Sometimes it's one sniff, sometimes it's two or three quick sniffs. When I ask why he is sniffing, he doesn't know he's doing it. Blowing his nose doesn't work and he doesn't suffer from allergies or any colds. It is driving me BATTY!! And at this point, I am considering hypnosis! We looked it up online and apparently it is just out of habit but we haven't found any solutions as yet. It has gotten so bad, that I've had to leave the living room. :) I've tried deep breathing to find a way to cope with it but I just can't do it. I've considered head phones but I really enjoy peace and quiet.


Imagine....



(sniff)




(sniff, sniff)




(sniff)




(sniff-sniff-sniff)




(sniff)



And it just goes on and on and on....and don't get me wrong - I ADORE my husband but this sniffing thing is driving me a little bit loooooonie!! Help! ps - while looking up images for this post, I found this and it made me laugh!



And last but not least, I am looking forward to a local food truck festival which is rolling in to town - pun intended - this weekend!


30 food trucks, woohoo! This is the first one I've been to and since Rich and I are die-hard foodies, we are ecstatic to go! My bestie is coming too. :) Very excited to go eat our hearts out! And our bellies too. (wink) I love that food trucks are having a resurgence in popularity. Will be sure to post pics!

That's all for now! Will be posting a how to on the banner and food labels from the baby shower soon.

x

chocolate ganache filled red velvet cupcakes

I have to admit that I am not a huge fan of the red velvet mostly because the first time I tried a chocolate ganache filled red velvet cupcake (phew, that's a mouthful!) at Starbucks, I found it gross and then was severely disappointed in spending $3.00 for that cupcake. And then when I found out how much red food dye goes in those puppies, it was a done deal for me.

When I found out that my bestie's favorite flavor was Red Velvet, I wasn't super jazzed (for me) but I was super excited for the challenge (for her!). I was determined to keep with the 'filled' theme since the lemon cupcakes (see post below) were filled with lemon curd so I scoured the internet for ideas. Soon enough I was inspired to fill the cupcakes with some sort of chocolate goodness and thought about ganache. I found a couple recipes for ganache but most needed to be cooked inside the cupcake but I didn't want to lose out on the feel of a gooey filling. So...here is what I put together! And boy is it gooooooood!

Again - these are quite easy but perhaps a tad harder than the lemon filled cupcakes below because you have to make the ganache from scratch.

Chocolate Ganache Filled Red Velvet Cupcakes
(the easy version)

Ingredients:

• Red Velvet cake mix
• Whipped cream cheese frosting - pre-made
• Heavy cream
• Semi-sweet chocolate chips
• Strawberries
  

Ganache - Method:

• Boil water in a pot and keep at a simmering boil
• Hoist a bowl over the pot and let it sit on top
• Add about a cup of heavy cream
• Add semi-sweet chocolate chips - about half a cup
• Keep stirring so that as the chocolate gently melts, you're stirring it in
• Taste - add more chocolate if you wish
• When completely melted and mixed in, remove from heat and let cool
• When the bowl is cool to the touch, refrigerate until it thickens - this could be anywhere between 1-2 hours

Cupcakes - Method:

• Follow the directions on the cake mix box but make cupcakes instead
• When out of the oven and cooled, take a metal decorating tip that you would use for decorating the frosting and use it to make a hole in the center of each cupcake
  
• Tips: 1 - do not make a hole all the way to the bottom of the cupcake and 2 - depending on the size of the tip, you may need to turn it upside down to use
  
• Using a piping pastry bag, fill each cupcake hole with the chocolate ganache
• Tip: within 2-3 minutes, my ganache would usually sink in to the cupcake and then I would make a second round of filling to top it up
  
• Decorate with whipped cream cheese frosting - I used a decorative tip to make it look fancy shmancy
• Cut a strawberry in to half, then thirds - use one third per cupcake for maximum prettiness

And....although I'm not a fun of red velvet, these are pretty darn good! These were very popular at the baby shower and were in high demand! The ganache is gooey and melts in your mouth. I love the semi-sweet taste because it doesn't over power your buds with sweetness.

Enjoy!

ps - did you know that red velvet is basically chocolate cake with red food dye? Ya. I learned that while researching.

lemon filled cupcakes

Ok first, I must admit that these are my ultimate FAVORITE cupcakes I have made! In planning the baby shower, we really wanted to have cupcakes however at $2 a pop, I quickly thought...gosh, how hard can it be to gin a batch up in the kitchen?

Ok, it's hard. :) After several attempts, I have to admit that I completely short-cutted these but none of the guests could tell and everybody thought they were to die for! They couldn't believe the recipe when I told them. Here is the easy peasy recipe...

Lemon Filled Cupcakes

(the lazy version)

Ingredients:

• Yellow cake mix from the box
• Lemon curd from the bottle (you can find this at Trader Joe's)
• Whipped cream cheese frosting (pre-made)
• Rind of one lemon
  
  

Method:

• Follow directions on the cake mix box but make cupcakes instead
• When out of the oven and cooled, take a metal decorating tip that you would use for decorating the frosting and use it to make a hole in the center of each cupcake
  
• Tips: 1 - do not make a hole all the way to the bottom of the cupcake and 2 - depending on the size of the tip, you may need to turn it upside down to use
  
• Using a piping pastry bag, fill each cupcake hole with lemon curd - have fun with this and don't hold back with the curd - you need a bunch of it in there
• Decorate with whipped cream cheese frosting - I used a decorative tip to make it look fancy shmancy
  
• Sprinkle with rind

Seriously - it's that easy and they were delectable! They are quite light and not heavy with flavor. The lemon curd has that tangyness and that taste pairs up quite nicely with the sweetness of the frosting. Ultimate YUM!

Enjoy! I promise you that you won't stop eating these.

x