I do a lot of long walks now as my legs are injured, and on my walk this weekend I came across a ‘free’ table and it had books, toys, random stuff and this beauty: A horse head cake pan by Wilton!
So of course we made a cake!! I love it.
And of course, now that we can’t really travel or do things we are used to: Visiting with friends, happy hour, running races or in groups, horse shows, going to a movie, swimming, etc etc etc…
My watercolour attempt!
Ian and I have had to get much more creative- literally! We have done a few fun projects, from an Easter gingerbread house to making Sculpey animals, to watercolour paintings. It’s been pretty fun, and I guess, a fun distraction from the things we can’t normally enjoy.
My Easter house- isn’t it fun? I bought like 5 gingerbread houses from Thrifty’s because they were a dollar each, so I used one this year for Easter. My friend even bought me some amazing flavored Peeps from the USA!
Of course, we can get take-out meals, drinks, have a picnic and have done many of these activities throughout the past 3 months as well!
Our sculpey projects- I want to get some magnets and do up the backs of these, they are too cute not to share!
Weekend update- rode Oats on Saturday and he was SO BLAH! UGH.
Yummy cookies!
Just…not rude or anything scary or dangerous, just ‘blah’ and completely phoning in his ride. I was bummed, because he was literally ‘sparkling’ with energy Tues/Wed, and I felt his energy decline in my lesson on Thurs- though he was still cooperative, and then Saturday? He just felt like, ‘yeah yeah yeah whatever’ and that’s how my ride went. Fell over a few crossrails because he couldn’t be bothered to pick up his feet. Blah.
Maybe Oats does best when he gets to spend 12 hours at a horseshow on the weekend? Because it seemed to *really* liven him up for some of the week! Hm…
Thursday was a good lesson- not without it’s bobbles- me forgetting to ride to one x-rail and us kind of landing in the middle of it, me trying to push him through a short gymnastic at the canter and bailing out halfway through, him having a coughing attack in the middle of our course…But you know what, it actually rode pretty well after our ‘bobbles’ and I felt pretty fine about it.
So, after his VERY unenthusiastic ride on Saturday, I decided that I would *gasp* take him out of the arena on Sunday and attempt some weenie trail riding. I mostly hate trail riding, it scares the bejesus out of me. I have had MANY bad experiences, and the roads around the barn are so so so busy- motorcycles, buses, big trucks, tons of cars, bike races, dogs, kids, etc etc etc. NOT relaxing.
Well, the good news is that we didn’t quite make it to the road, hahah – we rode past the ‘scary barn of terror’ that Oats was petrified of (wind chimes, flag flapping and going nuts, creaking doors, farm equipment?!!!) and made it like halfway…And then he refused to go forward, and started thinking about rearing, so I made an executive decision and hopped off, led him past it- with 1 big spook! And got back on…And had to repeat the ‘get off, lead past, get back on’ procedure a few times.
We made it to the end of the road, and then Oats didn’t want to go home! He tried to charge off and take me to the road, which is NOT where I was planning. So, hopped off, led him back, hopped back on and managed to ride safely back to the arena. The girls were in the outdoor stomping on ice that had frozen in the puddles, so Oats and I joined it and stomped some ice too! Me on his back, and him enjoying himself, haha.
So, we tried. That was that!
It was still incredibly nerve-wracking. UGH.
And what else did I get up to? Some cookie making & decorating, and preparing my items for the craft sale a friend is having this weekend (at her house). Check it out! I’m looking forward to it, I have bath/body items that I like making for fun, so I figured why not see if I can sell any?
Craft sale goodies- nice enough to eat!
Craft edition!!
This weekend, I learned how to make Lush jelly soap. And boy are they fun!
Poured into the molds
I accidentally set the cookie sheet I was using to put all my molds on next to the burner and it melted my unicorn mold, and I also scorched the counter top. Oops!!!
I’ll pay better attention next time…Eek!
In the meantime, here is the tutorial I used. It makes a LOT of soap, so be ready to make this to give away to friends/family/coworkers. It sets overnight, and you can scoop it into cute little mason jars. Store it in the fridge until you give it away, and tell your gift recipients to store it in the fridge or freezer until they are ready for their shower–it melts very easily but is such a fun little gift.
Jelly soaps!
So make this the day before you want to give it as a gift. It’s so easy!
– have molds- the bigger the better- I used tupperwares mostly.
– use unscented or lightly scented shampoo or bath gel.
-add an essential oil if you want, I like peppermint so I put those in.
-add a few drops of food coloring, I like blue.
-be patient, it will set overnight and you can scoop it into jars in the morning.
-if you do freeze it, use it from frozen. Don’t defrost and use, it denatures the jelly.
-it’s a relatively cheap gift! All you need to buy are gelatin packs and have some cheap shampoo or bath gel, tupperware molds and little gifty packages to give it in.
Enjoy!
Yum!
Last week was Public Service appreciation week, and our work gave us a nice patio event to drop-in and have a piece of cake and some pop and a popcorn. It was really tasty, and having the cake and popcorn gave me an idea…(and later, a terrible stomachache. I thought I was going to puke).
I was going to make my own popcorn cake! My own creation!
And so this past weekend, I did- voila, the popcorn-chocolate layer cake.
What do you need to make such a delicacy (monstrosity?)? It’s so easy…
1 box of cake mix (I used Wal-Mart brand devil’s food, and DO NOT recommend it. It sucked. Get Duncan Hines or something.)
1 bag of microwave popcorn, butter flavour
1 container of fudge frosting
Make the cake mix in two 20-inch pans, so you have two small round cakes. You may need 2 cake mixes for this, depending on how thick you want the cakes.
Cool them on racks, and then microwave the popcorn.
Frost the top of one of the cakes, and layer popcorn on top of the frosting. Make it a good, generous layer- no popcorns missing!
Put the top layer of the cake on top of the popcorn layer. Squish it down really well, it will want to pop up and shift.
Frost the top of the cake. It is basically impossible to frost ‘around’ the whole cake, as popcorns fell out and got stuck to the icing (why yes, this was very messy, why do you ask??).
Decorate with a row of popcorn kernels along the top as pictured.
Slice very carefully- use a big knife and make the slices BIG! (But I didn’t need to tell YOU that haha).
And enjoy! Even on day 2 it’s delicious to eat. Yumm!
The adventures of Mr. Oats 