Well I FINALLY got off my duff and taught school today.  Than even showed up to the table with a good attitude.  Which is a far cry from yesterday’s “meltdown day”.  He woke up and he just had meltdowns all day.  He’s not usually like that – he’s usually Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky.  So when he has one of “those” days, it’s very noticeable.

Normally I would cajole him out of THE MOOD (cajole…good word usage, Jen…BONUS POINTS!), but I wasn’t feeling that great and “in no mood for that nonsense” so it was just an epic battle of wills.  I won.  Needless to say.

Anyway, we’ve had a really good day today.

And guess what?  It’s like 83 degrees here in Phoenix.  That’s practically winter!  So I made chili for dinner.  Yum Yum…break out the sweaters!  I should have taken out more ground beef so I could have made a big enough pot to feed the 3 boys upstairs.  We have a deal where if they see a sign in my guest bedroom window that has any food name on it, it means they show up at my door with bowls (or plates) and get dinner.  They had 2 weekends of rowdy parties so I’m still a little miffed at them.  Though G talked to them and they had 2 laptops ripped off so they will NOT be having parties again.  They are awesome upstairs neighbors, with the exception of those parties.  Hey, they are young and single.  It happens.

Here’s my “craft”:

I also finished the tea canister.  I took my friend, Megan’s, advice and painted black and white squares on the bottom of the lid.  Well…truth be told they aren’t really “square”.  It’s me we’re talking about here.  It took me forever to do this because I knew I’d “Jen” it up (screw it up) and I was right.  I’ve considered putting this wide white ribbon around it to cover it up, but then I remembered who I was.

As soon as the Modge Podge dries on the lid, I’ll take a picture and show you.  I actually really love this.  I’m going to go buy another one and make it my Splenda container.  Kinda loving this Modge Podge stuff.

For July 4th we were invited to a friends house to cook out, hang out and just have lots of fun.  All I was asked to do was bring dessert.  Yeah.  Me and dessert don’t normally mix.  I’m more of a cook the main meal part.  But I was actually happy to do this because dessert meant I could be creative in a whole new way.

I had these huge plans of making cupcakes or cake or something from scratch.  But then my conscience kicked in and said, “remember the previous attempts at dessert?  remember the screaming, crying, burning?  remember cupcakes that could be used as door stops?”

I had to agree with Subconscious Jen.

So I ended up at Walmart going into the baking aisle and grabbing boxes of Duncan Hines (or Betty Crocker…can’t remember) cake mix, frosting (white) and cupcake tin thingies.  Don’t ask for the technical terms…brain fade.

So I made these cupcakes:

There were A LOT of cupcakes.  For two families.  I didn’t care. I’d rather have too many, than too little.

So then I decided I’d be clever and make them red, white and blue.

Nobody ever told me that making white frosting red (with red food coloring) was near impossible.  So I give you, “Hooray for the Pink! White! and Blue! cupcakes:

  No one cared that they were pink, white and blue.  I just kept hearing how good they were.

VINDICATION!  So, Subconscious Jen…put that in your pipe and smoke it.