Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Paperwork+Coconut=Happy "Hump" Day!

A laugh for your day!

My village stepped up to the plate today, and I am very grateful! My mil and bil came over to supervise the three oldest's schoolwork, and to hold Meres, while I did paperwork. And you all know how much I love paperwork. (major sarcasm there) Today I hand-wrote nine 1099s, filling in "Veenstra Remodeling, Roofing and Siding LLC", nine times. I have yet to figure out why we couldn't have just been "Veenstra Roofing"when we incorporated. Probably because the Mister doesn't fill out any tax forms. But, it is done, including the 1096. I don't have to think about that task again until 2013! I also finished my 2011 estimated taxes, and filled out our truck UCR info. And, I enlisted the in-laws in addressing brochures for Brian's retreat in March. Their effort, and time here, definitely got me over a paperwork hump. Another part of my village, fondly known as my bff, offered to help me at Bible club on Wednesdays. My current partner is moving sometime in the near future, and I was feeling a bit over-whelmed. Now, I feel like I have a partner in crime waiting in the wings. And that is very helpful.
I think I am going to try a new thing...Wordless Wednesdays. The goal will be to post a photo from my life that week, that expresses beauty and/or something I'm grateful for that day. We'll see how it goes. I am going to make a page for that too.
Speaking of pages, my goal for my recipe page is to list all the recipes I share in one spot. I'd like to just have the titles listed. You know, where you click on the title, and it opens the recipe. Does anyone know how to do that?
Speaking of recipes, I am doing pretty good with my goal of trying a new recipe per week. Today is my bff's birthday, and yesterday it was my week to cook for us. I made her a Coconut Cake for her birthday. She loves coconut (which is about the only nutty thing about her=)). Being me, I did lots of coconut cake research-history, texture, recipes, etc.. =) Actually, I only looked up around 20 recipes. Paula Dean, the Barefoot Contessa, Betty Crocker, and Martha Stewart to name a few. Then I made a Bernadette Veenstra.=) I bought an Aldi white cake mix, and baked it according to box directions. Then I made a batch of White Frosting. I mixed about 1 cup of that with 1 cup of coconut for the filling, and I used the rest to frost the top and sides. I then pressed as much coconut onto the surface as it would hold. Viola'! A Coconut cake. And it was pretty good too! Brian called it "fantastic." And my non coconut loving child told me that it was good cake. Brian, if you are reading this, you might want to just scroll to the end now...

White Frosting
4 cups powdered sugar
1 cup shortening
1 t vanilla
6 T water
Beat all together for 5 minutes. (aka-beat the snot out of it)
Amazing!

I have heard Wednesday referred to as "Hump Day". I can totally identify with that. Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays are much busier for me than Thursdays or Fridays. We have Bible Study Monday and Tuesday nights, and Bible club on Wednesday afternoons. I also try to get my cleaning done on Tuesday and Wednesday, to free up the rest of the week. Plus I do my grocery shopping every other Monday. So the beginning of the week is just jam packed. When I get home from BC on Wednesday afternoon, I feel like breathing a sigh of relief, every week. We have successfully gotten through the rush again. Wednesday night is my decompression night. Brian goes to prayer meeting. The boys play the Wii.  Elsie and I do sugar scrub. I read. And I go to bed early. I'm over the hump again.

And tonight I get to sweeten that sigh with a piece of coconut cake. Sigh...