A Change of Plans

Well, a significant kink has been put in our weekend moving plans. There has been a death in Nick's family (not a sudden one, but a sad one nonetheless) and we will now be attending services over the weekend. So our landlord will need to suck it up and deal with the fact that we won't be starting our move until after the service on Sunday (which doesn't start until 3pm. And it's an hour away). So unless our landlord is a heartless bitch (and she very well may be, based on previous conversations I've had with her) she'll have to understand that things may be pushed back a day or two.


In the meantime, please pray for the comfort of Nick's family during this difficult time. It was his uncle who passed away after a long, painful battle with cancer - and he left behind a wife and three children all younger than I am. What a shitty weekend it'll be.

We're Moving! Soon!

Things are happening really quickly around here all of a sudden. We found out we are moving next weekend - that's a surprise. Usually when our landlord gives us a time frame, you should tack on an additional 3 weeks to it and you'll be in the ballpark of when something will actually happen. In this case, she's cracking the whip on the dude across the hall and she's essentially forcing him out by the 1st of April. That means the girl upstairs will be moving down into his apartment the first weekend in April.


We assumed that, since we have already paid rent for the entire month, it really wouldn't matter when we move. The first weekend in April is kind of busy for us and I'd rather not move until the second weekend. But I got a call from my landlord yesterday and, for whatever reason, she's insisting we all play Musical Apartments on the same weekend. This means the girl upstairs needs to be completely moved out on April 2nd, and we have to jam all of our moving into Sunday, April 3rd. What an un-fun day that'll be. Not to mention, we still don't have any furniture (save a bed, tv, and two computer desks). I didn't want to go furniture shopping until we were up there, to see how much space we really have to fill, but now that we're moving on a Sunday and I work during the week, we'll be going an entire week without furniture! Hope the cats like running around in the big empty space that'll be our living room. I have come to terms with the fact I won't be winning the Value City contest (up until now I was actually hopeful I'd win myself 10 grand) so I am starting to examine my savings account to see how much I can dip into without screwing myself when grad school rolls around. I hate being so cheap with my money yet just wishing I had more of it so I could buy all the expensive stuff I really want.


Anyway, last week Nick's mom turned 50 and we had a party for her over the weekend. We got together at his grandma's house and it was supposed to be a surprise party - except no one took into account the fact that his mom always shows up an hour early for everything. So she was there before we even showed up. But it didn't matter much because his sister still made her look surprised so she could snap a picture. And I made these adorable little thingies:

They were chocolate devil's food with pink buttercream icing and, if I may be modest here, they were awesome. The cake has coarse salt in it and it's so exciting when you bite into a piece of it because the salty chocolate combination is outrageous. My buttercream isn't very sweet and it more resembled a whipped cream than a buttercream consistency and people love it. My dad hates it, which is made obvious by the birthday cake he insisted I may him, but his sweet tooth is outrageous so I don't count him when I say "people love it." So my little cupcakes were a big hit, and considering there were only about 10 people at the party and there were 2 dozen cupcakes, everyone got to take some home. And I suppose I should include photos of real people at the party, since there was more to this get-together than my confections. Here are some other shots from the day:

L to R: Nick, me, birthday girl Diana, Marina's boyfriend Sean, and Marina

  

She had to wear so much birthday shit

Opening her gifts

One more of my cupcakes, a close-up. I couldn't help it.

She's SO Desperate...

"...How desperate is she?!" I'll tell you how desperate I am. I want furniture so badly that I have entered a sweepstakes at Value City. I could win a $10,000 gift card. I want that gift card. I mean, shit, at first I just wanted a couch that costs several hundred dollars... now I have my heart set on winning this contest. I am hoping and praying and convincing myself, "Surely no one else entered this stupid sweepstakes!" No doubt, thousands of other people probably thought that exact same thing as they were submitting their entries. I never win anything so I am just getting my hopes up... the chances are likely 1 in 293714. They draw the winner's name "on or around" April 15th so I sure hope we don't move before then because we'll have one empty living room. Who am I kidding, I act like I'll win this contest. We will likely have an empty living room for a very long time before I muster up courage to spend my hard-earned money on something other than a Master's degree.


Speaking of which, I have been trying to contact several people associated with this stupid degree I am going for in the fall, in the hopes of finding out how much it'll cost me. No one is answering me!!! I am so mad! I have an entire savings account dedicated to this stupid Master's program and no one will tell me how much I should expect to spend. I anticipate it being in the ballpark of 7 grand/year... if it's more than that I'll be pretty blown. I want to attempt to do it without having to take a student loan, considering I still have my loan from senior year to pay off, so we'll see how it goes. What kind of professional person gets an email from a future student and completely ignores it?! I left a voicemail on someone's phone this afternoon so if she doesn't answer the voicemail she's just an ass.


Anyway - I have been asked to be the head of the Activities Committee at work. It sounds lame when I say it like that... sorta like Phyllis and Angela from The Office. But it's actually a bigger deal than I thought it would be. And of course my first job is to plan the annual Employee Recognition Banquet, which is a big deal to the boss lady in charge of the hospital. I can't believe I'm responsible for this but I'm pretty much determined to make it badass, so badass it will be. The theme is "Hollywood" and I went to check out the ballroom at the hotel today during lunch today... I think it has major potential to be really nice. Cross your fingers I don't fall on my face, please!

Baby Stuff

Don't let the title of this blog scare you - the baby stuff has nothing to do with me. There is a baby shower on Tuesday for a girl at work and all attendees have been asked to bring food. The email got sent out saying that she is registered at Target, and "please bring a dip and crackers to share." If I know my coworkers, there will likely be 10 varieties of chips and dip at this shower, so I wanted to do something different that I know no one else will do. Thus, I did what I do best: cookies. Check these babies out:

First things first: I have no idea why these pictures won't right themselves. They are right-side-up on my desktop... on here, sideways. Blogspot doesn't give me the ability to rotate them, so just tilt your head. Anyway, aren't they cute?! Obviously she is having a boy and I fed into the blue gender stereotype, and I think these are adorable. Little bottle, tootsies, and a variety of onesies. There are more onesies than shown in the picture, but these are just samples of the three designs I did. The others have the colors reversed. I love them =) And I hope the guest of honor loves them too... as well as everyone else at the shower. Kiss my butt veggie platter, Swedish meatballs, and ranch dip!

Katy Bakes

It's been a couple weeks since I last blogged... I have been really busy lately. I had to get reacquainted with work after Raleigh, bake a cake head & home to see my dad for his birthday, do my taxes, furniture shop... the list goes on. 

It took me hours to make my dad his birthday cake this year. Since I have branched out from cookies to cakes and cupcakes, the poor guy was desperate for a birthday cake. I was under strict orders to not make it like I usually do: with Swiss meringue buttercream. He wanted the artificial-tasting, extremely sweet frosting that tastes like the kind on grocery store cakes. And "LOTS OF FLOWERS!" - that was the most important rule of all. And they couldn't be flowers made of royal icing, they had to be frosting flowers that stayed soft. I love the man so I agreed to do this, but I had no idea how taxing it was going to be to shove the whole process into a Friday night after work. I am usually against making cakes from a box, but I knew dad's cake standards were far inferior to mine so he wouldn't care if Duncan Hines made his cake for him. I got a yellow cake (I went with this particular mix because it required more specific ingredients & instructions than the other cake mixes. Things like, "beat on slow for 30 seconds, then beat on high for exactly 4 minutes." Made me feel like it was more legitimate) and went w/ white frosting. It took about 2 hours total to make the batter, bake it, cool it, chill it, level it, and layer it with frosting. THEN I had to do the decorating, which took a damn lifetime. I was basically working on this thing from 5:00pm until 11:30, making sure the icing was perfectly smooth around the cake and each stupid flower was the correct size and placed in the correct spot. Here's the finished product:

He's actually 36. Got the numbers backwards, silly me.

He loved it. I suppose it was worth the pain in the ass (and feet, and back...) because a home-made (Duncan Hines...) hand-decorated birthday cake with frog balloons that read "You're Toadally Old" made him very happy. In addition, here's the first decent family photo we have taken since several Christmases ago:

In other news: I did my taxes like a grown-up. I filed them electronically, so the money was in my savings account about a week later, which pleased me greatly. What pleases me far less is knowing it's all going to be blown on stuff for the new apartment. My landlord has sent me a lease already. She wrote the start date as April 1st. As if I'm going to pay her an additional $200/month starting April 1st when I know damn good and well we won't be in that apartment until at least the middle of the month. I think I'll just mail her back the lease w/ April's rent... the same amount of money we pay for our current apartment... and depending on when we move, she can do the math and calculate how much additional we owe her. She actually raised the rent on this crap-hole we are living in now for our unfortunate friends that are moving in here once we peace out. She did this because she was going to raise the rent for the one we are moving to, but I got sneaky and asked the girl upstairs how much she paid before talking to my landlord about prices. So the girl upstairs says, "Um... did she tell you a price? Because I pay $$, but she mentioned she wanted to raise it..." That's all I needed to know. I immediately called my landlord and told her I had found out the price of the apartment it was perfect for us - therein trapping her so she can't raise it thinking I don't know any better! HA! Can't pull a fast one on me, lady.

When I was home for dad's birthday, Nick and I checked out the couch that mom offered us. I would take it because I know it's good quality and comfortable, but it's too big to fit in the back of Nick's SUV (just what we had anticipated). It has a very high back, and that's what ruins it, because it's definitely short enough length-wise to fit. Nick asked his friend if we could borrow his father's truck to haul it up here, but that's a big fat "no," so we are just out of luck. Getting a U-Haul would be the price of getting a new, inexpensive couch, so I don't think it's worth it. Plus, if we got a new couch, Nick could likely fit it in his car to bring it home. Mom and I toured Home Goods and I salivated over all the gorgeous stuff they have in there as Nick followed behind me saying, "That's too girly. So is that. I want it more contemporary. This is girly, too." That's swell if he was paying for any of it, but he's not, so the decor may sway more in my direction. I don't feel too bad about it because it's not like I would want the place decked in flowers from floor to ceiling... I don't really decorate in an overly-feminine way. But this kid wants chrome and glass everywhere and that ain't happenin' on my watch. Either way, we'll end up moving without any furniture at all to see how much extra space we have to fill. I don't want to buy anything ahead of time and then we get up there and none of it fits in the room or works together. Updates on the apartment to follow. 

Woe is Me

I am so lazy, it's disgusting. Since getting back from Raleigh I have actually tried to do as little as possible. I always do this and I don't know why - it's as though I feel I need to reward myself for doing a lot with doing nothing for as long as I can. I didn't even unpack until Saturday. And the thought of going back to work tomorrow makes me want to cry. That's how lazy I am: I love my job and I still don't want to go to it. This week isn't quite a normal work week, though. Tomorrow is a regular day, but Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday are all going to spent focusing on the same computer program we were learning in North Carolina. I think the only reason I am not looking forward to being back in the hospital is because I have spent an entire week away from it. I'll feel so behind, even though there were other people to do the work I wasn't doing. Whatever, we'll see how it goes tomorrow.

In other news, I need a damn couch. Nick and I are moving soon and we are going from this stupid efficiency apartment to a real apartment with an actual living room. That means that, not only will the rent be more, but I'm stuck buying new furniture because 1) our current furniture is hideous, and 2) we don't have enough of it. I wanted to put my tax return money into my savings account but I'm coming to terms with the fact that most of it will likely go toward things for the new place, and a couch is definitely the most expensive piece we'd need to buy. I can settle for Ikea for everything else, but the couch is driving me insane because I am too cheap for my own good. I really like this one from Value City Furniture 

...but it's $400.00 and we have already addressed that I'm cheap as hell. I'm so strange: when it comes to buying necessities, like furniture, I am so wary to spend more like $5.00 on it even though I always want bigger and better. Yet I am fine with spending $75.00 on a sweater. 

The point is: I need a couch and I want it to be cute without spending a lot of money. To me, $400.00 is a lot of money. My mom offered me the couch in her living room, which I would definitely take because it's comfortable and cute without looking all dowdy and sat-on, but getting it over here will prove problematic. The thought of having to rent a U-Haul, which tops out at 55 mph, and drive it up and down the highway all day, makes me cringe. It sounds like the most unfun way to spend a weekend ever. Cross your fingers my mom's couch fits into the back of Nick's car, would you? But if I had it my way I'd have the yellow one (lies: if I had it my way I'd win some sort of sweepstakes that would afford me a real house of my own decked from floor to ceiling in Pottery Barn... but life isn't fair).

Also, Nick is sick - who knows what with. It started as a sore throat that has since gone north and south into his head and lungs. He is super congested and his cough is gross and I'm praying I don't catch it. I feel like it is easier for him to be sick because he is only in class 2 days a week and he can spend the rest of his time laying in bed or doing whatever it is that makes him comfortable. I, on the other hand, need to grin and bear it at work despite whatever is making me feel like crap. I was sick with something similar to this several months ago and luckily it didn't last too long. Nick has only felt bad for a few days now so hopefully it goes away soon. Here's hoping the daily vitamins I pop have boosted my immune system! I have kissed him, slept next to him, and shared this horribly cramped space with him everyday that he hasn't felt well so if I don't catch this, it'll be a miracle.

Anyway, this blog has been nothing but one big gripe. I should probably try to do something with myself. The dishes need to be washed and a shower needs to be taken so I am going to go do both of those things. The Oscars are on tonight and I definitely want to watch both the pre-show AND the award ceremony so I need to get these things gone before evening comes around.

Raleigh: Day Four

Our last day is Raleigh wasn't even a full day. We had to pack the night before and three of us had to put our luggage into the fourth person's room because the front desk would only allow one person a late check-out time. Ordinarily it would be noon, but because our class was a half-day and ended at noon, we needed to push it back a little bit. So after breakfast we moved our belongings into one of the other women's room, and headed off to class. Bob was busy doing something else this morning so the hotel arranged for us to take a cab over there, which was nice. Bob was a cute little guy but I was starting to dislike him, due to his complete lack of consideration for our safety in the back of his van.

We had three sections to discuss in class this day, and she spent 8:00-10:30 talking about one of them. I didn't see how she was going to shove the next two sections into the remaining hour and a half with the Vegas people talking as much as they were. Luckily for me, they left early. As soon as she was done with the first section, they peaced out because they had a flight to catch. Lo and behold, we got the next two sections done in the time remaining. We grabbed a bite to eat in their cafeteria before Bob picked us up to head back. Today was, by far, Bob's worst day behind the wheel. There was a minivan in front of us the entire way back, and I'm pretty sure Bob was a foot from her bumper the whole time. At one point he was flashing his high beams into her back window to try to get her to hurry up. I don't think that's legal. She was going 45 in a residential neighborhood, I don't know what else he expected from her. By the time I exited the shuttle for the last time I had decided Bob was clinically insane and he was likely driving this van for the hotel on some sort of work release program.

We grabbed our stuff from the hotel room and packed up the car to head home. I was less than enthused about another long drive, but the ride home always seems to go faster than the ride there. I suppose it has something to do with the anticipation of arriving at your destination, and then you really don't give a damn when you're going back to where you came from. The quesadilla I had for lunch, combined with the fact that it was grey and rainy, made me fall asleep within 20 minutes of settling into the car. I was knocked out for a whole hour, which is pretty sweet. We had gotten on the road around 1:15 and when I awoke and checked the clock it was 2:30. The GPS told us we would be home around 6:30 and I was praying that we wouldn't get stuck in traffic in Richmond. Luckily for us, we drove through Richmond about an hour before rush hour, so we only had to slow down a little bit before continuing on as usual. 

We finally arrived back at the hospital, where Nick was waiting for my boss and I. He helped to unload the car, we took my boss home, and then we arrived back at our apartment. It was actually kind of nice to be home. Granted, I was really comfortable in that hotel room, and the bed in North Carolina was much more comfortable than my real bed, but there's something about being home that is just less stressful than being in a strange place. Even though I was having a very good time in Raleigh, it was nice to know that it was all over and I didn't need to plan my day around classes and 'who-is-driving-where,' and 'when-do-I-need-to-go-down-to-breakfast.' I had arranged to take Friday off of work so knowing I didn't have much to do the next day was nice.

And as I write this, it is Friday, and it's rainy and gross outside. I miss the nicer weather down south because it is weird coming back to snow on the ground. My only plans for today include buying stamps, paying bills, returning something to Staples, and picking up the book I ordered from the bookstore in town. I haven't even unpacked yet. And I gotta say, I am really wishing I had saved a cupcake.